Watershed Profile: Kim Fauls
Pictured: Kim expertly taking an in-stream flow measurement.
In July, GWC is featuring one of our dedicated Gallatin Stream Teams volunteers, Kim Fauls! While this is Kim’s first year as part of Gallatin Stream Teams, she is a longtime GWC volunteer and involved member of the Bozeman community. Thanks, Kim, for your continued stewardship of the Lower Gallatin Watershed!
Read the following Q&A to learn about the positively insightful Kim Fauls.
Q&A:
1. What excites you the most about the work of the Gallatin Watershed Council?
The work GWC is doing is critical to sustaining our ability to successfully co-exist with this natural world that attracted so many of us here. The work is so varied in its scope and provides both immediate and long-lasting impacts. Whether I'm taking water samples as a Stream Team member, planting trees and shrubs, or watering those trees with my sons, I know it’s critical in helping to grow with this place vs. against it. I also learn so much from the GWC team and partner organizations, and when we all know better, we can do better.
2. What do you love about living in the Lower Gallatin Watershed?
The awe that awaits me and my boys every day right out our door. It doesn’t matter if we’re headed to the Gallatin Regional Park to walk the dogs, Spanish Creek to camp and check on the spring frogs, or the Yellowstone to float…it is all right here. We’re part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems on earth, and we are home to the headwaters of the Missouri River, the longest river in the United States. This access is important to the way I want to live and raise my kids.
3. If you could make one change to improve our natural resources, what would it be?
Replace turfgrass in all boulevards with drought-tolerant gardens and make the default in new construction drought-tolerant landscapes. Who likes spending their weekends managing their lawns?! Don’t get me wrong, a patch of grass is lovely. But sign me up for a landscape that saves our water, saves my time, and helps sustain what is native to southwest Montana.
4. What sparks your curiosity about the natural world?
The awe, complexity, and resilience I see outside. When things are allowed to be what they are, they have a way of coexisting and adapting that gives me hope and joy. I’ve taken a number of classes with Ashley Martens, and I love sharing the stories I hear and my experiences with my kids (like how yellow warblers have responded to cowbirds laying their eggs in warblers’ nests).
Thank you, Kim! We’re grateful for your dedication to the watershed community.
Pictured (left to right): 1) Kim getting pumped up to plant trees and shrubs at a GWC event. 2-4) The next generation of watershed stewards taking care of newly-planted trees and shrubs at Gallatin County Regional Park.