As the new AmeriCorps member for the Water Quality team, Hannah Ljunggren has a variety of responsibilities. She is currently running our Urban Tree Sale, which attempts to help alleviate some of the problems associated with the lack of trees in urban areas by providing a variety of trees at highly subsidized rates throughout Pierce County. She also is responsible for cleaning, transporting, and entering the data provided by our Stream Team kits. These kits contain a variety of test that are conducted by a wonderful Stream Team monitors. Hannah will also be taking over the Rain Garden program in the following month. She will be teaching ten workshops about the value of Rain Gardens as well as performing site visits for those who are interested in having a rain garden of their own. Though these are Hannah’s core responsibilities she will also be assisting the other members of the water quality team in any other areas that they might require support.

Hannah enjoys traveling to new and interesting places, learning about the different cultures and habitats. In the past year she has gone to Ireland, Florida, and Hawaii and has plans to go to Africa in the following years. One of her favorite things about traveling is getting to see the different native plants and animals in each location. From swimming with manatees in Florida to snorkeling in Hawaii to scuba diving back in her own home state of Washington. Alongside the environment, one of Hannah’s greatest passions is animals. Prior to working as the Water Quality’s new AmeriCorps member, Hannah’s love of animals led her to work as a Naturalist for Northwest Trek in Eatonville. There is got to work alongside bison, bighorn sheep, moose, and much more! She got to teach the visitors all about the animals and ways that they could help these native species and their habitats. Even though that was an amazing experience, Hannah is now looking forward to getting people even more involved with looking after their environments through her work here a Pierce Conservation District.