81°F
weather icon Clear

Latinos find their roots at Lake Mead

Conservation and nature are near and dear to Diana Tapia and Cecilia Arteaga. So the pair, who are interning this summer as Lake Mead National Recreation Area communication specialists, set out to create an event to combine their love of nature and their goal of celebrating Latino heritage.

The Find Your Roots event they organized Saturday morning helped start Latino Conservation Week. Tapia and Arteaga, who landed their gigs through the Latino Heritage Internship Program, joined four volunteers to clean purple sage seedlings and transplant plants in the park’s nursery.

Tapia and Arteaga said their grandparents always recycled and conserved, storing salsa and beans in old sour cream containers and forgoing the dryer to hang laundry out on a clothesline.

“It’s still keeping our Mother Earth in mind,” Arteaga said.

Find Your Roots began around 8 a.m. with a short hike in the cactus garden, led by Tapia. Tattoos of a compass on her right forearm and mountains on her left biceps stood as emblems of her navigating skills.

She showed off some of the plants native to the desert, including the brittlebush. In the summer, its leaves are washed out and gray. But in the spring, the leaves are a vibrant sunset orange.

The brittlebrush’s colors lingered with Tapia, but Arteaga remembered creosote’s scent.

“It smells like desert rain,” she said.

Down the road inside the park lay a cream-colored greenhouse: the Song Dog Native Plant Nursery, named for the coyotes that scatter mesquite seeds around the desert.

Saturday’s group gathered outside to hear Kelly Wallace explain the importance of saving native plants. Because a portion of Interstate 11 is being built on part of the park’s land, Wallace and her team salvaged plants that could have been destroyed during construction and kept them to replant later.

“We pay attention to the genetics of a particular area,” said Wallace, biologist and nursery manager. She said the nursery manages a collection of at least 200 species of seeds, keeping them in a walk-in refrigerator.

“It’s like the Fort Knox of seeds,” Tapia said.

In the nursery, four-wing saltbushes that germinated and grew their roots in a cone-shaped container were transplanted into a bigger pot for more room to grow. Turning the container upside down, volunteers grabbed onto the root and placed the plant in new soil.

“Ah, it collapsed on me,” said Juan Robledo, a volunteer with Chispa, a League of Conservation Voters subset that caters to Latinos and families and aims to influence policymakers.

Robledo found the root and righted the plant.

Just as they hope to help the plants grow, organizers from Saturday’s event hope awareness of nature will grow during Latino Conservation Week.

“We’re trying to pretty much come together to get people to experience their natural lands and develop that dialogue with the Latino heritage,” Tapia said. “It’s part of our culture.”

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @brianarerick on Twitter.

MOST READ
THE LATEST
Parallel parking approved

Like so many other things in the world of Boulder City government, the issue of reconfiguring parking in the historic downtown area along Nevada Way, which generated enough heat to cause council members to delay a decision up until the last possible moment, ended with more of a whimper than a bang.

Ways to reduce summer power bills

Now that the thermometer is on the rise outdoors, the cost to cool homes and businesses on the inside is doing the same.

Education news in BC largely positive

In her quarterly report to the city council, Clark County School District Regional Superintendent Deanna Jaskolski was full of positive takes on public schools in Boulder City.

‘It’s in those small moments when you see hope rising’

As Dr. Christina Vela scrolled through her phone, showing photos of girls taking part in various fun activities, for a moment she sounded more like a proud aunt instead of the CEO of St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, and now, its Healing Center.

Jarvis recognized by city council

Salome Jarvis was involved in planning activities for seniors in long-term care before she started doing that in Boulder City. In fact, she helped create the Southern Nevada Activity Professional Association (SNAPA) in the late 1980s.

Park rangers rescue missing hiker, dog at LMNRA

Last week, a 48-year-old male hiker and his dog were rescued by National Park Service rangers at Lake Mead National Recreation Area after a coordinated, multi-agency search.

Fire chief search down to 3

Now that Ned Thomas has had time to unpack a few things in his office and attend a couple of meetings as the new city manager, there’s been a list of things to tackle waiting for him in his new role.

City adopts fiscal year ‘26 budget

It is hands down the most consequential action taken by the city council each year and yet it often happens without much in the way of public comment.

Council reverses planning commission split decision

A permit for building a single home on a lot that has sat empty (though graded and utilities run and ready for development) for some 40 years would not usually be fodder for a news story.