HAPPY NEW YEAR!! The AGN Board of Directors wishes you and your family a joyous and healthy year.

The 2015 AGN activities schedule is posted on our Calendar of Events page.

The Novemeber/December 2014 Newsletter is now posted on the site. See link in sidebar at left.

The AGN 23rd Annual Turkey Tune Up 5K Road Race and Fitness Walk to benefit the AGN Scholarship Fund was Saturday November 8. Race results are HERE.

CONSERVATION CORNER:
Vegetation corridors adjacent to shorelines provide valuable social, economic, and environmental benefits to people and nature. Shoreline buffers refer to the forested or vegetated strips of land that border lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and ponds. These strips of ground covers, shrubs and trees help protect water quality, aquatic ecosystems, fish and wildlife, and lessen the impacts of flooding. The canopy created by trees, shrubs, and herbaceous vegetation moderates the impact of heavy rains, shades the shoreline to keep water temperatures cooler, produces organic matter and woody debris essential to shallow-water ecology, and provides food and shelter for wildlife. The vegetation also helps to decrease flood hazards by increasing the soils ability to absorb water. Root systems give soil structure, hold soil in place, direct rainfall down into the soil instead of over the soil, and can extract nutrients and contaminates from soil. Maintenance and restoration of shoreline vegetation allows native plants to fill in the shore-land zone increasing biodiversity and wildlife habitat.