Ronan conservationist receives volunteer of the year award

Kristi D’Agati, earth team volunteer at the Ronan Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) field office, has been selected as the national Earth Team Volunteer of the Year for 2016. D’Agati has served with the Ronan office since Jan. 4, 2016. Through October, she had registered more than 1,100 hours of service.

In her time with NRCS, D’Agati has worked as a conservation planner and assisted in soil analysis, range monitoring and planning, pasture improvements, forestry inventory, and wetland analysis.

D’Agati’s work has focused on implementing field trials within Lake County in order to provide workable solutions to common, local, natural resource issues. The field trials that Kristi has implemented have been designed to provide local producers with low cost, commonsense, workable solutions that they can easily implement on their own operations. To date, Kristi has implemented five unique field trials on 12 different ranches. She has seeded 37 different plots totaling more than 90 acres. Ongoing monitoring and documentation will continue for multiple years.

“We can only hope that one day Kristi will return to NRCS with the same level of passion and endearing commitment toward the betterment of our nation and its natural resources,” said Ben Montgomery, district conservationist at the Ronan NRCS field office. “Her work will provide a lasting legacy not only for the Ronan office, but for the entirety of Lake County and surrounding communities.”