Where We Work
Protecting the
places you love
In Lincoln and Lancaster County, the Salt Valley Greenway wraps around the city and is fed by tributaries that radiate out into rolling hills. Weaving alongside creeks, greenways connect Lincoln with the surrounding countryside and small towns. They protect water and wildlife habitat. They also have trails that connect people and neighborhoods with parks and natural areas.
The green corridors of the Salt Valley watershed have been an important part of the community’s vision since the first City/County Comprehensive Plan in 1961. Implementing this vision depends on a large coalition of public and private partnerships.
Solidago Conservancy works with partners to help conserve and connect these greenways, with particular attention to three vital natural resources: wetlands, tallgrass prairie, and stream corridors.
Little Salt Creek Corridor
Little Salt Creek is a priority corridor for protection of Nebraska’s Eastern Saline Wetlands. Significant wetland areas have been conserved by the Saline Wetlands Conservation Partnership, with sites available to the community for hiking, bird watching, hunting and fishing.
Prairie Corridor on Haines Branch
The Prairie Corridor on Haines Branch is a tallgrass prairie passageway that will connect Lincoln’s nationally recognized trail and greenway system and Pioneers Park Nature Center to Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center.
Salt Creek South
The Salt Creek South greenway is an important stream corridor that includes the Jamaica North trail. Conservation in this corridor can help minimize flooding downstream in Lincoln and extend the greenway network south of Wilderness Park as the community grows.
Key Greenway Corridors are current focus areas for Solidago Conservancy
Wetlands
Wetlands are among the most productive and biologically diverse habitats on earth. They also filter stormwater and help control flooding. In this region, we have freshwater wetlands and Nebraska’s Eastern Saline Wetlands, which are especially rare — fewer than 4,000 acres remain of what was once roughly 20,000 acres in the Salt Creek watershed.
Saline wetlands support more than 250 bird species and the federally endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle. Most remaining Eastern Saline Wetlands are located along Little Salt Creek and Rock Creek in Lancaster County. The Saline Wetlands Conservation Partnership has been working to conserve and restore Saline wetlands in this area since 2003.
Tallgrass Prairie
Tallgrass prairie once covered an estimated 400,000 square miles, stretching from Canada to Texas. Today, less than 1% of tallgrass prairie in the U.S. remains. Saving tallgrass prairie in Lancaster County for future generations is a challenge with the pressure to convert prairie to other uses. There is also a need to restore prairie where it has been lost in order to reconnect fragmented areas.
Native prairies support hundreds of plant, animal and pollinator species that are in decline. They also help slow and filter stormwater and store carbon dioxide, the most commonly produced greenhouse gas. In Lancaster County, about 40% of remaining unplowed prairie is located along the Prairie Corridor on Haines Branch, which extends from the Pioneers Park Nature Center to Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center.
Stream Corridors
These linear green spaces help us connect with the outdoors because they support recreation and our nationally recognized trail system, so people can access open spaces and stay healthy. Also called “riparian corridors,” stream corridors often feature native woodlands that provide shade and natural cooling. They also support clean water and wildlife movement and play an important role in moving and storing stormwater to help minimize flooding in our community.
Wilderness Park is a significant riparian corridor in the Salt Valley Greenway that protects more than 1,500 acres of wooded floodplain along Salt Creek. There are opportunities to protect, enhance, and extend this greenway along Salt Creek South.