Carbon County Higher Education Center students built this 400-foot section of steel fence at Highwater Reservoir. The project was a collaboration with HF Sinclair and the Bureau of Land Management.

Carbon County Higher Education Center students built this 400-foot section of steel fence at Highwater Reservoir. The project was a collaboration with HF Sinclair and the Bureau of Land Management.

On a blustery day in May near Baggs, students wrapped up a yearlong collaborative project to build 400 feet of fence around the very rural Highwater Reservoir.

With money from HF Sinclair and in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, students replaced a wood rail fence with steel-tube rails on the north side of the Highwater Reservoir Wildlife Exclosure.

The reservoir is located east and north of mule deer crucial winter range a few miles north of pronghorn crucial winter range and a few miles north of the mule deer Platte migration corridor.

Elk had many times knocked down a wooden fence railing required to keep livestock and wild horses out of the main Highwater Reservoir and a smaller reservoir to the west.

The new steel fence, built by Carbon County Higher Education Center students, will allow for protection of the reservoir, which was originally constructed in the 1950s for shorebirds, dabblers, waders and upland game.

“We try to protect our wetland areas,” said Mary Read, a BLM wildlife biologist. “Wild horses will tend to hit the wire fencing, and so will elk.”

Steel fencing and labor is expensive, and students at the CCHEC don’t often get start-to-finish project experience, said Mark Flaherty, CCHEC welding instructor.

The BLM applied to HF Sinclair for a $10,000 grant in the fall for the project.

“The BLM had been planning this for a long time. We had been out there almost three years ago looking at the fence,” Flaherty said. “A start-to-finish project like this is the best, and we don’t really get those that often.

“It is expensive to take students out in the field, and that kind of metal is very expensive right now. Of course, Sinclair provided the funding for it and it would not have happened without them.”

Based on another BLM fence model, CCHEC students built 400 feet of fence, or 20 20-foot panels. Nearly a dozen students worked on the project, hearing from BLM officials, including a wildlife biologist about how it would protect the wetlands.

Several students traveled to the reservoir to install the panels this week.

“It’s very remote out there, and our students don’t often get out there. It was stormy too. It was cold. We were hoping for better weather, but it is beautiful there,” Flaherty said. “I think the students really enjoyed it.”

Career and technical education is a priority at CCHEC, where teachers offer community education courses, vocational and industry training and college credit courses through Western Wyoming Community College and the University of Wyoming.

“Career and technical education is what we’re all about. We want students to be able to get jobs when they leave us,” Flaherty said. “There are a lot of employment opportunities at Sinclair. Students could be operators or electricians … and many of my students are interested in trades, whether it be auto or woodshop.”

Annette Penman, community relations director at HF Sinclair, said it makes sense for her organization to support the CCHEC and BLM.

“We have worked with them on other projects … and we have also helped to fund the higher ed welding program, so it was easy for us to see the value in this project,” Penman said. “We support all these higher ed activities, and we would love to have kids employed at Sinclair staying here.”

Penman said she also sees the value in start-to-finish, real-world projects.

“It’s beneficial for the kids to apply what they are working on in the field, and see why they are doing what they are doing. You’re building a fence, but why? It was good to learn about the wetlands, and conservation,” Penman said. “Some students may also want to go into the BLM field or wildlife conservation also.”

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