All Wet . . .

Kelly Williams' biggest fear for her internship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was that she'd get stuck in the office at some desk job.

Turns out, she needn't have worried.

Shortly after the senior wildlife and fisheries science major showed up at the agency's State College, Pa., office, she was offered a chance to work on the Quaker Run stream-reclamation project in Northumberland County.

The Fish and Wildlife Service was teaming with a township and a state nonprofit foundation to rebuild half a mile of Quaker Run streambed that had been obliterated by strip-mining and restore an adjacent wetland. Initially, the wetland was Williams' responsibility, but her role in the project grew quickly.

"Our original plan was just to restore the existing, severely degraded wetland and get it functioning," she says. "But we saw that there was a need for more wetland to protect the new stream channel from erosion caused by increased runoff coming from an adjacent food-service shipping facility."

So Williams, from Reynoldsville in Jefferson County, devised a planting plan and selected varieties - such as blue iris, sweet flag, duck weed, soft rush and foxtail sedge - for the wetlands. As part of the habitat work, she actually helped plant and build log structures. She expected that.

What she didn't expect - but what she welcomed - was a chance to get involved in rebuilding the stream. When the New Hampshire scientist who designed the project was called away, Williams found herself in the thick of the work - and loving it. "I thought that I would just be doing little stuff, but they sort of put me in charge of getting things done," she recalls.

"I got a crash course in using a laser level, managing a crew and directing the guys who operated the equipment and were actually building the stream channel," Williams adds. "It was the coolest experience! I even got to operate an excavator, digging the new stream channel. I was the envy of all the interns when I got back to the office."

Williams - who loves to hunt and fish, and chose her major because she wants a career working outside doing "hands-on stuff with wildlife" - is anxious to go back this spring and see what the site looks like after the plants grow. "The project was kinda like my baby," she says.