|
Conservation Corner
by Bill Templin
|
|
|
Phew, did your month go by as fast as mine did? It must be time for a vacation!
Well, by the time you read this we will have heard from Monte Hendricks and Rich Platt (at our August Conservation Committee Meeting) on their issues with the OHV roads through the area known as the “Rubicon Trail”. The Draft EIR on the “Rubicon Trail Master Plan” should be out for review soon and I will let you know the website to visit so you can review and reply to it when it is available. Let me know if you are not already receiving our conservation meeting notices, and you want to, so I can add you to my email list.
This past month has included many opportunities for field visits to streams in the Placer County Water Agency’s “Middle Fork Project” area. The variety has ranged from the pristine looking Wild Trout stream below Ellicott’s Bridge on the Rubicon River to dewatered reaches of it’s tributaries in Long Canyon and the burned over reaches of the Middle Fork American River, Duncan Canyon, and the lower Rubicon River above Ralston Powerhouse. If any of these areas are in your areas of interest, you might want to touch bases with me and become more informed about the many studies that are being planned for these areas.
The Sierra Nevada Alliance Annual Convention up at Kings Beach (on the north side of Lake Tahoe) was a beautiful and informative weekend, but I hope we have a session focused on the fisheries and fish habitat restoration in the Sierras in our future meetings. Such sessions have graced the agenda in past years, but somehow slipped through this year. Anyone interested in helping make that happen next year is welcome to contact me and we can try to make it happen. While in the area I touched bases again with Dave Lass, Trout Unlimited’s Northern California Director and was provided another fine fly fishing lesson on the Truckee River. I also got to meet many of the local fly fishers from the Truckee River Flyfishers at an annual gathering held at the beautiful home of Richard Anderson. It sounds like they are interested in putting together a joint activity with Granite Bay Flycasters this year… are you interested? Vickie Fenner (fellow GBF member) will be their President in 2008, so she will really be busy running back and forth from Carmichael to Truckee when that happens. Also present with Dave Lass was Sam Davidson sdavidson@tu.org Trout Unlimited’s “California Field Coordinator” who is actively involved with protecting road-less areas that are so critically important to water quality & fish and game habitat. Sam hopes to be able to come and talk on these issues at one of our meetings soon.
Enough for now on what has been and on to what is to come… in September we plan to help with the expansion of the Watershed Education Summit that has been very successful for the past 8 years training high school students in environmental monitoring protocols used by the U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Game, and many other professional agencies. Annual 2- to 4-day campouts held in October at Union Valley Reservoir provide the opportunity for students to work along side professionals and learn what data are needed to track changes (and hopefully improvements) in our Sierra watersheds in El Dorado County. This year we’re hoping to find motivated teachers and students who want to have similar experiences in Placer County up near French Meadows Reservoir on Duncan and Chipmunk Creeks.
Other planned conservation activities for this fall include a clean up, culvert maintenance, and meadow restoration activities in the South Fork Long Canyon Creek area near Hell Hole Reservoir, partnering with the Upper American River Foundation and the new Sac-Sierra Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
Bill Templin VP Conservation |
|
