AMERICAN RIVER WATERSHED GROUP

January 19, 2006

The meeting of the American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting was called to order by Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator at 10:06 a.m. at the Auburn Recreation District Canyon View Community Center located at 471 Maidu Drive, Auburn.

Present: Bill Templin, North American River Watershed Coordinator; Rich Gresham and Katie Maloney, Placer County Resource Conservation District (PCRCD); Mal Toy, Placer County Water Agency (PCWA); Bill Cave, Auburn Lake Trails Fire Safe Council; Eric Nichol, CA Dept. of Water Resources (DWR); Doug Ferrier, Forest Slopes Mgt.; Edmund Sullivan, Placer County Sr. Planner; James Kirchner, UC Berkeley Faculty Director-Central Sierra Field Research Stations; Cathy Monaghan, El Dorado County Water Agency; Ric Cuchetto, Folsom Lake College; and Jeff Brown, Sagehen Creek Field Station Manager.

Check-In:

Bill Templin led the “Check-In” procedure that entails telling who you are, how you are, if you have any time constraints, emergent issues, and/or individual expectations.

Review & Approval of Minutes:

No minutes were presented for approval, to be emailed for review.

Additions to the Agenda:

No additions were made to the agenda.

Sagehen Creek Field Station and Chickering American River Preserve Presentations:

Bill Templin introduced Jeff Brown, Manager of the Sagehen Creek Field Station.

Jeff began a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of the Sagehen Basin and gave the group a brief background of the facility located on US Forest Service land. He reviewed a list of supporters of the Sagehen Field Station, established in 1951. Jeff introduced Jim Kirchner, Faculty Director for the Sagehen Station and the larger group of Central Sierra Field Research Stations that include the Central Sierra Snow Lab, North Fork Reserve, Onion Creek Experimental Forest, and Chickering American River Reserve.

Jeff noted the Sagehen Creek Field Station was established in 1951 and has grown into a facility able to accommodate 50+ researchers and students. Sagehen is an ideal long-term research and education facility especially suited for biological and fisheries work. The station includes a unique underwater stream observation facility with a web camera. The station’s mission is split between research and education.

Sagehen’s facilities are comprised of 22 separate buildings and are split into 2 main sections; upper and lower camps. Jeff reviewed the all resources available at Sagehen including an interactive web site at http:sagehen.berkeley.edu; station LAN (wire & wireless) w/ satellite internet service, audio visual equipment; an good library; a full GIS lab with 4 printers, 2 faxes, and 4-telephone lines; 2-GPS units, 3-digital cameras; various vehicles, tools, etc.

Sagehen has several good working collections that include bats, birds, and insects. Weather data has been.

Ongoing data collections include weather data, collected since the 1950’s; stream water quality data (USGS); stream gauging/flow (USGS); and the National Atmospheric Deposition Program.

In the summer, Sagehen is used for college classes, field research, monitoring projects, agency field training, meetings, elementary school outreach, high school programs, UC Extension field classes, and non-profit organizations.

In the winter, Sagehen is used for college classes, snow water content measurement, cloud seeding effectiveness, calibrating Doppler radar precipitation estimates, elementary school outreach, stream sampling, and data collection for ground validating and improving hydrology models.

Exploration about whether Strategically Placed Local Area Treatments (SPLATs) are an effective and appropriate fire risk management tool for use in a fire ecosystem is being conducted at Sagehen. The use of fire modeling with real data will help determine how best to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire in forests after 100 years of fire suppression has been practiced.

Re-establishment of viable ecosystems and ecosystem restoration is another area of focus at Sagehen and includes the effort to re-establish a population of Lahontan Cut-throat Trout. To further this effort a memorandum of understanding, a science plan, and management plan are currently being worked out.

Education and outreach efforts include the presentation of the Researchers Series developed in collaboration with the Truckee River Watershed Council where speakers of interest are made available to the public in a series of presentations on topics of interest.

Sagehen is also involved in the Adventure, Risk, & Challenge program integrating outdoor and academic education for at-risk youth. The bi-lingual program is looking to expand state-wide with its 40 day program that begins with an eight day hike.

Future work includes development of the Center of Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) that will use nano-scale sensors that can be placed on/in critters, along with a data collection network that will yield data that goes beyond what has historically been collected. Jeff reviewed numerous tracking and data collection efforts currently being conducted.

Jeff closed his presentation by referring the group to the Sagehen website for additional information and access to planning documents pertaining to Sagehen’s future are available on the site.

Group discussion revolved around the potential of collaborating on some level in the future.

Jim Kirchner, UC Berkeley Faculty Director for the Central Sierra Field Research Stations gave a PowerPoint presentation highlighting the focus of the stations that include the Central Sierra Snow Lab, Onion Creek Experimental Forest, North Fork Reserve, Chickering American River Reserve, and Sagehen Creek Field Station. Jim reviewed the locations of the individual stations and the types of information and data being monitored at the facilities.

The Central Sierra Snow Lab is the longest continuously manned snow lab in the US and provides snow hydrology and snowmelt chemistry research facilities. The annual average precipitation at the Donner Pass site is 1.3m with an average snowfall of 10.4m.

The Onion Creek Experimental Forest consists of 3,000 acres of old-growth fir & incense cedar in steep terrain. The station was originally designed to study forest management impacts and now provides infrastructure for research in watershed hydrology, erosion and sedimentation. It also serves as a weather station.

The North Fork Reserve consists of 6,300 acres of old-growth high sierra forest and montane meadows ranging from 4,800-8,800 feet in elevation.

The Chickering American River Reserve ranges in elevation from 6,000-8,000 feet and consists of 1,700 acres of protected old growth and montane and alpine meadows. It contains some of the best examples of Sierra meadows, relatively pristine, having only been lightly grazed long ago.

The Sagehen Creek Field Station ranges in elevation from 5,800-8,800 feet and consists of 8,200 acres of mixed conifer second-growth forest. The 8,000 acre basin has supported 50 years of research and education.

Sagehen Creek itself has four main stem stream flow gauges with three additional gauges placed on ephemeral tributaries.

Other monitoring efforts include weather, hydrology, snow telemetry, geochemistry, and the ecology of a snow-melt dominated watershed.

Jim noted a study is beginning that will explore how the Sierra will react to expected climate change. He noted the potential of predicted climate change to reduce the length of stream channels by half, with a forecasted reduction in snowpack by the years 2020-2050 of 26%-40% and a further reduction by 2070-2100 of 29%-89%.

Group discussion revolved around relationships between snowpack and streamflow and additional expected impacts to Sierra ecology.

Jim further shared findings with the group about the relationship between summer flows and the snowpack from not only the previous winter but the winter before that. These kinds of relationships are being explored in more depth.

Jim also reviewed Berkeley’s LiDAR, an airborne laser mapping, effort to collect data and showed examples of the technology. He noted an effort is being mounted to LiDAR the North Fork Reserve. The Sagehen Basin was LiDARed Labor Day of 2005 without any snow cover. He noted the desire to LiDAR the same area under maximum snow cover for comparison, and analysis. He suggested the group think about using the same techniques and technology in the ARWG’s effort to better understand the watershed.

Jim closed by noting science is moving in the direction of collecting many different types of data in one area in order to better highlight ecosystem relationships.

Group discussion revolved around the Sediment Study being conducted and members expressed a strong interest in the North Fork Reserve LiDAR effort.

Bill Templin noted the he has been exploring the high turbidity being exhibited on the North Fork American River and the recent New Year’s Eve storm event impacts on the watershed. He suggested further exploration for potential collaboration in a joint LiDAR effort.

Bill solicited Jim’s input in regards to the Sediment Study and noted the Rubicon water quality monitoring effort.

Rich Gresham proposed a collaborative effort in terms of work being planned on the North Fork and stressed the group’s interest in participating.

Discussion ended with a brief funding strategy discussion and informed Jeff and Jim of preliminary discussions going on regarding the formation of an Upper American River Watershed Foundation.

Due to time constraints the rest of the agenda was deferred and the meeting was adjourned at 12:19 p.m.