July 21, 2005
The meeting of the American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting was called to order by Bill Templin, American River Watershed Coordinator at 10:10 a.m. at the Auburn Recreation District Canyon View Community Center located at 471 Maidu Drive, Auburn.
Present: Bill Templin, American River Watershed Coordinator; Stan McDonald and Katie Maloney, Placer County Resource Conservation District (PCRCD); Eric Nichol, CA Dept. of Water Resources (DWR); Kevin Roberts, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI); John Lane, Teichert Aggregates; Vern Finney, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS); Rich Johnson, Retired US Forest Service (USFS); Mike Hunerlach, US Geological Survey (USGS); Matt Triggs, USFS; Christine Mai, USFS; Jill Anderson, El Dorado County & Georgetown Divide RCDs; Steve Peterson and Jillian Rich, Environmental Stewardship and Planning (ESP); Mal Toy and Marie Davis, Placer County Water Agency (PCWA); and Ric Cuchetto.
Check-In:
Bill Templin led the “Check-In” procedure that entails telling who you are, how you are, if you have any time constraints, bring forth emergent issues, and express individual expectations.
Review & Approval of Minutes:
The minutes for the June 16, 2005 meeting were not yet available for review.
Additions to the Agenda:
No additions were made to the agenda.
Introduction to El Dorado County’s Draft Rubicon Trail Master Plan:
Bill Templin introduced Steve Peterson and Jillian Rich of Environmental Stewardship & Planning (ESP), consultants working on the development of the master plan for the Rubicon Trail.
Steve gave an overview of the historical use of the Rubicon Trail beginning with its use to gain access to the Rubicon Hotel and Resort popular for its natural hot springs from 1880 to 1920. The Rubicon Trail and stagecoach run fell into disrepair over time with the development of Highways 40, 50, & 80. The post WWII era provided for in influx of surplus jeeps and caravans from Georgetown to the Rubicon Springs and on to Tahoe became popular after the war. Steve reviewed a map of the trail.
El Dorado County prompted the development of a master plan after problems with erosion and water quality along the trail became a concern. Efforts had been made by 4 wheel user groups to stabilize the trail and users encouraged El Dorado County to apply for green sticker funds to develop a master pan for the trail resulted in funding being granted.
Increasing use of new kinds of off road “extreme” vehicles like “monster trucks”, “rock crawlers”, and “buggies” are a new cause for concern as new use patterns begin to create resources issues that are threatening trial use by other recreational users.
The US Forest Service has been actively involved in the development of the plan.
Steve recognized Bill for providing a nexus to additional resources, contacts, and information.
The Draft Rubicon Trail Master Plan has been developed and some user constituents are not happy with some of the plan components including the issue of carrying capacity, and the fact that changes in baseline conditions are being attributed to off highway vehicle (OHV) use.
The master plan effort resulted in the trail being documented with Global Positioning Satellite equipment that resulted in the identification of two trail segments that dip into Placer County that were previously unknown.
The primary baseline condition assay that was conducted in conjunction with the planning effort included habitat and wetland mapping, special status species identification for both plants and animals, resulting in the determination that the yellow-legged frog was not evident.
Impact surveys included noise, traffic, and trailer and big rig parking impacts.
The use of the trail over the 2004 Memorial Day weekend resulted in problems including a sheer rock wall at Spider Lake being defaced by extreme vehicles that actually pulled rocks off the face of the wall, human waste issues, the trashing of meadows, illegal tree cutting, and illegal camp fires. The problems resulted in El Dorado County and the USFS moving for a temporary closure around Spider Lake due to the use negatively impacting the resources. The User community then mounted a serious effort to self police due to the closure around Spider Lake while USFS dealt with the resource damage and use issues.
The baseline survey planned for 2004 was delayed until 2005. Efforts were mobilized to capture use information for the July 4th weekend resulting in both pre and post weekend water quality monitoring being successfully conducted.
Bill gave an overview of the monitoring effort and the collaboration that pulled together the sampling effort including CA State University-Sacramento (CSUS), brought in by the trail users in an attempt to assure an unbiased opinion regarding the water quality issues related to recreational use of the trail.
Ric Cuchetto added the whole collaborative effort was exciting and samples are being checked for E. coli, oil, and hydrocarbons with the results to be forthcoming.
Trail users have been developing their own master plan revolving around a much less regulated environment.
The Draft Rubicon Trail Master Plan elements include trails management, campground and restroom facilities, enhanced facilities at trail heads to encourage “packing in and packing out” for wilderness area users, enhanced parking, multi-jurisdictional law enforcement, and carrying capacity as an interactive ongoing process with key monitoring areas identified for both habitat and water quality that will result in the ramping down of use should negative impacts become evident.
Bill suggested some of the master plan components may be suitable for extrapolation to other areas within the watershed and possibly beyond.
Steve noted “Jeepers” are very concerned the trail will become off limits to their type of use and are actively engaged in the monitoring efforts.
Bill noted the very real potential to develop stewardship principles within trail user groups.
Steve noted if the master plan effort is successful it could serve as a template for other areas dealing with similar user impacts.
Bill passed around photos of the trail taken on a recent trip along a portion of the trail. He noted impacts are primarily from petrol-chemicals, human waste, sedimentation, and off trail impacts to meadows and other off trail areas.
Steve thanked Bill, Jill, and Ric for their contributions to the monitoring efforts.
Activity Updates:
Sediment Dynamics Study: Bill reported Tetra Tech is in a data gathering and review phase.
Watershed Coordinator: Bill briefly reviewed his activities over the past month, and handed out copies of his activity report dated July 18th and solicited questions and comments.
Bill also solicited in-kind match documentation for April, May, and June activities for inclusion in DOC Watershed Coordinator grant reporting.
Bill solicited input regarding timber management changes coming up that will begin to require monitoring.
Matt Triggs reported a lawsuit has resulted in a 30 day public review of the USFS “Affects Analysis”.
Range allotments located within the Rubicon Watershed were informally reviewed by Christine Mai.
Stakeholder Reports:
Placer County Fire Safe Alliance: Rich Gresham reported agency project information has been collected and as soon as staffing permits BLM will be compiling the information that should result in a map that will identify areas where fuel load reduction and other fire risk reduction efforts should be focused. This will be useful in the future development of grant funding proposals.
Placer County Water Agency: Mal Toy reported the agency is moving forward with FERC re-licensing related background field work including temperature monitoring and flow gauging. Next spring will see the rollout of a public information campaign in terms of PCWA’s re-licensing effort.
Marie Davis noted the remoteness and inaccessibility within the watershed is presenting challenges in terms of placing and monitoring the equipment. The agency is looking to re-activate some USGS monitoring equipment already in place in the middle fork and Rubicon watersheds. She noted geomorphology and riparian habitat are also being explored.
Christine Mai noted the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is developing a comprehensive monitoring plan in conjunction with their FERC re-licensing effort.
Recreation Subcommittee: Bill reviewed past efforts to establish a recreation map and expressed the hope of re-energizing the subcommittee and mapping effort.
Group discussion revolved around changes in process to USFS maps to eliminate the reflection of trails that cross private property.
Rich Johnson noted the upfront costs of developing the map stymied the past effort and indicated the committee had hoped that selling the maps to users would provide for a self-sustaining effort.
Bill solicited participation in the committee in hopes of re-energizing the mapping effort.
Rich reminded the group of funding cycles coming up and suggested the development of a concept funding proposal for the map effort.
Bill suggested reviewing the past project matrix and solicited new project ideas in order to instigate development of a concept proposal for the map and other projects.
Bill announced there will be an upcoming meeting to brainstorm the idea of setting up a foundation to provide sustainable funding for American River watershed stewardship perhaps modeled after Idaho’s Snake River Henry’s Fork Foundation, its formation precipitated by anglers. He noted that both the north and middle forks contain nice fisheries.
Bill solicited interest in developing an Upper Watershed Study potentially patterned on the Lower Watershed Study as presented at the American River Watershed Conference last April.
Rich Johnson noted the lack of information regarding wildlife resources in the American River watershed especially the north fork.
Regional Watershed Coordination Update: Bill reported Liz Mansfield is expected to go on maternity leave shortly. Bill reported the funding proposal to provide for the development of an Integrated Regional Water Management Plan for the Cosumnes, American, Bear, and Yuba Rivers (CABY) area, a proposal to provide implementation funds for individual projects, and a collaborative recreation grant have all been submitted for funding consideration.
Volunteer Monitoring Progress: Jill Anderson reported a Travers Creek Benthic Macroinvertebrate sampling has been conducted and other monitoring efforts are being mounted on additional tributaries.
Next Meeting:
The next regular meeting will take place on August 18th at the Canyon View Community Center.
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 12:04 p.m.