Progress Report

By

William E. Templin Jr.

North Fork American River

Watershed Coordinator

http://arwg.net

Jan. 15, 2007

Since my progress report on December 17, I have accomplished the following work:

Objective 1: Coordinating Collaboration:

• Met with Jan Cutts, American River District Ranger, U.S. Forest Service, on 12.19.06 and on 01.08.07 to identify and plan for coordination of speakers for the American River Watershed Conference on Apr. 12-13, 2007 and other collaborative watershed activities that are needed.
• Participated in the Placer County Resource Conservation District Board Meeting on 12.19.06 presenting the highlights of my past 2 months activities, since their Nov. 2006 meeting was cancelled.
• Coordinated another American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting on 12.21.06 with discussions on “Where We Go From Here?” Results included direction to follow Sediment TAC (Technical Advisory Committee) suggestions for next steps for sediment projects and new TAC’s for Watershed Assessment, Watershed Planning, and Watershed Coordination sustainable funding.
• Met with Upper American River Foundation (UARF) http://groups.msn.com/uarf Board Members, Bill Carnazzo (Spring Creek Fly Craft & Guide Service http://www.billcarnazzo.com/ and John Gaffney cnurse@earthlink.net on 12.21.06. John is leading us through the new 501c3 process.

  Objective 2: Implementing Education and Outreach

• Participated in the American River Watershed Conference Planning Committee Meeting http://www.csus.edu/CREST/American_River_Watershed_Conference.html on 12.13.06 at CSU Sacramento led by Ron Coleman, rcoleman@csus.edu Biology Professor. This conference will be held on Thurs. & Fri. April 12 & 13, 2006 at CSUS. During this meeting we began to layout a Plenary and Closing Session plus 8 technical sessions: 1) Fisheries; 2) Fire; 3) Climate Change; 4) Growth; 5) Infrastructure; 6) Floods; 7) Show Me the Money and 8) the Extreme Precipitation 1 Day Seminar lead by Gary Estes. We discussed expanding the conference to include Land Use Management in the 6 county area with the Local Government Commission http://www.lgc.org/ and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments http://www.sacog.org/ . The next meeting is Thurs. Jan. 18 at 6 p.m.
• Participated in a meeting of the Sierra Environmental Water Caucus (organized by the Sierra Nevada Alliance) held on 12.20.06 at the Sacramento Tree Foundation on the subject of Climate Change impacts on the Sierras.
• Gave a presentation on “Watershed Coordination in the North Fork American River Watershed” to the American River Gem and Mineral Society meeting at the Granite Bay Library, Granite Bay, CA on 01.15.07.

Objective 3: Fostering Opportunities for Collaboration among Stakeholders:

• Participated in the Placer County Fire Safe Alliance http://www.placerfsa.org/ meeting on 12.18.06 at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection conference room in Bowman, CA lead by George Alves. Rui Cunha (PCOES) said that maps of the fuel reduction areas from the various Federal and State agencies) are being prepared for the Placer County Community Wildfire Protection Plan and should be done by Feb. 2007.
• Met with Brian Currier, Research Engineer, California State University, Sacramento at his office on campus in the Office of Water Programs, on 12.20.06 to begin forming a TAC to help write a concept proposal for the draft Prop. 50 PSP “Watershed Assessment in the N.F. American River Watershed”.
• Met with Rich Gresham, Manager, Placer County Resource Conservation District, on 01.02.07 in his office in Auburn, CA to begin forming TAC’s to write project proposals for 1) follow up to the results of our ongoing Sediment Study; 2) Watershed Assessment for the NFAR Watershed; 3) a Watershed Plan for the American River Watershed; and 4) the next phase of Watershed Coordinator grants that is expected in July 2007. We also discussed content for a “State of the Watershed” report that I was asked to write to summarize my term as Watershed Coordinator that is ending in June 2007.
• Attended a meeting of the Trout Unlimited Sac/Sierra Chapter in Sacramento on 01.04.06 and heard a presentation by Dave Lentz, California Department of Fish and Game on the subject of “Status of California’s State Trout ‘The Golden Trout’” and confirmed that the California State Fish and Game Commission will be announcing new regulations allowing fishing throughout the winter above Highway 49 in the American River streams beginning in March 2007. Starting this year, fishing from November 15 until the end of April in streams will be limited to catch and release, using barb less artificial means. Fishing in reservoirs with bait, flies, or spinners will continue to be OK. This could create opportunities for further volunteers to participate in fish mortality research locally to confirm results of studies elsewhere indicating that catch and release using bait for wild trout increases mortality rates over catch and release using artificial means.
• Participated in an ARWG Sediment Dynamics Study http://arwg.org/RWG/RWG-frames.htm Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), meeting on 01.11.07 at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection conference room in Bowman, CA, where we reviewed the Drafts of Chapters 1-3 of their report and again reviewed the process used to produce the sediment risk maps produced by our Tetra Tech consultants, lead by Tom Stewart. This set of maps represents sediment source areas in the N.F. American River Watershed rather than the areas downstream that were previously represented.

Objective 4: Informing and Educating Landowners on Water Quality Issues:

• Monitored the North Fork American River below the Auburn Dam Site on 12.24.06 with Doug Masterson. We caught and released 4 Wild Rainbow Trout from 11 to 16”. We met 4 other anglers on our way out who were going down in the late afternoon. I gathered GPS locations of 10 large pieces of historical remnant metal debris (pipes etc.) that Auburn State Recreation Area may want to use to get them removed.
• Attended a meeting of the Sacramento River Watershed Program’s “DTMD (Delta Tributaries Mercury Council)” on 01.09.07 at the Sacramento County Regional Wastewater Management office in Rancho Cordova, CA and learned more about active and planned monitoring and restoration of mercury sources in the Upper American River Watersheds. David Lawler, david_lawler@ca.blm.gov Coordinator, U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Abandoned Mine Lands Program provided a handout describing their activities at the Pond Mine near Todd Valley and he offered to be our guest speaker on this subject at our 01.18.07 ARWG Monthly meeting.