Progress Report

By

William E. Templin Jr.

North Fork American River

Watershed Coordinator

http://arwg.net

Dec. 17, 2006

Since my progress report on November 15, I have accomplished the following work:

Objective 1: Coordinating Collaboration:

• Coordinated another American River Watershed Group (ARWG) meeting on 11.16.06 with a presentation by Tony Scardina, eldoradoroutes@fs.fed.us U.S. Forest Service, Eldorado National Forest on the results http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/eldorado/projects/route so far of their Roads Assessment that is still ongoing. Our second guest speaker was Soren Jespersen sjespersen@friendsoftheriver.org Friends of the River http://www.friendsoftheriver.org , who updated us on the current status of the agreement just reached between SMUD and the Agencies/NGO’s.
• Met with Upper American River Foundation (UARF) http://groups.msn.com/uarf Board Members, Grant Fraser http://www.sierraflyfishers.com/ and Bill Carnazzo (Spring Creek Fly Craft & Guide Service http://www.billcarnazzo.com/ on 11.16.06. Bill C. is writing an article for the California Fly Fisher Magazine http://www.calflyfisher.com/ and I provided photos, and planned studies in the Middle Fork American River. Bill C. and Grant are concerned about the impacts on the fishery of gold mining with dredges http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/harvey/HarveyLisle.pdf and about stream flow fluctuations and minimum releases below hydroelectric power plants.
• Attended Placer County Water Agency’s (PCWA) FERC relicensing http://relicensing.pcwa.net/existingresource.php Land Management Technical Working Group Meeting on 11.17.06.
• Participated in the Sacramento Urban Creeks Council http://www.sacto-ucc.org/ meeting on 11.27.06 contributing input on local activities including their first introduction to the them to the IRWMP recently completed by the Regional Water Authority http://www.rwah2o.org/rwa/programs/irwmp/ for the region downstream of Folsom Reservoir between the Bear River on the north to the Cosumnes River on the south. The UCC had not heard that there was a collaborative effort.
• Attended the CABY (Cosumnes American Bear Yuba) final Planning Committee meeting for 2006 on 11.29.06 in Auburn where comments were provided on the 2^nd Draft of the Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) http://cabyregion.org/ now being adopted by stakeholders.
• Participated in PCWA FERC relicensing Recreation Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings on 12.05.06 in Auburn, CA where project plans for new studies are being developed to provide the information needed for the formal FERC process.
• Participated in the final meeting of the CALFED Bay Delta Public Advisory Committee’s http://calwater.ca.gov Watershed Subcommittee in Sacramento on 12.15.06 We heard from Joe Grindstaff (Director, California Bay Delta Authority) that this group has been disbanded to become a statewide entity, but no one knows where within the state to house such a statewide watershed group. Presently the Resources Agency and the California Department of Water Resources each have Watershed staff and the California Watershed Council http://cwp.resources.ca.gov/ was mentioned. John Lowrie (Watershed Program Manager, California Bay Delta Authority) lowrie@water.ca.gov mentioned that the Little Hoover Committee’s audit had found that the CALFED Watershed Program was “Highly Achieving” but recommended that it should become statewide in scope instead of focusing on the Delta http://www.lhc.ca.gov/lhcdir/183/report183.pdf . Stefan Lorenzato (Watershed Program Manager, California Department of Water Resources) updated us on the latest draft “CALFED Watershed Program Proposal Solicitation Package (Prop. 50) http://www.watershedrestoration.water.ca.gov/watersheds/grants/grant07.cfm Upon review you might note that the North Fork American River Watershed is shown in Table 4 as a Priority Watershed for “Watershed Assessment” and in Table 5 that the entire American River is a Priority Watershed for a “Watershed Management Plan” so this could be read as “Submit a good proposal so we can fund a Watershed Assessment and Watershed Plan!” We need to get these started now! The comment period on this draft closes on Jan. 5, 2007 and Concept Proposals are due on March 9, 2007. Who wants to help? They hope to have funding agreements in effect by July 2007.

  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 11.15.06 at CSU Sacramento led by Ron Coleman, rcoleman@csus.edu Biology Professor. This meeting is to 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. Action Item: I offered to try to get 2005 Abstracts and Presentations uploaded to American River Web Portal. The next meeting is to be 12.13.06. We met again on 12.13.06 and 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/ .
• Lead a tour on 11.19.06 of the watershed for Barbara Bania tusacsierra@hotmail.com and others from Trout Unlimited http://www.tu.org/ Sac-Sierra Chapter to see potential conservation issues and projects in the watershed that they were interested in learning more about. They were interested in “Adopt a Display Board” and in better understanding the existing and potential stressors on the health of the fishery. http://groups.msn.com/TroutUnlimitedSacSierraChapter
• Participated in an advisory meeting on 11.21.06 in Foresthill, CA for Shaney Emerson semerson@puhsd.k12.ca.us and her Foresthill High School Forestry/Natural Resources Class and their Regional Occupational Program (ROP) http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/tahoe/news/06_news_releases/06_nov_14_rop_arrd.shtml
• Prepared my monthly progress report on 12.17.06 for the Placer County Resource Conservation District meeting on 12.19.06.

  Objective 3: Fostering Opportunities for Collaboration among Stakeholders:

• Participated in the Placer County Fire Safe Alliance http://www.placerfsa.org/ meeting on 11.27.06 at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection conference room in Bowman, CA lead by George Alves (new Placer County Fire Safe Coordinator replacing Don Nelson). Information gaps (including the fuel reduction areas from the various Federal and State agencies) continue to be problems for Steve Holl, as he works on the Placer County Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Brett Storey, Placer County Executive Officer, reported on biomass generator development in the near future for Placer County.
• Participated in an ARWG Sediment Dynamics Study http://arwg.net/RWG/RWG-frames.htm Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), meeting on 12.14.06 at the Placer County RCD Conference Room in Auburn, CA where we reviewed the models used to prepare the sediment risk maps produced by our Tetra Tech consultants, lead by Tom Stewart, on sediment source areas in the N.F. American River Watershed.

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

• Monitored the Middle Fork American River at Innerbay and Ralston Reservoirs on 12.08.06 with Bill Carnazzo, I released 1-9” Wild Rainbow at Innerbay and nothing at Ralston due to higher than normal releases from the Powerhouse. Met another angler, Chad Cox clcox@uddavis.edu who shared the stomach contents of the 3 Wild Brown Trout he kept 1-15” female with immature roe and a small fish inside, and 2-12” Browns (1 female and 1 male ready to spawn, and reportedly released a 17” Brown). Both had tiny, thin red worms and white worms in their stomachs. At Innerbay pH=7.18, SC=23.4@9.8C; DO=11.3 (99.5%) at 11:00 a.m. At Ralston, pH=7.21;SC=17.6@9.5C;& DO=12.33 @ 9:00 a.m.