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| Alpine Watershed Group protects, conserves, and restores the watersheds of Alpine County by promoting sustainable community and science-based collaborative solutions.
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| AWG Board Member Richard Harvey Receives Andy Aldax Award
Congratulations to AWG Board Member Dr. Richard Harvey for receiving the 2025 Andy Aldax Watershed Award from Carson Water Subconservancy District! This award recognizes exemplary individuals and organizations who have devoted 10 years or more to conserving the Carson River watershed. Rich’s contributions go far beyond a single decade! In the late 1980s, as part of the newly formed group Friends of Hope Valley, Rich helped preserve Hope Valley. For 20 years he has volunteered with AWG, including heading up AWG’s Adopt-A-Highway cleanups, helping on Creek Day projects, sorting out recyclables at Death Ride, implementing a cutting edge water quality monitoring program, and leading the organization as Chair for five years. In accepting the award on January 15, Rich quoted Loren Eiseley: “If there is magic on the planet, it’s contained in water.” Rich added, “So I guess that makes us all magicians.” Thank you, Rich, for all of the magic you have shared with our watershed community.
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| AWG Office Beautification Grant Update
Over the last year, AWG staff had the incredible opportunity to come up with wish list items to spruce up our office space and make our work environment more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Words fall short of adequately expressing our gratitude to The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment for this incredible gift. Our selected upgrades include new standing desks and modern office chairs, beautiful artwork and photographs by local artists, breakroom appliances that actually work, plants for the bed outside our office and … a lovely AWG sign for our building entrance! Please stop by our office to see our beautified space.
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Photo at monitoring point 14 taken on July 25, 2023
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Photo at monitoring point 14 taken on July 1, 2024
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| Musser and Jarvis 2024 Monitoring Report
Time flies when monitoring a successful restoration project—it has been over three years since the work in the Musser and Jarvis watershed immediately following the Tamarack Fire was implemented! Since the weekend of volunteer workdays in November of 2021, each July and September AWG has monitored the success of the restoration work. California Climate Action Corps Fellows Kaitlyn Garber and Bella Kurtz have compiled the recorded data from last year’s assessments. Average percent cover of vegetation drastically increased from 2023, jumping from 20% to 33.5%. The continuous increase in percent cover has aided in the recovery of the watershed by limiting soil erosion and protecting water quality.
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| What Does it Take to Become a Firewise Community?
Two of Alpine County’s Firewise Communities are hosting meetings with presentations to share their experiences. Folks who are interested in potentially starting a Firewise Community in their neighborhood are encouraged to attend both meetings as each group will have a different presentation with their own perspective. Mark your calendars!
March 15 at Turtle Rock Park – Hosted by Markleevillage/Carson Ridge Firewise Community
March 22 at Woodfords Fire Station – Hosted by Mesa Vista Firewise Community
For more information, please contact Kris Hartnett.
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Climate Corner
Amigos de los Rios, a California Climate Action Corps Host Site, Needs Your Help!
As many of you know, Bella Kurtz and Kaitlyn Garber are California Climate Action Corps (CCAC) Fellows serving their term with AWG. There are over 90 other host sites located throughout California. Unfortunately, there are a handful of CCAC host sites located in Southern California that have been impacted by the Los Angeles fires. Amigos de los Rios, located in the Los Angeles Basin, is a CCAC host site for 10 fellows that was devastated by these fires. The nonprofit lost everything to the fire, and they need help with getting up and running as soon as possible. Their organization is working to create the Emerald Necklace: a natural infrastructure network of green spaces, green schools, parks, and trails throughout underserved communities in the Los Angeles Basin, including the areas of Altadena, Pasadena, Monrovia, El Monte, and beyond. Click here to learn how you can help.
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| AWG Strategic Plan 2025-2027
AWG is proud to share our newly-adopted Strategic Plan with our watershed community. Thanks to support from Sierra Nevada Conservancy’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program, with consultant coordination from California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, AWG had an amazing facilitator for our full-day board and staff retreat on November 14. We talked about staff capacity, telling AWG’s story, friend-raising, and AWG’s role in Alpine County given that we don’t have a Resource Conservation District. Out of these discussions we were able to put the finishing touches on our updated Strategic Plan. Our staff is looking forward to next creating action plans so we can make progress on our objectives.
At the AWG Board Meeting on January 22, our Board of Directors also elected new officers and re-elected a board member whose two-year term had expired. A huge thank you to Carl Ruschmeyer for his leadership as Chair for the past two years! Check out our Board webpage for bios of our officers and directors. We are grateful for their leadership!
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| Forest Health Coordinator Update
By Neil Mortimer
It has been six months since I started working at AWG as Forest Health Coordinator (FHC). I have learned a lot about AWG operations and the role of the FHC. Initially, some people were of the mindset that the job was that of a forestry expert like a registered professional forester; however, that isn’t exactly the case for the work that I have been doing. Most of the work that I have undertaken to date involved monitoring activities out in the field, mostly related to forest health and restoration, but I also helped with AWG’s water quality monitoring for harmful algal blooms.
One of the tasks I have been working on thanks to Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program (RFFCP) funding from Sierra Nevada Conservancy is the development of a tribal engagement plan as well as ongoing tribal engagement. Both of these are efforts of the Forest Health Community Working Group (FHCWG), which AWG helps provide administrative support for under this funding. The latest round of RFFCP funding provides for the development of a tribal engagement plan with the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. This is unique because many others who are funded have numerous tribes to focus on engaging with due to the geographic location of their organizations. Here in Alpine County, the Washoe Tribe is the only federally-recognized Indian tribe, so our task of tribal engagement as well as the development of a tribal engagement plan will be Washoe centered. We have made some initial steps towards tribal engagement meeting with the tribal chairman, Serrell Smokey, who graciously participated in our FHCWG January meeting. The development of this plan will enable ongoing substantive tribal engagement with the tribe as the FHCWG progresses Alpine County forest health work. I look forward to our future work. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, awgneil@gmail.com or (530) 694-2327.
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All Things WatershedsCarson Water Subconservancy District Spring Forum – CWSD’s Carson River Coalition Watershed Forum, “Collaborative Resources in the Carson,” is coming up on March 3 and 4 in Carson City! Please mark your calendars, and take this survey to help with their planning of the forum.
Upper Mokelumne River Watershed Authority has paired funding sources to complete fuels reduction work in the Stanislaus National Forest and Eldorado National Forest. Read more about the completed and planned work here.
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| Upcoming AWG Events
Wednesday, February 26, 5:00 p.m. at Markleeville Library – AWG Board Meeting
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| We are grateful for the financial support of all who love Alpine County. We are able to lead volunteer workdays and field trips, support community science data collection, and host California Climate Action Corps Fellows because of your generosity.
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AWG has earned a 2024 Gold Seal of Transparency with Candid! Check out our Nonprofit Profile here.
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Ways to Connect or HelpWe always love to hear from our watershed community! Below are email links to reach AWG's staff, or reach us at AWG's office at (530) 694-2327. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Contact Us!
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| A quick note for Gmail users:
To get our monthly bulletin email sent to your "Inbox" instead of "Promotions,"
click and drag the email over to your "Primary" tab.
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