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Alpine Watershed Group works to preserve and enhance the natural system functions in Alpine County's watersheds for future generations through collaboration, education, and proactively implementing stewardship projects.
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Playing It by EarAs we head into our fifth month of working remotely, it feels like an ideal time for an update from AWG staff, even if that update is that we are still playing it by ear. We have been fortunate to have plenty to keep us busy as we wrap up permitting and keep working toward construction of the Hope Valley Restoration & Aquatic Habitat Enhancement Project later this summer.
One of our challenges is keeping our AWG community connected. Right now outdoor recreation is especially vital to mental wellbeing. Many of the folks who love Alpine County’s watersheds are not county residents. We want to share the glories of Alpine County with all of our stakeholders, and we want Alpine County’s businesses to survive, yet we want to keep Alpine County residents—our local community—safe.
We plan to continue building virtual connections from the Bay Area to Reno through our bimonthly meetings. If you have ideas for speakers or for more frequent virtual connectivity, please let us know. In addition to webinars, other organizations are hosting everything from virtual breakfasts to happy hours. Sometimes it feels like people are getting "Zoomed out." We want to increase rather than decrease connections, but now that we are back to just a staff of two with no dedicated outreach person, we have finite bandwidth for virtual experimentation.
For our August river monitoring, we plan to make use of long-term volunteers with safety precautions in place.
We know that Creek Day 2020 will be different than any past Creek Day. We will keep you posted.
Please take very good care, and please stay in touch via phone, email, Facebook, and Instagram. And if you have space in your life to volunteer to help keep AWGers connected in some novel virtual way, we would love to hear from you.
Office Line (to reach Mo Loden) - (530) 694-2327
Kimra McAfee cell - (775) 450-7457
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Plain and Exciting Creek Speak at the Next Online AWG Meeting!
Tuesday, July 14, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
At our March 2019 meeting, Craig Oehrli shared the successes of the Cookhouse Meadow Restoration Project. We are excited to again hear from Craig, this time on Blackwood Creek Restoration — Holistic Restoration Opportunities in Riparian Forest Environments. Craig is a restoration hydrologist with the US Forest Service, Lake Tahoe Basin, who is talented at conveying complex concepts clearly and engagingly—his passion for fluvial processes is contagious. The analysis of this floodplain restoration project west of Lake Tahoe is timely as Alpine Watershed Group looks forward to implementation of the Markleeville Creek Restoration Project.
We will be using Zoom, so you can tune in from either your computer or your phone.
For more information or if you have questions, please email alpinewatershed@gmail.com.
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July is Lakes Appreciation MonthMo captured this classic Alpine County vista while conducting harmful algal bloom monitoring at Red Lake in June. We'd love to see the lake views that you love. If you are on Facebook, please tag Alpine Watershed Group, or share your photos with us via email.
The simplist thing we can all do is to bring gloves and a trash bag each time we venture out—it is so easy to help keep trash from ending up in our lakes and streams.
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Wander Your Watershed
Heenan Lake and Bagley ValleyBy Kimra McAfee
My first visit to Bagley Valley three weeks ago was prompted by the place name popping up three times in a week: a Record-Courier article on someone getting injured after picking up an old blasting cap (be careful out there!); a mention of this valley being preserved alongside Hope Valley in Friends of Hope Valley's homage to John and Patty Brissenden; and a Bagley Valley binder I found while cataloging AWG's library. It is humbling how much I have to learn about and see in Alpine County.
For this novice birder, it was an excellent walk for testing some of my new bird identification skills, offering some real treats in a short distance. After a stop at Heenan Lake to read the interpretative signs, we backtracked west a short way to a dirt road that followed Monitor Creek. Parking at the locked gate, we trekked along the road toward Bagley Valley, quickly spying a lovely mountain bluebird. We were treated to great views of white pelicans flying over and fishing in Heenan Lake. A green-tailed towhee patiently called and flaunted his rufous crown while my thick brain recollected who that vibrant cap and yellow-green wings belonged to. A pair of yellow warblers flashed between the green foliage and bitterbrush in full bloom. This killdeer, posing for my husband's lens, gave me a close-up view of one of the few bird-friends whose song I have learned to recognize—oh that high-pitched kill-deer scream. It was nothing short of magical in the wooded stretch, and the magic peaked when we arrived to look down on Bagley Valley.
I know birding is not for everyone, but it has given me so much joy since moving here and joining AWG that I am compelled to encourage my new watershed community to try this lens. In this time of social distancing, as you seek and find peace in your environs, look more closely at the birds flitting about, and open your ears to their songs. The free Merlin Bird ID app has been my favorite field tool for helping me to identify new species, hearing their calls and songs, and starting to "read" the sounds through spectrograms. Happy trails!
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Back in Action
A huge thank you to Jerry Lloyd for helping Mo replace the interpretive sign along Highway 89. We are grateful that past staff had the foresight to order an extra sign, and we appreciate AWG board members for alerting us that the sign had gone missing.
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AWG Deep Dive
Did you know that we create a staff report for each AWG board meeting? You can find these details on the last two months of activity on our website home page under Latest News. We use this tool to brief our board as well as to assist us with grant reporting.
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Down with the Cheatgrass!
In June, Mo assisted California State Parks' staff with cheatgrass removal at Grover Hot Springs State Park. Environmental Scientist Dan Lubin reports that there is a marked reduction in cheatgrass within the entire trail corridor this year. He is looking forward to planting grass plugs and seeds in selected areas along the trail this fall now that the cheatgrass seedbank is much decreased. Thank you to all the volunteers who have helped with Grover meadow weed removal over the years! We look forward to partnering with State Parks on future invasives removal community workdays.
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