Meeting Notes – June

Minutes from June

Reading List from Gail’s notes

This is a wonderful reading list of Gail’s. She put it together in December — if you want a complete library of the environment, this would be a good start!

Reading list GLA

Minutes for May ’12

Achterman Legacy Minutes: May ’12

Achterman Legacy Minutes

Here are the minutes from the most recent Gail Achterman Legacy committee

 

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Kipling on the Clackamas

Bill Monroe has a great story in today’s Oregonian about Kipling fishing on the Clackamas.  I hope many do comment on what to name after Kipling on the river. The Monroe story illustrates how place names connect us to our history, keeping the history of Kipling’s visit alive all these years.  May the article arouse more interest in the story and help more people understand our legacy of rivers and fish.

Wild in the City

My book review of the new edition of Wild in the City appeared in the November 27, 2011 edition of the Oregonian.  This book is an important aide for anyone interested in connecting to the natural world in the Portland-Vancouver Metro region.  It tells the story of the Intertwine, the vital regional partnership promoting and supporting natural areas.  And the public agency efforts to implement green infrastructure in terms of parks and natural areas, but also new approaches to stormwater, wastewater and other infrastructure.

This book has been instrumental in making people aware of nature in their midst,   enhancing public awareness of why it is important to all of us.  What we need now, as I noted in the book review, is companion volumes for the Mid-Valley and Lane County so that similar resources can be available for all the watersheds in the Basin.  A group has already started organizing an team to do the Mid-Valley book.

Shotpouch Creek Restoration

The Willamette River Initiative and its many partners are doing great work in the upper reaches of the Marys River Basin.  The story is told well in the Gazette Times.

BPA Investments

Under the Bonneville Power Administration Memorandum of Agreement with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), ODFW just recommended seven properties, 1,435 acres, for acquisition in order to restore habitat lost when the hydroelectric system was built.  The seven properties are all within or very near to Conservation Opportunity Areas identified in the Oregon Conservation Strategy.  The properties include parcels in the North Santiam watershed near Stayton, parcels near Sherwood and the Tualatin National Wildlife Refuge, an island in the Willamette near Harrisburg, Rattlesnake Butte near Monroe and a large easement near Yamhill.  See the Columbia Basin Bulletin for a longer story.

Oregon Chub Recovery

It is great to read good news about species recovery.  The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was justifiably excited in July 2011 when they discovered seven new Oregon chub populations—-three in the North Santiam, two in the McKenzie, and two in the Middle Fork Willamette River basins.

Success has come by using many different recovery tools: (1) reintroducing the minnows into historic habitat, (2) habitat restoration projects. The work of landowners and land trusts has been vital.

For more information: ODFW Oregon Chub; USFWS species fact sheet; Willamette Confluence property

Nutrient Loading Decision Support Tools

Too often federal agencies development great new tools to support decision making on critical environmental issues but folks in state and local government and NGOS never learn about them.  The USGS recently a model describing how rivers receive and transport nutrients from natural and human sources to sensitive waters, like the Columbia Basin.  You can download it at  http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/sparrow/mrb/7.html.

 

 

 “Using the decision support system, users can evaluate combinations of source reduction scenarios that target one or multiple sources of nutrients and see the change in the amount of nutrients transported to downstream waters – a capability that has not been widely available in the past,” said Stephen Preston, USGS hydrologist and coordinator for these regional models.