Smith River Collaborative

SRA has teamed up with nine motivated stakeholder entities and Six Rivers National Forest to launch a “Collaborative” initiative to advance habitat restoration, fuels treatment, and other projects across the National Recreation Area.

The Collaborative has endorsed projects that include three critically important fuels projects to protect the Gasquet and Hiouchi communities, a “pilot” project of approximately 1000 acres of fuel breaks and forest restoration in the Little Jones Creek watershed, and a riparian habitat restoration project. Participating stakeholders include the American Forest Resource Council, County of Del Norte, Del Norte Fire Safe Council, Elk Valley Rancheria, Friends of Del Norte, Klamath Forest Alliance/EPIC, Klamath Siskiyou Wildland Center, Smith River Alliance, and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation. A special thanks to the National Forest Foundation for providing resources to launch the initiative.

The SRC is a joint venture between Del Norte County elected officials, local and regional environmental groups (Friends of Del Norte, Klamath Forest Alliance, EPIC, KS Wild, and Smith River Alliance), local Tribes (Elk Valley Rancheria and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation), the Del Norte Fire Safe Council, and the American Forest Resource Council, working in partnership with leadership from the Six Rivers National Forest.

Critical threats to the Smith River basin identified by the SRC include aquatic habitat degradation and impaired fisheries

The SRCs objective is to work together in cooperation with the Forest Service to develop projects that addressed the critical threats and worked towards meeting the SRCs Conservation Targets and Values, including a healthy Smith River watershed, and resilient bio-diverse Forest ecosystem.

 

legacy MINE CLEAN-UP is a good idea

Background

Since the California gold rush a century and a half ago, gold, silver, copper, lead, and other minerals have been mined across the west. One downside of this legacy is that mining sites were often abandoned after the minerals were no longer economically retrievable. In some cases, these sites have caused environmental, health and safety problems. Discharges of acid and heavy metals from mine sites can pollute water supplies, affecting residential usage, fish populations, and wildlife habitats.

What is the best system to encourage the cleanup of waste left behind by past mining operations? What should we do about abandoned mining sites? Much of the environmental damage is caused by the remnants of mining operations that ceased decades ago, prior to modern environmental concerns and standards. Thus, it is often difficult to establish who, if anybody, can rightfully be held accountable for cleanup. A second problem is the sheer number of abandoned sites, and correspondingly, the potentially staggering cost of remediation. According to the Mineral Policy Center, a group that conducts research about mining, there are over one-half million abandoned and inactive mine sites across 32 states, including almost 15,000 with water contamination problems. Legacy mines are causing or could cause environmental damage, mostly water pollution.

Mining requires digging up and moving tons of rock and soil and then separating the valuable metal from the rock through chemical treatment or smelting of the crushed material. This process usually generates large amounts of waste, the disposal of which can create several problems including heavy metal contamination can reduce soil productivity or sterilize the soil altogether. The absence of vegetation can make the site more susceptible to runoff, soil erosion, and potentially unstable ground.  The map below shows legacy mining sites in the North Fork Smith watershed:

Altaville Mining Area in the Smith River National Recreation Area

19th century mining sites in the historic Altaville mining area of Del Norte County are being considered for cleanup by the Six Rivers National Forest due to contamination concerns.

The town of Altaville was established in 1860 to service the mining operations and in 1863 there were at least 25 mining companies actively mining in the area.  “Veins and lenses with chromite and copper minerals are present in the serpentine rock at or near the contact with granitic rocks in Del Norte County,” according to the EECA.

The Six Rivers National Forest has secured funding in the past to clean-up sites designated as Superfund sites by the Environmental Protection Agency.  Funding comes from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as EPA’s Superfund.

Download the reports below to read about water quality testing:

Surface Water and Sendiment Monitoring Report
Prepared by North Coast Region, Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP)

Smith River Plain Dissolved Copper Monitoring Report 2017-2018
Prepared by National Marine Fisheries Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Project: Big Flat Fuel Reduction

Big Flat Community Project

more news soon!

Partnerships and Project Coordination and Oversight

This is a project of the Smith River Collaborative…more detail soon.

South Fork River Canyon Fuel Reduction Project

Stay Tuned

Project: Little Jones Creek

Restore riparian and aquatic habitats in little Jones Creek by thinning dense alder stands and planting disease-resistant Port-Orford cedar.

Little Jones Creek Watershed Background

Prior to acquisition by the USFS beginning in the 1960s, a large portion of the Little Jones Creek watershed was private land and was logged – including streamside stands near the stream edge. Tree and shrub species rapidly colonized open riparian patches in these harvested riparian areas. As a result, red alder (Alnus rubra) now dominates the riparian tree community over many historically-logged stream reaches in Little Jones Creek. This current riparian forest dominated by red alder, with a closed canopy and native shrubs conifer seedling establishment and growth, and the development of a diverse riparian forest.

While alder performs important ecosystem functions in the riparian zone (e.g. fixing nitrogen, providing shade and leaf litter), the near-monotypic alder riparian corridor functions differently than the historic diverse native riparian forest. In historic riparian forests, large conifers (either live or as snags or downed wood) provided critical habitat for many terrestrial species and played important structural roles in aquatic ecosystems.

One of the most ecologically important riparian conifers in the Smith River basin, Port-Orford Cedar (POC), Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, has been significantly reduced in numbers along many streams by the introduced exotic fatal root pathogen, Phytophthora lateralis. A local strain of POC has been developed that is resistant to infection from this pathogen. Planting the riparian areas in Little Jones Creek with this resistant stock would re-establish this important riparian ecosystem component.

Little Jones Creek Riparian Project

With funding from the Smith River Alliance, the Smith River National Recreation Area (NRA), in conjunction with the SRC and the Pacific Southwest Research Station, Arcata, has designed a research project to assess the efficacy of small-patch (< 0.6ac/0.25 ha) silvicultural treatments to accelerate the re-establishment of large conifers, including Port-Orford Cedar. The project would utilize disease-resistant strains of POC to restore riparian corridors that were logged. Forest Service Best Management Practices encourage establishment of disease-resistant Port-Orford-cedar in plant communities where their numbers or ecosystem functions have been reduced.

Restoration is aimed to have both short- and long-term benefits for stream and riparian habitats and species. Selective removal of riparian alder trees followed by successful re-introduction of large conifer species would benefit salmonid fishes in the short-term by increasing primary productivity and foraging conditions and in the long-term through positive influences of large conifer debris on channel morphology and habitat complexity.

Little Jones Creek provides an excellent opportunity to test an approach to addressing these issues while monitoring for possible impacts to aquatic vertebrates. The stream supports a resident population of coastal cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii. Due to the natural anadromous barrier at the mouth of Little Jones Creek, no federally threatened coho salmon are present in the stream and project area. Outcomes of this research will inform and assist in the development of future plans for aquatic and riparian restoration.

Project: Gasquet Fuel Reduction

Gasquet Community Project

The Six Rivers Gasquet Community Fuels Reduction Project will treat three hundred acres of land adjacent to the town of Gasquet, and urban interface community. The three hundred acres has been segmented into six different fuel breaks which are strategically placed to assist in control efforts of fires threatening the community of Gasquet.

The proposed program will involve three types of field activity and a project coordination-oversight component implemented through a partnership entity known as the Smith River Collaborative (SRC). The three field activities are: removal of hazardous fuels within six defined fuel breaks; (2) hand piling and covering of the fuels and other woody debris for later burning/removal by USFS staff and; (3) removal of invasive Scotch and French Broom within one specified area. These activities are described in more detail below.

Partnerships and Project Coordination and Oversight

This is a project of the Smith River Collaborative (SRC), which involves nine stakeholder groups in partnership with Six Rivers National Forest. In addition, other project partners are the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Alder Camp Conservation Crews (Cal Fire) and the California Conservation Corps (CCC).

The project has been funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and will be completed over three years. The expertise of USFS staff in defining a project with attainable prescriptions and the substantial experience in fuel reduction from partners Cal Fire Alder Conservation Camp (Cal Fire), California Conservation Corps (CCC) and Del Norte County Community Development Department – Roads Division will ensure project success.

The Alder Conservation Camp, located in Klamath, CA, is a joint operation of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE). The Camp’s primary mission is to provide inmate firefighting crews for fire suppression activities in the Humboldt-Del Norte Ranger Unit Areas. In addition, inmate hand crews provide a work force for conservation and community service projects across the region.

The California Conservation Corps is the oldest and largest state conservation corps program in the nation. Modeled after the original federal Civilian Conservation Corps created in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt, today’s CCC program was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on July 7, 1976.  Governor Brown envisioned the program as “a combination Jesuit seminary, Israeli kibbutz and Marine Corps boot camp.”

From this inspired beginning, the CCC has grown to its current size as a permanent state agency with residential and nonresidential sites throughout the state employing thousands of young men and women, age 18 to 25, for a year of natural resource work and emergency response. The CCC seeks work conserving or enhancing the state’s natural resources or providing another public benefit, and work offering corpsmembers an opportunity to boost employable skills. The young women and men of the Corps work hard protecting and restoring California’s environment, responding to disasters, becoming stronger workers, citizens and individuals through their service.

Travel Management Plan Implementation - Phase I

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) will award a grant  to the Smith River Collaborative through Smith River Alliance to storm proof 25.75 miles of National Forest System Trails and remove/decommission 27 miles of existing unauthorized routes and National Forest System Roads in the Smith River NRA.  Here is a general detailed description of the Project Scope:

Road and motorized trail storm proofing activities will include brushing, replacing culverts, trail reconditioning, spot rocking, repairing major gullies and ruts in the trail surface, installing rolling dips, installing boulder barriers and delineators, installing gates, and erosion control. Removing/decommissioning unauthorized routes of the National Forest Transportation System (NFTS) will include removing culverts, installing water-bars, installing earth mound barriers, and erosion control.

 The $444,5555 grant provides funding for implementation of projects and improvements developed through the Smith River National Recreation Area Restoration and Motorized Travel Management Project (TMP).

The SRC is a joint venture between the Six Rivers National Forest, Elk Valley Rancheria, the Tolowa Dee-ni′ Nation, Del Norte County, Del Norte Fire Safe Council, the American Forest Resource Council, and local and regional environmental groups Klamath Forest Alliance/EPIC, Smith River Alliance, the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildland Center, and Friends of Del Norte.

This funding will be used to implement critically important watershed infrastructure improvements that benefit nearly thirty miles of stream and associated roads and trails in the Smith River National Recreation Area (NRA). The project will benefit fish, wildlife, sensitive plants, and enhance water quality — while also improving recreation access across the NRA.

“Partnership and cooperation made this project possible,” said SRC Co-Chair Grant Werschkull of the Smith River Alliance. “When interested and motivated parties are willing to work together in a zone of agreement there’s no limit to what can be achieved. The partnership involving SRC and the Forest Service is really exciting. The SRC is motivated and the Forest Service has been an outstanding partner.”

Click here to learn more about the Smith River Collaborative.