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Dear Susan,

The Lake Almanor Watershed Group is proud to bring you the spring edition of our quarterly newsletter.  Please let us know what you think!  We want to bring you the stories that matter to YOU!

** Yes we realize that spring has passed.  Thanks to technical challenges, this newletter is about a month late.  Please forgive us!


In 2019, the Lake Almanor Watershed Group supported its eleventh year of water quality analysis. Mr. Scott McReynolds of California Department of Water Resources collected temperature, oxygen, and electrical conductivity data at three stations in Lake Almanor, as well as stations on Bailey Creek, North Fork Feather River in Chester, North Fork Feather River at Canyon Dam and Hamilton Branch. McReynolds also collected plankton samples at two of the lake stations. Dr. Gina Johnston, professor emerita of California State University, Chico, analyzed the data, as well as the plankton, and produced a report that shows all of the data and relates the results to previous studies.

 

"Due to 2019 being a wet year, oxygen levels did not drop as low during the summer as they did during the drought years of 2014 -2016. Additionally, algal populations, especially the blue green algae, did not reach bloom proportions.  Read More Here.

In general, water quality was very good."


LAWG monitors all plankton that could impact water quality 4 times a year (late spring, early summer, late summer) at the 2 sites where changes in the watershed that would promote their growth are most easily detected (LA-02, LA-03).

This graph represents changes in total phytoplankton (including cyanobacteria) measured as volume per mililiter of water for the last 5 years.

Why it matters:

Cyanobacteria are found in many lakes and can destroy a lake's utility by producing potent toxins (cyanotoxins), taste, and odor in the lake water. Learn more and see a map of Lake Almanor Test Sites

 


Lorena is the representative for the Maidu  Community on the LAWG Board. She is a carry over from the ABWAC Advisory Committee, appointed by the Plumas County Board of Supervisors. For the last forty years, Lorena has worked for Native American non-profits in Plumas County.  Currently she serves on the boards of the Maidu Cultural and Development Group (MCDG), Roundhouse Council Indian Education Center and the Maidu Summit Consortium.  She is a founding member of all three organizations. 

She also participates on the IRWMP Committee, the South Lassen Watershed Group, the Shoreline Gardens Group and the Native Land Trust Alliance. As a member of MCDG Lorena helped oversee the Maidu Stewardship Project on 1500 acres of forest service land just north of Greenville for 10 years. Read More About Lorena. 

 


Owned by the Collins Pine Company in the upper North Fork Feahter River watershed, Rock Creek Meadow is an approximately 100-acre meadow system with extreme lodgepole pine densities that are drying out meadow soils, inhibiting meadow vegetation growth, and posing a significant wildfire risk that further threatens the existence of the valuable habitat and surrounding communities. Interestingly, man-made efforts to excavate a channel to drain the wet meadow system to improve timber and grazing productivity may have led to this conifer encroachment. Read More.

This project provides an example of the paradigm shift in which local decision makers and industry can form partnerships to reverse the negative effects of historical land use practices, enhance the resilience of Sierra meadows, and simultaneously allow for sustainable timber harvesting. Through advancing similar efforts across the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, we hope to emphasize the importance of multi-benefit collaborations where projects can successfully enhance forest and watershed use while also improving community-well-being.


What is the coolest (or most important) trend you see today in resource management?

I am excited by new and improved methods for meadow restoration. Healthy meadows are vital to watershed health and are biodiversity hot spots! One of the techniques planned for use in the Almanor Ranger District's proposed Robbers Creek Watershed Restoration Project are beaver dam analogs (BDAs). Beavers and humans haven’t always lived in harmony, but no one can deny that beavers are skilled engineers. BDAs seek to use native materials to mimic the function of a natural beaver dam, with the goal of reconnecting a stream to the floodplain. With higher groundwater, riparian plants will return, creating a wetter, more drought-resilient meadow with improved habitat for wildlife. READ MORE.


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