Young volunteer Leevon Carlson by a knotweed forest. Photo by Nancy Ness
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By Lee Napier, Chehalis Basin Partnership Coordinator
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Salmon Recovery Funding Board are partnering with local groups to announce grant opportunities for community-based salmon habitat restoration projects this fall across the Chehalis Basin.
The Chehalis Basin Community Salmon Fund will award grants of up to $50,000 to community groups, nonprofits, tribes, and local governments to work with private landowners on habitat restoration projects. Projects must have excellent community involvement and significant benefits to watershed health.
Preference will be given to projects that address local salmon recovery priorities and engage community groups in implementing on-the-ground restoration projects. Candidate projects include riparian plantings, invasive species removal, erosion control, culvert removal, instream habitat enhancement, and water quality improvement projects that involve the surrounding community.
"This program will provide important funding for restoration activities on private and Tribal lands within the Chehalis Basin, and complements our existing salmon recovery efforts," said Lee Napier LE Coordinator for the Chehalis Basin.
Local groups received over $180,000 in Community Salmon Fund grants for five projects in 2005, as listed below:
The Chehalis Basin Fisheries Task Force will work with various volunteer groups on two projects to replace an undersized culvert and open up spawning and rearing habitat along Vance Creek, and to disperse fish carcasses to enhance nutrient levels of the West Fork and Middle Fork Satsop Rivers, and a number of their primary tributaries. The Task Force will also remove a fish barrier culvert to improve access to over five miles of spawning and rearing habitat in Forrest Creek.
Grays Harbor College's Coastal Resources Learning Center will utilize student volunteers to remove a mid-channel culvert in Nice Creek to open up potential spawning and rearing habitat, revegetate the surrounding riparian habitat, and host a watershed day camp program. Students will also enhance 2,000 ft of instream and riparian habitat along Alder Creek by planting riparian vegetation, re-meandering the stream channel, creating gravel spawning pads, and placing LWD.
"We are very excited to be working in an area with strong communities, active groups, important salmon habitat, and a history of successful grant projects" said Krystyna Wolniakowski, Regional Director for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The Salmon Recovery Funding Board (http://www.iac.wa.gov/srfb/) administers state and federal funds to protect and restore salmon habitat throughout Washington.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is a nonprofit organization established by Congress in 1984 and dedicated to the conservation of fish, wildlife and plants, and the habitat on which they depend. For more information, visit http://www.nfwf.org.
Grant proposals for the Chehalis Basin Community Salmon Fund are due on November 3, 2006. For more information, or to request application materials, please contact Autumn Salamack at (206) 691-0700 or visit www.nfwf.org/programs/csf/graysharbor.cfm. For questions about salmon recovery priorities in the Chehalis Basin, please contact Lee Napier, Lead Entity Coordinator for WRIA 22 and 23, at 1-800-230-1638 ext 435.
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By Nancy Ness, Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Coordinator
The invasion of knotweed along waterways in western Washington is a major concern for land managers. These plants: Japanese knotweed, giant knotweed, Bohemian knotweed (a hybrid of Japanese and giant) and Himalayan knotweed are all spreading via waterways and contaminated equipment throughout our riparian corridors. These noxious weeds are seemingly impervious to control measures including: pulling, digging, burning, mowing, and cutting. In Asia, where they are native, they are weeds in bamboo forests.
Young volunteer Leevon Carlson by a knotweed forest. Photo by Nancy Ness |
The Washington Department of Agriculture has invested in a pilot project to control knotweed in the last three years. In Grays Harbor County, both the Wishkah and Elk rivers had been a part of that project. In 2006, funding for the Wishkah River has been dropped, while follow-up monitoring and treatment for the Elk River continues.
The Wishkah River has several smaller tributaries with well established knotweed infestations. Although the pilot project provided landowners with free weed treatment, many property owners chose not to participate. For successful eradication of invasive species on a watershed level, the treatment must come from the top on down (from upstream to downstream). Without the cooperation of upstream landowners, treating infestations downstream is futile.
Grays Harbor County has knotweed problems in every waterway, and it continues to spread. If you have knotweed on your property there ARE things you can do to minimize spread.
bag any cut canes, as pieces as small as a dime can regenerate and grow.
keep plant pieces away from moving water
prevent seed production (although they also spread from root fragments, new hybrids are not desired)
For more information contact your local weed board or contact the WSDA knotweed coordinator, Marshall Udo at 360-902-1853.
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By Jan McMillan, President, Grays Harbor Audubon Society
I-933, slated to be on our ballots in November 2006, has been called the Farm Bureau Initiative, the "Takings" Initiative and the Developers' Initiative. Whatever it's called, it's bad news for the citizens of Washington State. Don't vote for it!
Here's Why:
It is very similar to Oregon's Measure 37 in language, intent and overall effect.
It has a "pay or waive" provision. This means local governments are forced to either pay land owners for claims of lost profits or ignore land use protections. This will create huge loopholes for irresponsible developers to exploit.
It is retroactive -- it rolls back a decade of good community protections by making almost any land use law passed since 1995 vulnerable to the "pay or waive" provision.
It is costly. It requires costly new layers of government bureaucracy through additional studies and a provision that says government must pay claimants' attorney fees and claim processing fees, regardless of whether claims are valid.
It would take away peoples' right to protect themselves from irresponsible development in their neighborhoods -- putting them at risk of flooding, erosion and landslides.
It would take away a community's right to protect itself against irresponsible developers.
It would open up large portions of farmland for development.
Grays Harbor Audubon and Audubon Washington, representing 18,000 members in 26 local Chapters, oppose this initiative.
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From "The Basin Waterline," newsletter of the Chehalis Basin Fisheries Taskforce
Summer is gone, and before you know it, salmon season is just around the corner. Nutrient Enhancement is important in this neck of the woods. While the Chehalis Basin is regarded as one of the healthiest river basins in Washington State, the volunteers of the Chehalis Basin Fisheries Taskforce (CBFTF) realize the value of preservation. Come late October through the end of November, an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 Coho carcasses will be dispersed via hand and dump truck in an effort to increase ocean derived nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), which will sequentially provide a food source for smolt and the insects they consume, thus restoring greatly depleted salmon runs in the Satsop sub-basin.
 Patti Barmettler tosses carcass during 2002 project |
For those interested in volunteering, the Satsop Nutrient Enhancement Project (SNEP) will sling, fling, cast, catapult, dump, chuck -- what ever it takes -- to get carcasses back into the main stem and tributary distribution sites of the West Fork and Middle Fork Satsop Rivers for nutrient enhancement this Fall.
Dates are dependent upon the arrival of the salmon runs. Volunteers registered with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife or Regional Fisheries Enhancement Group Program may contact Dave Hamilton at 360-482- 3364 for more details. Those interested in registering as volunteers may contact the CBFTF office at 360-533-1766 or by email at cbftf@reachone.com for a registration packet.
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The Grays Harbor Community Alliance will be hosting an informational forum on Initiative 933 on Wednesday, October 11 at 7:00 PM, The Bishop Center, Grays Harbor College. This is your chance to hear both sides of this controversial property rights initiative. For more information contact Linda Orgel at ldotorg@olearycrk.com.
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By Nancy Ness, Grays Harbor Noxious Weed Board Coordinator
Almost a thousand acres are farmed for oysters and clams in Grays Harbor. Hundreds of thousands of shorebirds concentrate on the muddy tideflats of Grays Harbor. Grays Harbor Estuary is one of four major staging areas for shorebirds in North America and one of the largest concentrations of shorebirds on the west coast, south of Alaska.
Spartina alterniflora is a salt tolerant perennial grass that grows in erect, dense stands in lower tidal marshes. It had been introduced from the east coast of the United States in the late 1800s.It invades mudflats, clogging flood control channels and seriously impacting habitat for shorebirds, shellfish, and other mudflat dwellers.
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In Grays Harbor you might expect to see Spartina alterniflora as a solitary, circular colony adjacent to the shoreline or even some distance from shore on the mudflat. Spartina also likes to colonize the edges of channels in saltmarshes and is usually much taller and robust looking than the native marsh plants.
All grasses are not created equal
Spartina alterniflora is also known as Smooth Cord Grass. Stems are 3 to 5 feet tall and are smooth, leaf blades are up to 2 feet tall and 5/8 of an inch wide, becoming folded at the tip.
Spartina dominates tidal marshes and collects sediment, resulting in round elevated stands. Stems are hollow, except at the segments, and it appears to be more yellow green than other native plants. Flowers occur only on branch undersides, often twisting.
Report sightings to: Kyle Murphy, WSDA Spartina Coordinator, 360-902-1923, kmurphy@agr.wa.gov. Washington State Department of Agriculture Spartina Program,
P.O. Box 42560 Olympia, WA 98504-2560
For more information contact Grays Harbor County Noxious Weed Board, Nancy Ness, coordinator, P.O. Box R Elma, WA 98541. Phone: 360-482-2265,
Fax: 360-482-2662, e-mail: nessn@cahnrs.wsu.edu.
Web: graysharbor.wsu.edu.
Web links: http://www.agr.wa.gov/PlantsInsects/Weeds/Spartina/default.htm http://graysharbor.wsu.edu/Weeds
http://www.nwcb.wa.gov/
http://www.pugetsound.org/index/spartina .
This article is adapted from a brochure published by Grays Harbor County Noxious Weed Board: Spartina Alterniflora Field Guide. To obtain copies, contact Nancy Ness.
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By Lorena Marchant, Model Watershed Outreach Specialist
If you had been on the Grays Harbor College campus this summer on July 27th, you might have seen children pretending to be ants who served as interpretive guides to their own "micro-trail" habitat, hammering furiously as they turned cardboard mailing tubes into rain-sticks, or tumbling to the ground in a laughing heap as they played the various parts of an animal such as a Belted Kingfisher. What you would have been observing was Grays Harbor College's first ever Alder Creek Day Camp. With funding provided by the Salmon Funding Recovery Board and Chehalis Basin Education Consortium, the Donald F. Samuelson Model Watershed's four day camp ran from July 24th to July 27th.
Campers learned about the Chehalis Basin Watershed, water resources, the salmon life cycle and challenges faced by salmon such as turbines, pollution and predators. They learned about macro-invertebrates as indicator species for water quality and plants providing habitat in riparian zones. Each day of the four day camp focused on a different aspect of the Alder Creek Watershed.
Monday the focus was on water. Using an activity from Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), campers estimated the percent of available fresh water on the earth and found out that if a bucket represented all of the water on the planet only one drop would be the fresh water available for drinking! After making up a group song the campers played a game where they became water molecules and traveled around the water cycle. Campers had a great time playing this game, even the ones who got stuck for eons in glaciers.
 Campers along with junior counselor Sam Simmons learning about group cooperation through a game of knots. Photo by Kathy Jacobson |
Tuesday concentrated on salmon with a visit to the salmon hatchery on campus. Campers saw juvenile Coho salmon waiting to be released into Lake Swano. Campers spent time reading books and native legends, coloring and stuffing their own salmon mobile and even conducting an Environmental Protection Agency Stream-walk Survey on Alder Creek to assess water quality for salmon.
Wednesday campers went bug hunting! Since benthic macro-invertebrates (that's stream insects to you) are a great indicator of habitat and water quality, campers were able to further assess the health of Alder Creek. By far the most entertaining activity on Wednesday was "Make a Macro," an activity where the campers made up their own stream bugs out of everything from lentils to clay. Using pipe cleaners, paper plates and even rice, the campers constructed stream bugs that had a wide variety of adaptations to living in the water. There were giant mouths with jaws made of pipe cleaners to represent bugs that have to eat fifty times their weight each day. Some campers made camouflaged casings for their bugs from lentil or rice studded clay. Other campers showed how stream bugs breathed through gills represented by a series of Popsicle sticks across the abdomen of their bug.
Thursday focused on plants and riparian zones (the area around streams) and ranked close behind Wednesday for creativity and fun. Some campers pretended they were ants and constructed their own micro trail system out of a small three foot section of the Alder Creek trail. Camper Amy had her ant making its home in a tiny raisin snack box. It was like magic û as she described the tall cedar and spruce trees surrounding her woodland home, the whole group was reduced to the size of ants. The group walked like ants, observed like ants and, as we lifted our little ant heads to the sky to see the cedar tree, it was as if we had shrunk to the size of ants!
Camper Will was able to share how his people, the Quinault, have many uses for the cedar tree. He talked about going into relatives homes and seeing baskets woven of cedar bark strips and paper also made from cedar bark with quills in ink to write on the paper. When he was finished, camper Will gave us an ant's eye view of his home in the forest. Here we met a banana slug who was climbing up a tree.
According to Tara Wingate, a parent of camper Dylan, "The Lake Swano camp was not only a wonderful opportunity for my son to learn lessons not offered at his school, but also an opportunity to enlighten his creativity in areas that his school does not touch. Even more important û he had a GREAT time!"
When campers were asked what they would change about the camp to make it better, Courtney (age 10) said, "to get to stay all day and all night." Most of the other campers said to make it longer. Next year we will!
For more information contact Lorena Marchant, Model Watershed Outreach Specialist, Grays Harbor College. Lmarchan@ghc.edu, (360) 538-4179.
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Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Free Workshop -- Restoring the RiverbanksDo you own land along the Chehalis River or a tributary? Are you concerned about erosion? Would you like to help reduce water pollution and protect fish in the Chehalis River? Do you want to create or enhance wildlife habitat on your property? This FREE riverbank stewardship workshop will introduce you to conservation planning and restoration techniques. You can also explore opportunities to receive financial and technical assistance for management of your riverside property. After the workshop, you can participate in a native plant seed ball making session - roll æem up and take æem home! When: 6 -- 8 pm, Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 Where: Swede Hall, 18543 Albany Street NW, Rochester WA To register or for more information, contact Thurston Conservation District at (360) 754-3588 or Lewis Conservation District at (360) 748-0083 ext. 4. |
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From "The Basin Waterline," newsletter of the Chehalis Basin Fisheries Taskforce
Volunteer projects are irreplaceable efforts that frequently get overlooked without enough thanks or the praise they deserve. Often, the men and women who participate are rewarded solely by the amount of fish produced through their devoted labors.
The CBFTF is pleased to announce the following projects cumulatively released over 1.4 million fish between the months of February and June this year.
Project Name, species, Released
Carlisle Environmental Education, Coho, 100,000
Long Live the Kings/ Mayr Bros., Chinook, 30,000
Long Live the Kings/ Mayr Bros., Chum, 200,000
Long Live the Kings/ Mayr Bros., Coho, 300,000
Satsop Springs, Chinook, 94,900
Satsop Springs, Chum, 230,000
Satsop Springs, Coho, 450,000
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By Margaret Rader, Secretary, Chehalis River Council
The Chehalis River Council celebrated its twelfth Annual Membership Meeting with a picnic at Vance City Park near Elma. The meeting featured a talk by Kirk Hanson, Development Director for the Northwest Natural Resource Group. Kirk discussed how, by managing small forests for biodiversity, market opportunities can open up for the entrepreneurial landowner. [See article in the August 2006 Drops of Water.]
R.D. Grunbaum and Linda Orgel also led a discussion about the activities of the Grays Harbor Community Alliance. This group was formed to bring together labor and environmental representatives in Grays Harbor to work on issues of common concern.
 Janet Strong, center, flanked by R.D. Grunbaum, left and Rob Schanz, right, at the CRC annual meeting Photo by Margaret Rader |
Rob Schanz, CRC board chairman, announced that Janet Strong, president of the Chehalis River Basin Landtrust, was the board's selection for Chehalis Basin Watershed Citizen of the Year. Each year the CRC presents the Citizen of the Year award to an individual or group who has shown outstanding leadership in conserving and raising awareness of natural resources in the Chehalis Basin. Last year's winner was Kathy Jacobson of the Chehalis Basin Education Consortium.
The CRC board of trustees chose Janet for two main reasons. Her leadership of the Land Trust has led to the preservation of over 120 acres of land and she has built up her organization to be an active player on behalf of conservation in the Basin. Secondly, Janet's vision and persistence are yielding major fruit with the dedication of Centralia's "Discovery Trail" September 23rd. Working with Dick Southworth, Jim Webb, and Kahle Jennings of the City of Centralia, Janet's diligent efforts resulted in a trail that now winds north and south along the river for over a mile on property purchased for Centralia's new wastewater treatment system. Other partners include the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Chehalis Basin Education Consortium, the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the Washington State Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation, TransAlta and hundreds of volunteers. Janet was the main organizer bringing over 700 students and volunteers to plant more than 7,000 trees and shrubs for a riparian buffer. With the dedication of the Discovery Trail this September, the CRC board felt it was very appropriate to honor one of their own (Janet is vice-president of the Chehalis River Council) for her outstanding efforts for the Chehalis Basin.
Janet received an MS in biology/ecology from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.. She is now retired but worked for 12 years as a forestry/wildlife biologist with the Washington Environmental Council, the WA Department of Ecology, and the Nisqually Indian tribe. She has four children and 13 grandchildren. Besides her work with the Land Trust, Janet is on the board of the Grays Harbor Audubon Society and the Chehalis River Council. She says, "I love being a naturalist, a birder, and an observer of nature."
The Council also honored Abby Brown as CRC Volunteer of the Year for her work with the Environmental Festival in 2005 and in researching, planning and beginning implementation of the CRC's South Fork Chehalis outreach project.
In other business, Margaret Rader and Janet Strong were re-elected to three year terms as trustees. Brief reports on the year's activities and the Council's financial status were also presented.
At a board meeting following the annual meeting, the current officers were re-elected for one-year terms. These are: Rob Schanz, chairman; Janet Strong, vice chairman; Margaret Rader, secretary, Karen Knutsen, treasurer, and Pete Holm, board member at large.
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Recently I was informed I don't pronounce the name of my organization right. Well!
I'm taking a poll. How do YOU pronounce it? There are more possibilities than you might think:
Choose one:
1. First consonant like the "sh" in shut
2. First consonant like the "ch" in check
3 .First consonant like the "ju" in judge
Do you pronounce the "ha" like hay? Yes No
Choose one
1. Last syllable like the li in list
2. Last syllable like the lu in lust
Two more questions:
How long have you lived in the Chehalis Basin?
Are you a member of the Chehalis Tribe? (Seems like members of the Tribe should know what's right.)
Please cut this out and return it to CRC, 417 No. Pearl St., Centralia, WA 98531 or email answers to crc@crcwater.org.
There may not be a "right" answer, but I'll let you know how folks voted. I'm not going to tell you how I voted, at least not yet.
If you return this, your name will be entered in a drawing to win a prize, to be determined.