NC Stream Watch - New Hope Creek

NC Stream Watch volunteers take monthly samples along an elevational transect of New Hope Creek as it flows from Duke Forest slate belt down through Triassic basic sediments and bottomlands into the northernmost lobe of Jordan Reservoir 

Samples include wetted-width cross-sections to estimate total flow.

Water chemistry including Dissolved Oxygen, Total N and Total P.

Inspection of the macroinvertebrate fauna.  At Old Chapel Hill Rd and New Hope Creek, and at Erwin Road and New Hope Creek, we observed:

Mayfly
Female copepod
Daphnia
Snow Leopard leach
Midgefly
Oligochete
Dragonfly larva
& Asiatic Clam

Stream Restoration with NCSU

Along Dry Gulch in Carrboro, North Carolina:

Karen Mendenhall (NCSU extension specialist) and city of Carrboro Environmental Planner, Randy Dodd led the riparian planting.  Rock structures had already been installed:


Detail of restoration plunge-pool rock structures.  Not visible is the substrate, an innovative mix of sand and woodchips.

Juncus ephesus was planted below bankfull - hopefully it won't wash out in the big storms of winter!


Species Planted:

Woody:
Betual nigra (Black or River Birch)
Alnus serrulata (tag alder)
Rhodendron austrinum (Florida Azalea)
Hamamelis sp., probably virginiana (Witch Hazel)
Quercus michauxii (Swamp Chestnut)
Platanus occidentalis (American Sycamore)
Salix nigra (Black Willow)
Cornus amomum (Silky Dogwood)
Viburnum sp (Viburnum)

Grasses:

Juncus ephesus (Soft Rush)
Chasmanthium latifolium (River Oats)

Finally, after months of waiting, Thursday, April 12 was burn day at Mason Farm Biological Reserve.

It has been very dry here and Tuesday was a Red Flag day, but Thursday dawned cool and not-too-windy.

A little bit more wind would have been helpful to oxygenate the burn more.  Trees have already leafed out, decreasing below-canopy advective and convective air movement.

There were no problems with the fire lines, and the burn was finished by 5 PM.

For more information about natural fire regime in Southeastern Piedmont forests:

Frost CC, Walker J, Peet RK. Fire-dependent savannas and prairies of the Southeast: original extent, preservation status, and management problems. Wilderness and natural areas in the eastern United States: a management challenge. Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin State University, School of Forestry, Center for Applied Studies. 1986:348–357.

Tres Aliances Axle Canyon Restoration

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

From Axel Canyon

They may look like a booby-trap... but those are "vanes", a standard restoration technique by the "induced meandering" school of restorationists. Some restorationists hold to the line that we should just "plant the heck out of denuded riparian areas" and let the stream do as it will, whereas the induced meandering school tries to engineer a solution that takes into account and is inspired by natural processes, and then let natural recruitment restore riparian vegetation. Both schools have something to offer, and both have their drawbacks.

Details:
Yes, the vanes are built in the stream bed. The pits were dug with a backhoe and the juniper posts are a by-product of local thinning work. The line of posts are positioned at a 20 degree angle from the banks, jutting upstream. Previous projects have placed them at a 30 degree angle from the bank (ie jutting further out) and positioned further apart, with sometimes disastrous results. The inspiration for the sometimes counter-intuitional placing is that natural downed logs or rock slides tend to persist when they are at that angle, because they can withstand the impact of water flow, while still slowing it and protecting the banks. As water slows down, it deposits sediment, creating natural sand bars. Eventually the posts will disappear and disintegrate, having done their job. The danger is that the water can cut behind the vanes, as happened last summer on our Santa Fe river project. The problem with simply armoring the banks is that boulders or poles can set up "secondary cell vortexes" in the water's flow which can cause the stream to erode its banks.

From Axel Canyon

You can see more photos of Axle Canyon here: http://picasaweb.google.com/conorpro/AxleCanyon#

Project Budburst

Today is the first day of Project Budburst for 2008. If you have native

plants growing in your yard or anywhere close enough to your daily
rounds that you can observe them every day, you might want to register
with the project and record your phenological observations along with
other "citizen scientists" across the country. The idea is to gather
quantities of data about budburst/first leaf and first flower for
certain targeted species (listed on the site http://www.budburst.org).
This data is being collected in order to track the effects of climate
change.
Check out the website for more information and to register sites and
plants you would like to monitor.

2009 Stream Team with Wild Earth Guardians

"Each spring WildEarth Guardians' members, supporters and volunteers become Stream Team Activists by gathering pledges and planting trees for each pledge. Our Stream Team planting days, held throughout New Mexico and Arizona, are a great way to get your hands dirty for the sake of the environment and re-connect to the wild rivers that sustain us all. Each event is a breathtaking display of what can happen when we come together to heal once-degraded waterways. At the beginning of the day, a somewhat barren landscapes lays before us. A few hours later in the afternoon, the area is a forest of newly-planted native trees..."

2009 Stream Team Planting Schedule:

La Jencia Restoration Day
Saturday, March 7, 10am-3pm
Near Socorro, NM

Rio Puerco Tree Planting Days
Friday and Saturday, March 27-28, 10am-3pm
Near Cuba, NM

San Marcos Tree Planting Day
Saturday, April 4, 10am-3pm
Near Santa Fe, NM

Santa Fe River Tree Planting Day
Saturday, April 18, 10am-3pm
in Santa Fe, NM

Bluewater Creek Tree Planting Days
Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, 10am-3pm
Near Grants, NM

Wind River Ranch Restoration

A rolling country of grass hills cut by deep canyons, PJ and Ponderosa on the slopes, Box Elder and Cottonwood and Netleaf Hackberry and Willow in the wet bottoms. Here the high plains end and the Rockies begin, the jagged upthrust spires of the Sangres visible along the Western horizon. Eerily similar to the Front Range of Colorado, but entirely undeveloped.

The land is tot pristine; eroded gullies from a century of overgrazing everywhere cleave the land. "It is doubtful that the grass losses would have been as extensive or rapid in the absence of grazing, but the coincidence of climatic and grazing forces must have accelerated the pace of grass decline." An Ecological History of San Rafael and Red Rock Canyon Watersheds. Tony Bugess. Desert Laboratory. Department of Geosciences. University of Arizona. March 1995

"Biological invasions have been the major cause of species extinctions in conjunction with human activity worldwide." D'ANtonio and Vitorsek 1992. Annual Review of Ecology and Systems 23. 63-87.

From Wind River Ranch

AWF’s second project at Wind River Ranch brought out a large crew of excellent volunteers, ready to get their feet wet and hands dirty to seed and mulch and plant willow cuttings around newly created waterfowl ponds alongside the Mora River.

From Wind River Ranch

On Saturday, Ranch Director Brian Miller provided seeds and hay
for mulching around the pond’s upper edges for several feet in all
directions. The intent was to get growth going quickly for erosion control.

On Sunday, those willing and able to spend some more time at the
Ranch drove to another site to build rock structures in a canyon where previous bank-stabilizing rock work, in one spot, had allowed a beautiful field of colorful wildflowers to grow.

From Wind River Ranch

Special thanks to Craig Sponholtz and Steve Vrooman for their guidance and help. Much of the above text is from the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation's October newsletter.

San Francisco Restoration Weekend -- Sep. 12

From Gila National Forest

"To my mind these live oak-dotted hills fat with side oats grama, thse pine-clad mesas spangled with flowers, these lazy trout streams burbling along under great sycamores and cottonwoods, come near to being the cream of creation." Aldo Leopold 1937.

From Gila National Forest

This landscape that so enthralled Leopold was where the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre kiss, where the plants and animals of the Neotropics mingle with those of the Nearctic, where jaguar and grizzly hunted the same ridges, where elk and javelina browsed and rooted cheek to jowl, where northern goshawks took thick billed parrots on the wing. Southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, northwestern Chihuahua, and northeastern Sonora are a landscape of wonder, beauty, and wildness--and mind-boggling biological diversity.

From Gila National Forest

Protecting the rare Bog Birch

Sponsored by Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, NM Wilderness Alliance, and Native Plant Society of NM with support from NM Environment Department and Los Amigos de Valles Caldera

THE PLACE: The Valles Caldera National Preserve was a private ranch until 2000,

when Congress created it from the "Baca Ranch" in New Mexico's volcanic Jemez Moun-

tain Range. This 89,000 acre property is studded with eruptive domes and features

Redondo Peak (11,254 feet). Though open to the public, access to the preserve is

strictly controlled. Coming on this project is a great opportunity to stay on the preserve

without charge and see areas not generally available to the public.

THE PROJECT: This project occured at a fascinating location — Alamo Bog! See

the Earth shake under foot as you walk across the bog (Hydrosol). Smell the fumes of

Purgatory (sulfur gas bubbling up through opal-colored acidic pools). See sphagnum moss.

Alamo Bog is home to the rare Bog Birch (Betula pumila(?)). This is the species' only known

location in New Mexico. We built small exclosures to protect the largest patches, each with about 40 to 60 plants. The structures exclude elk, which have heavily browsed the bog birch. Digging holes, setting untreated fence posts, is not permanent, but nothing is. Our restoration work is premised on the idea that future management changes will render our structures superfluous.

Interesting species also include a couple Orchids, Checker Mallows (Sidalcea neomexicana), and Sphagnum Moss, a rare species this far south!

Limestone Canyon Volunteering with NMWA

"I'm looking forward to the Service Project in Limestone Canyon over the May 16, 17, 18 weekend. This is our second project to this area. We liked it so much last year that I asked the Forest Service for a repeat. It is about 2.5 hours from ABQ to the campsite. Gene Tatum, President of the ABQ Wildlife Federation, Michael Scialdone, 'Scial' of NMWA ,and Dave Heft, FS Biologist, will lay out the project. For Saturday, we will build structures to aid in the restoration of the streambed." "









Why Volunteer?
To those who don't know the joy of volunteer work, who only work for the almighty dollar and take wages as the official readout of society's values and adopt said values wholeheartedly, it can be difficult to explain. But to those who know it, the reasons are manifold. To share a cause with others who are equally free and yet driven, the camaraderie. The freedom of choosing something to care about. And yes, the relief from the obnoxious obsession of needing to accomplish something, that ingrained appreciation for hard work that, whether it be rational, is part of our psychological makeup, entrained, and undeniable. And the payment received for volunteer work is often quite beyond the ability of ordinary remuneration. Access to a 10,000 acre ranch for a couple weeks work. Friends. A sense of ownership of an entire landscape, and an understanding of a way of life and the people who live it. A home.