Restoring Fish Habitat on a Tributary of Pat’s Creek

Restoring Fish Habitat on a Tributary of Pat’s Creek

Community Watershed Stewardship, Healthy Watersheds, Restoration & Mitigation
Before: Introducing the project At the end of March, SAWC completed on the ground restoration work on a small tributary that feeds into the Pat’s Creek watershed near Wrangell, AK. This tributary had been damaged and blocked off in areas as a result of previous logging operations at the site. The goal of this project is to return the stream to its natural condition prior to logging, allowing for fish passage and sustaining habitat for fish species. Here's an overview of the project site before restoration took place (photograph taken from the Zimovia Hwy bridge): The blue line shows roughly where the stream channel lies beneath piles of slash, sod, and a discarded puncheon trail. This stream crosses under a log stringer bridge from an old road (the black line),…
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Wrangell Area Watersheds Assessment

Wrangell Area Watersheds Assessment

Community Watershed Stewardship, Resources, Restoration & Mitigation, Watershed Science
As the community of Wrangell continues to grow and develop, the City and Borough of Wrangell and its residents have sought to identify and prioritize local aquatic resources to better plan for future land development and strategize potential restoration-based mitigation opportunities. In an effort to support the informed management of Wrangell’s watersheds and aquatic resources, the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) has undertaken the Wrangell Area Watersheds Assessment. The purpose of the Wrangell Area Watersheds Assessment was to compile a dataset and report outlining key aquatic resources within the City and Borough of Wrangell, including an assessment of the current habitat condition of key aquatic resources, identification of sites that could benefit from restoration treatment, and outlining watershed management challenges and opportunities. The community of Wrangell and its surrounding area…
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SAWC Initiates Projects to Manage High Priority Invasive Plants

SAWC Initiates Projects to Manage High Priority Invasive Plants

Community Watershed Stewardship, Restoration & Mitigation
SAWC received two grants this winter that will support efforts to manage high priority invasive plants that threaten watershed health in our region. The Copper River Watershed Project awarded SAWC an invasive plant mini-grant to control invasive knotweed in Juneau and Petersburg starting in 2018. SAWC restoration biologist John Hudson spent the fall of 2017 outreaching to numerous Juneau landowners, including those waging unsuccessful battles to eradicate the aggressive quick-spreading plant and other who were oblivious to the knotweed growing on their properties. In all, ten private landowners in Juneau committed cash to support herbicide control of 2.3 acres of knotweed. In addition to providing critical non-federal cash match for the grant, these private funds will support control efforts for two years after the grant period ends in December 2018…
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WANTED: Bohemian knotweed (Dead)

WANTED: Bohemian knotweed (Dead)

Community Watershed Stewardship, Resources, Restoration & Mitigation, Uncategorized
Most  people don’t worry much about invasive plants during the winter months. After doing battle with them all summer or watching them take over our yards and open spaces during the growing season, we relax as the last of them die back in the fall. As cold winter weather grips the landscape, we take comfort knowing these aggressive species are tucked away in frozen soil for several months. As someone who’s attention is drawn to every infestation they see while out and about during the summer, I’m certainly enjoying this invasive plant-free time of year. While invasive plants may be out of our sight right now, they definitely should not be out of our mind. Now is the time to make plans for defeating these unwanted invaders. In 2018 SAWC…
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The Southeast Alaska Mitigation Fund is Approved! 

The Southeast Alaska Mitigation Fund is Approved! 

Restoration & Mitigation
Our wetlands and waterways provide unparalleled services to humans and the environment.  Well known for harboring amazing biodiversity, wetlands play a critical role in the water cycle by naturally filtering and regulating the flow of water, helping clean water, controlling flooding, and preventing drought in dryer climates.  In much of the world, these “ecosystem services” have been undervalued.   It is estimated that since 1900 approximately 64-71% of the world’s wetlands have been lost (Davidson, 2014), with the drivers of this decline coming from intensive agricultural production, urbanization, irrigation, pollution, etc. (TEEB, 2013).  The loss has real consequence, not only for fish and wildlife but for the livelihoods and probability of businesses that can be affected by flooding, drought, and poor water quality. Here in Southeast Alaska, we are lucky to…
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Juneau Native Plant Nursery Supports Local Restoration Projects

Juneau Native Plant Nursery Supports Local Restoration Projects

Restoration & Mitigation
  Willow and cottonwood trees at SAWC's native plant nursery in Juneau are thriving this summer thanks to an abundance of rain, and occasional sunshine, in Juneau. The nursery hosts more than 300 trees, each one started from a portion of a branch "borrowed" from wild trees in early spring. These sticks, called dormant cuttings, are placed upright in soil-filled pots. The moist soil stimulates the bark to quickly produce roots, known as adventitious roots, and a few weeks later numerous new branches sprout from the cutting above the soil surface. By summer's end the cuttings have transformed into bushy little trees. SAWC and its partners plant these trees at restoration sites around Juneau where they stabilize soil, shade streams, and provide food and habitat for countless creatures, large and small.…
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Resource Managers Build Watershed Restoration Capacity at Regional Workshop

Resource Managers Build Watershed Restoration Capacity at Regional Workshop

Events, Trainings & Opportunities, Restoration & Mitigation
  The 2016 Southeast Alaska Stream and Watershed Restoration Workshop brought together 21 Natural Resource Management Practitioners from across the region and 6 experienced Instructors from the Pacific Northwest for five days of intensive watershed restoration study, discussion, and field visits on Prince of Wales Island this May. Led by a cadre of Restoration Practitioners from The US Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service based in Oregon, the workshop brought new perspectives on watershed restoration goals and objectives, design, implementation, and monitoring. Instructors shared their expertise and experience working on watershed restoration efforts throughout the Pacific Northwest, and facilitated lively discussion around the opportunities, needs, challenges, and successes of restoration in Southeast Alaska.   Participants spent a day in the field on POW at a reach of…
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SAWC to assist with Shelikof Creek restoration project

SAWC to assist with Shelikof Creek restoration project

Community Watershed Stewardship, Restoration & Mitigation
  SAWC will be partnering with the Sitka Conservation Society, The Nature Conservancy, and the Tongass National Forest with their efforts to restore fish habitat in Shelikof Creek on Kruzof Island this year. Shelikof Creek is an important recreational, subsistence, commercial, and sport-guided salmon and steelhead stream near Sitka. Approximately 26% of the streamside forests in this watershed were logged in the 1960’s and 70’s. During that harvest, segments of the stream were also “cleaned”. This was a common practice back in those days where stream beds were used as roads to access timber stands and large wood was actually removed from the stream. These activities occurred before unharvested stream buffers were mandated, in order to protect habitat, by policy in 1990. Restoring habitat in Shelikof Creek was identified as…
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