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Beginning in 1989, the Trout Unlimited South Coast Chapter, based in southern Orange County, undertook a series of large stream restoration projects on tributaries of the Kern River and the South Fork Kern River. Working in close association with the Sequoia National Forest and fisheries biologist Matt Lechner, we organized seven restoration projects to benefit three species of native trout: the Kern River rainbow, Volcano Creek rainbow, and the Little Kern golden trout. The projects included:
Everyone traveled quite a long way for these multi-day work parties. Despite the remote locations involved, we had exceedingly good turnouts, with 175 people turning up one year. The TU Cooking Crew, led by Jimmy Cronin, was on hand to provide meals over the course of the weekend. California TU leader Leo Cronin always felt that feeding the volunteers was really important. Not only is it a civilized practice, but providing meals leaves everyone free to focus on the business at hand, which is conservation. On several occasions, Patagonia helped us out with the food costs. Local FFF clubs, especially the Aguabonita Fly Fishers and the Kaweah Fly Fishers, provided cases of soft drinks in addition to quite a few enthusiastic participants. The goals of each project varied, but one frequent objective was to help minimize erosion by reinforcing streambanks with filter fabric or coco-matting and planting native willows in the riparian zone. Sometimes we built simple wooden fences, called “knee knockers”, to help keep cattle out of the creek. On the earlier projects, we often built extensive instream structures, but as time went on, there was greater emphasis on leaving less visual evidence of our presence behind. Sometimes, we used notched logs to create plunge pools. These help aerate the water and reduce water temperatures to help trout survive the hottest summer months. At Fish Creek, we built structures below a culvert to slow down runoff from the road above. This reduced sedimentation of spawning areas. We also used railroad ties to create some undercut areas along the streambanks to provide cover for fish. At Peppermint Creek, we used instream structures to encourage wide, shallow streamflows to become narrow and deep. At Click’s Creek, we installed a large, fiberglass wildlife guzzler and removed lodgepole pines which were encroaching on a meadow there. One of the largest projects was “South Creek at Parker Meadow”, where 140 people worked to stop the advancement of a large headcut, a severely eroded meadow section that would have gotten much worse without our efforts. The routine on all these projects was to work hard for about 6 or 7 hours on Saturday, and then finish up the various project sites on Sunday with a shorter session. Great emphasis was placed on safety and a sprained ankle was the worst injury anyone sustained. Back at the campsite in the evening, a hearty dinner of barbecued tri-tip or chicken awaited, along with some story telling, beer drinking and a good deal of camaraderie around the campfire. On later projects, the Forest Service brought their portable firefighter showers along. Needless to say, these were very popular with the volunteers. It is amazing how much a hundred people can accomplish when they put their minds to it. As the folks from the Forest Service told us on many occasions, the resource work completed by our volunteers on these projects wouldn’t otherwise have been possible and they were very happy to have our help. See also: |
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