2017 MKWC Annual Report

Mid Klamath Watershed Council 2017 Annual Report The mission of the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) is to collaboratively plan and implement watershed restoration, coordinate education on land management issues, and promote community vitality.

We’ve been at it for 17 years, and we’re still going strong.

A night burn glows during the 2017 Klamath Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX).

What Makes MKWC Work Program Directors Will Harling, Executive Director, Fire and Fuels Program Co-Director Luna Latimer, Executive Director Carol Earnest, Watershed Education Program Director Charles Wickman, Fisheries Program Director Erica Terence, Outreach and Development Program Director Myanna Nielsen, Administrative Director Nancy Bailey, Fire and Fuels Program Co-Director Ramona Taylor, Foodsheds Program Director Tanya Chapple, Plants Program Director

Project Coordinators Arielle Halpern, Western Klamath Restoration Partnership (WKRP) Partnership Coordinator Brendan Twieg, Technical Expert Chris Root, Fire and Fuels Project Coordinator Erin Cadwell, IT Coordinator Indigo Mack, Foodsheds Project Coordinator Jimmy Peterson, Fisheries Project Coordinator Laura Jaffe-Stender, Watershed Education Project Coordinator

Local students learn to measure snowpack with Forest Service hydrologist Jen Ford.

Michael Max Hentz, Project Coordinator Michael Stearns, Panamnik Building Coordinator Mitzi Wickman, Fisheries Project Coordinator, GIS Specialist

Board of Directors Chris Hatton - President Dean Davis Vice President Molli Myers - Treasurer Jon Grunbaum - Secretary

Mark DuPont Jeanerette Jacups-Johnny Blythe Reis Carol Sharp Michael Stearns

Tony Dennis, Fisheries Project Coordinator

Administrative Staff Amanda Rudolph, Accounts Payable Blythe Reis, Administrator, Events Coordinator Heather Campbell, Grants Administrator, Wildlife Program Director Leslie Laird, Payroll Specialist

2017 Stewardship Interns

Annabelle Potvin, Office Assistant

Autumn Allgier

Estalita Galindo

Pamela Mattz, Office Assistant, Watershed Education Program Assistant

Anna McLane

Euriah Hendrickson

Rachel Budai, Office Assistant

Che-ere Cooper

Rudolph Galindo

Alyssa Allgier, Office Assistant

Daniel Woodman

Tashawna Brink

Beverly Yip, Office Assistant

2017 MKWC Employees Alan Crockett, Fisheries Amber McVicar, Plants Andrew Somers, Fire and Fuels Brandon Tripp, Fire and Fuels Brent Boykin, Fisheries Chad Wilder, Fire and Fuels Charley Reed, Fisheries/Fire and Fuels Clifton Whitehouse, Fire and Fuels Above: MKWC’s Plants Crew, Brushing Crew and Restoration Intern team up to help enhance fish habitat.

Danny Davis, Fire and Fuels Dennis Whitehouse, Fire and Fuels Devin Finegan, Fire and Fuels Eileen Kitayama, Fire and Fuels Eric Fieberg, Fisheries Eric Nelson, Fire and Fuels Crew Leader Esther Andrews, Fire and Fuels Florance Condos, Fisheries Geena Talley, Fisheries George Vest, Fire and Fuels Jess McLaughlin, Fire and Fuels Jonathan Mohr, Fire and Fuels Larry Alameda, Fire and Fuels

Above: Most of MKWC’s 2017 Brushing Crew making the WUI safer.

Lee Anderson, Fire and Fuels Mark Dupont, Foodsheds Senior Technician, Fire and Fuels Field Technician Maya Mollier, Fisheries Crew Leader Micah McCovey, Stewardship Intern Pam Ward, Custodian Rachel Krasner, Fisheries Rony Reed, Fire and Fuels Crew Leader and Fisheries Field Technician Rudy Galindo, Senior Field Technician Shauna Mayfield, Plants Stuart Steidle, Fire and Fuels Sydney Stewart, Fire and Fuels, Fisheries Tai Kim, Fisheries

Above: MKWC’s fisheries crew stays dry for the 2017 field season.

Is Who Makes MKWC Work

Tic-Mil Ashley, Fire and Fuels Bill Mansa, Fire and Fuels

Restoring Wild Fish Runs Seiad Creek Coho Habitat Enhancement Project MKWC and partners completed its first large scale instream habitat restoration project in early October 2017. Working in coordination with landowners Al and Pat Durazo, the Karuk Tribal Fisheries Program, FioriGeoSciences, GeoEngineers, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, PacifiCorp, Ken’s Water Tender, and ABC Logging, MKWC reconfigured over a half mile of lower Seiad Creek channel, removing push-up levees, relaxing the floodplain, adding sinuosity to the main channel, adding side channels and doz-

ens of wood structures, and replanting with native tree and shrub species. This project was over ten years in the making and reversed nearly a hundred years of degradation to the form and function of Seiad Creek.

weak run this past year. Even with bleak returns, it’s still crucial to collect data. Due to drought conditions this winter, our crews are continuing to survey and still seeing new redds.

Coho Spawner Surveys

Lawrence Ponds

Under the third year of a contract with PacifiCorp, MKWC crews conducted 69 coho spawner surveys on fifteen tributaries of the Klamath River between Portuguese Creek and Cottonwood Creek from November 15th through December 28th. Crew members flagged 64 coho redds and collected samples from 9 coho carcasses.

These low numbers indicated a

In the fall of 2017, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council and partners constructed two offchannel ponds connected to Horse Creek, a tributary to the Klamath River in Siskiyou County. 9,762 square feet of low-flow rearing habitat (which expands to over 13,000 square feet during high flow events) was created to provide salmon and steelhead refuge from high winter

Above: Don’t worry floodplain, you can relax! A major channel reconfiguration made Seiad Creek more fish friendly.

Above: A MKWC salmon surveyor in the upper reaches of Seiad Creek.

and spring flows. The ponds were connected to Horse Creek on October 23, 2017 and within three months approximately 800 juvenile coho salmon and 50 young steelhead entered the ponds, our snorkel surveys showed. These coho juveniles and steelhead will have a better chance of survival compared to ones that do not have overwintering rearing habitat, according to scientific investigations.

They will also have better growth rates and therefore be more likely to successfully complete their life cycle, from rearing in Horse Creek to returning as adults to spawn. Creating these two ponds was exciting, challenging, and it was a pleasure working with local excavator operators and amazing landowners dedicated to the long term benefits of taking care of this land. It’s rewarding

to not only improve the quantity and quality of habitat available to fish, but also to provide jobs in our small town and strengthen relations with our neighbors by implementing a project together.

Restoration Monitoring Our fisheries crew doesn’t just build things. We also keep tabs on how the ponds and channel reconfigurations are working and fix problems when they occur. To that end, our fish passage and salmon spawner survey crews employed seven college aged youth during the summer and fall months. The Fall Chinook Spawner Crew has increased funding for 2017 and was able to hire another crew for the months of October – January. We monitored 15 offchannel habitat projects for

salmonid usage and water quality twice per month. Based on ocular fish counts done during snorkel surveys, more than 4,000 juvenile coho are currently residing in all MKWC’s off -channel ponds. In total, several thousand juvenile coho, Chinook and steelhead utilized all of MKWC’s constructed ponds during the summer of 2017, our surveys showed. And while we do most of our work on the ground, we also sometimes take time to share what we’re learning and compare notes with other fisheries restoration practitioners. MKWC senior fisheries staff will be presenting at the Salmonid Restoration Federations annual fisheries conference about MKWC’s ongoing restoration efforts and fish monitoring results in spring of 2018.

One Refuge At A Time

Many Small Ponds

Above: "Upstream Lawrence Pond" during construction on October 10, 2017, showing excavated trench for securing wood structures. These wood structures will provide cover for salmon and steelhead as the grow and get ready to leave for the ocean.

Right: MKWC crew at the end of a day pile burning wood debris created from clearing for the ponds, December, 2017.

Far Right: The off channel ponds provide stable temperature conditions from ground water which benefits salmonid growth and survival.

Upstream Lawrence Pond: on October 16, 2017 we took this aerial photo showing the three pools of the pond complex. This pond was connected to Horse Creek on October 23, 2017 and already has over 400 juvenile salmon rearing in it.

Make One Big Difference

Stand Up

Top left: Senior Fisheries Technician and Plants Program Director Tanya Chapple assists volunteer Marisela Villa Nuevo cross the river during a fall Chinook spawner survey.

Bottom left: Female Chinook salmon on her redd, Salmon River.

Top right: Juvenile coho in Decoursey pond along Middle Creek.

Bottom right: Watershed Education Director, Restoration Interns and Fish Passage crew members enhance the creek mouth at Slate Creek and Camp Creek.

And Be Counted

Getting Ahead of The Fire Curve event. Speakers included Ken Pimlott, the director of CalFire, who flew in by helicopter to address the group. He stressed his commitment to increase his agency’s implementation and support of prescribed burning in the Wildland Urban Interface.

Above: Participants of a KFES field trip study burn effects on the ground.

Barnie Gyant, U.S. Forest Service Deputy Region 5 Forester, also spoke Fifth KFES May 10-12, 2017 to the group, expressing the importance of careful wildfire management and getting beyond the Every three years, MKWC and partners sponsor the standard full suppression model. Klamath National Klamath Fire Ecology Symposium (KFES). 2017 Forest Supervisor Patty Grantham also attended marked the fifth KFES, and one of the best. Over the symposium. Later in the year she made a choice 100 people attended the symposium to hear fire to manage the Island Fire in the Southeast Marble scientists, cultural fire practitioners, and agency Mountain Wilderness Area for resource objectives. representatives from across the country speak This is agency speak for allowing wildfires to burn in about fire management and the use of prescribed the backcountry because they are burning at low to fire in restoration. The theme of the conference moderate severity and pose little risk to communiwas “Increasing the Pace, Scale, and Quality of Fire ties. Despite this area not burning in over a century, in the Klamath Mountains” managers had the social license for letting this fire Keynote speaker, retired fire ecologist Carl Skinner, burn through the summer. The decision reflects a pointed out that fire is returning whether we like it significant shift amongst fire management instituor not, but that how this fire comes back depends tions away from fire suppression at every turn. on us. Many presenters echoed and elaborated on Skinner’s message during the three day event. The need for fire in this landscape is something tribal Manual Fuels Reduction in 2017 practitioners have known forever. Tribal presentFor the first time, in 2017 the MKWC fuels crew ers, Margo Robbins and Bill Tripp spoke of the balworked through THE WHOLE YEAR. This year-round ance of fire on the landscape and emphasized the crew operation meant more good jobs in our comneed for fire in managing cultural resources. munity, more good work on the ground, and inAgency partners were also well represented at the creased capacity to restore our watershed. The

crew accomplished fuels reduction and forest health treatments on 130 acres of public and private land. MKWC also administered a contract with the Happy Camp Fire Safe Council for brushing on 20 acres in Clear Creek, bringing the total to 150 acres of brushing.

owners for fire-safe brushing and clearing near their homes, for which they will receive partial reimbursement once complete. As always, this program encourages individual responsibility and facilitates increased awareness of wildfire risk mitigation needs and actions.

The 80 public land acres were brushed and thinned through a subcontract with the Karuk Tribe. The project, funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), allows Tribal and MKWC crews to do manual fuels reduction on a portion of the 3,000-acre Orleans Community Fuels Reduction (OCFR) project. The Forest Service planned OCFR and began implementing it some years ago, before a variety of mismanagement incidents shut them down. This new round of OCFR is more collaborative in nature, with more input from the Karuk Tribe. MKWC is proud to be a part of the boots on the ground in this implementation.

FIREWISE

Private lands brushing, funded by the USFWS Partners program, was accomplished on about 50 acres, on five separate properties. The MKWC brushing crew persevered through work that was made more strenuous and slow due to the snow storm of early January 2017 that had brought down quantities of branches and clumps of whole trees into the project areas.

MKWC Fire and Fuels staff organized numerous educational events and summertime risk reduction activities around Orleans and Somes Bar in the first half of 2017. With Firewise partners - Orleans Volunteer Fire Department and the Karuk Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources - MKWC coordinated Firewise Day events at the two local elementary schools, two free chipping days all around town, and two separate community fuels reduction projects: a roadside treatment in the vulnerable Lower Camp neighborhood, and a brush clearing and chipping event at the Crawford Creek neighborhood water system site. All of these events and activities involved neighborhood volunteers. The chipping and brushing work was partially funded by PG&E’s vegetation management program.

FLASH in 2017

Humboldt County initiated a new round of the popular reimbursement program FLASH (Fire-adapted Lands And Safe Homes). In spite of new environmental regulations imposed by the program, MKWC staff was able to sign up nine land-

Karuk Fire and Fuels Director Dave Medford and MKWC brushing crew member Jess McLaughlin worked during a Firewise roadside chipping day organized by MKWC.

Protecting Homes and Towns

Returning Fire To Its Rightful Place

2018 TREX participants hold the line.

2017 Klamath River Prescribed Fire Training Exchange Over the past four years, the Klamath TREX has hosted over 300 participants, burned over 1,500 acres of complex burns on over 80 properties in the Wildland Urban Interface, and provided critical training to participants on both cultural fire management and the federal Incident Management System that is used to organize the event. This year, from September 29th to October 14th, more than 80 participants gathered in Orleans and Happy Camp, completing controlled burns on 14 units totaling 310 acres. On days when Red Flag warnings mandated pauses in the burning, participants prepared an additional 800+ acres for future burns. Good fire means putting the right amount of fire in the right place at the right time. The fire effects from this year’s TREX were phenomenal, but not without excitement.

The same east winds that fanned the fatal blazes through the heart of Santa Rosa were at play throughout the TREX event, causing low humidities and some spot fires outside the units.

Partnerships with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), local contractors, the U.S. Forest Service and others ensured resources were on hand to pick up these spots at less than a quarter acre.

This is a critical difference between wildfires and prescribed

fires, especially in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Having resources staged, and burn plans that cover these eventualities allow fire to become the tool it has been for tribal communities for millennia. However, in the back country, the reality is that wildfires are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to fuels reduction and restoring fire regimes. The goal of the Klamath TREX, and on a more landscape scale through the WKRP, is to provide enough good “black” around communities—recently burned areas done in a controlled manner—to allow for wildfires to burn more outside of the WUI without impacting communities.

New relationships were forged with air quality managers, culminating in streamlined permitting for the 2017 Klamath TREX, and an embedded smoke modeler on our TREX Type III Incident Management Team. Lee Tarnay produced daily smoke messages for partners and affected communities that provide a great example of how we can turn public opinion on the smoke impacts from prescribed burning. After one of the worst fire seasons for smoke in recent years, many partners were fearful of public backlash against prescribed burning even as drift smoke from ongoing wildfires was affecting our communities. Through outreach before, during and after TREX, accompanied by compelling infographics like the one included in this report, we were able to achieve broad sup-

port for our burns.

Western Klamath Restoration Partnership Update

non-FS members on the Interdisciplinary Team planning the project, to having forestry crews comprised of FS, Karuk Tribe, and MKWC staff completing on-the-ground project work. This included invasive weed surveys and abatement, cultural resource surveys and archaeological surveys, surveys for threatened and endangered species, flagging units and exclusion zones and buffers, forestry plots, creating and managing spatial data, and much more.

The Western Klamath Restoration Partnership (WKRP) is moving forward on multiple fronts to restore fire process in the Western Klamath Mountains. WKRP supports the Klamath TREX effort to build capacity for implementing the large, landscape scale prescribed burns that are the central feature of our three pilot projects totaling over 50,000 acres in the Happy Camp, Salmon River and Ukonom Ranger Districts. The Somes Bar Integrated Fire Management Project is the furthest along in planning, and a draft environmental assessment is expected to be released in the spring of 2018. This project involved the WKRP throughout NEPA planning, from having

WKRP also had a productive year on the organizational front, creating a WKRP website, hosting several large public workshops, and dozens of core team and working group meetings to provide leadership and direction to fundraising, communications and outreach efforts, project planning, prescription development, research priorities, etc. Late in 2017, WKRP coordinator Arielle Halpern stepped down in order to pursue work closer to her home in Mt. Shasta. She will be missed, but left us with a strong organizational foundation to carry on.

WKRP members presented at conferences and symposia around the country to share innovations developed through the Partnership.

New relationships were also forged with the Klamath National Forest through the signing of an agreement that allows for implementation of cross-boundary burning between public and private lands. A similar agreement with Six Rivers National Forest has been in place for the past three years.

Managing for Resource Objectives: In recent years, fire management agencies have shifted from immediate suppression of wildfires to a more nuanced approach of allowing fires to burn to larger containment areas, when they judge that the benefits of allowing a fire in the back country to burn outweigh the risks, in terms of forest health and community safety. In US Forest Service speak, this is called managing wildfires for resource objectives.

In The Western Klamath Mountains

Fire For Good!

Klamath TREX participant Aja Conrad lights a grassy riverbar during a culturally significant burn in 2017.

A burn unit prioritizing restoration of oak woodlands burns low and slow during the 2017 Klamath TREX.

Partners in the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership visualize restoring natural fire processes to this watershed on a landscape scale. Pictured above from left to right: MKWC board member Dean Davis, Karuk Tribe Deputy Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization Bill Tripp, Cultural Fire Management Council, US Forest Service Orleans District Ranger Nolan Colegrove, and Karuk Fisheries Manager Emilio Tripp.

A Junction Elementary School student gets the feeling for participating in TREX during a visit to the MKWC supply unit.

Bringing Prescribed Burns Back

Purging, Bashing, Pulling Invasive Weeds Two MKWC stewardship interns show the results of their work to eradicate Scotch broom.

Plants Program Director Tanya Chapple helps to revegetate an off-channel fish habitat pond built by MKWC and partners.

Invasive Weeds Management: MKWC’s incredible staff and volunteers continued the diligent effort that is invasive weeds management in 2017. We pulled an impressive heap of invasive weeds from our Mid Klamath watershed, 169,167 individual plants to be exact. Say every one of those weeds removed would have made 10 seeds, then we kept 1.7 million seeds from growing into seed producing invasive plants. This is a conservative estimate; depending on species, the plants we pull can generate 10 to 1,000 seeds per plant. Our heap of weeds consisted of 16 different priority invasive plant species at 178 distinct locations over a gross area of 163 acres. Out of the 178 locations, 18 are potentially eradicated, 124 were completely removed, and 24 were newly mapped this year. The summer youth crew had unprecedented enthusiasm for removing yellow starthistle. They removed 9.4 acres of 129,121 starthistle plants from isolated locations

approaching wilderness areas. We welcomed 6 new volunteers and had 35 volunteers return to help in our weeding workdays. Our weeds work is supported by the US Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation.

Riparian Restoration: Invasive Weeds and Fuels technicians joined forces in the fall to reseed and plant more than 1000 native trees and shrubs to improve salmon habitat restoration projects at Seiad Creek and Horse Creek. In addition to a fantastic crew, this work was made possible through three community workdays and an afternoon with Happy Camp High School students. MKWC implements this important fisheries restoration in partnership with the Karuk Tribe and supported by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife and PacifiCorps Coho Enhancement Fund. These newly completed projects are already showing success, juvenile coho are utilizing the off

Native plant enthusiasts identify botanical finds along the Woolley Creek trail.

channel habitat constructed at Horse Creek and adult coho have spawned in the Seiad Creek realignment project area.

Sudden Oak Death Surveillance: The Mid Klamath Watershed Council and the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources were supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Western Integrated Pest Management Center to prepare our communities for the approach of the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum which causes Sudden Oak Death (SOD).

This plant disease can kill tanoak trees, but is not yet known to be present in the middle Klamath, which is at high risk of Phytophthora ramorum infestation by human caused and natural spread. This is due to the high frequency and abun-

dance of tanoak and California bay laurel, which are the most important hosts for this disease. Oregon Department of Forestry recently estimated that the disease can travel three to five miles per year without human aid if left untreated. Currently, there are treatments in the two nearest infestations to help slow the disease, but their efficacy to slow the rate of spread is unknown. Even if this rate is reduced by 50%, it will take a maximum of nine years until the pathogen arrives. To prepare ourselves and our community, the Karuk Tribe, MKWC, UC Cooperative Extension, and the Forest Pathology lab at UC Berkeley worked together to hold several outreach events and monitored streams and vegetation for the presence of this potentially devastating pathogen. Thankfully, the pathogen was not found in the Mid Klamath this year.

And Promoting Native Plant Biota

Training The Next Generation

Local youth improve fis during a summer resto

Seiad Elementary School students collect data during a fall salmon survey.

In 2017 Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) Watershed Education staff continued its cornerstone activities, offering hands-on restoration and monitoring activities, as well as in-class presentations to local students in Orleans, Somes Bar, Forks of Salmon, Happy Camp, Seiad Valley, and Yreka. Collaborating with the Karuk Tribe, Klamath National Forest, Six Rivers National Forest, Salmon River Restoration Council, and US Fish and Wildlife Service, our staff offered a diversity of projects to engage students in place-based educational activities: salmon spawner surveys, snow pack measurements, and community garden improvement.

Throughout 2017, MKWC engaged

200 youth during school months and summer break. During the school year, students participated in 11 field trips that actively engaged them in watershed restoration such as, tree planting, willow brush bundle fish habitat enhancement, fish passage improvement, and invasive plant removal projects. Students also participated in gardening workshops and projects.

Additionally, 16 watershed monitoring field trips took place, involving students in downstream migrant trap monitoring for presence, health and diversity of fish species and Fall Chinook spawning surveys in Orleans, Happy Camp, and Seiad Valley. During one tree planting field trip, a high school student val-

idated our efforts when they expressed, “If I could do this every day I would be a straight A student.”

Students at four schools continued to participate in citizen science programs, contributing to authentic science through data collection.

Students reported precipitation data from their campus rain gauge to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS). Additionally, students observed plant life cycle stages, or “phenophases”, to the National Phenological Society’s Nature’s Notebook program.

To document program activities and improve computer literacy

sh passage at the mouth of Rock Creek oration raft trip.

Youth work together during KSOS.

skills, students wrote blog posts and used Google programs like Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs, to analyze citizen science data and reflect on field trips.

In the summer, 20 youth participated in the week-long KlamathSiskiyou Outdoor School (KSOS), to improve outdoor skills and learn about the Klamath watershed during backpacking, kayaking, and rafting activities. Three restoration raft trips took place during July, in which youth participants accessed river locations to improve juvenile fish passage, increase cover in riparian habitats, and pull invasive plants.

Eight high school-aged stewardship interns and one restoration intern joined the MKWC payroll in July, working throughout the summer with different programs to learn a variety of skills in fisheries, plants, fire and fuels, foodsheds, forestry, and watershed education. The 2017 stewardship intern crew was: Autumn Allgier, Tashawna Brink, Cher-ere Cooper, Rudoph Galindo, Ella Galindo, Euriah Hendrickson, Anna McLane, and Daniel Woodman. MKWC’s restoration intern was Micah McCovey.

MKWC has been implementing Watershed Education programming for over 10 years. As the

years go by, we see students that were once eight year olds on a restoration raft trip participate in salmon surveys when they reach the 6th grade. We then hit the trails with them during the KlamathSiskiyou Outdoor School, hire them on to the stewardship intern crew when they reach high school, see their applications for technician jobs after they graduate, and have them help mentor the next round of watershed stewards. Because of this continuity in the Watershed Education Program, we have the privilege of supporting the next generation of inspired natural resource professionals and enthusiasts.

Of Watershed Stewards

Tribe Leads Food Security Movement The Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) Community Foodshed Program along with partners UC Berkeley, the Karuk, Yurok, and Klamath Tribes, UC Extension, and other community partners, in August completed a five-year food security grant, USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture – Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

MKWC’s food security grant ended.

But food security work in the Mid Klamath is not ending. The Karuk Tribe is now the leading implementer of food security projects in the region, through its Píkyav Field Institute and Farm to School program.

MKWC’s Watershed Education program will play a supporting role in some aspects of food security projects such as school gardens, locally sourcing food for school lunches, and improved knowledge of and access to nutritious foods through the Karuk Tribe’s USDA Farm to School grant.

Above: A local elementary school student harvests strawberries from the school garden for a snack.

MKWC Plays Support Role

Above: A Third Thursday community fundraiser dinner spreads out in the backyard space behind the Panamnik Building.

Panamnik Building Pushes Onward The Panamnik Building continues to serve as a hub of activity for MKWC’s work here on the Klamath.

Early mornings find our crews loading up for their work on fuels reduction, fisheries projects, invasive weed removal campaigns, and other restoration work. Our offices serve our needs adequately, although we dream of more functional and modern workplace. The community space in our large building continues to serve many functions such as five weekly exercise classes, a myriad of meetings and a fundraising dinner every month. This month’s dinner is raising funds for a program that trains African doctors. Next month’s dinner will raise funds for a local school.

While our staff and community use the Panamnik Building, we are improving the building and how it operates. We delayed our new roof and covered entry project when our contractor needed more time. Work on this critical improvement will begin in June. When the roof project is complete and protected from the weather, we will begin a major remodeling project for the entire building. With generous support from the Humboldt Area Foundation, we have charted a plan and a fundraising strategy for this final phase of modernizing our facility.

We received a generous donation of a backup propane generator and automatic transfer switch, which will power the entire Panamnik Building during our frequent power outages in this rural area.

The Panamnik Building is the site for an antenna for the Karuk Tribe’s Aan Chuuphan wireless internet service. Having automatic backup electricity will help keep this antenna powered, thus increasing the reliability of internet connectivity for not only our building but the whole town of Orleans.

MKWC made some recent technological improvements to our offices. We did some electronic housekeeping and installed new network equipment to improve our capacity for electronic devices. We installed a new voice over internet provider telephone system. MKWC now has seven telephone extensions with voice mail and automatic call routing. The new phone system requires an adjustment in our habits, but promises to make our work more efficient in the long-term.

We will continue to modernize and improve the functions of our old grocery store, now a community center and home to our offices and equipment, with the help and support of our local community.

Somehow, It All Happens!

(Thank You Admin Department!)

MKWC continues to grow and thrive and 2017 was a banner year for our beloved watershed. We were able to secure over $2.5 million in restoration funding - creating local jobs, and supporting local businesses, families, contractors and partners in the name of watershed restoration. Our amazing supporters have allowed us to run our fuels reduction crew year-round for the first time since our inception, complete another successful season fighting fire with fire, foster collaboration with local land owners to build beautifully enhanced habitat for fish and help facilitate implementation for the Western Klamath Restoration Project - all the while staying on track towards our third clean audit!

Behind this success was a record 82 employees in 2017: 28 new hires, 27 seasonal, 15 full-time employees, 32 part-time employees and 8 interns. With the exception of the interns, all of our employee numbers are up from 2016 and in totality account for roughly half of our operating budget, or $1.2 million in employee compensation and $8,083.63 in stipends. We are pleased to report that 100% of our funding goes towards our mission of a thriving community working together to restore our watershed! Thank you to all of our employees and partners who've made 2017 a wonderful success!

Thanks To You...

We Do! These generous institutions have contributed $500 or more in funds: Bella Vista Foundation

National Forest Foundation

California Coastal Conservancy

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

California Department of Food and Agriculture

PacifiCorp

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Pacific Power Foundation

California Fire Safe Council

Penney Family Foundation

David Allen Family Foundation

Six Rivers National Forest

Dean Witter Foundation

University of California at Davis

First 5 Humboldt

US Bureau of Reclamation

Humboldt County

US Fire Learning Network

Humboldt Resource Advisory Council

US Fish and Wildlife Service

J. Vance Huckins Fund of Tides Foundation

US Forest Service

Karuk Tribe

Siskiyou Resource Advisory Council

Klamath National Forest

Yellow Chair Foundation

National Fire Protection Association

Wells Fargo

These kind individuals have given $500 or more in 2017 to help MKWC accomplish its mission:

Michael Cusack

Scott Arrants

Yew Ferrara

Jonathan and Teri McClelland

Dan and Eva Krall

Jon Grunbaum

Richard Cormier & Myanna Nielsen

Remembering Our Responsibilities

Rewards Us With Success Stories

Invasive Dalmatian toadflax was undiscovered on the Mid Klamath River until we found it in 2011. It may look pretty, but this invasive weed threatens ecological balance and cultural resources, so we make a point of removing it.

Learn more: www.mkwc.org (530) 627-3202, mail@mkwc.org