The mission of the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project is to conserve, restore, and enhance anadromous watersheds for future generations by linking education with high quality scientific practices.

Project Description

AmeriCorps WSP members are involved in a wide variety of watershed restoration, assessment and conservation projects, teaching watershed and fisheries-based curriculum to K-12 students, participating in myriad community outreach events, and receiving high quality training in natural resources and professional development topics.
Each AmeriCorps member is placed with an organization which is committed to preserving and restoring California’s watersheds and native salmon runs, whether it is a Federal, State or County agency, Tribal department, or a grassroots-based non-profit. Watershed Stewards Project members each work under the guidance of a natural resource professional at their placement site to fulfill the WSP mission and provide support for their site.
Each site varies in the duties, schedule, and scope of work, however, all sites provide some amount of watershed assessment, education and outreach opportunities, and plenty of training opportunities for AmeriCorps members. While some sites provide a smorgasbord of everything WSP is involved in, certain sites have a very specific focus. For example, some placement sites highlight fisheries policy, hands-on monitoring experience, community outreach and education, or a specialized branch of watershed science. The diversity of sites and experiences available to members helps make WSP such a unique and effective program!

Community Outreach and Education

AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project members engage community members in their local watersheds through outreach and education. Throughout their term, members learn to effectively teach watershed concepts, manage classrooms, speak to the public at outreach events about fisheries and natural resources, use creative and kinetic educational games, and develop and attend outdoor education fairs and events. Additionally, each AmeriCorps member is responsible for planning at least one hands-on watershed restoration project from start to finish, which includes identifying a restoration need, soliciting donations, recruiting community volunteers through media outreach, attending and supervising the event, and providing project follow-up, feedback and reporting. Known as an Individual Service Project (ISP), these events help educate, connect communities to their local watersheds, and provide professional development for members.

Watershed Assessment and Restoration

The hands-on field experience provided at each placement site varies by region and season. However, the following are a sampling of the field duties members may have the opportunity to engage in, what the duties entail, and a brief description of why these are critical to understanding watershed processes:

• Downstream Migrant Trapping – Juvenile salmon and trout are trapped, counted, measured, and sometimes tagged with pit tags or temporarily marked, then released back into the creek or river. This helps determine how many juvenile salmon are surviving long enough to make their way downriver to the ocean, and helps determine where and when to focus restoration efforts. These typically occur in spring and summer.

• Spawner/ Carcass/ Redd Surveys – Survey crews hike smaller tributaries or boat larger sections of rivers looking for salmon or trout (collectively known as salmonids) carcasses, redds (nests of salmonid eggs partially covered by cobble/ large gravel), and spawning adult fish. This shows where good spawning habitat exists, how many fish can be projected to survive, and how much of the watershed is accessible/ usable for fish. These occur in the fall and winter, depending upon the geographical location of the site.

• Snorkel Surveys (“Dives”) – Dive teams snorkel rivers and creeks to see first-hand where adult and juvenile fish are, assess whether they are using natural or man-made habitat structures, and understand population distribution. These can occur year-round, although there are dives throughout the summer months which utilize volunteers to snorkel the entire length of many local rivers.

• Habitat Typing, Riparian and Habitat Surveys – Some members spend a large amount of time throughout the summer and early fall surveying streams and rivers to determine the habitat available for juvenile salmonids. These surveys consist of two members walking the entire length of a stream system quantitatively assessing physical aspects of the channel, such as temperature, width, length, depth, substrate, gradient, canopy, etc. This data is then translated into a report utilized by biologists and habitat specialists to identify areas in need of watershed restoration.

• Restoration Implementation – Teams of trained restorationists build habitat structures, implement bioengineering projects, and improve habitat and fish access. This work occurs year-round in different ways, although it is sometimes unsafe in rainy or otherwise inclement weather.

• Other Restoration – Tree planting, planting native plants, removing invasive plant species, fire safeing and fuels reduction, collecting native plant seed, and other upslope restoration work is a major focus of some sites, and a component of all of them. These projects overlap, and occur year-round.

• Road Decommissioning, Culvert and Road Failure Analysis – Some members get the opportunity to analyze the source of excessive instream sediment, and participate in mapping and monitoring road and culvert failures. Surveys and GPS mapping are critical to this work.

• Macroinvertebrate Sampling – Sampling for aquatic macroinvertebrates helps to understand stream health, as many macroinvertebrates are indicator species of overall water quality as well as food for juvenile salmonids. This sampling sometimes occurs in conjunction with sediment and water quality analysis.

• Water Quality Monitoring and Hydrological Studies – Some of our sites have an excellent infrastructure for water quality and hydrology monitoring, including field sampling and laboratory analysis. Members are engaged in steady data collection at these sites, as well as helping analyze, report and draw conclusions on the data collected over an extended period of time. This occurs year-round, but often collection is important during high and low flow periods to determine the effect of water quantity and sediment movement on water quality.

Lab, Office and Site Support

WSP members have the opportunity to be involved in nearly every aspect of watershed management, monitoring and restoration. During certain times of year, the work moves indoors predominantly and members are engaged in report writing, data analysis, document preparation and technical writing, project design and development, GIS analysis, website design, fish scale reading, sediment studies, and other lab and office projects depending on the site’s focus.

Program Requirements and Benefits for Members

Qualifications:Minimum of 25 semester units of science and/or equivalent scientific fieldwork/study; strong interest in natural resources; dedication to serving the community full-time.

Locations: Year 14 Placement Sites include Humboldt Fish Action Council (Arcata), USFS Redwood Sciences Lab (Arcata/ Ft. Bragg), DFG Eureka, USFS Supervisor's Office (Eureka), SPAWN (Forest Knolls), DFG Ft. Bragg, DFG Fortuna, CCC Fortuna, WSP Team Leader positions (Fortuna), USFS Happy Camp, DFG Hopland, Yurok Tribe Environmental Program (Klamath), USFS Orleans, Mid Klamath Watershed Council (Orleans), Mattole Restoration Council (Petrolia), Mattole Salmon Group (Petrolia), Institute for Fisheries Resources (San Francisco), Salmon River Restoration Council (Sawyer's Bar), Trinity County Planning Department/ Trinity County Resource Conservation District (Weaverville), and DFG Yreka.
(click here for placement site information)

Duration:11 months and a minimum of 1,700 hours

Stipend: $1,160 monthly living stipend

Benefits: No-cost Medical Insurance, Child Care (eligibility requirements for child care benefits apply), Student Loan Deferment, and Numerous Training and Professional Development Opportunities

Educational Award: $4,725 upon completion of the 11-month/ 1700 hour term

• Completed 588,059 hours of national and community service
  
• Surveyed 17,968 stream and watershed miles
  
• Generated 2,314 scientific reports and databases
  
• Developed 1,298 watershed restoration projects and completed 80,421 hours of service toward watershed restoration
  
• Instructed 29,176 students using Real Science curriculum on salmon lifecycles, watershed processes, and best land-use practices
  
• Involved more than 3,410 k-12 students in restoration projects
  
• Completed 123,752 hours of community outreach and education
  
• Shared scientifically based salmon and watershed restoration information with 139,996 community members and more than 6,966 natural resource professionals
  
• Engaged 10,830 community volunteers in service to restore watersheds and educate watershed residents
  

In 1995, watershed assessments were limited to half the drainage basins in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. Today, through landowner support for restoration, WSP members have been granted access to private land in three quarters of watersheds from the Oregon border to San Luis Obispo.

The California Conservation Corps and the Department of Fish and Game are fiscal agents/partners of the Watershed Stewards Project.



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To contact us:

AmeriCorps*USA
Watershed Stewards Project
1455-C Sandy Prairie Court
Fortuna, CA 95540
helpfish@watershedstewards.com
(707) 725-8601
(707) 725-8602 - fax

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