Happy
Camp, Calif. — Fifteen natural resource professionals and a
representative from the office of Congressman Mike Thompson recently
met on the Klamath to learn about current restoration work and to
get their hands dirty helping improve fish habitat on Klamath
tributaries, a press release announced this week.
The Mid Klamath Watershed Council, with the help of their AmeriCorps
member Susan Pienta, coordinated a two-day restoration tour from
Aug. 26-27 to showcase restoration efforts in the mid Klamath
subbasin.
According to the release, the Mid Klamath Restoration Tour brought
together agencies funding fisheries and upslope restoration in the
Klamath Basin to better understand current and pending restoration
actions in the Middle Klamath subbasin being implemented by the
Karuk Tribe, Mid Klamath Watershed Council, U.S. Forest Service,
Klamath National Forest and their project partners.
“While this region is sparsely populated and has received far less
attention than other areas in the Klamath Basin, recent studies have
highlighted the critical role it plays for threatened Klamath
salmon,” the release stated.
The first day had participants rafting down the Klamath, stopping at
tributaries to improve fish passage and increase cover for salmon.
On the second day, the group met in Happy Camp to look at additional
fish passage and fuels reduction projects, and the first stages of
a construction project that will create off-channel ponds in Seiad
and increase available quality habitat for the threatened coho
salmon.
The co-sponsors of the event included the AmeriCorps Watershed
Stewards Project, The Karuk Tribe, Happy Camp Ranger District and
the Happy Camp Fire Safe Council. The project was a service project
through the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project (WSP).
WSP is a community-based watershed restoration program that places
44 members in 14 communities throughout Northern California from San
Francisco to the Oregon border. A special project of the California
Conservation Corps, WSP is sponsored by CaliforniaVolunteers and
administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
