On Monday, July 7, the Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council (LCUWC) and the Lake County Cooperative Weed Management Area (LCCWMA) teamed up to host a tour of cooperative restoration projects in the Warner Valley.

Both the LCUWC and the LCCWMA are local non-profit organizations made up of local stakeholders that collaborate with private landowners and public agencies. The LCCWMA assists in controlling noxious weed through chemical and biological control, education, and early detection rapid response methods.

The LCUWC strives to implement cooperative restoration projects that will have multiple benefits to the resource and the landowner, projects range from juniper control to bank stabilization to passage and screening efforts and much more.

The objective of the tour was to showcase volunteer efforts that both private landowners and public agencies are implementing to have a positive impact on the local resource.

The LCCWMA and the LCUWC found this tour as the perfect opportunity to inform the community of all the hard work that landowners and agencies have been putting out over the past several years to make the Warner Basin a better place.

Tour participants met at 8:30 a.m. at the Safeway parking lot and departed to the field to see the first project on the tour, an aspen stand restoration project implemented by Collins Timber Company.

This project was implemented in 2009 by Collins Timber Company Forester Travis Erickson. The project involved removing encroaching conifer from the aspen stand that was showing signs of stress.

Removing the conifer opens up the area and allows for more sunlight availability to the aspen trees.

Next, the caravan headed to Honey Creek, where the group looked at the three-phase passage and screening project the Taylor Ranch and LCUWC has been working on for the past five years.

The project involves installing three fish screens on the landowner’s irrigation diversions to eliminate entrapment into the canals.

In addition, the project addressed passage concerns associated with pulling water. Jo0hn and Theresa Taylor of the Taylor Ranch explained the project to the group.

At the same location, the group looked at a 5,000-acre cooperative sage steppe habitat improvement project that was completed between 2008 and 2010 on BLM, Taylor Ranch, and Fitzgerald Ranch.

The objective of the project was to improve sage grouse habitat and over all watershed health by removing post-settlement juniper trees. James Price with the BLM, Anna Kerr with the LCUWC, and john and Theresa Taylor explained the project to the group.

The next stop on the tour was the Warner Valley Wetlands to see a project that ODA and BLM has been working on cooperatively. The Warner Valley has been plagued with perennial pepperweed for the past ten to fifteen years.

The valley waters move from the south starting in Adel and end at the Warner Valley Wetlands. Due to this water movement the Warner Valley Wetlands have been a trap for all the weed seeds in the valley.

The Warner Valley Wetlands are an area of critical concern since it is a wetland surrounded by high desert, making the area a very diverse habitat. Due to this valuable habitat the BLM has been funding a large weed control project in the wetlands for about the last seven years.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has been managing the project and has been seeing good results for what limited herbicides they have to work with at this time.

This year the LCCWMA, Oregon Department of State Lands, BLM, LX Ranch, and Crump Ranch are cooperating to spray over 1,000 acres around South end to Crump Lake.

By controlling the perennial pepperweed at Crump Lake and the southern portion of the Warner Valley will prevent seeds from settling in the Warner Valley Wetlands.

From lunch the group had one more stop to make, the Crump Ranch. At the Crump Ranch the group got to see a large Russian knapweed control project. The Crump Ranch embarked on an integrated weed management program starting in fall of 2009.

Since then the Crump Ranch has sprayed 460 acres of Russian Knapweed, perennial pepperweed, and Hoary cress. At that stop Craig Foster with ODFW also talked to the group about the Mule Deer Initiate Plan that is taking place in the Warner unit. The plan will address habitat issues that are negatively impacting mule populations in the area.

There were a total of 30 participants on the tour. The groups would like to host another tour in the future to show off more good things being done by local landowners in the Warner Basin.

This tour was made possible thanks to the willing landowners, agencies representatives and the Network of Oregon Watershed Councils grant funding.

Published July 28, 2010 in the Lake County Examiner