Rising to the future

On June 11 the trio of Christina Barrineau, Aquatic Habitat Biologist for Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), Joe Parsons, District Manager for the Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District, and Jeff Streeter, North Platte River Project Manager for Trout Unlimited (TU), were in Washington, D.C. to receive national awards for work they have been doing in restoring fisheries on Upper North Platte river drainages including the Big Creek and the Encampment River and its tributaries.

Humbling Experience

The annual Rise to the Future awards recognize outstanding individual and group achievements by natural resource professionals in the United States Forest Service (USFS), as well as their partners in the fisheries, hydrology, soil and air programs.

For this year's "Fish your National Forest" award, which is one of the 18 awards given under the Rising to the Future umbrella, Bill Bear, former North Zone Fisheries Biologist for the Forest Service, nominated the trio for their work in restoring aquatic habitat in some of the most prized large river trout fisheries in the state.

When the award had been determined, each agency involved sent their representatives to the nation's capitol to receive the prestigious awards.

While there, Barrineau, Parsons and Streeter took turns presenting a Powerpoint slide show to other award nominees and recipients along with USFS officials which overviewed the 10 years worth of restoration work done.

The award ceremony itself occurred later that night with the awards being presented by the Chief of the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the undersecretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Streeter said, "Once I got into the awards assembly I realized that it was really a humbling experience and very well coordinated and it was an important event."

Barrineau added that, while also being humbled, she learned a lot from the other presenters there.

Seafood, Seafood, Seafood

The three award recipients also took some time to visit the 'D.C.' area while there and hit some restaurants while in the east coast urban environment. Streeter chuckled as he said, "We did take some time to see 'D.C.' but what we really did was eat a lot of seafood. We ate as much seafood as three normal people can handle."

Steeter added that they also saw the new dinosaur exhibit at the Smithsonian, among other sights.

Wyoming Wednesday

Parsons and Streeter also found time to visit the Wyoming legislative delegation on their "Wyoming Wednesday" open house. While there they visited with officials from Senator Mike Enzi and John Barrasso's staff along with talking to Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney on various issues including the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative (WPLI).

Parsons described Wyoming Wednesday this way; "Wyoming Wednesday, they basically open up a conference room in the senate building, and the senators and their staffers chat with anybody from Wyoming that's in 'D.C.' and has an opportunity to just go do this thing. We found out about it because we were trying to set up a meeting and they're like, 'Well, we already have this open forum kind of thing and stand around and drink coffee and eat donuts.' Then they come in and go to the various groups-like we saw Nature Conservancy there, there was industry representation there-that kind of thing. It's just a very open forum. So we were able to discuss the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative ... We wanted to let them know that the Carbon County process was a good process and the recommendations were solid when it comes up to them."

Parsons said they also wanted to touch base on funding with The National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and the new farm bill and had those discussions. Streeter said they also talked about the Wyoming Conservation Initiative which is another one of the projects' funding sources.

Several funding sources, including the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI), NRCS, and the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust (WWNRT), were mentioned by Streeter as vital to their work saying, "Our three-way partnership-we couldn't function without those funding sources.

Setting Up Projects

During the interview held at the SERCD office in Saratoga, both Streeter and Parsons were on hand to speak while Barrineau was connected by speaker phone from a ridge in the Forbes Wildlife Management area in Albany County.

After Streeter and Barrineau had discussed the award, the pair went on to describe the phases a project goes through during its life.

Streeter began, "There are a number of ways that these project become initiated. One is that one of the three of us realizes there is a real environmental need, there's a resource need. Then maybe we go to a land owner-whether it be a public agency or a private landowner. Then we try to define the goals and objectives of the project. Then we look for funding for data collection and preliminary design. Then we go back for more funding, satisfy state and federal permits, choose a contractor for construction as we are moving forward with our designs. Then we try to pay the bills."

Streeter continued that, after that, there was a monitoring component after completion of a project.

Barrineau added that there was also a process of describing objectives that generally takes two to four years and added, "So it's not a quick process."

Streeter then advised, "So we look at the town of Saratoga and we think, 'well nothing can happen until probably 2022-so get with it Saratoga.'"

Parsons described project starts this way; "We've had everything from landowners come to us asking us for help to us seeking out the landowners, whether its a public entity or private landowners. Every project is totally different. We've kinda got our niches as far as how the three of us work, but there is still so much overlap in coverage. A lot of times we're working on the Encampment River Jeff lives right there-so he's down there during construction more than I am."

Watershed Plan

Streeter said that the Encampment River now has a watershed plan that "connects the dots" between the projects that have been completed on that river so far and allows for a better overview in planning new projects.

Tough Start

Streeter said that, when the group initially faced resistance with these types of river restoration projects 10 years ago, "We would be begging anyone to let us do a project. We would be isolating the areas in which the resource was in the most jeopardy and we would try to get in and really have to twist some arms to do so."

Streeter then pointed to more interest and optimism in the restorations saying, "Now we have projects in the pipeline for the next couple of years. As our success grows, and as we've been on the ground for more time, the demand for restorations has increased."

Barrineau added, "I would say that in the first five years, we were probably only doing roughly one project a year. Then, in the last five years, that's changed. We are doing multiple projects a year and I think that's because people have put their faith in us to get work done-but we've also had some of these major funders come to us saying, 'We want to join into these projects,' so there's been more money available to do this kind of work." Barrineau said the combined experience had also allowed the trio to juggle more.

Upcoming Work

The group will be working on two projects this year-both of them on the Encampment. The first project is restoring an area around a diversion dam on the lower Encampment and the second is just below the bridge in Riverside.

Streeter and Barrineau added that these were expensive projects and that the total for the two projects would be in the neighborhood of $2 million.

Funding for these will come from various sources as Streeter described the funding sources this year, "There is some landowner money, there is water user money often, but most of it is private donations and some state money."

What makes this year's projects expensive is the shape of the river and infrastructure. Both of the projects have irrigation diversions on them which require headgates and concrete work for a fish ladder-which adds cost. Streeter did add that the fish ladder would allow fish more habitat saying, "For the first time in 90 years, fish from the North Platte will have access to over 75 miles of prime habitat in the Encampment Watershed."

Education and

Additional Win

Ongoing education is also a group goal. The trio presented River Restoration 101 to the town of Saratoga some years ago which included theory, terminology and project goals. Presentations have also highlighted how important fishing, hunting and recreating on our public lands can be to local economies and how the work they are doing is creating resiliency in some of those areas.

The trio also won an American Sport Fisheries Association monetary award while in D.C. Streeter, Parsons and Barrineau were the only award winners there to come away with a monetary award. Streeter said the group was planning on using the $5,000 in further educational projects.

Takeaways

All three agreed that they had learned a lot during the trip to our nation's capitol, including the importance of chemistry and teamwork and the ability to think watershed wide during smaller projects.

It seems obvious the trio already has teamwork and chemistry in abundance-and that they already are looking at the big picture for Valley watersheds.