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US Bans Commercial Fishing in Arctic as Ice Recedes

The plan bans commercial fishing in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches from 3 miles offshore to 200 miles offshore, starting at the Bering Strait and extending north and east to the U.S.-Canada border. Read more

Land Acquisition Benefits West Virginia Wildlife, 120 Acres Added to Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge

News from USFWS

The newly-acquired property sits adjacent to Monongahela National Forest, creating a significant ecological corridor on the eastern side of the refuge. Numerous song bird species, including the American woodcock, inhabit the property’s mixture of wetlands, mature hardwood forest and upland meadows. Flat Run, a high quality year-round water source and tributary of the Blackwater River, originates on the land and provides habitat for both brook and brown trout.

USFWS identified this property - one of the largest unprotected tracts of land within the refuge boundary - as a top acquisition priority because of its critical linkage to other protected lands as well as the high value nesting habitat for grassland-dependent and forest dwelling migratory songbirds. The tract also protects significant wetlands particularly important to the American woodcock and ensures enhanced water quality downstream where Flat Run meets the main stem of the Blackwater River.

“We applaud the collaborative efforts of the diverse partners involved in this addition to Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge,” said Reggie Hall, real estate associate for The Conservation Fund. “This transaction enhances one of the state’s greatest natural areas and ensures that future generations will have the opportunity to experience everything this gem has to offer.”

The Conservation Fund purchased the property from North Lake II, LLC, a Maryland-based housing developer, and held the land while it worked with the USFWS to obtain the funding necessary to take ownership. Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Rep. Alan B. Mollohan championed the project in Congress and secured federal appropriations from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in last year’s Interior Appropriations bill.

“I believe it is a moral responsibility to work to preserve West Virginia’s diverse animal and plant life for our children and grandchildren,” said Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.  “And with millions of visitors traveling to West Virginia each year to experience our state’s natural beauty, I am proud to have been a part of this worthy effort to further protect West Virginia’s natural resources and keep our state wild and wonderful.”

“Canaan Valley is one of our country’s special places and one of West Virginia’s great assets,” said Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, D-W.Va.  “When The Conservation Fund approached me with this project two years ago, I was happy to support their request and I am pleased with this expansion of the refuge.”

“This property is one of the wild, wonderful areas that exemplifies West Virginia’s natural beauty,” said Dana Waldo, Appalachian Power president and COO.  “AEP and Appalachian Power are pleased to partner in this effort to protect it.”

This refuge addition demonstrates a partnership effort to invest in the state’s natural assets and maintain West Virginia as a world-class destination for nature-based tourism and recreation, a booming industry that contributes greatly to the local economy. The Conservation Fund - which helped establish Canaan Valley as the 500th national wildlife refuge and helped protect nearly 14,000 acres of the refuge’s 16,000 total acres - is working in partnership with The Nature Conservancy to conserve additional high value lands at the refuge. The Fund is also working with a team of local leaders interested in increasing the region’s importance as a gateway to the Central Appalachian Highlands.

“Forging partnerships from all corners - private, public and nonprofit - opens the door to so many more possibilities to enhance communities and protect quality of life,” said Henry Moomau, representative for North Lake II, LLC.  “We’re happy to work with The Conservation Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on this conservation solution that benefits both wildlife and the people who call West Virginia home.”

# # #

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov.

About The Conservation Fund

The Conservation Fund is dedicated to advancing America?s land and water legacy. With our partners, we conserve land, train leaders and invest in conservation at home. Since 1985, we have helped protect more than 6 million acres, sustaining wild havens, working lands and vibrant communities. We’re a top-ranked conservation organization, effective and efficient. www.conservationfund.org

Silvery Minnows Return to Texas

Rio Grande Silvery Minnow

News from US Fish and Wildlife service.

One of America’s most critically endangered species, the Rio Grande silvery minnow (Hybognathus amarus), began to face a brighter future on December 17, 2008, with the release of more than 430,000 hatchery-raised fish into former habitat in the Big Bend region of west Texas.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to release additional fish there over the next four years to establish an experimental, self-sustaining wild population in the lower Rio Grande.

A bucket brigade of volunteers met a Service fish transportation truck near Rio Grande Village, one of four release sites in and near Big Bend National Park.  As hatchery biologists netted the fish from the truck’s tanks and carefully placed them into buckets, the volunteers passed them down the line to Ray Mathews of the Texas Water Development Board, who stood two-feet deep in the river.  He gently dipped the minnows into a net enclosure, where they spent a day acclimating to the river before their final release.  For the first time in about 50 years, silvery minnows inhabited the waters of the Big Bend region.

Jason Remshardt of the Service’s New Mexico Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office coordinated the collection, transportation, and release of the minnows.  The stock for the release came from two sources:  the Service’s Dexter National Fish Hatchery and Technology Center in New Mexico, and the City of Albuquerque’s Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Rearing and Breeding Facility, which is funded by the Middle Rio Grande ESA Collaborative Program and the State of New Mexico.  These fish were not needed for the continuing silvery minnow augmentation effort in the middle Rio Grande of New Mexico.

Native to the Rio Grande system from northern New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico, the silvery minnow was once considered one of the river’s most abundant and widespread species.  But extensive habitat changes have reduced its range by almost 95 percent to a reach of the middle Rio Grande near Albuquerque, New Mexico.  The Rio Grande silvery minnow needs free-flowing streams in which to reproduce, and much of the river has been impounded by reservoirs.  Other sections of the river are subject to drying due to withdrawals for irrigation, pumping for municipal use, and periodic droughts.  Water pollution, stream channelization, and introductions of non-native fish species may also have played a part in the silvery minnow’s decline.

In 2001, the Service’s New Mexico Ecological Services Field Office and New Mexico Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office began working in the middle Rio Grande region near Albuquerque to maintain the species’ last natural population.  At times when water withdrawals caused parts of this reach to dry, biologists led rescue efforts to move the fish to wetter parts.  Silvery minnow eggs that would otherwise drift downstream into Elephant Butte Reservoir and die were salvaged for captive propagation.  The Service has stocked more than one million hatchery-raised Rio Grande silvery minnows back into the river in New Mexico to augment the wild population.

The draft revised recovery plan for the Rio Grande silvery minnow calls for secure wild populations at three locations throughout the species’ range.  In 2003, the Service began looking for suitable habitat in which to establish a second population.  The next year, a team of biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service rafted the Rio Grande in the Big Bend region of Texas to evaluate habitat and conduct fish surveys.

Scientists believe that water pollution and a prolonged drought in the 1950s caused the disappearance of silvery minnows from the lower Rio Grande, including Big Bend National Park, which lies within the Chihuahuan Desert.  Since that time, however, enough water to support a minnow population has remained in the river below the mouth of the Rio Conchos, a major tributary that originates in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico.  The quality of the Rio Grande water also has improved due to better sewage treatment, reduced mining activity, and changes in agricultural practices.

Rio Grande silvery minnows need low-velocity habitats with a sandy or silty bottom that are generally associated with a meandering river that includes side channels, oxbows, and backwaters.  In recent decades, however, dense stands of non-native salt cedar (Tamarix chinensis) and giant reed (Arundo donax) have grown up along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend, anchoring the banks and causing the channel to become narrower and deeper.  For a number of years, the National Park Service has been working to enhance the habitat by reducing invasive vegetation along sections of the river.  It is expensive and time-consuming work, but nature lent a hand in September 2008 with the largest flood in decades.  In places, it scoured much of the remaining invasive vegetation and rearranged the river channel, creating a more natural mosaic of cobbles, gravel shoals, and sand bars.  As a result, conditions improved for the return of the silvery minnow.

For Raymond Skiles, a wildlife biologist for Big Bend National Park, the reintroduction is an important step toward restoring the park’s ecosystem.  “It’s a flagship for the dozen or so other species that are no longer here.  It’s great to have one of them back.  This is one of a suite of species, and we hope there will be others that follow.”

The Rio Grande silvery minnow in the Big Bend is designated as an “experimental, non-essential population,” meaning that the loss of this population would not be essential to the species’ survival.  Such a designation allows more flexibility in management and helps to make species reintroductions more acceptable to the public.  The boundary of the experimental population is from Little Box Canyon downstream of Fort Quitman in Hudspeth County, Texas, through Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande National Wild and Scenic River, to the Amistad Dam in Val Verde County, Texas.  Although the experimental population boundary extends up the Pecos River to the mouth of Independence Creek, the minnows are not expected to move into the Pecos.

Aimee Roberson, a wildlife biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, worked on Rio Grande silvery minnow conservation from the New Mexico office until taking a position in the Alpine, Texas, office several years ago to coordinate the Big Bend reintroduction.  After five years, many public meetings, and a great deal of paperwork, she said that the release day was “like Christmas.”  She quickly added, “But now the real work begins.”  That work will include additional minnow releases for the next four years, quarterly monitoring of the fish, and annual surveys to detect spawning.

At the Rio Grande Village release site, Joy Nicholopoulos, the Service’s Texas State Administrator for Ecological Services, emphasized that the silvery minnow reintroduction was made possible by support from a wide array of partners.  In addition to the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, she acknowledged the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, City of Albuquerque, Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative Program, El Carmen Adam’s Ranch, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas Water Development Board, Texas Farm Bureau, University of Texas-Pan American, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Geological Survey, International Boundary and Water Commission (including its Mexican section, Comisión Internacional de Límites y Aguas), and other Mexican agencies, the Comisión Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas, Departmento de Restauración Ecologia, and Instituto Nacional Ecologia.

Nancy Gloman, the Service’s Assistant Regional Director for Ecological Services, took note of the young people who attended the minnow release and helped with the bucket brigade.  “This is why we do what we do, so that people can return in years to come, see the minnows and other wildlife, and know that we made a difference for conservation.”

Information Sought in Suspicious Wolf Death in Arizona

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agents recovered the body of a dead adult female Mexican gray wolf on January 19, 2009, on State Highway 260, between Horseshoe Cienega Lake and A-1 Lake on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, near Pinetop, Ariz. This wolf apparently died from a gunshot wound, and its body appeared to have been dumped alongside the highway. Its death is currently being investigated.

The area where F836 of the Moonshine Pack was discovered saw heavy use over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, as a large number of people traveled Highway 260 between Pinetop and Springerville. If anyone saw a vehicle that was stopped, or was being driven slowly, between Horseshoe Cienega Lake and A-1 Lake, or has any information that could be helpful in finding the person(s) responsible for the death of this wolf, please contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service /Office of Law Enforcement at (928) 339-4232 or the White Mountain Apache Tribe dispatch at 928-338-1023 or their Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Division at (928) 338-4385 ext. 231.

The Service and its partners are offering a monetary reward for information leading to the apprehension of individual(s) responsible for the death of this wolf. Persons reporting information may be kept anonymous.

The Moonshine Pack was released into the wild in November, 2008 in the area between Alpine and Hannagan Meadow, Ariz. The pack split shortly afterwards, and F836 traveled over a large area from north of Luna, N.M., to a few miles west of Springerville, Ariz. F836 was last located alive on January 17, near the South Fork of the Little Colorado River west of Springerville.

“Every wolf we have helped put back on the landscape deserves a chance to survive in the wild,” said Benjamin N. Tuggle, PhD, Regional Director for the Service’s Southwest Region. “All of our available law enforcement resources will be used to conduct a comprehensive investigation in collaboration with our partners. These investigations are extensive and recently lead to the U.S. attorney’s office agreeing to prosecute an individual who killed a wolf in New Mexico. We feel confident that our investigations will identify the responsible parties and they will be brought to justice.”

The Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project is a cooperative effort administered by six co-lead agencies: Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, USDA Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These agencies function as an Adaptive Management Oversight Committee. This management approach provides opportunities for participation by local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals from all segments of the public.

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov.

Wildlife trust set to give biggest grant to date

LANDER – Unless the state Legislature shoots it down, the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust is about to allocate its largest single grant to date — $1 million for a conservation easement.

The Trust board met in Douglas on Monday to review and decide on 37 wildlife preservation and habitat improvement projects. The projects had already received site visits from trust officials this fall.

The board allocated nearly $5.3 million for 28 projects throughout the state, according to Bob Budd, executive director of the trust. Applicants had requested about $9 million.

“This was one of the hardest meetings we’ve had,” Chairman Delaine Roberts said in a media release on Tuesday. “I think this is the first time we looked at every single project on the ground, and all of them had merit.”

Fifteen of the grants are for $200,000 or more — or are continuations of projects that cost that much — and, by law, will have to be approved by the state Legislature.

The biggest single grant approved, by far, was $1 million for a 19,000-acre conservation easement on the Green River in western Wyoming.

Called the Sommers Grindstone easement, the project is sponsored by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The total value of the easement is expected to be $22 million. If the Game and Fish Department is successful, much of the money will eventually be raised from a variety of different sources, a department spokesman said.

A conservation easement is a voluntary commitment by a landowner, and in Wyoming, these easements are usually purchased from ranchers. The landowners basically donate or sell their rights to develop their land, to ensure it remains open space. In most cases the land owners donate a portion of the total value. But they also retain ownership, and almost always opt to continue living and ranching on the land.

A conservation easement is generally permanent, so future owners are also restricted from developing the land.

The Sommers Grindstone easement, once complete, will include two neighboring ranches on the Green River, both family ranches dating back to the 1870s, Budd said.

The land is near the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field, which is expected to explode with development in the coming years.

The land is important to a variety of critters, and it will only become more critical as nearby development continues, Budd said.

“This is going to end up, we think, as a possible overflow zone for deer being temporarily displaced by development,” he said.

There are also several sage grouse mating grounds on or adjacent to the easement, he said, and the land is important for songbirds, water fowl, sand hill cranes, mule deer, moose, antelope and many other creatures.

“Over 80 species that are considered species of critical concern in the state are found in that area,” Budd said.

Eric Keszler, spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said the easement will also create about 5 miles of public access along the Green River.

“There is a lot of habitat value in this area,” Keszler said. “It is an important migration corridor for mule deer and antelope. It is important for its sage grouse and riparian habitats. It provides a connection from the Bridger-Teton [National Forest] down to the river.”

The Game and Fish Department, with the help of sportsmen’s and conservation groups, is working to secure funds from a number of other sources for the project, including the Jonah Interagency Office and the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative, Keszler said.

“It’s a huge project and I hope we can make it happen in an area that’s very important for wildlife,” he said.

The state Legislature created the wildlife trust fund in 2005, with the support of Gov. Dave Freudenthal, and with the intent of eventually endowing the trust with $200 million.

The total endowment is currently about $88 million.

Trust fund contributions are matched and usually are exceeded by other private and public entities.

Once the trust is fully funded, it should be self-sufficient, according to the law, allocating money for conservation and improvement projects solely from interest earned.

In his supplemental budget this year, Freudenthal is recommending the Legislature add an additional $20 million to the wildlife trust during the coming legislative session.

The trust allocates funds twice a year, with the next group of projects to be decided on in June, Budd said. The deadline for the next round of applications will be the end of March, he said.

Source: Casper Star Tribune

Minnesota without moose? It could happen

A dramatic decrease in the numbers of the iconic symbol points to one major cause.

FGCU wooing back wildlife in Lake Trafford

This week a team from Florida Gulf Coast University planted 360 shoots of the aquatic grass vallisneria, also known as tape grass and eel grass, in shallow water on the southwest side of the 1,500-acre lake near Immokalee. Over the summer, the team will plant several thousand vallisneria shoots in the lake.

Later this year, the state will plant bulrush in the same area.

“The lake is imperiled,” research associate David Ceilley said. “The EPA and the state have recognized that it needs to be fixed. What we’re trying to do is jump-start restoration of the lake.”

Lake Trafford, a popular fishing spot for Southwest Floridians, including Lee County residents, started going downhill decades ago when its water became choked with the exotic pest plant hydrilla.

As the plant died naturally, it sank to the bottom, rotted and became muck.

Hoping to solve the hydrilla problem, officials sprayed it with herbicides in the 1970s. Tons of dead plant material rotted to increase the muck layer until it was 6 feet thick and smothered the lake’s bottom vegetation.

As muck rots, it depletes the dissolved oxygen in the water. High winds stir up the muck, and trapped nutrients become suspended in the water, sparking algal blooms. The algae suck more oxygen from the water, and fish suffocate – rotting fish also add nutrients and remove oxygen.

Over the past 12 years, the lake has experienced several major fish kills.

In November 2005, a $10.3 million project got under way to remove the equivalent of 30,000 dump-truck loads of muck from the lake. The demucking project is being paid for by Friends of Lake Trafford, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Collier County, state monies, and the Big Cypress Basin, which is part of the South Florida Water Management District.

Most of the muck has been removed, but dredging has been temporarily stopped because water levels in the lake are too low for equipment to work.

Removing muck leaves a nice, clean lake bottom, but nice, clean lake bottoms don’t support much life.

Muck is gone, plants are going in Plants set in de-mucked lake bottom

To be healthy, a lake needs vegetation, and vallisneria is one of the most important freshwater plants in North America.

Found in many freshwater bodies of the contiguous United States and parts of Mexico and Canada, vallisneria is food for fish, turtles, manatees and birds. It provides habitat for small fish, crabs, shrimp and clams and traps nutrients to help prevent algal blooms.

“We have the opportunity to re-establish native plants that are good for the environment,” said Clarence Tears, director of the Big Cypress Basin, which is putting up $25,000 for the tape grass project. “If we don’t establish native plants soon, exotic vegetation, which often grow faster, can take hold.”

To keep grazers such as turtles from eating the newly-planted vallisneria, the FGCU team covered 12 plots of 30 plants each with inverted 3-foot-diameter plastic wading pools, whose bottoms had been cut out and replaced with wire mesh.

“The idea is to get dense plots established and protected, then remove the covers and monitor the sites,” Ceilley said. “With the muck gone, the water quality will improve, and we expect nothing but improvement over time.”

In addition to FGCU’s vallisneria efforts, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will plant $250,000 worth of bulrush just shoreward of the vallisneria.

Lack of rain has dropped Lake Trafford’s water levels to about 3.5 feet below normal for this time of year, and state biologists are waiting for water levels to rise before starting to plant.

“Bulrush is an emergent plant – it grows up out of the water,” said biologist Jon Fury. “Vallisneria doesn’t grow up out of the water. Both are good fish and wildlife habitat.

“Small invertebrates attach themselves to the bulrush. The invertebrates attract small fish, which attract bigger fish. We’ll plant it in the littoral zone, the shallow areas, where we find most fish reproduction and recruitment.”

As part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, demucking the lake and planting native vegetation will help habitats downstream.

“Places like Corkscrew Sanctuary will benefit,” Ceilley said. “But the primary mission is to restore recreational fishing in the lake. That’s an important resource for this area. As a fish guy myself, I’m all for that.”

Nature Restoration Trust Awards Over $310,000 to California Fish and Wildlife Habitat Conservation Projects

SAN FRANCISCO, May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The Nature Restoration Trust, a collaboration between Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), today announced it is donating over $310,000 in grants to 10 community organizations to foster stewardship of California’s diverse wildlife and habitats. With these grants, PG&E and NFWF are renewing their successful program, which previously invested over $2 million in projects to conserve and enhance wildlife in habitat from Redding to Bakersfield.

“Conservation at the local level builds community connections to the land and is a solid, long-term investment in our natural resources,” said Jeff Trandahl, executive director, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. “We are extremely proud to collaborate with PG&E and pleased that The Nature Restoration Trust is the newest member of NFWF’s Five Star Restoration Program, which brings together diverse organizations to help restore America’s streams and wetlands.”

The Nature Restoration Trust brings together public and private resources to conserve and enhance the natural habitats of fish and wildlife. Major funding for the program comes from PG&E, which has committed $1 million over 2008-2010 to support projects throughout the company’s northern and central California service area. In addition, federal funding of the program is provided by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds, and in-kind contributions are made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA Region IX, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Restoration Center Southwest.

“Since this unique, public-private team was launched in 1999, it has helped advance critical habitat and wildlife restoration projects, while inspiring our youth to protect California’s natural heritage for generations to come,” said Ophelia Basgal, vice president of civic partnerships and community initiatives at PG&E. “PG&E is proud to be part of this creative program which empowers communities to restore native habitats in urban, suburban and rural areas.”

Winning projects were ranked and selected by an Advisory Panel that included representatives from NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA Region IX, PG&E and Foundation staff. Consideration for funding was based on hands-on experiential education opportunities, benefits to the resource, partnership with other organizations and geographical distribution in California — from coastal dunes and tidal marsh to Sierra streams.

The 2008 recipients of Nature Restoration Trust grants are: Organization Grant Project American $31,500 Sediments & the Next Generation: Restoration Rivers & Education in Deer Creek American Rivers will work with multiple partners and integrate their work in-field water quality monitoring, floodplain restoration along a Sierra stream, and historical and cultural research into local 7th – 12th grade curricula. High school students will partner with middle school students in an “Eco-Pal” program to jointly learn about a riverine system. Audubon $40,000 Audubon Bobcat Ranch Oak Woodland Corridor California Audubon California Landowner Stewardship Landowner project will re-establish an ecological Stewardship connection between the Dry Creek tributaries Program and the main channel of Putah Creek while creating a viable wildway managed by local landowners. High school students will do restoration work to better learn about the connection between a healthy ecosystem and responsible stewardship of working landscapes. Children’s $11,290 BioSITE SEED Discovery The BioSITE (Students Investigating Their Museum of Environment) SEEDS program of Children’s San Jose Discovery Museum of San Jose will work with the San Jose Unified School District, the Santa Clara Water District, and other entities to restore riparian habitat in the Guadalupe Watershed. Students will conduct vegetation surveys, remove invasives, re- plant appropriate natives, and collect data at three sites to measure the success of the project. Community $30,504 Enhancing Red-legged Frog Habitat at Alliance Serendipity Farms with Working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Family the Wild Farm Alliance, Community Alliance Farmers with Family Farmers will restore wetland and riparian habitat for the endangered red- legged frog and Carmel River steelhead trout and monitor water quality and vegetation on Department of Parks and Recreation land at Serendipity Farms. Students will learn principles of on-farm biodiversity conservation practices and benefits for wildlife. Friends of $38,800 Community-based Coastal Dune Restoration at the Dunes Manila Dunes Friends of the Dunes will develop a service learning curriculum for the Adopt-A-Dune education project and work with Humboldt county students, community volunteers, and the California Conservation Corps to restore 4 acres of coastal dune habitat at the Manila Dunes Recreation Area. Three rare plant species occur on the property: beach layia (Layia carnosa), dark eyed gila (Gilia millefoliata), and pink-sand verbena (Abronia umbellata ssp. Breviflora) and the endangered Humboldt Bay wallflower is expected to spread onto the property in the future as a result of increased suitable habitat created. Golden $20,000 Eco-Oakland Environmental Education Program Gate Golden Gate Audubon Society will provide Audubon experiential learning opportunities for Society Oakland children and their families to help restore critical marshlands at Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline Park’s wetland complex and additional riparian lands. The wetlands are a critical habitat for endangered California clapper rails and endangered brown pelicans and California least terns. Golden $20,000 Mori Point Habitat Restoration Gate Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy will National work with local youth and community groups to Parks remove and control the spread of non-native Conservancy plants and debris and revegetate with native plants near Pacifica on the coast to create and improve breeding and foraging habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog and endangered San Francisco garter snake. Round $40,000 Mill Creek Enhancement Project Valley The Round Valley Indian Tribes will enhance Indian instream and riparian conditions for salmon, Tribes steelhead, migratory birds, and sensitive species on nearly 2.5 miles of Mill Creek. Working with the tribes, local schools will incorporate the project area into their “Adopt-A-Stream” program for hands-on learning experiences. Save the $40,000 San Francisquito Creek Restoration Project Bay Save the Bay will mobilize and train 750 middle school, high school, and community volunteers to revegetate and enhance tidal salt marsh and restore over 6 acres of critical habitat at the mouth of San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto for the benefit of fish, shorebirds, and other wildlife. Urban $39,573 Rheem Creek Restoration and Watershed Creeks Education Project Council Urban Creeks Council will reach out to neighborhoods close to Contra Costa College to help restore native riparian habitat on Rheem Creek. The Council will establish a Watershed Curriculum at the college and provide stipends to 10 interns to design and install the project.

PG&E has a long history of making charitable grants tailored to the wide variety of needs of the communities it serves. The company’s broader program of support to communities includes cash grants, in-kind contributions, and volunteers for community-based nonprofit organizations, and for schools and other governmental programs throughout northern and central California. All charitable contributions are entirely funded by PG&E Corporation shareholders and the level of charitable giving does not affect gas and electric rates.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation, is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy to 15 million people in northern and central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/.

A nonprofit established by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation sustains, restores and enhances the Nation’s fish, wildlife, plants and habitats. Through leadership conservation investments with public and private partners, NFWF is dedicated to achieving maximum conservation impact by developing and applying best practices and innovative methods for measurable outcomes. Since its establishment, NFWF has awarded nearly 9,500 grants to over 3,000 organizations in the United States and abroad and leveraged — with its partners — more than $400 million in federal funds into more than $1.3 billion for on-the-ground conservation. For more information, visit http://www.nfwf.org/.

Sediment choking out wildlife in the Kankakee River

“Nothing grows in a desert,” J.R. Black said. He was referring to the deep sand now moving farther down the Kankakee River’s main channel.

Sand — and a finer wave of silt — compose the two major sediments found in the river system. “For the most part the sand is our problem,” Black said. “It settles out quickly and covers the river bottom. The silt mainly washes on down river.”

Now large portions of the Kankakee’s natural bedrock bottom are covered by sweeps of sandy sediments along the upper river in Indiana to the dam at Kankakee. Over the past few months a dramatic increase in sandy deposits have appeared downstream from the dam all the way through the Kankakee River State Park.

The livelihood of a river depends on its smallest creatures, aquatic insects and invertebrates living in the shelter of river bottom rocks and crevasses. And now people like Black fear the sand is choking off this foundation of the river ecosystem.

“The sand fills in the rocky riffles on the bottom,” Black said. “Small fish eat the bugs that live on the bottom and bigger fish eat the smaller fish.” This cycle is the river’s food web.

“There are all kinds of changes going on in Six Mile Pool,” Bill White, a river researcher with the Illinois State Water Survey at Peoria, said about the portion of the river in the city Kankakee. White said more work is needed to determine exactly what is happening on the Kankakee. “We are very concerned about the fact that there is more sediment moving along the river and that there is still more work that needs to be done.”

The problem is funding from traditional sources for such research is drying up.

“The state doesn’t have the money for the work we need to do. We are trying to define projects that can get funding from the (Army) Corps of Engineers,” said White, who has been working on projects for both the Kankakee and Illinois rivers.

Corps officials say they are having to prioritize which projects get precedence and the Kankakee River basin falls short of the top of that list.

“Six Mile Pool is almost full with sediments after years of building up behind the dam,” said Misganaw Demissie, director of ISWS’ Center for Watershed Science in Champaign.

“For years the dam was holding that sand back,” Demissie said. “More sand will go over the dam as time goes by. In major floods, like we saw earlier this year, there can be a lot of sand movement.”

While the sand can create dead zones in the river; suspended sediments, flowing mostly out of the Iroquois, pose different problems for the Illinois River.

The Iroquois ranks among the third highest group of rivers dumping sediments into the Illinois’ main channel, according to water survey studies done between 1981 and 2000. Larger tributaries such as the Spoon and LaMoine rivers contribute the most sediment.

Still the Iroquois carries nearly twice the load of suspended sediments that the Kankakee does, according to studies by the state water survey.

Overall most of the suspended sediments from the Kankakee basin end up in the Illinois’ Peoria and Dresden pools, where an estimated 60,000 acres of side channels and backwater lakes have filled in, according to the Illinois Environmental Council.

Some areas “have become so shallow that they’ve lost almost all value for fish, wildlife or recreation,” said Rob Kanter, who writes a monthly Environmental Almanac blog for the Environmental Council. “These areas were formerly six to eight feet deep, but now average less than 18 inches.”

Ironically, while sediment buildup is a serious threat to both the Kankakee and Illinois rivers, it is the exactly what many believe may ultimately reverse the loss of vital wetlands and estuaries along the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

Protect a battlefield?

HELENA, Mont. — Montana’s state parks agency is trying to prevent coal-bed methane development at Rosebud Battlefield State Park, where Indians turned back the Army 132 years ago in what many historians consider a leading battle in the West’s Indian Wars.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks owns surface rights at the park in open, rolling country some 90 miles southeast of Billings. The subterranean mineral rights largely are in private hands and leased to Pinnacle Gas Resources, an oil and gas exploration and production company in Wyoming. Under an agreement supported by Pinnacle and owners of the mineral rights, mineral exploration beneath the park is on hold for just over a year.

The state agency, the family that owns the rights, Pinnacle, tribal representatives and others have been discussing alternatives to mineral development at the battlefield, where Sioux and Cheyenne warriors thwarted the Army on June 17, 1876. Historians say some of the same warriors fought eight days later and 35 miles away in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which left Lt. Col. George Custer and 200 soldiers dead.

“We don’t want to see a (methane) well developed there at all,” said Chas Van Genderen, a Fish, Wildlife and Parks bureau chief.

Agency officials charged with looking after the primitive park designated in 1978 shudder at the specter of a battlefield disrupted by trucks, generators, pipelines and other apparatus if development occurs. The Northern Cheyenne Tribe considers the place sacred, and for decades, Rosebud has drawn military scholars who analyze the 1876 battle fought there.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks wants to retire the mineral rights, either by purchasing them or by seeing them swapped for mineral rights elsewhere. The agency’s goal of eliminating, or at least minimizing, mineral development is spelled out in the Rosebud Battlefield management plan adopted this month.

Pinnacle leases, from a family, the right to drill for oil and gas at Rosebud. The company is particularly interested in coal-bed methane, a type of gas drawn from coal seams beneath Montana and Wyoming. Pinnacle’s nearest producing coal-bed methane well is about 10 miles southeast of the 3,000-acre park.

The company wants to negotiate an agreement that removes the prospect of coal-bed methane work while protecting the financial interest of Pinnacle and others holding a mineral interest at the battlefield, spokesman Steve Gregersen said from Pinnacle’s offices in Sheridan.

“We recognize the historical and cultural significance of this park, and we want to find another way,” said Gregersen, adding that more talks with Fish, Wildlife and Parks are planned next week.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe opposes coal-bed methane development at the park, which is “a huge part of our recent history,” said Conrad Fisher, tribal historic preservation officer. The tribe is active in efforts to obtain a National Historic Landmark designation for Rosebud Battlefield.

Pinnacle believes there is “a very strong likelihood” of coal-bed methane beneath the battlefield, Gregersen said, adding that “you never really know for sure until you’ve completed a very expensive well and have the gas coming out of the ground.”

Pinnacle has an evaluation of the potential profitability of gas production at Rosebud and the state has obtained an appraisal. Neither side will release figures, saying doing so could harm negotiations.

“We don’t have agreement as to the value of those resources under the battlefield,” Van Genderen said.

The federal government and the Crow Tribe also own mineral rights at Rosebud Battlefield, but the family-owned rights leased by Pinnacle predominate.

A Fish, Wildlife and Parks purchase of the rights would require the agency to find the money by seeking the Legislature’s help or through other means, such as donations, Van Genderen said.

“We would love to find some resolution to this issue over the next several months,” he said.

“If we can’t reach a resolution, we’re going to do what we can to have (coal-bed methane) development in the least sensitive area of the park.”

In addition to several tribes, supporters of the park preservation efforts include the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Montana Preservation Alliance.

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