Fieldnotes Blog

[caption id="attachment_5414" align="aligncenter" width="611"] Renovations underway at TWC's Jones Point property[/caption]   Congratulations to TWC, the new owner of the Jones Point Property in Haines! The property encompasses 50 acres full of opportunity for stewardship, restoration, education, and recreation for the Haines community. Located on the banks of the Chilkat River and previously owned by Native village corporation Klukwan Inc., the property hosts several buildings that TWC intends to renovate and a large garage that will be taken down for safety concerns. Takshanuk Watershed Council obtained ownership of the property with support from The Conservation Fund. The property is currently a registered contaminated site with vehicle, boat, and machinery remnants awaiting proper removal and disposal, as well as contaminated soils deposited on site from other Klukwan Inc. properties that will require remediation.…

Taiya Inlet Watershed Council connects kids to their backyard watersheds and fishy neighbors with the Salmon in the Classroom program. TIWC Coordinator Rachel Ford gives us an update on Salmon in the Schools at Skagway Elementary school!   [caption id="attachment_5397" align="aligncenter" width="700"] K-2 students play the food web game to learn where fish get their dinner[/caption] This is the third year of our Salmon in the Classroom program and what an interesting year it has been! Last year we were able to acquire local king salmon eggs collected and fertilized by the Department of Fish and Game and were therefore able to release our salmon at fry stage. This year, the Elementary school students have been watching the salmon life cycle through a cohort of coho eggs native to the Juneau…

  Last week, Takshanuk Watershed Council hosted community mining forums in Haines and Klukwan to present information on large scale mining in Alaska. Sponsored by Chilkat Indian Village, Chilkoot Indian Association, Constantine Metal Resources Ltd., Lynn Canal Conservation, The Haines Chamber of Commerce and Lynn Canal Gillnetters; a range of speakers with knowledge and experience in permitting, mine development, environmental assessment, and socioeconomic and community impacts of large scale mines presented at the event.   Moderated by Margaret Friedenauer, the forum's presentations were recorded and are available to stream at KHNS.org http://khns.org/community-mining-presentation   Forum presentations are available for download at http://takshanuk.org/mininginfopresentation   

2014 Wrangell Beach Monitoring Program Results: Beaches Meet Water Quality Standards This summer the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition began a recreational beach monitoring program to test popular local beaches for levels of harmful bacteria. With support from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation the Wrangell Beach program sampled waters at City Park and Petroglyph beach for organisms that indicate fecal contamination. The Beach Program was established by the Alaska DEC through the Alaska Clean Water Actions program to provide support for communities to begin monitoring marine water quality at high-priority beaches for bacterial pollution, specifically, fecal coliform and enterococci. City Park and Petroglyph beaches were identified by DEC as high priority because they are commonly used for community recreation. [caption id="attachment_5252" align="alignnone" width="611"] Petroglyph Beach sample site[/caption]   The Southeast…

The Prince of Wales Unified Watershed Assessment is complete and available for viewing!   Coordinated by the Prince of Wales Watershed Association, funded by the National Forest Foundation's Community Capacity and Lands Stewardship Grant, and carried out by Kai Environmental   The purpose of the POW Unified Watershed Assessment is to provide an island-wide overview of the status of watersheds important to the local communities on POW Island. The goal of the POW Unified Watershed Assessment is to provide a consistent framework of information about each watershed on the island for each community, without community or watershed prioritization [caption id="attachment_5202" align="aligncenter" width="524"] Click for downloadable PDF[/caption]   For more information on the POW Unified Watershed Assessment contact: Brandy Prefontaine, Watershed CoordinatorPrince of Wales Watershed Association907-209-4079pow.watersheds@gmail.com