Trinity County Natural Resources Division/ Trinity County Resource Conservation District (TCRCD)
The incredible granite peaks in the Trinity Alps are a destination for
outdoor enthusiasts from around the world.
TCNRD Webpage
TCRCD Webpage
Trinity County Natural Resources Division
PO Box 2819
60 Glen Road
Weaverville, CA 96093
Phone: (530) 623-1351
Fax:(530) 623-1353
Trinity County Resource Conservation District
P.O. Box 1450
Weaverville, CA 96093
Phone: (530) 623-6004
Fax: (530) 623-6006
Mentors:
Mark Dowdle, Outreach and Education Coordinator
Mentor Biography
Tom Stokely, Principal Planner - Natural Resources Division
Mentor Biography
Current Members:
Tom Dey
Member Biography
Erica Spohn
Member Biography
Site Description:
Trinity County Natural Resources Division Information:
The Natural Resources Division has two units: Trinity River Restoration, under Principal Planner Tom Stokely, and the Five Counties Salmonid Restoration Program, under Principal Planner Mark Lancaster. Our missions are to restore salmon and steelhead populations and move toward ecosystem restoration and sustainability in the Trinity River basin and the larger Five Counties area (Mendocino, Trinity, Humboldt, Del Norte and Siskiyou), respectively. We focus on watershed restoration, land and water use policy change, grant implementation and public education. We also work as partners with the Trinity County Resource Conservation District (TCRCD).
The Trinity River watershed is roughly 2 million acres. We work on improving watershed funding and coordination between the Trinity River Restoration Program and the Five Counties Program; Central Valley Project — cold water allocations for downstream salmon fisheries and CVP long-term water contract renewals; coordination with Klamath River restoration efforts. Our Trinity River activities include collaboration with numerous fishery and environmental groups, the Environmental Water Caucus, the Environmental Justice Coalition.
The Five Counties Program works in all five counties, but is currently doing road inventories in Siskiyou County and fish passage projects in all five counties. They collaborate with the various regulatory and trustee agencies, as well as the transportation and planning departments in each of the five counties. Mark Lancaster and Tom Stokely also serve as Trinity County’s two policy team members for the North Coast Integrated Regional Water Management Program, which includes the five counties plus Modoc and Sonoma counties. Stokely also serves on DFG’s Salmon and Steelhead Advisory Committee, the SB 271 Grant Review Committee and DWR’s AB 303 Groundwater Grant Program Advisory Committee.
Our agency and TCRCD respond to many public needs in our communities with the focus on improving the Trinity River watershed. The creative energy, sincere interest and vitality of the WSP members greatly enriches all of these efforts, and in some cases has resulted in them becoming long-term members of the community with full-time employment in the natural resources field after their service with WSP.
TCRCD Information:
The Trinity County Resource Conservation District (TCRCD), established in 1956, implements a wide range of restoration projects, with a focus on road decommissioning, stream and riparian restoration (primarily for the Trinity River Restoration Program) and forest health. To be effective in restoration, the RCD is active in watershed planning and policy development, education and outreach. It relies extensively on collaboration with a wide range of local, state and federal agencies and resource professionals to accomplish its mission throughout the two million-acre Trinity River Watershed. This coordinated approach provides opportunities for interacting with and learning more about each of these agencies.
TCRCD’s mission is to assist people in protecting, managing, conserving and restoring the natural resources of Trinity County through information, education, technical assistance and project implementation. The TCRCD meets these elements of its mission with a range of projects and activities, including a robust education program with schools; overseeing the annual Environmental Education Camp and a summer day camp; community outreach and public education through community meetings and field tours; participating in Trinity River Restoration Program (providing watershed coordination; implementing riparian and stream restoration, upslope erosion control/sediment reduction including road decommissioning); and by providing technical assistance to landowners in concert with Trinity County, California Department of Fish & Game, and the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service. The District provides GIS/data management for partner agencies and public outreach efforts. It is actively engaged in administering and expanding the Weaverville Community Forest under a first-of-its-kind Stewardship Agreement with a federal agency, and is formulating an interpretive campaign to protect its watershed. Additionally, the TCRCD has begun the first steps to establish a community volunteer stream monitoring program in the Weaver Creek basin, called CreekWatch.
TCRCD’s collaborators and partners include federal agencies: (BLM, USFS, Trinity River Restoration Program and NRCS); state agencies: (CalTrans, CALFIRE, Fish & Game, State Water Resources Control Board); local agencies: (Trinity County and other special districts); and citizen groups like the Trinity River Watershed Council, Trinity County Fire Safe Council, Weaverville Community Forest Committee and local recreational trails groups and service clubs.
TCRCD has an active involvement with several schools that perennially request WSP members to implement the Real Science watershed education curriculum. TCRCD leads the environmental education camp, the summer conservation day camp and coordinates the annual Salmon Festival, to name some of the key outreach opportunities in which WSP members are engaged. A keystone of the TCRCD’s environmental education program is the Conservation Legacy Program, a service-learning program at our restoration sites like the Weaver Basin Wetlands, Trinity River bank rehabilitation sites and the Weaver Creek CreekWatch demonstration monitoring site.
WSP members also have the opportunity to hone their writing skills by contributing articles to TCRCD’s Conservation Almanac, the District’s quarterly newsletter and crafting other public information materials. TCRCD also encourages development of their graphic arts talents by providing opportunities to design visual communication and interpretive instruments.
WSP member Christy Wagner playing the "web of life" game with
a group of third graders.
Time members spend on each of the following tasks at their site (WSP trainings and mandatory events not included in this breakdown):
Monitoring - 10%
Restoration - 10%
Field Surveys and Data Collection - 10%
Report Writing and Data Entry - 10%
Lab Work - 0%
Education - 40%
Outreach - 20%
Russ Spangler helping students sample for macroinvertabrates along Coffee Creek.
Member comments:
"Situated between the Trinity River and the Trinity Alps Wilderness, Weaverville is a beautiful small town with immense opportunities. If you enjoy community functions, small festivals, and the wild outdoors, you will gladly call Weaverville home. Pat and Mark have given me space to set my own goals within the needs of the organization and are always supportive and guiding. Self motivation is important if you want to satisfy all education requirements of the RCD as well as explore other opportunities and interests the RCD has to offer. The sky's the limit!"
- Christy Wagner, year 13 member
Mentor comments:
"My interest in volunteer service runs deep. My service as a teacher in the Peace Corps in El Salvador profoundly affected me, professionally and personally. So, I jumped at the opportunity to serve as a WSP mentor in 2000. WSP members continue to make important contributions to our community, to the RCD’s work and to my growth."
- Pat Frost
"My interest in being a mentor for the Americorps Watershed Stewards is to train and involve new people in the fishery and watershed restoration business, both from a technical perspective, as well as from a policy level. Given the competition for jobs, it's difficult for people to break into "the business." WSP provides a great opportunity to involve and train the restorationists of the future. My agency, the Trinity County Planning Department, has hired at least 3 of our WSP members as permanent employees over the past several years. My intention is to train my replacement(s)."
- Tom Stokely, year 14 mentor
For a sample calendar of WSP member duties at this site, click HERE.
The TCRCD's native plants nursery.
Many WSP members helping out with the annual Weaverville Salmon Festival.
