Participants at a recent STREAM Girls event held in South Carolina get their feet wet. Trout Unlimited photo. By Franklin Tate Composer Aaron Copland was so inspired by Appalachian spring he wrote a symphony about it. Countless other artists and musicians have also found their muses once the days lengthen and the very seams of…
By Chris Wood Some define conservation as overseeing loss. Loss of wetlands; loss of open space; loss of water quality; loss of species. Aldo Leopold harkened to this when he wrote in the Sand County Almanac that “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 5, 2018 Contact: Corey Fisher, Trout Unlimited, cfisher@tu.org, (406) 546-2979 Steve Moyer, TU, smoyer@tu.org, (571) 274-0593 Randy Scholfield, TU communications, rscholfield@tu.org, (720) 375-3961 Draft bill would force citizens to pay to have a say in public lands decisions (Washington, D.C.) Ahead of a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, Trout Unlimited today…
Eroding banks along the Bridge to Bridge project area By Chris Wood The sign behind the two-person Trout Unlimited office in Hailey, Idaho, reads, “Parking for Trout Unlimited only. If towed, call Dick York Towing.” It is an inside-Hailey joke as Keri York’s Dad ran Dick York Towing—the only towing business in the Big Wood…
tu-logo-xl.jpg FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 18, 2018 Contact: Steve Moyer, smoyer@tu.org, (571) 274-0593 Trout Unlimited Statement on Passage of the 2019 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill WASHINGTON D.C. Last Friday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which included vital funds for western drought remediation and fisheries habitat programs. With…
By David Kinney TU volunteer leader Agust Gudmundsson came out for a public hearing this week to testify in support of New Jersey’s trout streams, as he has time and again over the years. This week, the cause was a bit closer to his heart than usual. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)…
Dustin Wichterman lives trout. By day he manages Trout Unlimited’s restoration and protection work in the Potomac headwaters. Most of the rest of the time he’s either fishing for trout or dreaming about fishing for trout. And a big part of that dream is that one day the Potomac headwaters will again regularly churn out native brook trout pushing…
Sometimes is takes a crisis to spur action. It’s an unfortunate reality—in order to realize that something is dreadfully wrong, something that can’t be ignored must first happen. In the summer of 2017, after a low-snow winter in southwest Montana, thousands of native mountain whitefish went belly up on the Yellowstone River between Gardiner and…
Trout Unlimited is working along the south-central coast of California to recover native steelhead runs, largely by restoring habitat and enhancing fish passage and dry season streamflows through cooperative partnership projects with landowners and agricultural operators. Steelhead are listed as Threatened in this region. On Pennington Creek near San Luis Obispo, TU completed a major…
Editor’s note: TU sent a handful of college students to the Pacific Northwest for this year’s TU Costa 5 Rivers Odyssey to study and fish in the Columbia River basin. Oregon’s Deschutes river has long been known as one of the West’s most legendary watersheds. Known for its prolific hatches and dry fly fishing, specifically…
By Rob Shane On July 16, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) approved the upgraded designation of than 70 streams to “Wild Trout” and “Class A wild trout” status. This successful rulemaking came in response to almost 200 public comments from TU members and supporters in favor of the proposed designation. Many of the…
October 10, 2019 Contact: Brett Prettyman, 801-209-5320, brett.prettyman@tu.org Kinross Gold Named Corporate Conservation Award Winner ELKO, Nevada — Kinross Gold Corp., an important partner of Trout Unlimited in Nevada, was recognized recently by the conservation organization at its annual meeting. J. Paul Rollinson, president and CEO of Kinross, was on hand in Rogers, Arkansas, last…
As age takes its toll, the memories become stronger By Drew Irby I was browsing through a collection of scanned photos the other day and came across a vintage pic from the family archives. I had been randomly thinking about what happened to certain friends from my college days in northern Arizona. Seeing this shot…
Elected officials know they have one last shot to hammer out deals before the Congressional landscape changes permanently in January. The result? The lame-duck session … a sprint-to-the-finish flurry of legislative action defined by compromise we don’t see too often on the Hill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 7, 2021 Contacts: Chris Wood, President and CEO, Trout Unlimited, chris.wood@tu.org Rob Masonis, VP for Western Conservation, Trout Unlimited, rmasonis@tu.org Greg McReynolds, Snake River campaign director, Trout Unlimited, gmcreynolds@tu.org Comprehensive proposal would remove four lower Snake River dams and invest in the Northwest region’s energy, transportation, and agricultural infrastructure BOISE, Idaho.—U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson…
“After accidently leaving the tank uncovered over the course of some warm and sunny days, we came in to find an overgrowth of algae on all the surfaces withing the aquarium. Fortunately, blocking the sunlight stopped the growth and the trout managed to eat the remaining algae, leaving the tank clean once more. “
Roadless Rule restored on 9.3 million acres of the Tongass
In good news for healthy fish, streams and communities, administration vetoes congressional effort to weaken landmark water law Contacts: ARLINGTON, Va.—President Biden today vetoed a Congressional resolution to block a revised, clearer definition of the “Waters of the United States” that would restore federal Clean Water Act protections for millions of miles of small streams…
SFS Chief Moore gets a firsthand look at TU restoration work in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National ForestThe eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains in North Central Washington are one of the epicenters for catastrophic fire risk in the Western United States. Climate change, tree disease and over a century of forest mismanagement are to blame. In recognition of this risk, the Forest Service recently launched the Central Washington Initiative (CWI) in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest as part of its national Wildfire Crisis Strategy. This important work is supported by $100 million of funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The CWI is one of approximately 20 initiatives of its kind across the nation receiving this unprecedented investment through 2026. These initiatives represent an “all lands, all hands” approach to addressing forest health and wildfire resilience, meaning the Forest Service sees partnerships as the key to success. TU’s $40 million keystone agreement with the Forest Service is a perfect example. Through this partnership, TU will be implementing many of the aquatic components of this work and other critical efforts benefiting wildfire resilience and coldwater habitat recovery on National Forests across the country.
Collaborating to Reduce Wildfire Risks
The risk for catastrophic fire in North Central Washington is well known to TU and other members of the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative (NCWFHC) who have been working on the issue of forest health in this region for more than a decade. During this time, NCWFHC partners have been frantically building solutions while bearing witness to the biggest wildfires in Washington State history. To say there is a sense of urgency surrounding this work is a wild understatement.
Developing and implementing innovative approaches to helping the Forest Service increase the pace and scale of restoration on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has been NCWFHC’s key objective, and we have made significant progress in recent years. Enough progress, it turns out, to entice the Chief of the Forest Service, Randy Moore, to come out and see it with his own eyes in late May.
As part of the NCWFHC’s tenth anniversary celebration, we had the honor of hosting Chief Moore on a field tour of some of the Collaborative’s project sites.
Working to Keep Water on the Landscape
One of the stops on the NCWFHC tour was at TU’s beaver dam analog (BDA) project on Alder Creek, outside of Leavenworth Washington. This work is led by staff from TU’s Wenatchee-Entiat Beaver Project. TU’s Lisa Foster and Michael Dello Russo were on site to answer questions and demonstrate the work to partners and USFS staff.
I’m biased, but the site visit seemed to be a highlight for Chief Moore given his willingness to thrash through thick brush and endure heinous mosquitos to get an up-close view of the project. We got to talk about how low-tech process-based restoration techniques, like BDAs, expand floodplain connectivity, improve late season flows and increase soil moisture in riparian zones to create fire breaks in an otherwise parched landscape. Michael Dello Russo and his crew were also able to demonstrate how these structures get woven together with streamside trees. The Chief seemed so impressed with the work that he hinted at returning when we extended an invitation. We hope he takes us up on it.
We want to thank all of the NCWFHC partners for their ongoing work and for making the anniversary tour such a success.
Thank you, Chief Moore, for taking the time to join us in the field. We are grateful for your enduring support of this important work in North Central Washington forests and watersheds!
Lawsuit by the State of Alaska threatens Clean Water Act protections
