The Tuolumne River Trust (TRT) is the voice for the Tuolumne River and its tributaries, and promotes stewardship of the river through:
- Collaboration with a diverse array of stakeholders
- On-the-ground restoration projects
- Education, community outreach and adventures
- Building local support for conservation issues
TRT’s meadow monitoring program uses the rapid meadow assessment developed by American Rivers. Data and results were used to identify and prioritize meadows in need of restoration. Throughout our National Forests, meadows typically provide water during the dry season, promote lower stream temperatures in the summer, provide wildlife habitat, and create higher plant productivity and wildlife corridors.
“Mountain meadows are often overlooked as dormant space between the prized high peaks and roaring rivers, when in fact meadows are keystone to the mountain ecosystems and to the watershed as a whole,” said TRT Deputy Executive Director Patrick Koepele. “Healthy meadows reduce impacts to floods, reduce erosion to downstream areas, and improve downstream water quality.”
On each training day, volunteers learned about the monitoring protocol, which includes assessment of bank erosion, channel incision, headcutting, vegetative cover, conifer encroachment, and more. TRT also instructed volunteers on how to use a handheld GPS to record waypoints for important features and to walk the perimeter of the meadow to record its location. Then, on their own time, volunteers visited a total of 54 meadows using their assessment skills to provide key data for TRT and the Stanislaus National Forest.
When asked about continuing the meadow monitoring program in the future, Koepele stressed the importance, “We hope to continue the meadow monitoring program, especially in light of the Rim Fire, a huge wildfire that has exceeded 180,000 acres and which has scorched much of the Tuolumne’s watershed. Ongoing monitoring will help us understand how the watershed is recovering from this catastrophic event. It will take many years for the watershed to recover from this fire, and the data we have collected will contribute to the post-fire restoration efforts.”
Working closely with the Forest Service, TRT also hosted five workdays in the fall of 2012. During the workdays, TRT maintained five miles of trails, decommissioned dozens of dispersed campsites, cleaned one mile of river length, cleaned a day use picnic area and installed trailhead signs.
For one of the workdays, volunteers focused their efforts along Clavey River, the site of an unauthorized rave, a gathering that left thousands of pounds of trash. Due to its remote location, TRT organized the day as a cleanup and campout.
Up next for TRT, they’ll continue to assess meadows, especially after the recent Rim Fire. Besides meadows, forests and streams will need resources to recover and rebound after the fire. “We will certainly be doing our part,” said Koepele.
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