Welcome 2020-2021 WCC Members! |
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For yet another year, NOSC has the pleasure of sponsoring six Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) members for their 11 month term of service.
Read on to learn more about the WCC program, and our awesome new members!
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Port Hadlock Riparian Restoration Crew |
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Owen French, Restoration Specialist, supervises the team of five WCC members that make up the Riparian Restoration crew. So, what exactly does the crew do? Torin, who is serving his second term on the crew, sums it up perfectly in his own words:
"Our crew does a wide variety of different types of work. Our main focus is riparian salmon habitat restoration, which entails everything from: prepping planting sites along creeks and rivers by brush cutting and application of herbicide to invasive plant species, planting the sites themselves, maintaining sites previously planted by the crew, tearing out aging culverts that block salmon passage, to installing, monitoring, and removing salmon and smolt traps. We're also called upon to occasionally for things outside the scope of salmon recovery; such as building trails to allow public access to various environmental projects, and scientific data collection of aquatic and terrestrial plant species and distribution. We're very proud of what we do; always looking forward to a hard days work and a job well done!"
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Mike was born and raised in a small beach town in Connecticut. He moved to Washington and graduated from Evergreen State College, studied environmental studies. Mike worked and lived on a commune farm on Maui as part of a college internship. He also worked and lived on an organic vegetable farm in Rochester, WA before joining the WCC. Mike’s future life goal is to have a big plot of land, build a cabin on it, and grow enough food to sustain himself. |
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Sabrina grew up in Skagit Valley, WA, then left Washington to attend Pomona College in California. She graduated in spring 2019 with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Analysis and joined a field technician crew working in Iowa before joining the WCC. The 2020-2021 term will be her second term with the Port Hadlock Riparian Restoration Crew. When she's not planting trees, she can be found on the soccer field. |
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Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska; Torin hit the road in the fall of 2018 in pursuit of a new adventure. In his free time Torin does photography, videography, backpacking, fishing, hiking, trail running, drawing, and occasionally some video games! He’s been in skates since he could get them on, and was playing hockey in the Bremerton adult league up until the lockdown. This is Torin’s second year on Owen’s crew; it's been a wild ride and he can't wait for what's ahead in the coming service year! |
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Marlowe grew up in Southern California, and graduated with a degree in Biology from the University of Puget Sound in 2019. Since then, she has pursued interests in environmental education and watershed conservation and restoration. In her free time she enjoys painting and exploring the outdoors. |
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Born, raised and educated in Wisconsin, Jake received his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Northland College, minoring in chemistry and environmental studies. He’s passionate about fungi, foraging, fermentation, and ecology. Jake joined AmeriCorps to gain experience in the field of ecological restoration, and to better serve the human, plant and animal communities that he relies on. |
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WCC IP: Education & Outreach Associate |
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Our sixth WCC member is an Individual Placement who acts as the Education and Outreach Associate at NOSC. Our IP aids in community outreach, environmental education, volunteer coordination, and habitat restoration and monitoring. |
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Lexi has spent her life in the Seattle area. In 2019, she earned her B.A. from the Evergreen State College with an emphasis in Outdoor Leadership, Environmental Education, and Decolonial Studies. Previously, Lexi served on a WCC crew that conducted forage fish spawning surveys around Puget Sound. Outside of work, Lexi loves to try new foods, paddleboard, hike with her dog, roller skate, and make art in various forms. Lexi is looking forward to learning as much as she can from the incredibly knowledgeable NOSC team and getting to know the local community! |
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NOSC recently performed several monitoring activities at the nearly-complete Kilisut Harbor restoration site. Staff monitored beach transects, surveyed gravel and sediment composition, and installed tidal gauges. A transect is a line across a habitat or a portion of a habitat along which observations are made. Staff took surface elevation measurements along the transect at regular intervals. This provides a baseline measurement that will allow us to monitor changes in beach elevation post-project. Similarly, gravel and sediment analysis provides a snapshot of current sediment transport conditions. Subsequent sediment analyses will allow us to track possible changes in transport conditions over time. This fall was our second deployment of tide gauges. These instruments measure tidal elevation in the channel. Our first deployment occurred pre-project and provided an initial baseline measurement. This most recent deployment will allow us to compare changes in both pre and post-project tidal elevations. Project monitoring and evaluation are essential components of a successful restoration project. It enables us to determine whether we have achieved the anticipated benefits and also ensures that use of project resources is both efficient and effective. |
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30th Anniversary
Annual Meeting
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Join us via Zoom to celebrate 30 years of salmon restoration and our recent accomplishments! Click the link below to learn more about the event and register. We will be giving away commemorative NOSC pint glasses and we also have several options to support NOSC and to score more goods as well! We hope to see you on the 19th!
Annual Meeting: November 19th, 6pm
via Zoom
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Recently, NOSC made the decision to close our Port Hadlock office. But don't worry, we're still around! Our new headquarters can be reached by mail at PO Box 197, Port Townsend, WA 98368, or by our same phone number at (360) 379-8051. We can also be visited at our Port Angeles office, on the second floor of the Karen Unger Law Offices on the corner of Fifth Street and Peabody. See you around! |
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Monthly Spotlight - Jim Pearson |
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The Salmon Coalition is grateful to work with and learn from so many inspiring and dedicated people. To celebrate the contributions of this community, NOSC selects someone each month to highlight and give thanks. This year marks our 30th Anniversary and we are highlighting different community members, staff, and partners that have helped make the Salmon Coalition what it is today.
This month we interviewed Jim Pearson, NOSC Board of Directors Chair and volunteer, who embodies the spirit of giving back.
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Tell us little bit about yourself and what initially led you to NOSC. |
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I like to think that my whole adult life led me to NOSC.
I came to the Northwest in the early 70’s straight out of college looking for wilderness and adventures. I found the Olympic Peninsula with its mountains and rivers, forests and coast, and salmon. Within a year I was on a salmon troller fishing in SE Alaska. I was a commercial fisherman for many years. I became aware that salmon runs in Washington were in serious decline and began to understand that habitat loss was the major cause.
I’ve lived near Chimacum Creek for many years and explored it from its mouth to its headwaters. I saw the chum salmon run go extinct and be restored through the work of dedicated community members.
I worked on planting events and stream restoration work on Chimacum Creek with Wild Olympic Salmon, the predecessor to NOSC.
For several years I managed Jefferson County’s Shoreline Management Program. It was a great opportunity to work with folks from the Washington Departments of Fisheries, Natural Resources, and Ecology and with the Tribes. It expanded my understanding of how forestry and agricultural practices, land use, road construction, stream channelization, and stormwater runoff affect salmon habitat.
All these experiences gave me a love and reverence for wild Olympic salmon, the iconic creature of the wilderness that brought me to the Olympic Peninsula in the first place. So getting involved with NOSC was just a natural next step.
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In what ways do you engage with NOSC? |
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I’ve volunteered at planting events at restoration sites in Jefferson and Clallam Counties and helped out with stream surveys and post-restoration monitoring. When I retired, I began doing chum and coho salmon surveys on Chimacum Creek.
I’ve also enjoyed participating in the Real Learning/Real Work Program with Chimacum and Port Townsend seventh grade students. NOSC’s education staff gives classroom instruction about the salmon life cycle and habitat needs. Then students go out to an actual restoration site where they collect data on an assigned plot. When they return to the classroom, they develop a planting plan that fits the characteristics of the site. The following Spring they return to their plot to plant the trees and shrubs they’ve chosen. It’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with these energetic and inquisitive kids. They are the hope for the future of salmon habitat restoration.
One winter, I did coho spawning surveys on Gerald Bishop’s property on the upper reaches of the Beaver Valley Fork of Chimacum Creek with Andy MacGregor, a fisheries scientist. He was also at that time the Chair of the NOSC Board of Directors. I got to be friends with him and learned a great deal about salmon and NOSC. A few months later, he asked me to join the NOSC Board. I did, was elected Vice-Chair, and for the past three years I’ve been the Chair of the Board.
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What do you love about NOSC? |
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If NOSC were a boxer, I’d say “It punches way above its weight.”
It’s a very lean organization with only seven or eight full time equivalent employees and a volunteer Board of Directors. Yet it has conceived, developed, funded, permitted, and constructed landscape scale restoration projects: restoring the natural alignment of a significant reach of Morse Creek, restoring the old Three Crabs Restaurant site in Dungeness, channel realignment and reforestation on Salmon Creek and restoration of critical salt marsh habitat at Discovery Bay, and just recently the construction of a 450’ long bridge between Indian and Marrowstone Islands to replace a causeway that had blocked juvenile salmon migration from Oak Bay into Kilisut Harbor where they can now feast in rich shallow water and saltmarsh habitat before journeying out to the ocean. Looking ahead NOSC is working on several culvert replacement projects in the Hoko River drainage in western Clallam County.
All of these projects are a testament to the vision, skill, and perseverance of the NOSC staff. They truly do punch way above their weight.
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Do you have a special memory about your time volunteering with NOSC? |
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Chum surveys on the lower reaches of Chimacum Creek are my favorite volunteer activity. We do them every Tuesday from late August through October. We walk along the Creek, down in a deep ravine with dappled light falling through 100 year-old trees. We count live and dead chum and take scale samples for analysis by the Washington Department of Fisheries.
My favorite memory is surveying a few years ago with Olivia Vito, then a new NOSC intern. She had a fisheries degree, but was new to the Northwest. It was the peak of a very large run. There were salmon swimming, splashing, spawning everywhere and the strong smell of dead fish. I counted almost 500 live chum and Olivia counted well over 1,000 dead ones. It was wonderful to share Olivia’s introduction to salmon on the Olympic Peninsula.
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Anything else you'd like to add? |
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Being involved with NOSC gives me a profound sense of stewardship of two of our most precious resources: wild Olympic salmon and our kids. Working with seventh graders in the Real Learning/Real Work Program gives me hope that the work that NOSC does, the work that we all need to do to protect and restore the Earth, will be carried on by the next generation.
I encourage you to join the North Olympic Salmon Coalition. Get to know us and the work we do. Become a volunteer. Come to a planting event. Help out with our Real Learning/Real Work Program. Celebrate the wild salmon of the Olympic Peninsula with us.
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Thank you Jim, we appreciate you! |
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Base funding for the RFEG program comes from a grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, a portion of state commercial and recreational fishing license fees, and excess egg and carcass sales administered by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.
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Give Us Your Feedback
Questions or Comments? Let us know what you think!
outreach@nosc.org
360.379.8051
www.nosc.org
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