Luckiamute Watershed Council

KINGS VALLEY -- The Luckiamute Watershed Council is inviting community members of Pedee and Kings Valley on a free tour Saturday, June 27.

The group will see demonstration projects on Maxfield Creek such as culvert replacements, log placements and road realignment designed to be more fish-friendly. Entire story

MONMOUTH -- At the edge of Diana Wurzer and Bayard McLeod's art project, a bit of brown scum gathers, hesitates, and then is slowly sucked into the "pod" and disappears.

A day after anchoring two of these unusual art pieces into a shallow stream that feeds the middle fork of Ash Creek north of Monmouth, the two Western Oregon University students returned with their instructor, Mary Harden, to see if their "pods" were performing their functions. Entire story

POLK COUNTY-- A study conducted within this past year revealed that about 36 percent of the Luckiamute River watershed's land area is home to 99.6 percent of its winter steelhead and 80 percent of its cutthroat trout.

What do these findings mean?

The Luckiamute Watershed Council invited people to find out on May 28, at
the Monmouth Public Library. Steve Trask, the scientist who oversaw the study, was on
hand to explain the count, the first of its sort conducted in decades.. Entire story

KINGS VALLEY -- How do you jump-start a local community in the face of global economic factors beyond its control? You start by training its residents to be leaders, according to experts from Rural Development Initiatives (RDI).

RDI is no newcomer to rural belt-tightening. The non-profit organization has been training rural leaders to turn lemons into lemonade since it was founded in 1992. The leadership workshops are supported in part by the Ford Family Foundation, an Oregon nonprofit. Entire story

MONMOUTH -- Although Polk County is simply researching the feasibility of building a Valsetz Reservoir, environmentalists see it as a waste of time and money.

"We're taking a pragmatic approach to look at all the options we have to address out water needs in the future," Austin McGuigan, Polk County community development director, said during a May 7 panel discussion at the Monmouth Public Library.

SALEM -- The Luckiamute Watershed Council was among seven recipients of environmental improvement funds presented April 23 by Gov. Ted Kulongoski at a gathering to commemorate Earth Day.

The Luckiamute Watershed Council will add the $15,000 it received from the governor's fund to another $121,866 from Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and other partners to replace barriers that are blocking spawning or rearing native fish from moving upstream. Entire story

MONMOUTH -- The Luckiamute Watershed Council is preparing to conduct its second round of fish counts in the Luckiamute and Little Luckiamute rivers and the creeks that feed into them.

Volunteers are needed to help make phone calls to landowners to ask permission for access to the streams on private lands.

Volunteers will begin making phone calls to approximately 245 landowners May 1 and continue through May 15. Training for phone calls will take place Friday, May 1. Entire story

PEDEE -- The Luckiamute Watershed Council is hosting a "getting to know you" meeting for the Pedee and Kings Valley communities Thursday, March 12, at the Pedee Women's Clubhouse, 12491 Kings Valley Highway.

A business meeting of the council is scheduled at 6 p.m., potluck snacks at 6:45 p.m., and the Pedee-Kings Valley discussions begin at 7 p.m. Entire story

On the muddy banks of the E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area angling pond near the Polk-Benton county line, about 50 Luckiamute Valley Charter School students jostle each other to be the first to release inch-long fish fry into the water.

"They're not French fries, you don't eat them," puns Serena Rodriquez, 9, of Independence. Entire story

When summer arrives in Polk and Benton counties, what few steelhead and trout there are in the Luckiamute River system head for cooler waters upstream in the Kings Valley, Pedee and Falls City areas. So say preliminary results from a fish survey conducted last summer by the Luckiamute Watershed Council.

The survey team, headed by Steve Trask's Bio-Surveys of Alsea, waded, snorkeled and swam through 214 miles of river and creek to complete the first official count in as many as 50 years in some places in the watershed. Entire story

KINGS VALLEY -- Matt North of Monmouth and his teammate, Juliette Sprague of Philomath, teetered across giant Douglas fir logs to get to the other side of Plunkett Creek.

The two Kings Valley Charter School freshmen were among nine of the school's biology students who donned waders and shivered through a crisp November morning to identify plants, measure stream depth and figure the mass of the logs that were placed in the creek to create fish habitat. Entire story

PEDEE -- Six Chemeketa Community College students earned their biology credits the hard way last weekend, planting native trees and shrubs in the pouring rain on the banks of Ritner Creek.

The project, sponsored by the Luckiamute Watershed Council, is aimed at replacing plants that had been damaged on private land while removing railroad pilings downstream from the historic Ritner Creek Bridge. Entire story

POLK COUNTY -- Last fall, a group of farmers, landowners, scientists and residents in the Luckiamute River and Ash Creek watersheds learned to write personal essays -- a genre most of them had never tried before.

A year later, those essays have been gathered and bound into an entertaining and colorful book that will raise money to improve the watersheds the group wrote about. Entire story

POLK COUNTY -- The Luckiamute Watershed Council is hosting its annual celebration beginning at noon on Saturday, Sept. 13, at the Ritner Creek Bridge near Pedee.

The council will be serving barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers, drinks and side dishes to anyone who attends. Vegetarian options are also on the menu. Entire story

POLK COUNTY -- Nicole Duplaix was selected by the Luckiamute Watershed Council as the group's new coordinator, replacing Michael Cairns.

Cairns stepped down from the job earlier this summer but will remain with LWC to focus on specific field projects. Entire story