Subscribe and keep up with the Sierra Nevada Alliance and receive updates about issues impacting the Sierra, what we’re doing to help, and how you can get involved. Subscribers will also receive an access code to unlock My Garden of a Thousand Bees.
Restoration Coordinator – Sierra Nevada AmeriCorps Partnership (SNAP)
Nevada City, California
South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) is the leading voice for the protection and restoration of the Yuba River and the greater Yuba Watershed. Founded in 1983 through a rural, grassroots campaign to defend the South Yuba River from proposed hydropower dams, SYRCL has developed into a vibrant community organization with over 3,500 members and volunteers based in Nevada City.
Program Description:
SYRCL’s Watershed Science Department is comprised of a number of restoration and project monitoring efforts throughout the Yuba River Watershed. The department includes an increasing number of restoration projects that require monitoring and assessment. SYRCL works with a variety of project partners to develop, implement, and monitor restoration projects throughout the Yuba River Watershed. Projects include large-scale floodplain rehabilitation, construction, and riparian planting projects in the lower Yuba River, water quality monitoring throughout the watershed, and a variety of meadow restoration projects. In addition to all aspects of project design and implementation, SYRCL works with project partners to design academically rigorous research projects associated with restoration projects to quantify the benefits of restoration actions and inform future restoration and management decisions.
Restoration Program Priorities:
- Riparian Restoration Projects in the Lower Yuba River: Planting riparian willow and hardwood cuttings along the lower Yuba River, secondary channel creation, and gravel augmentation for salmon habitat.
- Invasive weed removal: Scotch broom Challenge at various sites on the Yuba River.
- Meadow Restoration: Stream channel restoration, removal of small conifers, native meadow vegetation monitoring, planting of native willow stakes, hosting volunteer days, and invasive species removal to promote healthy meadows.
- Great Yuba Cleanup – more than 500 volunteers cleaning up 35 river sites focusing on specific restoration projects, including invasive weed removal at 5+ sites, all in one day!
Position Description:
The Restoration Coordinator will provide central coordination to volunteers contributing to larger habitat restoration projects in the watershed, ranging from the riparian planting project on the lower Yuba River to meadows restoration on Tahoe National Forest. The Restoration Coordinator will assist SYRCL staff with pre and post-restoration project monitoring in a variety of restoration contexts throughout the Yuba Watershed, including floodplain restoration projects in the lower Yuba, and meadow restoration and forest health projects in the Upper Watershed. Monitoring tasks are likely to include turbidity monitoring, riparian, and meadow vegetation identification and surveys, riparian vegetation survivorship and growth measurement, hydrologic monitoring, snorkel fish and bug surveys, marking planting locations, and meadow fringe conifer and aspen transects.
In addition to the specific fieldwork component, all monitoring tasks will require recording data in digital formats and/or on paper. The Restoration Coordinator will work with project managers to QA/QC the data. They will also work closely with project partners to ensure high-quality, academically rigorous data.
The Restoration Coordinator will also have the opportunity to work with project managers to analyze data, generate graphics, and write reports.
Lastly, the Restoration Coordinator will provide restoration education outreach and volunteer recruitment at a number of community gatherings and will assist in our field science high school education meadow research programs, YOLO, and Earthwatch.
