Events and Activities
Sierra Harvest Summer Calendar
Summer is packed with fun things to do! Check out this calendar to find out what's happening and get out and go!
Date: All Summer!
Please click here for more details.
CDFW August Calendar
California Department of Fish and Wildlife has put together a great calendar of events for August, check it out!
Date: August!
Please click here for more details.
South Yuba State Park Summer Calendar
Summer is packed with fun things to do! Check out this calendar to find out what's happening and get out and go!
Date: All Summer!
Please click here for more details.
California Environmental Education Event Calendar
CEEIN is pleased to offer a calendar of events and opportunities in California relating to environmental education.
Date: Annual
Please click here for more details.
Discover Malakoff! Morning Hike with Mark
A guided hike led by Mark Michalski, a retired State Park Ranger who worked 38 years for California State Parks examining mining and environmental recovery.
Date: August 11th
Please click here for tickets and information.
25th Anniversary Conference - Sierra Nevada Alliance
We are excited to announce the Sierra Nevada Alliance’s 25th Anniversary Conference in beautiful Kings Beach, California!
The theme for this special event is “Regional Resiliency.”
Date: August 15th - 17th
Please click here for more details and to register.
CA Learning Session: Hope For Our Coast - Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation
Join ARCCA to learn about The Nature Conservancy and the California State Coastal Conservancy’s recently completed statewide assessment: Conserving California’s Coastal Habitats: A Legacy and a Future with Sea Level Rise.
Date: August 21st
Please click here for more information.
Sierra Cloud Evening Sail - Mountain Area Preservation
Join MAP for an evening aboard the Sierra Cloud Catamaran. Proceeds benefit MAP's campaign battling the Martis Valley West project in Truckee.
Date: August 24th
Please click here for tickets and more information.
Get Outdoors at Echo Summit - Eldorado National Forest
Join the Eldorado National Forest for a special event to celebrate the National Trails System which was established in 1968, the same year that Echo Summit was used as a high-elevation Olympic training center.
Date: August 25th
Please click here for tickets and more information.
California Adaptation Forum
Join adaptation practitioners from across the state and nation at the 3rd California Adaptation Forum! The Forum will feature a dynamic program across three full days including plenaries, breakout sessions, workshops, tours, a tools salon, a hosted reception, and numerous networking opportunities. Participants will walk away with new strategies, tools, and connections to accelerate adaptation efforts in their own communities.
Date: August 27-29th 2018
Please click here for more details and to register.
Flood-MAR Session
DWR is hosting a public workshop on Flood-MAR, an emerging water management strategy that could significantly improve water resources sustainability throughout the state.
Flood-MAR is an integrated and voluntary resource management strategy that uses flood water resulting from, or in anticipation of, rainfall or snow melt for managed aquifer recharge (MAR) on agricultural lands and working landscapes, including but not limited to refuges, floodplains, and flood bypasses.
Date:Thursday, August 30
Please click here for more details.
Managing Drought in a Changing Climate - Public Policy Institute of California
Join the PPIC Water Policy Center and a panel of experts for a discussion on reforms needed to improve resilience and galvanize action to prepare for future droughts.
New research from PPIC melds lessons learned from the recent drought with climate change simulations to review California’s capacity to adapt and prepare for greater extremes and growing water scarcity.
Date:Monday, September 10
Please click here for more details and to register.
Job Announcements & Volunteer Opportunities
Administrative Assistant - Sierra Nevada Alliance
Join our team! The Alliance Administrative Assistant provides administrative support to the Alliance Executive and Financial Directors to benefit all program areas of the organization.
For more info, click here.
Environmental Manager - Squaw Valley
Manages the environmental responsibilities in day to day operations including budgeting, project management, ordering, estimating, developing new and manage existing company sustainability efforts including all duties related to revegetation.
For more info, click here.
Various Volunteer Positions - Give Back Tahoe
A list of volunteer opportunities in the Tahoe/Truckee area.
For more info, click here.
Civic Spark Sierra Nevada Area Opportunities
Find opportunities through Sierra Business Council, Sierra Nevada Alliance, Placer County, and the Town of Mammoth Lakes in Climate Projects, Water Projects, and Opportunity Access Projects. Interviews will begin in July and start dates are in September.
For more info, click here.
Development Assistant - SYRCL
SYRCL is looking for an organized, detail-oriented and friendly person to work on our development and fundraising team on a part-time basis. The Development Assistant will coordinate special events, and assist in tracking financial contributions, stewarding donors, and doing database entry and funder research.
For more info, click here.
Resources
Wildlands Affected by Wildfires: Know Before You Go!
California Department of Fish and Wildlife wants to remind recreationalists that fires throughout California have affected access to public lands in many locations that are normally heavily used during the fall general hunting season openers.
Learn more here.
Living With Fire - Tahoe Basin
Resourceful website on living with the threat of wildfires in the High Sierra.
For more info, click here.
Become a 2018 Member Group of the Sierra Nevada Alliance!
Our goal at the Sierra Nevada Alliance is to protect and restore the Sierra Nevada by strengthening individual efforts and joining together as a region-wide force. The most integral component of the Alliance is our strong network of Member Groups. The goal of the Alliance Member Group program is to increase the value of this network as a resource to all involved through expanding our base of Member Groups. We work to actively facilitate collaboration amongst Member Groups to broaden our collective impact on behalf of the Sierra.
Contact Sara Monson here
For more info, click here.
Highlights
Join us for our 25th Anniversary Conference
Sierra Nevada Alliance’s 25th anniversary will kick off with the Prosser Creek Restoration Day on August 15th from 10:00am- 4:00pm. Volunteers will assist with building Beaver Dam Analogs, placing spawning gravel, and planting native plants to improve the health of riparian habitat at Prosser creek.
Volunteers will meet at the Prosser Creek Dam parking lot at 10:00am. Lunch is included, please bring water bottle and dress for a day in the field.
Don’t miss your opportunity to live the theme of this year’s conference by contributing to the “Regional Ecological Resiliency” of the Sierra.
If you would like to be a part of this volunteer day please find more information here.
What's Different About California's Fires This Year?
By Henry Fountain
California is burning, with at least 16 big wildfires statewide. The largest, in and around the northern city of Redding, has killed at least six people and burned more than a thousand homes and other structures.
Fires are nothing new in the state this time of year. It’s fire season, after all, as it is elsewhere in the West. But something feels different this time, perhaps because, following the Santa Rosa fire last October, this is the second year in a row in which fire has destroyed large parts of a city.
There are plenty of reasons for such destructive wildfires, including the fact that communities are encroaching more and more on forests, putting property and people at risk. But scientists say a climate change link is likely, too.
This summer’s record-high temperatures — the thermometer reached 111 Fahrenheit on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, in early July, for example — got most of the headlines. But from a fire perspective, individual records here and there are not as significant as extended periods of above-normal temperatures.
“What has been really unusual in the Western U.S. this summer has been the sustained heat,” said Alex Hall, a U.C.L.A. climate scientist. “It really pulls water out of vegetation, and that sets up conditions for big fires.”
“A month of somewhat elevated temperatures has a much bigger impact than just one day of really extreme heat,” he said. “It adds up.”
It’s not unusual for weather patterns to linger in summer, when the jet stream that would normally move big air masses around shifts to the north. But lingering weather that is 15 to 20 degrees above normal is something else. That was the situation in much of the state in July, including in Redding, where daytime temperatures did not drop below triple digits for 14 days straight.
Dr. Hall cautioned that no one had yet analyzed the sustained heat in California for the fingerprints of climate change. But he said he had no doubt that such a study would find that global warming made it more likely.
“The longer, the more sustained the signals are, the harder they are to explain through atmospheric circulation or the kinds of variability you associate with weather,” he said. Rather, he added, it suggests the climate is shifting. “It’s a new climate, if you will.”
To see the original New York Times article, click here.
For more information about fires in your area, look at For more information about the air quality in your area, look at the Inciweb Incident Information System here.
For more information about the air quality in your area, look at the Air Quality Index here.
SNAP Spotlight: South Yuba River Citizens’ League (SYRCL) – Katie Nickels, Karli Foreman, and Siya Phillips
South Yuba River Citizen’s League (SYRCL) nestled in the foothills of Sierra Nevada, was founded in 1983 to protect the South Yuba from dams. Fueled with a love and a passion to protect the South Yuba River, SYRCL ultimately was able to secure 39 miles of the South Yuba under California’s Wild and Scenic Act. Since this milestone, SYRCL has become a central hub for community activism, continuing to protect, restore and inspire in and around the Yuba River Watershed.
For several years, Sierra Nevada AmeriCorps Partnership (SNAP) has played a critical role in providing SYRCL the resources and expert personnel needed to allow the growing non-profit to achieve its goals. Every year, SYRCL hosts three AmeriCorps members: a River Monitoring Coordinator, a Restoration Coordinator, and a Stewardship Coordinator. Wrapping up the 2017/18 cohort this year is: Karli Foreman hailing from courageous Colorado, Siya Philips originating from marvelous Massachusetts, and Katie Nickels derived from okie-dokey Ohio.
Karli Foreman, SYRCL’s Restoration Coordinator, grew up in mountainous Colorado and attended school at Colorado State University receiving her degree in Natural Resource Management. As soon as she graduated, she was searching for her next adventure that would allow her to reside in the mountains and to pursue a position that would expand upon her education. The position with SYRCL fit all the criteria and she quickly packed her bags and headed for California. As the Restoration Coordinator at SYRCL, Karli has had the opportunity to manage and coordinate several different restoration projects and events throughout the year. Karli has been able to thoroughly explore the watershed through the bumpiest of back roads in the county, learn and identify the vegetation on the lower Yuba, Deer and Loney Meadows, and connect with various stakeholders and other non-profits.
Katie Nickels, SYRCL’s River Monitoring Coordinator, grew up in a small Ohio village. It was not until attending college in the Blue Ridge Mountains that Katie started to expound upon her curiosity for the outdoors. After graduating, she took part in various AmeriCorps programs that allowed her to explore the country, meet new friends, enhance her professional skills, and develop a passion for service work. The SNAP position at SYRCL provided Katie with another opportunity to further her career in the environmental sciences, through hands on hydrologic surveying and taking on full responsibility of a citizen-science based monitoring program. As the River Monitoring Coordinator, Katie has worked all over the Yuba watershed. She has collected groundwater data from the meadows woven into the Yuba’s headwaters, charged into storms to monitor heavy metal runoff from abandon gold mines, paddled pristine lakes in search of invasive species, and with the help of over 40 volunteers monitored the entire Yuba watershed monthly.
Siya Phillips attended Hobart and William Smith colleges in Geneva, New York. Her interest resides in the inter-dependence amongst people, the environment and the culture that defines this relationship. As Stewardship Coordinator, Siya is afforded the opportunity to connect the community to SYRCL’s many programs and events and in this, assists people to find a connection the Yuba River watershed. As Stewardship Coordinator, Siya conducts educational outreach, provides training and support to volunteers, assist in producing SYRCL events and oversees the River Ambassador Program. The River Ambassador program is the main concentration of her role. This program is a SYRCL and California State Parks program in which volunteers take action to motivate and educate the community to care for the South Yuba River. Through friendly conversation they promote an ethic of responsible, non-polluting use of the river at crossings, beaches and on trails.
SYRCL is a diverse, community focused non-profit organization that offers a range of opportunities for anyone interested in lending a hand in the fight to protect the environment. Whether your interest is collecting scientific data, being a public face for the River, restoring natural landscapes, or joining forces to protect the Yuba from irresponsible dams, the South Yuba River Citizens League is a place where people can save the River. Check out our website and get involved today!
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The policy of the Resource is to include articles that appear in local or
major media outlets relevant to Sierra conservation. We also include news
releases, event notices, funding opportunities and job announcements sent to
us from our Member Groups and friends. If you as a reader disagree with the
content of a submission we encourage you to submit a letter to the editor of
the issuing publication to reach the broader audience who read the article.
You are welcome to forward your letter to the editor to the Alliance for
inclusion in our new "Letters to the Resource" section. We also invite Letters
to the Resource to be directly submitted on any article with which you're
concerned.
Newsletter contents prepared by Rachael Blum, Administrative Assistant with the Sierra Nevada Alliance.
If you have articles, events or announcements that you would like included in this newsletter or if you have feedback,
please email Rachael.
If you would like to support the Sierra Nevada Alliance initiatives,
please click here to contribute to our funding.
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