Summer Environmental Exchange Projects - 2000

Tahoe Projects

• Prescribed Fire Monitoring Project (California Tahoe Conservancy)

  TBI participants worked on prescribed fire monitoring with the California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) and researched the history and role of fire in the Tahoe basin, current methods of fire management and monitoring, and public sentiment towards controlled burns. The group worked on a piece of land recently acquired by the CTC in South Lake Tahoe, where they prepared two 20m x 50m plots later burned in the fall. The data collected was used by the CTC to monitor the effects of prescribed burning on the forested land they manage.

• Citizen Environmental Monitoring Project (League to Save Lake Tahoe)

  TBI participants gathered native seeds and mulch later used to revegitate an old service road on Forest Stewardship Day, a program that began in 1997 where the public works to do all restoration activities.

• Grazing assessment: a comparison of wild horse and cattle grazing in Nevada (Animal Legal Defense Fund)

  Wild horses on public lands are a hotly debated topic throughout the western United States. Wild horses are considered to be a symbol of American freedom and are protected by the "Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act" of 1971 (16 U.S.C 1331-1340) (Act). The Act states that "wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found (in 1971), as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands." Public lands are also utilized by ranchers for cattle and sheep grazing. Some ranchers feel that wild horses overgraze the range and are responsible for degradation of riparian areas. They are pressuring the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to "zero out" herd management areas (HMA), meaning the complete removal of all wild horses from the HMA. The public and many non-governmental organizations (NGO) disagree and serve as advocates for the horses. The goal of the TBI project was to learn about the issues surrounding wild horses. This was accomplished by observing the wild horses and range areas, talking to experts, including BLM officials and ranchers, and performing an internet search of sites regarding wild horses. During the second week of the project participants focused on the issue of zeroing out the Rocky Hills HMA in central Nevada. BLM removed all the horses from this HMA to allow the area to recover from fire damage incurred in the summer of 1999.

• Benthic Macroinvertebrate Biodiversity and Community Structure as Biological Indicators of Watershed Restoration Projects (UC Davis Tahoe Research Group-funding from CTC)

  There are approximately 63 streams entering Lake Tahoe with almost all of them influenced by land-use activities. Accelerated land bank erosion has adversely affected water quality and has led to a continuous pattern of sediment delivery to Lake Tahoe and contributing to the influx of nutrients that promote algal growth and reduce water clarity. The California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) has carried out restoration work on many stream environment zones (SEZs) to counteract the effects of degradation. One of the long-term goals is to assess the effects of their restoration work. For this project, TBI participants evaluated the status of creeks in the Tahoe basin using aquatic insects as bio-indicators of stream health. Hydrobiological measurements, such as insect-species populations, are highly sensitive to changes in water quality and are a good addition to geographical, chemical, and physical measurements in determining stream health. The results are part of a long-term project being conducted by Dorothea Panayotou of UC Davis.

• Assessment of Lahontan Cutthroat Trout on Cascade Lake, CA (UC Davis Tahoe Research Group)

  Lahontan Cutthroat Trout was the historic native game fish in Lake Tahoe. Ecosystem alterations in the past 150 years caused the Lahontan Cutthroat to become extinct in Lake Tahoe. The United States Federal Government was assessing whether to reintroduce the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout (LCT) to the Tahoe Basin by means of state and governmental agencies. The LCT was extirpated from the Tahoe Basin in the 1940's due in part to competition with introduced gamefish. Traditionally the LCT is a lacustrine fish that spends the first part of its life in streams and returns to the stream to spawn. The LCT is known to hybridize with Rainbow Trout, and compete with Lake Trout for space and forage fish. Due to the high abundances of both Rainbow and Lake Trout in Lake Tahoe, the TBI group concluded that reintroduction of the LCT would likely fail. Mysid shrimp and Mysis relicta were introduced into Lake Tahoe in the early 1960's, and established a strong population by 1969, completely altering the zooplankton assemblage of the lake and causing cladoceran species of Daphnia and Bosmina to disappear almost completely (Goldman, et al. 1979). Unlike Lake Tahoe, Cascade Lake has suffered few ecosystem alterations. Fortunately, Cascade Lake has no mysid shrimp and still has a healthy zooplankton community. TBI participants concluded that Before LCT is reintroduced into Lake Tahoe, a complete survey and study of Cascade Lake is crucial.

• Assessment of Tahoe Yellow Cress Protection Methods at Baldwin Beach, South Lake Tahoe (California Tahoe Conservancy)

  This project involved experimental research on the status of the endemic plant Rorippa subumbulleta and how to protect the plant in Lake Tahoe. TBI participants analyzed methods for protecting the plants One proposed solution analyzed was to build fences around the plants. There were two fences on the western and eastern shores of Baldwin Beach. Participants found the fence choice was inappropriate due to being made of made of wood, which created positive conditions for other plants which displaced the Tahoe Yellow Cress species. The TBI group built a new fence which would favor TYC and provided baseline data for developing future studies. The new fence was made from metal re-bars set in the sand four meters apart with wire running horizontally between them. Monitoring of the current plant population was conducted by fixing transect points and transferring them to a GPS database and then taking coordinates of sand and wetland zones.

Baikal Projects

• Land-use Planning on Olkhon Island (Institute of Geography of Irkutsk- Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

  In the 1970's the Institute of Geography started a project to zone national park areas in the Irkutsk Oblast. In this project, TBI assisted assessing the quality of several wildlife protection, recreational activities, and waste disposal on Olkhon Island.

• Restoration of Cultural Sites on Olkhon Island (Irkutsk Children and Youth School of Ecology and Health--funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development "ROLL" Project)

  TBI participants spent five days in the village of Khuzhir, on Olkhon Island restoring Shaman's Cape, a Buryat sacred site. TBI work focused on removing traces and reducing soil erosion caused by a Soviet-era petroleum fueling and storage facility. This project was part of a larger plan to transform the area into a landscape park. Project leaders predict increased usage of this area by both Russian and foreign tourists and hope the establishment of the park will ease environmental damage to this culturally significant area. TBI participants provided manual labor and recommendations to project leaders for the restoration of the site. Future plans for the park include closing the area to vehicles, removing roads, repairing erosion damage, establishing trails, placing garbage receptacles, and creating a visitor center complete with picnicking areas and a restaurant.

• Selenga Water Quality and Health Assessment ("Baikalkomvod" - Committee for the Management of Water Resources of Lake Baikal under Russian Ministry of Natural Resources)

  This project was a joint expedition between participants from local scientific institutes and TBI. The expedition started on the Selenga at the Mongolia border and ended at Lake Baikal. TBI participants were responsible for collecting water samples for Irkutsk State University and filling out health risk questionnaires with local people in Naushki, Ulan-Ude, and Murzino. Other expedition participants measured chemical, biological and geographical parameters along the Selenga river.

• Assessment of the Forest Ecosystem in the Baikal Nature Preserve (Baikal Biospheric State Nature Preserve; Irkutsk Geography Institute)

  TBI participants worked in the Baikal Nature Preserve (BNP) to assess anthropogenic impacts on forest ecosystems by conducting dendro-chronological, geobotanical, and soil studies. TBI participants focused on the most vulnerable relic dark coniferous forests of the territory. The preserve, or 'zapovednik,' of 165,700 hectares was established in 1969. There are approximately 100 nature preserves in Russia on which development, hunting, fishing, lumbering, and settlements are forbidden. The BNP is composed of three different zones: a collaboration zone, a buffer zone, and the preserve itself. The collaboration zone includes all villages and settlements around the preserve. The main task in this zone is to increase the environmental consciousness of local people through environmental education. The buffer zone is situated between the collaboration zone and the preserve. Limited activities are permitted for local people in this zone including hunting and gathering of berries, mushrooms, and medicinal plants. The shoreline of Lake Baikal is not included in the preserve. Urgent environmental problems affecting the preserve are primarily anthropogenic. Relic dark coniferous forests are particularly vulnerable to atmospheric pollution carried from the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill and industrial plants in Irkutsk, Shelekhov, and Angarsk. Deep drilling scientific projects that may incidentally reach to oil-bearing layers under Lake Baikal sediments and a proposed gas pipeline from the Kovykta gas deposit in the region are also potential environmental threats. Over a twelve-day period TBI participants, in collaboration with BNP specialists, took part in scientific research, meetings with local school children, and discussions with employees of the preserve.