13th Annual Coho Confab in Western Sonoma County

August 13-15, 2010

Dutch Bill watershed has conducted multiple watershed restoration projects including upslope and instream structures. (Photo by David Berman)

The Coho Confab is a symposium to explore watershed restoration, learn restoration techniques to recover coho salmon populations, and to network with other fish-centric people. The 13th Annual Coho Confab will be held in Western Sonoma County in the Russian River watershed. Salmonid Restoration Federation and Trees Foundation are the permanent co-hosts of this educational event and this year the Confab is also Vineyards that have employed sustainable vineyard practices that benefit fish as well as a bioengineering tour in Guerneville where participants will see various bioengineering techniques including Mouth tour highlighting installed and sponsored by the California Department of Fish & Game, Westminster Woods, and Occidental Arts & Ecology Center. The Confab allows for participants and instructors to learn from each other’s experience. Participants learn skills and practices that can be applied to restore habitat in their home watershed. 

Restoration pioneer Richard Gienger coined the term “Confab” from the verb “confabulate” which literally means to informally chat or to fabricate to compensate for gaps in ones memory. This is not to imply that restorationists are prone to hyperbole when recounting the size of a rescued fish, the magnitude of the waterfall coming out of the culvert, or the heroics of a particular restoration job. Orientation presentations include a talk with Liza Prunuske of Prunuske Chatham entitled, Making a Living: Economics and Ecological Restoration. Bob Coey from NOAA Fisheries will discuss Linking Pathways to Core Recovery Targets and Programs on the Sonoma/Marin Coast and Brock Dolman from Occidental Arts and Ecology Center will give a talk about Basins of Relations.

A fish passage crossing sign in the Dutch Bill watershed (Photo by David Berman)

This year’s Confab will feature Friday afternoon tours of the Russian River Broodstock Program followed by a tour of Dry Creek live willow siltation baffles, live willow brush mattresses, live willow deep cluster planting, live woven willow walls, live willow brushlayers with coir wrapped soil lifts, live willow brushlayers with boulder and gravel lifts, vegetated boulder wing deflectors, roughened channels to replace culverts and several fish habitat structures.

Saturday morning tours include a Gold Ridge RCD Tour of Dam Removal and Landowner Tools for Protecting Salmon and will visit the Dutch Bill Creek Fish Barrier Elimination Project, which includes both the Camp Meeker dam removal and Market Street culvert fish passage projects, and will highlight several examples of stream habitat enhancement projects through the placement of large woody debris structures. Brock Dolman will lead a tour of Rainwater Catchment and Water Conservation Practices at OAEC, and Nick Bauer of UC Cooperative Extension will lead an Underwater Fish Identification workshop.

The Saturday afternoon sessions will include a tour of Salmon Creek: Save our Salmon, Water Conservation and Instream Habitat Projects led by John Green of Gold Ridge RCD, and Lauren Hammack of Prunsuke Chatham. There will be a workshop on Aquatic Invertebrate Identification and Standard Techniques to Monitor Restoration Efforts with invertebrate taxonomist Dr. John Sandberg and Jim Harrington of the DFG Aquatic Bioassessment Laboratory. There will also be an Austin Creek: Headwaters to planned structures designed to increase fish habitat and the effects of road development on aquatic habitat. After the tours there will be an open forum focused on Coho Salmon Restoration and DFG’s Fisheries Restoration Grant Program Changes and Opportunities with Kevin Shaffer and Gail Seymour of the California Department of Fish and Game. There will also be a BBQ, Cabaret, and Campfire and Concert with Joanne Rand.

Sunday morning workshops include Slow it, Spread it, Sink it: Slowing Down Upslope Erosion in the Headwaters of Dutch Bill Creek with Brock Dolman as well as another opportunity to attend both the underwater fish identification and the macro-invertebrate sampling workshop.

The cost to attend the Confab is $125 if you register by August 1 and $150 afterwards. The cost includes shared cabins or camping as well as all meals and workshops. There are also ten one-day scholarships available for Dutch Bill Creek watershed residents. Scholarship applicants should submit a paragraph to the Gold Ridge RCD on why they would like a scholarship and how they will use the information to benefit the watershed community. Please submit to Gold Ridge RCD, attention Sierra Cantor by July 23; by email to sierra@ goldridgercd.org or by mail to P.O. Box 1064, Occidental, CA 95465.