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Out there beneath the endlessly changing shades of the heavens –under the bright sun, the wind, the clouds, and the rain- our crew from the Crew Leader Development Program were the greatly privileged witnesses of a great many marvels of the natural world. In the midst of our hard, labor-intensive work, we always gave a moment of our day to be filled with wonder and reverence for these rich surprises… these grand and seemingly limitless wonders.
Sometimes these surprises came as small things –an unusual cactus growing stubbornly in some sweltering scree of rock, the tiny, luminescent fossil of some long vanished clam, or a plethora of strange and marvelous mineral rocks strewn like gleaming gems in the clay… Sometimes they were grand things –trees old and kingly, mountains broad and towering, castles of rock weathering away in the desert… But whatever their proportions, these sources of awe and joy were seemingly limitless, perhaps because we were prepared to be awed and ready to be joyed by such sights and sounds as we were gifted by in our time working for the Southwest Conservation Corps.
There is far too much to tell of, far too many beautiful and strange things we beheld and sensed as we interacted with the natural world. But what we can be sure to recount of and list in some sort of measurable fashion are the animal species we either saw, heard, or found signs of along our way. We have included here some superb photographs of animal tracks we found imprinted in the mud along a stream we were working by, each photo accompanied by a caption explaining their origin.
- Written by Joseph Ortega – CLDP Member – 5/8/12
LIST OF NOTABLE FAUNAS
Mammals
Grey Fox (Urycon cinereoargenteus) DETECTED: Tracks photographed in Dry Creek
Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) SIGHTED, DETECTED: running in a field near Cortez, CO. Tracks photographed in Dry Creek
Coyote (Canis latrans) SIGHTED, HEARD, DETECTED: a sound of the night-fallen countryside, numerous tracks, several skulls and several sightings.
Puma, Mountain Lion, or Cougar (Puma concolor) HEARD: a female in heat was heard yowling on the Old Fort Lewis Sight near Hesperus, CO
Striped Skunk (Mephitis mephitis) SIGHTED, DETECTED: Several sightings and one set of prints found.
American Badger (Taxidea taxus) DETECTED: Many holes dug around our work sites belonged to badgers
American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) DETECTED: Several superb sets of prints were discovered and photographed in Dry Creek. Bear scat was also seen.
Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) DETECTED: Although a foreign and invasive animal most commonly found in regions like Texas, Florida, and southern California, the skull of a Wild Boar (not a domestic pig) was found on a work site and confirmed by CDOW specialists.
Rocky Mountain Mule Deer (Cervidae) SIGHTED, DETECTED: A common animal but seen in impressive numbers. Many bones, skulls, and antlers of this species were found on or adjacent to our numerous work sights.
Elk or Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) SIGHTED, DETECTED: A herd of nearly 80 animals was seen in Dry Creek. Many spoor left behind in their wake, such as bones, dung, and antlers.
Bear, Fox and Coyote tracks in the mud!
It looks like the Los Valles office is at it again. Check out this announcement in the Salida Citizen about their community garden projects.
Posted by Citizen Team on April 17, 2012
The Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) to develop a garden with Support from a ScottsMiracle-Gro GRO1000 Grassroots Grant
Southwest Conservation Corp today announced the installation of its garden at 701 Highway 50. The garden is part of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company’s GRO1000 initiative, designed to create 1,000 gardens and green spaces throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe by 2018, the Company’s 150th anniversary.
SCC received a GRO1000 Grassroots Grant award to help construct the initial infrastructure. It was one of more than 100 organizations across the U.S. to receive funding for a garden or green space build. Once the project is complete, SCC will continue to use the garden to grow food for its conservation crews.
The Southwest Conservation Corps has several upcoming volunteer opportunities that we thought you might be interested in. We are launching a new gardening and agriculture program and need your help prepping new garden sites in Salida.
According to Tyler Lincoln, AmeriCorps VISTA, “We were excited to receive the
grant support for the Los Valles and Moonstone Gardens. It is our hope that through the
development of this space, we can bring our community even closer together, while
educating our residents about the benefits of gardening.” Community gardens and public green spaces play an important role in towns and cities. The gardens in Salida will provide a place for the community to gather and work together to grow fresh produce. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that Americans throw away more than 11 billion pounds of produce each year. Despite that surplus, 4.1 percent of U.S. households experience hunger, 2.9 million of whom are children. Through this garden, residents will be encouraged to eat healthier through cost-effective means.
To learn more about the Los Valles and Moonstone Gardens, and upcoming volunteer opportunities contact Tyler Lincoln at tyler@sccorps.org.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado visited the SCC Veterans Fire Corps program in Durango on Wednesday, April 4th. He spent time meeting and talking with Corpsmembers and Crew Leaders in the program, learning about their service history, inquiring about what drew them to VFC program and getting details specific to the current fuels reduction project. City officials and staff from local USFS and BLM offices joined SCC for this event held in Dalla Mountain Park.
SCC was recently selected out of 500 applicants for the North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action (NAPECA) award from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. This award provides funding to continue SCC’s role of community engagement and restoration in the Dolores River Restoration Partnership. To date over 1.5 million dollars have been raised by the partnership to support on the ground restoration of the Dolores River from McPhee Dam in Colorado to the Colorado River in Utah.
Be a part of this amazing effort and join one of our Dolores River Restoration Crews.
Learn more about NAPECA
Learn more about the Dolores River Restoration Partnership
Join us for a fundraising event on Monday March 26th at Moonlight Pizza and Free the Monkey Consignment in Salida, CO! Both businesses will be donating 10% of the day’s sales to support SCC Los Valles’ programs. Hope to see you there!!!
The Southwest Conservation Corps is celebrating AmeriCorps week from March 10th – 18th. Please see the information below for events in your community!
2012 AmeriCorps Week Events
Events in Arizona
- The SCC Southwest Crew will be working at Manzo School on Monday and Tuesday at Miles Exploratory Academy doing service work with the students. On Tuesday afternoon they will be doing trail work at Colossal Cave, and Thursday through Saturday this crew will be taking the Manzo students on a camping trip to Colossal Cave.
- SCC Sonoran Desert staff will be co-hosting a buffelgrass pull and mesquite tree planting event in Tucson with United Way and Tucson Clean and Beautiful for 82 volunteers from Sto Corp, a business who is in town for a conference from Atlanta, on March 14th.
- An SCC AmeriCorps crew will be working with 40 volunteers from Up with People in Ward 1 in Tucson on buffelgrass removal and trash pick-up.
Events in Colorado
- SCC will be staffing of an information table at Fort Lewis College on March 12 and 14 to promote AmeriCorps. This event is in conjunction with Regional Substance Abuse Prevention Partners (RSAPP) and the Southern Ute Community Action Program (SUCAP). We will be talking to college students and handing out information about the opportunities associated with the AmeriCorps Program.
- The Four Corners office of the Southwest Conservation Corps, based in Durango, CO, will be partnering on March 12th with Fort Lewis College to spruce up the Old Fort property for spring as part of AmeriCorps Week service. Activities will include ground maintenance and facilities improvement, completed by SCC’s AmeriCorps spring season members and staff. The Old Fort Lewis property is integral in not only SCC’s field operations, but is home or host to many community activities throughout the spring, summer and fall season.
- The Western Hardrock Watershed Team OSM/VISTA’s will be conducting outreach and facilitating events in various locations throughout the state.
- Jake Lemon (Trout Unlimited)- Colorado Trout Unlimited Annual Gala is March 16th – big fundraising event of year. Several OSM/VISTAs in Denver will be assisting with volunteer duties including Brian Devine and Kaitlin Fischer
- Kristen Carpenter (Greater Arkansas River Nature Association)- Kristen was interviewed by the local newspaper and will send a PSA to KRCC. Another two local radio stations will be interviewing Kristen and other members of GARNA throughout the week. Finally, Kristen will give a presentation to the local high school.
- Emily Kuehn (The New Community Coalition)- Emily Kuehn will speak on KOTO, the local radio station, as well as create a PSA on KOTO.
- Becky Parham (Coalition for the Upper South Platte) – Becky will be talking to a senior class about AmeriCorps.
- The SCC Los Valles office in Salida, CO will be doing radio spots on four different radio networks around the area along with the OSM/VISTA Kristin Carpenter. Two SCC VISTA’s were interviewed by the Salida Mountain Mail, which will be coming out on AmeriCorps week with a blurb about each of them, SCC programs, and the benefits of AmeriCorps. Additionally, SCC staff and VISTA’s will conduct a presentation to the entire Salida High School to demonstrate the opportunities and application process for AmeriCorps. That will happen on March 14 for the entire school, roughly 250 students. Individuals will share their personal experiences and the ways that AmeriCorps works within the community to benefit both participants and the community. Students will also be offered several volunteer opportunities with SCC, the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association, and the Boys and Girls Club.
Events in New Mexico
- The Western Hardrock Watershed Team OSM/VISTA’s will be conducting outreach and facilitating events in various locations throughout the state.
- Rachel Boothby (Santa Fe Watershed Association) and Nik Gualco (Rio Puerco Alliance)- Boothby has been coordinating with Appalachian Voices a presentation on mountaintop removal and the life cycle impacts of coal at the Railyard Community Room in Santa Fe, NM. The presentation will be on Saturday, March 17. Thanks to our ACCT family, I think this could be a good opportunity to talk about our unique AmeriCorps VISTA team. Boothby and Gualco will talk about AmeriCorps and the Western Hardrock Watershed Team as well as ACCT alumni, Adrian Uzunian’s, experience serving in Appalachia.
- Melissa May (San Juan Watershed Group)- Melissa will be joining forces with another AmeriCorps program in Farmington, NM to help with a trash clean up.
The Bureau of Land Management recently highlighted the Veterans Fire Corps on the ground in New Mexico – full article can be found HERE.
U.S. military veterans are clearing invasive Russian olive trees on public land in Pump Canyon east of Navajo Lake in a program to put veterans back to work.
“The work is really brutal on the chainsaws and on the body,” said Tim Foulkes of the nonprofit Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) in Durango, CO, who leads the veterans crew of four men and two women.
The crew is part of the SCC’s Veterans Fire Corps – a back-to-work program for military veterans that employs veterans for projects that improve the health of public lands. SCC is a nonprofit agency built upon the legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s.
The Bureau of Land Management, through a cooperative agreement with the SCC, is funding the project on BLM land in Pump Canyon. The project also receives support from the nonprofit Veterans Green Jobs in Denver, CO.
For six weeks the veterans have been cutting through walls of thorny Russian olive trees that seem more like one big bush than thousands of small trees. The handling of thorny debris as the trees are stripped of their branches and stacked in piles, must be done carefully to avoid injury.
Russian olive trees were brought to the United States in the late 1800s as an ornamental plant and a windbreak. With no natural enemies in North America, the trees grow out of control throughout much of the West. Their growth is mostly in riparian areas, where the Russian olive trees choke out natural vegetation such as cottonwood trees and willows.
“We have a really strong, motivated crew,” Foulkes said, noting that last year he supervised a veterans crew in the Colorado mountains, thinning Ponderosa pine. “This is a different world here, working in a riparian environment.”
Within minutes of a Russian olive tree being cut, an herbicide is applied to the stump so the chemical is absorbed into the plants’ root system for an effective kill.
Chainsaw wielding veteran Trevor Peterson – a 2010 graduate of Fort Lewis College who majored in environmental biology – said he had a hard time finding a job before he joined the Southwest Conservation Corps’ Veterans Fire Corps. Peterson served in Iraq as an Army infantryman with the 101st Airborne.
The BLM recently highlighted the Veterans Fire Corps at work in New Mexico:
http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/fo/Farmington_Field_Office/ffo_features/vets_attack_russian.html
“I was looking for all sorts of jobs,” Peterson said. “I was basically unemployed.” He plans to use skills he has learned over the past year with Veterans Fire Corps, to become a wildlands firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service.
Sarah Scott, BLM Farmington Field Office riparian coordinator, said this is the second year of the cooperative agreement with the SCC. She said the BLM is providing $150,000 this year for Southwest Conservation Corps to be the fiscal agent for job training for veterans.
The veterans have been cutting Russian olive in Pump Canyon since early October. They don’t plan to stop until the end of March, then move on to another project.
Written a member of the Los Valles Community Crew during the summer of 2011
Cherry Pie!
Our first week together as a crew was an absolute blast. While we did work a half-day on Monday after Orientation, the full load didn’t come until the following day. Our project sponsor at the Touber Building in Salida had a full truckload of mulch he needed spreading. As we tackled the massive pile in organized fashion, he dumped another load a few hundred yards away! We worked our butts off this week, to say the least. At some point during the project work we were instructed to pick cherries from the trees in front of the Touber Building because a female employee inside wanted to make us a pie. No one objected to this order. A few days passed and Kevin appeared with a gorgeous homemade cherry pie. We could hardly fathom the generosity shown to us, not to mention how good the pie was!
The Crew
Our educational Friday consisted of two parts: gold panning in the morning and a hike in the afternoon. We met the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) ladies and Cindy from the Roc Doc at Hecla Junction in the morning where we received a crash course in how to strike it rich panning for gold. Ok, so we didn’t strike it rich, but some of us found gold shards! After panning, we played a simulation mining claim game where we staked claims with our “families,” dug for pieces of pyrite previously planted by the AHRA ladies, and traded our finds in for fake money we could use to purchase Capri Suns, granola bars, and candy. After lunch, we hit the Brown’s Creek Trail which took us 3 miles or so to a stunning waterfall. Once we returned to the van and headed home, I noticed a few members partaking in power naps. What a wonderful way to start our program!
Written by Jamie Aldrich, an Bureau of Land Management Intern with the Los Valles Region:
Colombian Mammoth skull that was discovered in Villa Grove CO 2011
Going into the intern position I’ll admit I was a little nervous. I didn’t really know what to expect. After my first day however I discovered everyone in the BLM office was really nice, which helped to calm my nerves. So after a long first week of training and paper work, Thursday finally came. This was the day I would get to get out of the office for the first time and see the Colombian Mammoth skull that was discovered just outside Villa Grove CO. It ended up being a really good day to get out to the dig site because it was press day for the exciting discovery which meant there were news cameras and journalists also at the site. It was also the day visitors were allowed to come by bus and check out the Mammoth, which I got to help chaperone the tours.
The second week I learned a lot of new skills. I went out to the field and was able to help fix some cow troughs that were not getting water to them. It took about a day and a half of digging to search for the pipe lines and reconnect them, not to mention having to fend off a species that is way overpopulated in my opinion, the horse fly, but we finally had water! I also repaired gates and took down some fencing and that was only the first half of the week. Thursday was the first day of water assessments, which meant we walked up and down a section of Kerber Creek in Bonanza CO, until we came across a section that was suitable for assessing. I learned how to take measurements at different parts of the creek such as width and depth. I learned how to check the pH level of the water along with how to measure the conductivity of the creek. The best part was picking up samples of cobble stone and checking for stoneflies, mayflies, and caddis flies which were tricky to tell apart at first.
Fish Shocking at Kerber Creek 2011
The third week I was able to work with the RAMAH group. They were a really great group of people to work with and I really learned a lot from them. We worked on a section of Kerber Creek laying down waddles and erosion blankets, so far we have laid down about 700 feet of the blankets and waddles and we still have a couple days left with this group of hard working 9th and 10th graders. During the third week I kind of floated around and continued getting to work on the water assessments and we got to hike some of the most beautiful terrain I have seen. I was also able to see what fish shocking was all about. I thought it would be easy catching fish after they were zapped but they recover from the shock quickly making them tricky to scoop up with a net. So being an intern for the BLM I have discovered is hard work, adventurous, and a lot of fun, plus the skills I have learned are definitely valuable and will stick with me for a very long time.
The following is an excerpt from an article published by the Cibola Beacon in Grants, NM. SCC recently held its third annual ‘All Staff Gathering’ in Acoma Pueblo (65 miles west of Albuquerque, NM). The retreat brought together SCC staff from all four regional offices to discuss issues ranging from strategic planning to ideas to improve programming.
PARTICIPANTS LOOK AT FIVE-YEAR PLAN
Posted: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:00 am | Updated: 6:58 pm, Thu Jan 26, 2012.
By Bob Tenequer Beacon Staff Writer
The SCC experience provides youth and young adults the opportunity to learn job skills. More importantly it helps them connect with nature and the programs allows participants to develop their own sense of stewardship and environmental awareness in protecting the environment, according to Kamillia Hoban, 36, Sonora Desert program executive director.
The SCC has four current programs, which are located in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. They include The Four Corners program in Durango, Colo., the Sonoran Desert program in Tucson, Ariz., the Los Valles program in Salida, Colo., and the Ancestral Lands program serving the Pueblo of Acoma.
The SCC leaders came together at a Jan. 17-19 session to discuss the organization’s five-year strategic plan. The Pueblo of Acoma and the SCC Ancestral Lands program hosted the meeting.
Cornell Torivio, Ancestral Lands’ program development director, said the staff meeting focused on current issues surrounding respect and diversity and being sensitive to the ways the organization introduces itself to the communities it serves. Moreover, how they could make the organization more successful.
The Ancestral Lands program offers a tribal preservation plan that works on technical preservation projects at historic and pre-historic sites, primarily in partnership with the National Park Service.
The Youth Conservation Corps works on projects that are focused on erosion control, trail maintenance, invasive plant removal and park improvements. Additional programs include the Acoma Hiking Club for Acoma Middle School students and a traditional farming program.
Kevin Heiner, 33, from the Durango, Colo., office noted that this year’s meeting provided opportunities to look at past projects and discuss future plans.
“It was a chance for our colleagues and peers to get together to discuss trends and issues that face the organization and the people we serve. We have a five-year strategic plan that is focused on a quality experience for our members,” said Heiner.
He also indicated that the staff had some ‘big picture’ discussions about how the organization could make their plans a reality and increased understanding about the ways they are able to support one another.
According to Heiner, “The land management agencies that we enter into agreements with provide 80 percent of our organization’s funding.” They also partner with non-profit groups.
“We provide paid service opportunities for youth and young adults,” noted Heiner. He indicated that a majority of their projects are on public and tribal lands….
Hoban noted that last week’s meetings were inclusive and made her feel like she was part of a larger team. Questions like, “Are we staying true to our mission?” and “Are we staying the course in constantly improving our programs?” were discussed she said.
Hoban expressed her reactions, “Involving everybody’s perspective and the creative thinking was a highlight for me.”
She said it was satisfying to see the growing numbers of youth they are serving and the quality of service.
Her program does a lot of desert restoration work and trail construction and maintenance. The program has been working to lessen the impact on the environment made by people crossing the border, according to Hoban.
“My passion is introducing young people to their concept of conservation in the everyday lives,” said Hoban. “Through work we are teaching them skills, but we are really helping them connect with nature and helping them to develop their own stewardship and environmental awareness to do what they can to protect the environment.”
Heather MacSlarrow, started the SCC program in Salida, Colorado. She said just like the other programs they perform conservation projects but what is different about the Salida program is that it strives to “build a culture of family.”
“No matter where they come from they are coming into a family,” explained MacSlarrow.
The graduate of Montana State University said that the program performs a lot of trail work in the back-country among the 14,000-foot mountain peaks. The program also does a lot of community work.
“My passion is to help young people become their most successful selves. I think a lot of young people grow up in this world, don’t know exactly who they are or how they can become the best person in themselves,” said MacSlarrow.
