Tuolumne River Trust

Results: Since our founding in 1981, Tuolumne River Trust has made remarkable progress toward our Vision. In 1984 the Trust won Wild and Scenic designation for 83 miles of the Tuolumne River. In the 1990s we halted plans to dam the Clavey River, and played a major role in winning higher flows for salmon on the Lower Tuolumne. In 2008, we won a five-year effort to defeat a plan by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to divert up to 50% more water from the Tuolumne River than the city takes today.

Target demographics: Protect, restore and revive the Tuolumne River.

Direct beneficiaries per year: 250 students

Geographic areas served: The entire Tuolumne River watershed

Programs: Central valley programtrt continues to build support for increasing the amount of water flowing down the lower tuolumne for fish, wildlife, water quality and recreation by engaging in the effort to relicense don pedro-the largest dam on the tuolumne river. We have completed a strategic restoration plan for the lower tuolumne river to benefit salmon and steelhead, and filed our plan with the federal energy regulatory commission in response to the amended final license application for don pedro dam. We have also made significant progress on a scientific analysis of stressors on salmon and steelhead and specifying specific environmental objectives that must be achieved in order to recover the salmon and steelhead populations. We organized hundreds of supporters to provide written and verbal testimony to the state water resources control board in support of increased flows in the lower tuolumne into the bay delta to improve water quality and rehabilitate the salmon population. Our restoration efforts on the lower tuolumne river have been focused on the removal of dennett dam. Towards this end, we have secured all the necessary funds to remove the dam in summer 2018. Trt continued to build our base of support within the communities along the lower tuolumne river with two staff members offering programs that connect children and families to the river through safe and fun recreational activities, education programs, and river cleanups and other projects to improve these communities that involved thousands of people.

sierra nevada programto support recovery from the massive rim fire, which burned 257,000 acres of forested watershed lands, we organized over 1,200 volunteers to help plant 20,000 trees on 100 acres, restore 5 miles of trail, pull noxious weeds on 60 acres of land, and other activities. We also raised funds and completed plans to begin a suite of restoration actions in the burned area, including 13 meadows, 7 springs, 950 acres of deer habitat restoration, install 23 great gray owl nest structures, restore 32 acres of aspen stands, install 2 wildlife guzzlers and 20 wildlife-friendly troughs. We have also given watershed education presentations to 2,200 students and 1,000 members of the general public. We also significantly shaped the states tree mortality task force and forest climate plan to consider negative impacts to carbon sequestration due to unhealthy forests and a need for greater emphasis on forest restoration. We also co-chair the yosemite stanislaus solutions forest restoration collaborative, which is dedicated to restoring forest health, meadows, streams, and wildlife habitat in the headwaters of the tuolumne watershed.

bay area programtrt continues to promote water conservation in the bay area communities that depend on water from the tuolumne river. By promoting water conservation policies and actions, water use in these communities continues to decline despite the fact that bay area water agencies had projected an increase in total water use over this same time. Water use in the bay area has declined by 28% since 2008. We also educated more than 5,000 bay area kids about the river and what they can do to take care of it through conservation and water use efficiency.