Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 1991)
Spilyay Tymoo Warm Springs, Oregon October 18, 1991 PAGE 5 As cadets, youth gain self-confidence, break down many barriers Being members of the Warm Springs and Jefferson County 4-H Search and Rescue clubs has helped break down barriers, not only the barriers of misunderstanding but the barriers of prejudice as well. Just ask any of the members ol cither club, they II tell you. The Warm Springs club was oper ating on a fairly independent agenda and then along came a tragic accident in British Columbia, Canada. That traccdv brought the two groups to gether so lightly that members of both clubs participate in training to gether and have coordinated their meetings so the clubs now meet jointly. p ; -a, FT 'Wi Villi Members of the Warm Springsandjefferson County 4-H Search and Rescue clubs have begun holding weekly meetings together. Members and leaders Include, from left to right, Keith Baker, Jeremy Williams, Scott Hudson, Brad Posey, Sabrina Sheehan, Charity Hamilton, Andrew Hicken, Frank Brunoe, Glenn Ludwig, Sara Badten, Rain Circle, Mark Matthews, prospective member Raul Trevlno and assistant leader Andy James. Not shown artboult Smith, Joseph Scott, Jr., Tim Ludwig, Alena Brown and Michael Middlestetter. In September, three club mem bers, including two from the Jefferson County Cadet program and one from the Warm Springs program, and three adult leaders, traveled nearly 6()0 miles to Crcston, DC, Canada to help in the search of a nine-year old boy who drowned in the Goat River in early August. The victim was the nephew of assistant club leader Andy James, a resident of Warm Springs. Club members labored for hours to install a body net into the river, knowing the net would help retrieve the young victim. In one week's time, the partial remains of young Patrick Tommy were discovered in the net. A different response team, this lime comprised of five Jefferson County cadets, two Warm Springs cadets, two assistant leaders and club leader Keith Baker, again traveled to Crcston. The group, after two days, collected the net and returned home, leaving behind them new friends and "family." All the while learning, the cadets, whose ages range from 10 to 18, strive to accomplish their clubs' overall goal teamwork. Without teamwork, success is inaccessible. Often times, during training sessions, a member's life is literally in the hands of his peers. In this respect, members Icam self-sufficiency as well as cooperation with others. Baker is club leader for both cadet programs. He has found that there is a "rapid move to drop individual racial differences" and a great "ac-? ccptancc of the teamwork concept." Even on the Canada trips. Baker noted that the members "bonded with the family and with each other." These 4-H clubs operate differ ently than other, more traditional 4 II clubs. Membership is based on peer acceptance membership is based not on friendship, but on the fotcntial member's own credentials, is or her desire, sincerity, accep tance of responsibilities and willing ness to work hard. New members arc accepted under strict conditions and the cadets themselves determine who is in and who is out. As with other 4-H clubs, skills learned will remain with and be used by members their entire lives. And, as members reach age 18, they can 8t to become active in the Jefferson ounty or the Warm Springs Search and Rescue groups. Members of the Jefferson County group joined difficult rescue efforts October 13 and 14 at Cove Palisades following a vehicle accident in which both passengers died. Baker, Andy James, Charity Hamilton, Alena Brown, Scott Hudson and Glenn Ludwig were instrumental in helping retrieve the- bodies of Portland resi dents John Davis and Jean Smith. Members mentioned they felt that adults are shocked and amazed when the young cadets participate and successfully complete their assigned tasks. Said one cadet, "When people laugh at us because we're young, it just makes us do our jobs better. District athletic program discussed behavior or coaches is necessary to Parents and Warm Springs com munity members have been meeting to express their concerns about the athletic program in School District 509-J. Citing incidents involving their children or relatives, some meeting participants thought these might be prejudice-related. They indicated that some students hesitated to participate in sports because of previous unfair practices that prevented Indian stu dents from being directly involved in athletic competition. Parents are interested in creating a positive attitude in their children about sports. If changing coaches or do that, then that is what parents would like to occur. "If our children are going to succeed," says Fritz Miller, "we need to find the answers." Participants plan to meet with coaches in a scries of scheduled community meetings. They are also discussing the possibility of meeting with administrators and the District Board of Directors after after gath ering support from the community to exert pressure assuring that Indian students are treated fairly. One par ticipant expressed, "The more we can come together, the stronger our voice can be. Water quality of watershed determined by soil, vegetation, animal and human activities Soils and geology Soil is a thin layer of the earth's crust composed of min eral particles of all sizes and of varying amounts of organic materials. It is formed from the breakdown of parent rocks to fine mineral particles. This may occur by freezing and thawing in winter, heating expansion and cooling contration in sum mer, wind and water erosion, the grinding action of ice, gra vity rockfall and avalanche movement, rock minerals in rain and snowmelt water, and the chemical action of lichens. As mineral particles accumu late, mosses and other plants establish themselves, and begin adding1 organic lnaterial to the minerals to develop a true soil. Sediments transported by wind and water become soils as they are covered and stabilized by plants and developed by the addition of organic materials from the plants. Soils are of two types. Residual soils are those developed in place from the underlying rock formations an, the surface plant cover. Trans ported soils include those trans ported by gravity, wind, or water. Characteristics of resi dual soils may be closely related to the kind of parent material from which they are formed. Climate, particularly precipi tation and temperature, strong ly affects soil formation. Rain fall affects leaching, and tem perature may affect both the mechanical breakdown of rocks and the breakdown of organic material, plant cover affects soil formation by the addition of organic material and by the extraction of water and mine rals in solution through the roots. Soil bacteria, insects, and burrowing animals also play a part in the breakdown and and mixing of soil components. Soil often determines the type of plants that will establish to form a protective cover of vegetation; and the plants in return modify and develop the soil. Plant roots increase soil porosity. Plant litter adds or ganic matter to be incorporated into the soil by the soil fauna. The litter slows down surface runoff, and provides a cover to protect the soil surface from beating and puddling effects of rainfall. Soil depths and soil moisture holding capacities are usually less under rough broken topographic conditions, and plant growth rates often slower. We call the forage, the tim ber, and the water resources. They are all renewable resour ces water renewable by cycles of climate, forage and timber renewable by growth in sea sonal cycles. How each be comes available in kind, quan tity, and quality, is in large measure, dependent upon the soil. Soil is, except over long periods, a nonrenewable re source. It may take more than a century to produce sufficient depth to support a high yield, high quality forest, range, or agricultural crop. Thus, the soil is the basic watershed resource, to be carefully managed and protected to preserve its func tion and productivity. It re presents a thin skin on the land on which all land life depends. Vegetative cover There are three major plant cover types - grass, brush, and forest. All three types build ud organic litter and affect soil development. They usually de velop under differing climatic conditions and all are impor tant to watershed management. Whatever its composition of dominant forms, the forest usually includes, in addition to trees in various stages of growth, an understory of shrubs'and a low ground cover of herbs and some grasses. While all three component levels of the forest have some effect on water, trees are the most important. Tree litter fall is the greatest, tree roots go deep into the soil, and tree crowns provide the most shade and protection to the soil against the beating action of ram and the drying action of the wind. The effects of brush and grass cover are similar to those of the forest, but on a smaller scale. Plant cover provides signifi cant benefits to the watershed. The crown canopy intercepts rain and reduces the force with which it strikes the ground. The canopy and stems reduce wind velocity. The litter protects the soil surface and keeps it open for infiltration at the same time that it provides a barrier to slow down surface runoff. Stems and roots lead water into the ground. Roots open up the soil and increase porosity as well as adding organic materials to the soil when they die. The uptake of minerals from the soil by the roots and their transmission to the canopy provides a recycling when leaves and twigs die and fall to produce the litter which is gradually decomposed and incorporated into the soil. Trees and brush form wind breaks to protect crops and to reduce moisture losses from evaporation. Tree and shrub stems along riverbanks trap sediments and floating debris at times of high water. Tree and shrub roots bind and stabilize soil in streambanks and on slopes to reduce slide and slump occurence. Management considerations The quality of water is deter mined largely by the character istics of the soils and vegetation in the surrounding watershed. Accordingly, human activities can have pronounced impacts on the quality of the watershed. These activites range from ac tual use of the watershed's re sources, such as timber harvest ing, grazing, agriculture, and urban or industrial develop ment, to activities such as recreation. Two key resources, timber and fish, have a shared depend ence on forest lands and the river systems that drain them. This has given rise to mutual difficulties in their manage ment. The timber harvest af fects forest cover, making open ings and reducing cover density. Timber harvest need not cause damage in a watershed under most conditions if slope and soil are given consideration and cover regeneration can be ac complished rapidly. In snow zones, timber harvest can be used to improve the snow catch and to modify snow melt rate. Grazing by domestic live stock tends to concentrate ani mals in one area. The principal impact of the grazing is on plant cover, aad sojl, Grazing by un-. managed domestic livestock contributes to compacted soils by trampling and leads to rapid runoff and severe erosion prob lems. Productivity can be great ly reduced in the overgrazed areas. Generally, when the co ver is thinned by grazing i less than seventy percent of the nat ural full cover, recovery does not come about, and deg radation continues unless there :: artificial aid through man agement practices or restorative methods. Agricultural practices usual ly involve clearing of the origi nal cover from the land, plus disturbance of the soil to pre pare a seedbed for the crop to be planted. Since the crop cover is usually seasonal and not as dense as the natural cover, there is much less protection for the soil. Erosion by both wind and water may rapidly remove the finer and more fertile soil parti cles, thus reducing land produc tivity. Agricultural operations based on careful appraisal of soil, slope, and climatic condi tions will involve control of runoff and prevention of ero sion. Agriculture practices handled in this way can be quite compatible with watershed man agement. One feature needing atten tion in the management of plant cover on a watershed is the use of water by that cover. Effects of the plant cover on water are many and varied, but the most significant may be the consump tive use of water in plant growth and transpiration. Shade from the cover and mulch formed by the litter and reduction of wind velocity in the forest greatly reduces the evaporation of soil moisture. However, plant roots can take up all the available soil moisture to a much greater depth than evaporation does. A case in point is the accelerated encroachment of brush, partic ularly juniper, on the uplands in Central and Eastern Oregon. The increase in the juniper stands has drastically affected summer streamflows by inter cepting surface water so that it never gets into the undergound reserves. Fire, whether occurring nat urally or human caused, is one of the most widespread destruc tive agents affecting plant co ver. Under dry wind conditions, fire can almost completely re move the cover and organic lit ter, and in places, sterilize and change the chemistry of the sur face soil. Burning converts the organic materials in cover, lit ter, and topsoil to gases and soluble readily-leached ashes, and can make acid soils alka line. It may take several seasons for soil conditions to return to normal. Without the protective canopy and the litter, the soil surface is rapidly puddled and scaled in the first rains; infiltra tion is greatly reduced; runoff and erosion are rapid. Tremen dous debris-laden floods often occur from fire-denuded water sheds with only slightly abnor mal rainfall. Most of the water falling on a burned landscape is lost by rapid runoff, and the lit tle that may infiltrate is lost by evaporation. Streams from burned watersheds at first carry a heavy load of salts dissolved from the ashes, floating debris, and erosion sediments. While water quality may soon return to normal, except for sediment laden high flows, the water lev els fluctuate and become less dependable. These conditions may continue for several years, until the plant cover becomes reestablished on the watershed. Other destructive agents may also seriously damage the plan' cover over wide arcas-epidemi plant diseases, plaeues of insr pests, and overuse of range lands by native grazing animals. Others modify watershed hydro logy as well as damaging the cover. The beaver doesn't just build a dam. It changes the energy flow in its immediate area of the watershed by turn ing the forest into a pond or swamp, and may remove cer- Mining requires opening the earth to remove mineral re sources. It may be done by stripping off the surface soil and rock layers or by drilling tun nels into the earth to reach the location of the mineral. With either method, there are quanti ties of waste materia left on the surrounding land surface. This waste material is subject to ero sion, adding to the sediment load of streams draining the mined area. The surface chan ges, yiclude altered topography a. iid drainage. Drainage from mined areas may contain toxic mineral salts harmful to the tain tree species from the local aquaitic habitat. Care must be scene for its food. The effects of . taken to control the waste beavers on the watershed can be i i material degradation of the both positive and negative. If1 watershed. high populations of beavers are found in conjunction with heavy livestock use, for in stance, the results can be devas tating to the streams. On the other hand, their dam-building can be extremely beneficial by providing sediment traps, fish habitat, and diversity within the , watershed system. fl Riparian areas and development of watersheds will be discussed in the next issue of Spilyay. Watershed Functions I st Storm , J Evaporation Transpiration Evaporation V""-- jJjfcyijj D..p's..p.g. V"7" A: ::$iS?ti &&M!3r From Snow V J Wattr Diacharg To Pond 1 Strm 0m00K00' By Crl Burin 1989 Watersheds help circulate water in the Hydrologic (water) Cycle, collecting, purifying and distributing it. r JJ