Wood River Land Trust Company

River health & restoration in fy 23-24, wrlt completed the bellevue side channels river restoration project, which removed rip rap and fill from the river and providing new side channel habitat to alleviate flood flows and enhance fish spawning and rearing habitat. Wrlt also continued the design and planning for river restoration projects within the hailey greenway (heagle park side channel restoration), as well as a restoration project on elkhorn creek, schedule to be completed in fy 24-25. Wrlt continued working with the city of hailey, blaine county, and the flood control district 9 to move the restoration of lions park at the hailey greenway forward. The goal of this multi-year project is to restore floodplain connectivity and function and mitigate flooding that occurs in communities downstream because of degraded river function. In fiscal year 2021-22, wrlt contributed to the city of ketchum's successful campaign to acquire the warm springs preserve to forever be maintained as a public park. This year, wrlt worked with the city of ketchum to design the restoration project to restore 1 mile of warm springs creek and its floodplain through the preserve. The city is also planning for universal access improvements and amenities. Wrlt is focused on the creek restoration and will continue to work with the city of ketchum to raise the funds and implement the restoration project. Wrlt also continued a robust monitoring program to fill gaps in monitoring data for the big wood river basin: installing data sensors at multiple points along the big wood river to collect real-time temperature data to monitor and report on river conditions; and continuing a multi-year macroinvertebrate trend monitoring program. Wood river water collaborative together with our partners at trout unlimited and the nature conservancy, wood river land trust continues to help facilitate the wood river water collaborative (wrwc). There are 75 partners in the collaborative representing diverse interests including: senior and junior water users, agriculture, groundwater districts, municipalities, state legislators, the idaho department of water resources, the idaho water resource board, county and state agencies and other non-profits. The objective of the wrwc is to ensure sustainable water use for farming and ranching; to preserve safe, clean drinking water to meet the needs of the wood river watersheds; and to conserve riparian and river habitat for fish and wildlife that rely on the big wood river, silver creek, little wood river and their tributaries.

Land stewardship staff monitored all 44 of the wood river land trust conservation easements, totaling 13,171 acres to ensure compliance with individual easement restrictions/language and to note any changes in the property. All monitoring data, such as photo points, were reported and entered into the permanent record. Wrlt continued to manage and steward our 16 fee simple properties located in and adjacent to the wood river valley. These preserves are maintained in their natural state and/or restored to a healthy landscape. Stewardship staff addresses such ongoing problems as noxious weeds, trash, unwanted vehicle use, erosion and trail upkeep. Wrlt also continued developing the community orchard at the colorado gulch preserve this fiscal year, and installed universal access trails at colorado gulch preserve and simons/bauer preserve to allow people of all abilities to access our public preserves. Wrlt also supported the university of idaho's rinker rock creek ranch by partnering on projects to install gates to manage access and protect habitat, and by providing supplemental funds to support aerial monitoring of sage grouse throughout the 10,000-acre ranch.

Community engagement a community that enjoys and loves the land will work to protect it. Research shows the best way to get people to care about the land and our environment is to encourage meaningful experiences in nature. We bring people to the land and educate the community's youth on conservation through programs like hosting field trips at our preserves and hosting volunteer work parties to improve our preserves. Activities this year included a citizen science bird monitoring program in partnership with the cornell lab of ornithology, hosting the annual big wood river clean up, and hosting volunteer work parties in wrlt's preserves to improve habitat, remove old barbed wire fencing to prevent wildlife collisions and entanglements with fencing, and manage trails.