Methow Watershed Council Jan 21, 2020

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[0:12] [Music]
[0:39] [Music]
[0:45] [Music]
[0:51] well thank you all for coming out on a snowy
[0:56] I've still got eight miles and five switchbacks to go together so I'll try
[1:02] to be brief but you know that's impossible we I think I know almost
[1:06] everybody here but for the one or two who don't know me my name is Greg knot
[1:11] and I am a member of the watershed Council fight represented the North
[1:17] Valley up there and I'm also on the meadow watershed foundation which is
[1:22] very confusing but basically think of the foundation is the bank arm so what
[1:35] we're going to do tonight is we're going to show two short films and then the
[1:41] promise panel discussion kind of fell apart probably because I didn't try hard
[1:46] enough but one panel members daughters having a baby and another one took off
[1:52] somewhere in the ecology person who decided that there were more important
[1:58] things to do in Yakima so you know that's the way it works sometimes so
[2:01] what you're going to get is a presentation by me and it will be on
[2:07] setting in-stream flows and when I can talk about what's right or wrong
[2:11] involvement stream flows what we're going to talk about is if we ever have
[2:14] to go through that process what it looks like so I'd like to thank a couple of
[2:22] organizations and people first the metal Conservancy who helped us a lot on this
[2:30] including ok thank you very much your projector and also another organization
[2:44] called the yeah when I was called cascade fish but not quite officially
[2:49] associated with Columbia cascade fisheries enhancement I can do that's
[2:56] why I'm gonna call it cascade fish these days because I can never remember the
[3:00] name and I'm on the ding dong board anyway and they have helped us a lot
[3:04] through their efforts as well as I thank them if any has ever been to the green
[3:11] so we know where the exits are and the bathrooms are in the back and so forth
[3:15] so with that I'd also like to introduce our the chair of the watershed Council
[3:21] Ashton Thrasher would you like to say something about the watershed Council at
[3:27] all
[3:30] you know I think most of you have probably heard this before but I'm the
[3:36] chair of the watershed Council chair of the foundation last year the watershed
[3:46] Council is a citizen led advisory group we've got nine members three of which
[3:53] are the initiating government so that's the time with the town of Winthrop in
[3:57] the town Okanogan County and then there are six citizen members that represent
[4:03] the Upper Valley Middle Valley and Lower Valley and then three at-large members
[4:09] and our mission is to do public outreach and education such as programs like this
[4:14] and to advise the governments yeah thanks all for coming this is the first
[4:24] of a series the next one will be in February and it will be Kent Woodruff
[4:31] we'll talk about Bieber and presenting film and then answer
[4:38] questions from the audience and so forth and the third one will be something that
[4:44] is kind of near and dear to my heart I've been doing quite a bit of research
[4:48] on it if anyone has taken a look at the NOAA climate forecast it looks like hot
[4:53] dry for so it's time to start talking about drought management planning it's
[5:01] being done throughout the world and throughout the rest and it's not a
[5:04] popular topic because it means people that have water they have to be thinking
[5:08] about and that's traditionally not the way and so we'll do a program on that
[5:16] and then the last one rivers
[5:37] if you haven't thought about traveling to the Balkan states you probably will
[5:42] after this video and we'll be at the party yeah I'll put the barnyard and
[5:53] that's where we're going to talk a little bit about storage and some of the
[5:56] other issues with water management because as we all know the storage is
[6:01] going to be a big issue in the valley here as time moves on as well
[6:08] and unless anyone has any questions or any comments at this point I could
[6:14] introduce all the members of the foundation and council who are here but
[6:18] I didn't reduce about two-thirds of the audience but do we have the technology
[6:25] or watch the film this video this generally yeah so this is thought just
[6:30] weakness watching some monitors up here we cried it's 2011 and this movie does
[6:42] not then explicitly talk about in stream flow but when looking through some
[6:48] videos this one is really quality and good view it kind of talks about
[6:58] so without further ado okay play this is be about 19 minutes and then what will
[7:03] be followed up by
[7:37] what are we doing to ourselves be
[7:43] water about two miles
[7:57] I've way too much stuff back
[8:09] [Music] a friend once told me that this river is
[8:17] a Western plumbing system nothing more I nodded as if I understood I didn't
[8:25] really understand what he meant at all until I marched 90 miles across this
[8:29] forgotten ancient landscape this dry River cemetery
[8:44] my name is Pete McBride I worked as a photojournalist in over 60 countries
[8:49] documenting other people's stories this is my own backyard story
[8:56] [Music]
[9:27] [Music] as a kid a group chasing water around
[9:36] our family cattle ranch in central Colorado I spent my summer mornings with
[9:42] a portable dams and leaky pipes and gravity-fed sprinklers our irrigation
[9:49] water comes from 14,000 foot Peaks above our Valley
[9:53] [Music] snow melt supplies Mountain creeks and
[9:57] meat divert a portion into old ditches spread it across our fields and grow hay
[10:03] to feed a small herd of cattle
[10:10] each August I spent long hours cutting hair when you're driving a Hitler you
[10:17] sit high above the field staring at the results of your summons work and I often
[10:22] used to think about water I wondered how much one into our field
[10:27] and how much returned to the creek from the creek that water flows north into
[10:34] the wrong Fork River turns west and 30 miles later joins the Colorado that
[10:40] mighty Western river known as the American Novel a lifeline for an arid
[10:45] West starting high in the Rockies the Colorado was fifteen hundred miles to
[10:52] the Sea of Cortez it drains seven states and supports 30 million people at least
[10:59] that's what I've read [Music]
[11:08] on my backyard I never did where the river really wouldn't other than a few
[11:13] landmarks like the Grand Canyon I wondered how long it would take our
[11:18] irrigation water to reach the sea so I decided to follow the river source to
[11:24] see and find out
[11:32] [Music] I started my journey in Rocky Mountain
[11:36] National Park at the rivers headwaters there had joined a friend John Waterman
[11:43] is a writer who was also curious about the river he decided to peddle the
[11:49] entire length of the Colorado
[11:53] [Music] I paddled with John for a couple days
[12:09] where the river is not much larger in one of our irrigation ditches
[12:35] [Music]
[12:40] as the river moves out of the high country I left John to get a different
[12:45] view I realized I couldn't see the full river from a boat
[12:53] my father also happens to be a great bush pilot
[13:03] [Music]
[13:13] we started flying sections of the Colorado near home and immediately I
[13:18] started seeing how many straws are drinking from the river
[13:22] [Music]
[13:26] the state of Colorado resident lemon 80% of the water lands on the western
[13:32] mountains but 80% of the people that on the eastern plains from the air
[13:37] I could see water on the West diverted to growth and its thirst for water on
[13:43] the east [Music]
[13:57] when father and I flee west shadowing the river across western Colorado and
[14:04] into the Utah desert
[14:07] [Music] it was fun for a change to pretend that
[14:19] my father
[14:27] you see those
[14:37] but really he would his father and son two buddies playing together
[14:45] [Music]
[14:55] it's a river cuts through the Colorado Plateau it's blow is doubled by the
[14:59] Green River the largest tributary [Music]
[15:08] below the compliments and watch the river under the first of its desert seas
[15:13] Lake Powell
[15:21] Glen Canyon Dam was finished in 1966 and the canyons were flooded before I was
[15:26] born I visited Lake Powell many times as a kid but until I saw it from the air I
[15:32] really had no idea how big it was
[15:40] today the lake is shrinking the West is in its second decade of drought and
[15:45] everywhere I look those hundred foot bathtub race reminded me of how much
[15:50] water we once had
[16:01] little egg palace times the Grand Canyon to continue my area of advantage
[16:07] I left my father to fly when local pilots who do the routes about the grand
[16:18] [Music]
[16:24] I also spent two weeks inside the canyon on the raft trip and I thought about my
[16:29] friends comment that the river is just plumbing
[17:08] [Music]