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Written by: Annapurna Holtzapple

Upper Mokelumne River Watershed Authority (UMRWA), is a valued Blue Forest partner for work in the Eldorado and Stanislaus National Forests of the Sierra Nevada. As a joint powers authority (JPA), UMRWA is a public agency made up of six collaborating water agencies; Amador Water Agency, Calaveras County Water District, Calaveras Public Utility District, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Jackson Valley Irrigation District, and Alpine County Water Agency and the counties of Amador, Calaveras, and Alpine. UMRWA and its member agencies work together and to steward and protect the Upper Mokelumne River watershed.

As stakeholders of the Mokelumne River, which provides water to Amador, Calaveras, San Joaquin Counties and to Alameda and Contra Costa County on the eastern San Francisco Bay Area and flows into the Bay Delta, UMRWA also works on forest resilience and restoration projects. One key endeavor has been planning and beginning implementation of the Forest Projects Plan (FPP), a landscape scale restoration project with management objectives of wildfire resilience and habitat protection that Blue Forest is excited to be partnering on. As the project planner and implementation coordinator, UMRWA has a Master Stewardship Agreement with the Forest Service to carry out this important work.

Blue Forest and UMRWA have been working together since early 2021 when they entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work cooperatively towards a Forest Resilience Bond to support implementation of the FPP, and to prioritize wildfire and drought resilience in the Upper Mokelumne watershed. Following the establishment of the MOU, Blue Forest drafted a Feasibility Assessment for UMRWA’s Board of Directors, exploring the feasibility of utilizing conservation finance and potential benefits of deploying private capital to implement the FPP. UMRWA is now working with Blue Forest to launch a Forest Resilience Bond for the Upper Mokelumne Forest Projects Plan Phase 1.

This region of the Sierra Nevada has been threatened by large fires recently, including the Butte Fire and Caldor Fire. In response to the growing threat of catastrophic wildfire, planning the FPP was a high priority engagement for UMRWA. The project is so large, at a combined total of 225,000 acres, that it will be implemented across the landscape in phases. Seeing the increasing intensity of fires the UMRWA team decided they needed to be engaged in forest health and began working with the Calaveras and Amador Ranger Districts, and established a master stewardship agreement with the Forest Service in 2016.

“We saw the scope and that we needed to increase restoration work tenfold,” said UMRWA Executive Officer Richard Sykes. “To do that you need a plan and environmental coverage, that’s how we got into the FPP initially.”

The first phase, which is 26,000 acres, is focused entirely within the Eldorado National Forest. In future phases, the FPP will also treat areas of the Stanislaus National Forest. “What’s exciting and fulfilling is to do this kind of restoration at a scale that is going to make a difference, and keeping at the scale we have embarked on for the next three to five years will make an impact to forests, communities and retaining carbon,” said Sykes.

UMRWA also leads updates on the Integrated Regional Water Management Plan for the Mokelumne-Amador-Calaveras (MAC) Region, and supports the Youth Watershed Stewardship Program, and environmental education initiative.