Editor’s NotesWelcome to our Summer edition of the 2009 edition. With a very weather-friendly summer in the Northeast our local bioligists and TU chapters have had a great opportunity to support our local brook trout and enviroments.

Please keep me informed of new interested parties for my mailing list and also keep me updated on changes of positions within councils and chapters. Our distribution list is now over 150. There are quite a few folks in the east that are interested in our native brookies.

I’ve continued to add links to all the url’s and email addresses contained in the newsletter. You just need to click on them to send an email or visit a website. As always, I’m open to suggestions and new ideas so feel free to send them to me at williamo@maine.rr.com.

The membership of our EBTJV Google Group is growing. It’s a site where we have a forum for discussions, a place to upload and post files/documents/newsletters and send reminders to the entire group. Hopefully this opens up broader lines of communication throughout the EBTJV. You can easily join by clicking the tab on the right side of http://groups.google.com/group/ebtjv. I urge you to visit it often… It’s a very useful tool for the EBTJV and a place where you can download newsletters from all EBTJV regions.

Please Note that this month we’ll be opening up discussions on Google Group, so if you’re interested in commenting or have some great ideas, feel free to share them with us all.

Enjoy the Newsletter and our Google Group — Tight Lines!

by Bill Oleszczuk

ThE quarTErly NEwslETTEr of ThE EBTJV augusT 2009

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southeastDivision

In This Issue:

Editor’s Notes ............... Page 1

Social Networking ........ Page 2

Georgia ......................... Page 3

South Carilina ............... Page 4

Tennessee .................Page 5-6

Virginia ....................... Page 7-9

socially Networked Brook TroutThis spring the joint venture increased its reach with social media tools; a blog and three social networking sites.

The Brook Trout Blog, at http://brooktrout.wordpress.com/ offers a running commentary on the activity of the joint venture. We will be posting information and updates on a regular basis.

We have a facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eastern-Brook-Trout-Joint-Venture#/pages/East-ern-Brook-Trout-Joint-Venture/59207767524?v=info&viewas=1633323785. You will need a facebook account to view this page. If you are on facebook become a “fan”.

We’re on the Recreational Boating and Fishing Founda-tion’s social media site Fishington as well. You can see it at: http://www.takemefishing.org/community/sn/profiles/view/name/eastern-brook-trout-joint-venture.

We also are on Twitter, at https://twitter.com/EBTJV. You will need a twitter account as well if you want to “follow” us or send as a “tweet”.

Check them out! They’re all choked with good information.

by Tom Sadler

ga Trout unlimited Now on facebookGA TU established a Facebook Fan Page for Back-the-Brookie to share information about the Eastern Trout Joint Venture. We’ve posted events, photos, info about conser-vation and a started a brook trout art album: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Georgia-Trout-Unlimited-Back-the-Brookie/102970162154#/pages/Georgia-Trout-Unlimited-Back-the-Brookie/102970162154.

To date, over 272 fans have joined the page. Of course, you’re invited to become a fan.

by Kevin McGrath

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georgiaStover Creek Project CompletedIn partnership with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Chattahoochee National Forest GA TU completed a two year project on Stover Creek. Led by Gold Rush TU, Dahlonega GA, and Oconee River TU, Athens GA, a natural barrier was enhanced to prevent passage of rainbow and brown trout upstream.

Over forty stream structures were built along one and one half mile of stream improving stream flow and provid-ing habitat for native Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. Stover Creek sits just four miles from the southern termi-nus of the Appalachian Trail and flows through one of the largest stands of Eastern Hemlocks. The Appalachian Trail crosses Stover creek three times in the restoration area. Well done to USFS, GA DNR and all TU’ers that helped make this happen.

by Kevin McGrath

Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture Grant AwardedGeorgia stakeholders Trout Unlimited, Georgia Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Forest Service were awarded a $25,000 grant for work in the Chattahoochee National Forest. We have a great partnership!

by Kevin McGrath

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south carolinaSouth Carolina’s Back the Brookie efforts continue during the summer of 2009Conservation:1. South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources

electroshocked King and Crane Creeks in early July. For the first time since our brook trout restoration efforts began, the team found enough brookies in both creeks to use the 3-pass technique, which allows population estimates to be made. This is further evidence that res-toration has been successful in these two creeks.

2. SCDNR has been hosting Michael Barnes, a volunteer intern student from Mansfield College in Pennsylvania. Michael is helping DNR collect updated information on water quality, in-stream habitat and fish population esti-mates in brook trout streams. Michael’s study for his internship will attempt to determine the relationship(s) between various habitat measures and brook trout population levels.

3. Population studies by DNR indicate that we have lost reproducing populations of brook trout in several small lower elevation streams after this most recent severe drought. USFS Basinwide Visual Estimation Technique (BVET) studies in many SC brook trout streams have identified deficiency of pool habitat and large woody debris in essentially all headwater streams on USFS lands when compared with reference streams. We believe this lack of habitat, especially for adult fish, is the reason we have lost brook trout in some headwater streams. Brook trout populations in the headwaters of streams we have restored (through woody debris additions) have remained very stable through the most recent drought.

4. SCDNR has been formally notified by the USFWS and EBTJV that our proposal to restore brook trout in the Jocassee Gorges area streams has been funded at a level of $49,000. The DNR and USFS have fur-ther partnered to obtain an additional $50,000 in USFS Partnership funding, matched by an additional $50,000 by SCDNR, to be awarded to this project under a challenge-cost share agreement. This project is also being matched by a $10,000 Trout Unlimited EAS Grant. SCDNR has also received $25,000 from a

private development community in the area to pursue habitat enhancement on Jocassee Gorges streams. Work on this project will commence in 2010.

5. Our Back the Brookie Committee will meet with Dan Rankin, SC DNR trout biologist, on August 14 to discuss plans for brookie restoration the coming Fall. Items on the agenda include habitat evaluation techniques to be used to find streams suitable for brookie restoration in the Jocassee Gorges, a wild and mountainous tract in western South Carolina, and work projects for TU members so the chapters will be more involved with the brook trout restoration efforts

Education:1. On July 9th, our BTB coordinator was interviewed

on SC public radio about out brook trout restoration efforts. This interview aired on all the public radio sta-tions in the state.

2. Vance Baird, our BTB conservation chair, has accepted an offer from Michigan State University and will be leaving this month. Marcus Leech, a member of the Chattooga River Chapter, has agreed to take his place on the committee.

3. Our Back the Brookie Committee presented a program on July 7th on Stream Projects to the Chattooga River Chapter of TU. Several of the projects were centered on brook trout restoration.

By David Van LearSC BTB coordinator

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TennesseeLynn Camp Prong Brook Trout Restoration by Byron Begley

Lynn Camp Prong is one of the two larger tributaries that form the Middle Prong of the Little River. Lynn Camp and Thunderhead Prong meet at a place where the town of Tremont, Tennessee was located during the lumbering years. About one half mile up Lynn Camp is a large cas-cade, which also acts as a natural barrier to stop rainbow and brown trout from migrating upstream.

The stream, above the cascade is very accessible. An old roadbed follows the stream for much of its 8 miles. It was once a stream with a very large population of rainbow trout. Monitoring showed a high concentration of trout. The numbers fluctuated between 1,800 and 2,500 fish per mile. In the headwaters of the stream native Southern Appalachian Brook Trout thrived since the ice age.

This stream has always been in the sights of Park biolo-gists Steve Moore and Matt Kulp as a future brook trout restoration project. It would be the largest restoration in the Smokies and the Eastern United States.

When completed there will be between 11 and 12 miles of pure brook trout populations located in a mid-elevation stream. It was determined the total cost would be in the range of $250,000 to $300,000. That money would be raised by conservation organizations and matched with grants.

In 2007 after years of planning and environmental assess-ments, a fish toxin known as Anamicin was used to remove rainbow trout from Lynn Camp Prong. Monitoring after the initial treatment found isolated remaining rainbows so a re-treatment was necessary. Confident that the rainbows were gone it was time to begin re-stocking the stream. The first stocking was held in July 2009. Steve Moore asked me to come along. It was also a media event. Volunteers from Trout Unlimited were not used this day.

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The trout were captured using an electroshocking device at Cosby Creek. Over 350 brook trout were caught and placed in a hatchery truck provided by Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Steve, Matt, six seasonal interns and two Student Conservation Association assistants were there to perform the task. Everything went smooth as usual when these guys do a job.

A large 6-wheel ATV was on site to transport the trout up the trail. Three large coolers were strapped into the bed of the ATV. Clear heavy duty plastic bags were half-filled with stream water, ice made from spring water was placed in the bags, about 50 brook trout were dumped in then the bag was filled with oxygen from a small tank. The bags were sealed and placed in the coolers. When that was completed Steve drove the ATV up the trail about a mile. At 200 to 300 yards apart at pre-determined locations one of the seasonal staff were waiting for Steve to arrive. When he did, they grabbed the bags and walked to the creek, releasing the brook trout in the cold clear water. The guys made Steve stock the first bag. It was all over before I knew it.

This was a historic day and one that was very personal to me. First, Lynn Camp Prong is my favorite stream in the Park. I have spent many days there fishing and stream watching. One day Steve Moore and I fished Lynn Camp taking turns as we moved up the stream. We caught 115 trout that day. Steve caught way more than I did. He and I have been talking about this restoration project for 16 years and it is finally happening.

There will be many more stocking days this year. The job will be done by October. When that time comes the Park Service will be asking for volunteers as it will be a large undertaking.

Then we will walk, watch and wait for opening day. It will probably take three to five years for the brook trout to become a stable sustainable population. Floods, droughts and the success of the spawns will determine the actual time. Brookies will be gathered from several dif-ferent streams in the Park. It is known that brook trout tend to be “clannish” to their family group in the watershed were they were raised. These clans may not cross breed. So there are many unknowns.

When they reach that sustainable density the stream will be open again to fishing. I hope God lets me live and be there on that great day. It will be here before we know it I hope.

Article and photos by Byron Begley at Little River Outfitters and Steve Brown

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VirginiaArches and Culvert Replacement to Restore Natural Ecosystem of Streams in VirginiaThe George Washington and Jefferson National Forests received funding from the American Resource and Recovery Act for capital improvement and maintenance that will improve wild trout streams. This project will benefit public safety, improve water quality and restore water-sheds across four districts on the George Washington National Forest. Multiple culverts and four arches will be replaced by this work. An arch, in this instance, is a big pipe without a bottom to allow the free passage of fish and other aquatic organisms within the stream as well as safe public transportation on the road above the arch. The investment of $440,000 will restore connectivity to 34 miles of brook trout streams and tributaries above the crossings.

Roaring Run Bottomless Arch, Page County, VA (August 6, 2009)

The Forest also competed successfully to receive $90,000 from the 2009 Transportation Bill, Safety, Accountable, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), to replace two crossings with bot-tomless arches that will re-connect an additional eight miles of brook trout habitat and tributary streams.

Over $360,000 of the Forest’s appropriated CMLG funds will be used to install bottomless arches in four streams, and replace numerous other culverts. This will create aquatic organism passage upstream for over 14 miles (about 10 miles of wild brook trout habitat) across five Forest Service districts.

Overall, this work will span nine counties in western Virginia. Most of re-connected stream habitat (54 of the 56 miles) is within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

By Dawn Kirk

Upper South River – Shenandoah Watershed Improvement ProjectNew Center for Coldwater Restoration under ConsiderationFrom its base in Waynesboro, Va., the upper South River is comprised of approximately 70 miles of mountain streams, spring creeks, and main-stem river. Located in the city on the river is a 40-acre recovered brownfield site with deeded access to 3 million gallons of spring water per day. Through the site flows a run fed by a much smaller spring, typical of those found throughout the Shenandoah Valley. Along the river past the site will run a hiking, biking greenway.

The site will be the location of a planned unit development which will include residences, stores, restaurants, a the-atre, studios for artisans, and – if the collaborative efforts of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, other federal and state natural resource agencies, a con-sortium of universities, leaders of the local governments, and the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited are successful – a facility dedicated to addressing issues associated with propagation of wild brook trout for restoration.

Capture and transplant is widely viewed as the most effective manner for brook trout restoration. But with roughly 5,000 Virginia stream miles from which brookies have been extirpated and limited populations from which fish can be moved, DGIF and its partners are developing an alternative source. The concept is to adapt techniques pioneered by Conservation Fisheries, Inc. (conservation-fisheries.org) for threatened and endangered warmwater

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species and the Freshwater Institute (freshwaterinstitute.org) for salmonid propagation.

Because of the nature of brook trout and their genetics, the facility will utilize small circular and rectangular troughs to create a series of discrete environments. Each environ-ment can be tuned – water temperature, pH, alkalinity, dis-solved oxygen/nitrogen, water velocity, food, stream-bed structure, day-night period, etc. – to match as nearly as possible the location from which brood adults come and into which specific sets of trout fingerlings will be intro-duced. Rather than the large production associated with typical hatcheries, the center will propagate small batches of brook trout in artificial environments designed to opti-mize the trout’s abilities to survive and sustain themselves in the wild and maintain their genetic diversity.

The upper South River (Shenandoah) watershed contains a rich array of sites - from high mountain acid deposition impacted streams to log-gradient valley spring creeks to which brookies can be restored and their survivability monitored. Because the concept is highly experimental, we envision creating a team of fisheries personnel and academics to advise on propagation strategies and review results.

Provisionally we’re calling the facility the Center for Coldwater Restoration. Other activities associated with the proposed center could include strategies for mitigation of high nitrogen levels in spring creeks and chemical pollut-ants in waters adversely impacted by historic agriculture and industry, abatement of didymo, restoration of spawn-ing substrate, collaboration among initiatives to improve coldwater riparian/stream habitat for T & E species, and watershed-based education for K-12 teachers that sup-ports state-based standards of learning.

We have received preliminary expressions of interest in co-locating regional offices of DGIF and state’s Divisions of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and Environmental Quality (DEG) at the site. As well, faculty at five colleges and universities have expressed interest in using the cen-ter’s infrastructure to create coldwater living stream labo-ratories for research. No such facilities exist in Virginia.

This initiative was born in the first annual summit on Conservancies and Coldwaters in April 2008 during which representatives of more than 45 state and federal

agencies, local government entities, and conservation NGOs discussed challenges and opportunities facing coldwater restoration in the Shenandoah and James River watersheds. A second summit was held in April 2009. Both were sponsored by the Valley Conservation Council, Waynesboro Downtown Development, Inc., and Trout Unlimited. The effort is complemented by TU’s Shenandoah Headwaters Home Rivers Initiative which was funded in late 2008 by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Submitted by John Ross, ChairVirginia Council, Trout Unlimited

Wild Brook Trout Re-introducedThe Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries re-introduced wild brook trout into four streams during 2008. Two of the streams, Garth Run and Kinsey Run (Madison County), were known to historically have brook trout populations. Those populations were extirpated due to catastrophic flooding in the 1990’s. The other two streams, Wildcat Hollow (Fauquier County) and Sweet Run (Loudon County), have suitable trout habitat and are located within Virginia’s historic brook trout range, but no historical record of brook trout were available. In June 2009, biologists surveyed these streams and confirmed brook trout reproduction in all four. These streams will continue to be monitored to assess whether brook trout populations remain viable.

by Larry Mohn, DGIF

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Resiliency of Virginia’s Brook TroutVirginia initiated a cooperative study between the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, the US Forest Service’s Fish and Aquatic Ecology Unit and James Madison University to rank the resiliency of Virginia’s brook trout populations to anticipated climate change effects. The study utilizes the extensive inventory work done by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the assessment portion of the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (www.easternbrooktrout.org). These inventories and assessments have identified 272 watersheds con-taining brook trout. These “patches” of contiguous brook trout habitat range in size from a few thousand acres to over 10,000 acres. Extensive monitoring of air and water temperatures at the center and most downstream point of 50 of these “patches” will be used to build models predicting the relationships among air temperature, water temperature and various land use metrics. The models will then be used to rank the resiliency of all of Virginia’s brook trout resource to climate change effects. Managers will use the resiliency rankings to help set priorities for protection, enhancement or restoration of brook trout in the state. Once the initial two year study is completed and the models developed, continuous water temperature monitors will be placed in most of the state’s wild trout streams to build a long term water temperature database, to validate the models and to measure long term changes as a result of climate change.

by Larry Mohn, DGIF

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