CONCOW — The grassroots organization Camp Fire Restoration Project is putting together a community project around rainwater management and post-fire soil resilience.
The hands-on workshop will take place starting 9 a.m. Saturday at Concow Meadows Research Station in Concow, streamed live on Facebook. A full day of work is designed to teach participants how to move water across their land in order to improve the ecosystem and more resilient soils.
Participants will have the opportunity to take part in constructing a swale on a unique land form and open a community of practice around land stewardship.
Project Director Janeva Sorenson said the organization is working with Concow Meadows Research Station as a collaboration to partner and share projects and complete more land work as a community.
Sorenson said this workshop focuses on the use of “earth works,” or what she described as “working with your land to slow the sink and spread of water on property.”
“What happens with unhealthy landscapes is, with the soil that is very compact, the nutrient rich soil is blown off or eroded away,” she said. “This can contribute to land drying out more. When it rains, and on a slope … that water’s not going to slow down and sink into property. It will flow off the top and wash off into drainage and ditches, and potentially cause more erosion.”
Sorenson said earth works methods use multiple techniques to try to slow flowing water down.
“Instead of losing all that water off your property, it’s staying in your property,” she added, which is also a fire reduction strategy as land which is more moist is “generally less likely to burn.”
It helps to conduct these workshops during periods of slow, small rain storms, which allow more time for the rain to sink in and later for planting and improving the soil, Sorenson said.
“In Concow, the important timing of season now is it’s winter,” she added. “You don’t want to be digging in dirt in this area in the middle of summer, you’ll break your back. It’s too dry and hard. You want to do it early in winter so you can actually use the land to start collecting the rainwater.”
Through these work and training days, Sorenson said the Camp Fire Restoration Project is hoping to inspire more people to continue coming together to use these methods as a community project. In the past, the organization has led communities such as in Berry Creek to place waddles and prevent water flow and toxic runoff.
“In the future, you could host a day on your property where people can come in and help you,” she suggested.
The event on Saturday begins with a soft open for arrivals from 9 to 10 a.m. and a full lecture at 10:30 a.m. on soil hydrology and fire resilience, principles of earthworks and techniques of earthworks. At 11 a.m., a tour for calculating water volume and demonstrating work and contour line measurment will take place. Protocols for landscape observation will also be outlined.
After a one hour self-brought lunch, hands-on work takes place 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Teams will be divided and will dig sections of the swale and clearing brush. Work will be finished around 5 p.m. after a halfway review and question session.
Anyone who cannot attend can watch the lecture streamed live 10 a.m. to noon on the project’s Facebook page.
Sorenson said the next events in spring might involve a fruit tree planting project in public spaces such as in parks or near schools, possibly taking place around the spring equinox.
A monthly native seed work and planting day will also be offered on the last Tuesday every month, the first of which will begin 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, led by Raphael DiGenova with guidance from Ali Meders-Knight, at Verbena Fields in Chico.