 Next up tonight is Carl Urban, a botanist for the Umatilla National Forest. Carl has a rich and varied experience in biology, serving as a professor at Blue Mountain Community College for 24 years from 1968 to 1991. In 1991, he took his position with the forest where he is charged with managing the 32-sensitive plant species in Oregon and Washington in the campus by the Umatilla National Forest. Tonight he's going to talk about the interaction between plants and watersheds. The title of his presentation tonight is, A Very Special Plant Place, A River Runs Through It, Under It, and Over It. Welcome Carl Urban. Okay, it's a real pleasure to be here tonight and I hope I can get used to this high-tech equipment. I suppose I'll have the overhead and slide projector on at the same time and everything will go black and anyway, we'll deal with it. When I was asked to give this presentation, it was suggested that I perhaps focus on concentrations of sensitive plants on the Umatilla National Forest. And so I tried to build my talk around that. However, I found that as I built the presentation, there were a lot of other uses of water that should be considered. And so I would like to start the presentation this evening with some basic biology. Philip Wiley wrote in his book, The Magic Animal, mankind breathes green plants and men eats them. His prosaic appraisal of the relationship between the human population of the planet Earth and its green mantle provides a wonderful introduction to the theme of this seminar series, Watershed's The Critical Link. Have you thanked a green plant today? All too frequently, the importance of plant life to everyday human life is overlooked. We take for granted the fact that the ultimate source of biological energy on Earth is the sun. Solar energy becomes available to living organisms through a series of remarkably complex photochemical reactions called photosynthesis. And of course, I have oversimplified the process of photosynthesis. There have been Nobel Prize winners that have worked on the various biochemical pathways that are associated with photosynthesis. But in this diagram, you can see that plants are central in capturing solar energy. Using that solar energy, they are able to link carbon dioxide, which comes into them from the air, and water that comes into them usually from the soil solution through the roots. So we find that plants do some incredible things in making organic molecules out of inorganic molecules. It's nothing short of a miracle, very, very complicated. And as I said, several Nobel Prizes have been awarded on this particular subject of photosynthesis. So I need to point out the fact that plant life is dependent upon water for the basic organic molecules that keeps plant life going. And we find that fortunately for us, plant life over exceeds in its production of carbohydrates. We find then that the carbohydrates that are produced actually become the basis of the food chains or food webs that sustain life on Earth. So this is one of the critical functions then of photosynthesis. Again, it's a very complicated process. We find that the water molecule is actually split apart. The hydrogen parts of water become incorporated into carbon intermediates. They become part of the carbohydrate molecules. And we find then that free molecular oxygen is actually released in the process of photosynthesis. Some of you may be taking plant physiology courses or biochemistry. And you realize that photosynthesis does precede cellular respiration. It provides the carbohydrate molecules that are oxidized in cellular respiration for other types of biological energy. We also find that the carbohydrates that are produced in photosynthesis form the or are the basic organic molecules that are aminated to form amino acids, the basic structural units of proteins, and also through other biochemical reactions we find that the carbohydrates can be transformed into basic fatty acids. So maybe now we have a better understanding of the quotation that I read when I started the presentation, which is that plant life is very, very important then at the basis of all food chains whether they are directly for human consumption or whether they serve wildlife. We also find that water plays a critical role in plants in providing trigger pressure. This is basically a hydrostatic system that supports the soft tissues in plants. Trigger pressure is maintained in leaves. It keeps leaves rigid so that they can be exposed as solar collectors to collect solar energy. We also find that water is essential in conducting carbohydrates from one part of the plant to another, mainly from the roots down to the leaves. We also find that water is the conduction medium in which essential minerals are carried upward through plants into the leaves for growth and development of plants. We also find that water is extremely important as a medium in which biochemical reactions occur, whether those biochemical reactions are associated with photosynthesis, cellular respiration, or a wide assortment of biochemical reactions unique to living systems. We find that all of those biochemical reactions are catalyzed by enzymes and those reactions occur in an aqueous medium. Well, to switch away then from plant physiology and biochemistry, I would like to talk a little bit about these unusual concentrations of sensitive plant species that are found particularly on the Umatilla National Forest. And in order to do that, I would like to try to show you a few slides and I hope this is the right protocol on this. Okay, first of all then the topic, the title of my presentation tonight was a very special plant place. A river flows through it, over it, and under it. And in reference to this then, I would like to show you how water affects the distribution of some of our sensitive species. Beyond the general role of water in plant metabolism and the photosynthesis and cellular respiration stuff, we find that moisture conditions within the soil, on top of the soil, or in a free flowing state are a principal environmental factor in determining the ecological amplitude or geographical distribution of various plant species and plant associations or communities. The tremendous floristic biodiversity of a watershed is actually an expression of the integration of all of the environmental factors that exist within the site by the plant life that inhabits that site. So if you see a plant growing in a given area, you realize that it is integrating virtually everything, the soil factor, the soil moisture factor, the amount of solar energy. We find that it's an absolutely fantastic scheme of integration, putting everything together. In certain areas of the Blue Mountain, several unique assemblages of plant species occur. Some real floristic surprises occur, for example, on the windward side, the Pendleton side of the Blue Mountains. There are special areas in which relict patches of Cascadian vegetation still exist, remnants of a climatically different time when the climate was more moist. On the Umatilla National Forest, we find patches of Salal, Galferia Shalom, some 180 miles east of its normal and nearest distribution. We also have patches of Devil's Club. Opalopanics, Horrid and some of you from the Willamette Valley are very well acquainted with Devil's Club. Well, we have it on the Umatilla National Forest. You just have to know where to look for it. And where you find it, you find that very special conditions of moisture exist. Usually we find that these areas are pockets that are physiographically separated so that a lot of moisture accumulates, usually at the bottom of a waterfall zone, very close to a plunge pool. And so it's almost like a rainforest effect in this micro habitat. So we do have those very unusual patches of vegetation on the Umatilla National Forest. In visiting with Paula Brooks, who's on this side of the mountains, so far she hasn't encountered those unusual patches of relict vegetation. Well, tonight I would like to share with you at least one and perhaps two or three special plant places of the Umatilla National Forest. And I will say that because of the confidential nature of the information about specific locations of sensitive plant species, I am permitted to show slides of general areas and habitats. However, I cannot legally give the locations of these areas. I'll try not to let that confidential information slip out. I get so supercharged about these sensitive plants, sometimes it just slips and I always get in trouble. But I've learned in my work with the Forest Service that that goes along with the game. So anyway, I'll try not to slip. Okay, perhaps our best concentration of sensitive species occurs on our Pomeroy Ranger District, which straddles the state line. I do have to deal with sensitive species lists from both the state of Washington and Oregon. And I will say, going back to the previous presentation, that this area is in the Grand Ron Basin. And this is what it looks like. None of you have ever been there, so you don't know where it is. Do you? Don't say it if you do. I'll be in big trouble. Anyway, this is what it looks like. And of course, you see the green mantle. You see the vegetation that is protecting the watershed, preventing erosion, preventing sedimentation, preventing damage in peak years. Luxuriant green, have you thanked a green plant today? Well, the first plant I'd like to talk about then involves a river running through it. And of course, this goes back to the movie and also the book. A river runs through it. Of course, in this case, we're dealing not with the human aspect and fishing in Montana. Instead, we're dealing with plant life on the Pomeroy Ranger District of the Umatilla National Forest. I always have this problem. I feel like I'm swimming upstream. I made a presentation to a group in Missoula, Montana. I was talking to 223 wildlife biologists and three botanists. And here I'm dealing with the charismatic megafauna, the big cuddly, fuzzy animals that everybody loves. And here I am, the plant person, trying to present a charismatic liver wart. I don't know whether that can happen or not. But anyway, back to our theme. A river runs through it. Okay, the first sensitive species in this area is Ribes cognatum. It's a former name. The name has been changed on it. And let's see, is that in focus? Let me see if I can zoom in on it a little bit. I guess that's it. Okay, anyway, this is referred to as the Umatilla gooseberry. And it was delisted in the state of Oregon in 1984 as a result of our survey efforts. We documented large enough populations of this species to take it into the clear zone. We also realized that many of the impacting activities were not adversely affecting this species. It is a peripheral species that barely spills over into Washington. We have a fairly large population of it in the riparian zones of our Pomeroy Ranger District. In fact, all of the riparian zones on that district up to an elevation of approximately 4,000 feet support relatively large populations of this sensitive plant. This one, incidentally, draws blood. If you run into big thickets of this plant, you know that it's left its mark on you. Anyway, this species, as I said, is very closely associated with streams. And we find then that it has a requirement for permanently flowing water. We also find that the roots do require aeration. And so they're always down in the coarse gravel beds right along the streams. This really limits the distribution of this species. Globally, this particular species is known to occur from Kimberley, Oregon, picture gorge, which is very close to Kimberley, all the way up to the Canadian line on the Calville and Okanagan National Forests. The next species I would like to present is one that I found last summer. And this is one of those lifetime discoveries. And only botanists would turn cartwheels in rattlesnake dens when they found a new species. But that's what happened to me. And anyway, in this case, a river runs over it. This clover, which is almost one foot tall, it's very, very robust, has bright pink flowers and jagged leaves. Trifolium diglassii, Douglas's clover, was thought to have been extirpated from the state of Washington. And I had started doing sensitive plant surveys for the Umatilla National Forest in the summers, way back in 1982. And so I could remember all of these annual lists that came out. And somewhere in my memory banks, there was a note that said, Trifolium diglassii used to be on that list. Now why isn't it on the list any longer? And anyway, I called Olympia after I got back to the office, and John Gammon said, you found that? We thought it was extinct, you know? So anyway, what we find with this particular clover then is that it is in a meadow habitat. And so during the late spring and early summer, we find that its roots are totally immersed in water. And then by late summer, it's baked. Apparently this clover is tolerant of grazing. Unfortunately, the habitat is greatly diminished. The area is very close to our forest boundary. And right at the boundary fence, we find that we change from a forested environment to a cultivated field. And anyway, the population ends right at the fence. And so we find then that, as far as we know, there are 1,303 plants of Trifolium diglassii on Earth. And there's also a rattlesnake the size of my wrist that lives in that patch. Yes. Okay. The next one then involves a river that runs under it. And this is another sensational find. Let's see if I can size that down a little bit. Okay. Many of you are familiar with the mountain lady slipper orchid that grows in the Wallowa Mountains and also in the Blue Mountains. It has a big white pouch on it. It's very fragrant. It smells like vanilla. And anyway, that one used to be on the Oregon sensitive list back in the 80s. And then we documented enough of that species so that it was taken off the list. Well, and I think it was 1987, I found a different lady slipper on our Pomerai Ranger District again. And the population was just really dangerously small. One plant. And I just, I couldn't believe it. My eyes almost popped out when I found this clustered lady slipper orchid, Cypropedium fasciculatum. As I looked at the habitat, I realized that it was very, very strange. And I'll show you a picture of this habitat in just a minute. It leads me to think that the subsurface hydrology is extremely important in perpetuating this particular species. Well, since then we have found a second population on our Pomerai Ranger District. And anyway, this is what it looks like. It has maroon flowers sometimes up to five. For one of our populations, we find that the dynamics, depending upon how much precipitation there is, will go from one plant to two. And it's just been like a clock from one to two back to one and then to two. And it's really scary, you know, how does that plant continue to survive? And then our other population has about 35 plants in it. So it's in better condition. As the crow flies, the two populations are approximately 12 miles apart. And they do require cross-pollination. So there are some really fascinating unanswered questions about the clustered lady slipper orchid, which occurs sporadically from northern California all the way into Utah and then up into Montana. On most forests, the populations are very small, like one to two plants or 11 or 12. The largest population is in northern California. It has more than 2,000 plants in it. But anyway, this is, if you ever see one of these clustered lady slipper orchids, be sure to get ahold of the botanist. Please don't pick it. Please don't pick it. The thing that keeps that population of one or two going, there's a vegetative rhizome and the second bud will come up when there's sufficient moisture. And so if you were to pick the plant, you would remove the source of food that is keeping the entire population going. So anyway, please, you know, jot down where you see this plant, but please don't pick it. Okay, I mentioned the fact that the habitat appears to have a real critical subsurface hydrology. And so in this slide, you can see the moss-covered boulders. We also find some very unusual ferns here. And these are things that I hone in on then as I make management recommendations or as I make recommendations that are forwarded to the decision makers. I don't make the decisions myself, but I do make recommendations, and usually those are followed. Our forest has been very good about protecting the sensitive plant resource. So if we look at this area that's covered with the moss-covered boulders, it looks like an old channel of a river. It's on a slope about like that. And anyway, that's where we find this clustered lady-slipper orchid. In this case, I would like to say that a river runs under it. Now, all of these plants are very, very small area. Within one square mile, you would find all of these species that I'm showing you. It is a botanical hotspot. Okay, and then this slide is not very good. It's too dark, but this shows the clustered lady-slipper orchid in fruit. And that's the way I found it in 1987. I think that was the first year that I found it. And I got all excited about it. I took my supervisors over there from our regional office, and guess what? Some critter had cut the top of it off, had eaten it, and only the leaves were there. But I had a photograph. I could put it right down there to show them that well, it was in fruit when I found it. And so anyway, I'm really excited about that particular part of our plant resource. Okay, and then another species on our palmarae district, again within this square mile area, this botanical hotspot, is the pine broom rape, which is a parasitic plant. It parasitizes the roots of ocean spray, holodiscous discolor. If you extract this plant, you find that there's a tap root that goes down, and it has a big clamp connection that goes around the root of the holodiscous. In the voucher specimen that I sent to Oregon State University, the holodiscous root still penetrates this big root ball down at the bottom of it. Well, this plant has no chlorophyll in it. It is dependent upon the host plant for both sugars and also for water. And so in this case, I would like to say that a river of life runs into it from another plant species. Well, we find then that there are other botanical hotspots, let me back up one, on the Umatilla National Forest and all of them are proximal to water, at least seasonally. On one of our other districts, the North Fork of the John Day, and we're also finding it on the Walla Walla Ranger District, we have an unusual concentration of very small grape ferns, batricians. And there is an old professor. He's 84 years old, and he is the world's authority on batricians. Anyways, from the University of Michigan, and he visited our batrician patches last year. Well, these batrician patches are always very, very close to water. In fact, in one area, that is less than one half square mile in size, it's in a meadow situation right on the bank of a stream. We find that there's a concentration of seven different species of batricians. This is the way you count batricians. You do it on your knees. I hope all of you can see that slide. Anyway, you finally end up investing in a pair of knee pads, and if you crawl three city blocks in a day, you consider yourself lucky. These little tiny plants are extremely difficult. The problem in counting them is that you have to tell the difference between seven different species and get accurate counts for them. Anyway, here you can see Dr. Herb Wagner and his wife Florence. They visited our batricium hotspot last summer. Shortly after that, Dr. Wagner had open heart surgery. We were all concerned about that because at 84 years of age, well, anyway, you never know what the outcome may be, but fortunately, everything went well. That's one reason why on our district, on our North Fork District, we had some arrangements to haul Dr. Wagner around in this vehicle. At first, he was really apprehensive. He was afraid we were going to crush the grape ferns. Then when he saw this old fire road that was seeded in with Meadow Fox Tail, it was okay. He relaxed and we had a really good day, and we certainly learned a lot from him. Again, he's a world authority on batricians. There he is looking at what he thought was going to be done. The red stripe grape fern, notice how tiny it is down there by his finger. Anyway, later we received word that this is a new to science species, and so we're awaiting the name of this plant. This is what the little critters look like. Some of them are two inches tall. Some of them get up to four inches if they have a lot of water, but they are not easily seen in the Meadow grasses. This could give you the names of these species. This one is the mingan grape fern. This one is a real strange when it comes up and it has a tuning fork appearance, and then it has sporangia on the two branches of the upper part of the plant. This is batricium paradoxum. Let's see. I'm trying to think of the common name of that one. Anyway, it's the weirdest looking plant you've ever seen. And then this is the new to science one, which Dr. Wagner told us to call batricium apostrophe echo apostrophe. It's closest to a known species, but it's not quite the same. And his work on chromosome counts has confirmed that. So this is another hotspot where we find that proximity to water and the seasonal distribution of water is extremely important to the survival of the species. Here you can see the size of batricium echo, this new to science species. And then even on our driest districts, we have seasonal distribution of sensitive species. In this case, you're looking at a patch of mimulus Washingtonensis, the Washington monkey flower, which doesn't grow to our knowledge in Washington at all. We find it in four counties that are served by the Umatilla National Forest, Umatilla, Grant, Wheeler, and also Moro. So we're right down in that corner, that four corners area. But anyway, this little tiny monkey flower grows in scabland seepage areas. And so the critical spring moisture generated from snowmelt or from spring rains, very, very important to this annual monkey flower. Last year we had a profusion of blooms. In fact, with every rain squall that came through last summer, we seemed to get new crops of the Washington monkey flower. And this was contrary to everything that we had been told by the experts on this particular species. We were told that it had a cold requirement and it had to go through a chilling period before the seeds would germinate again. We would walk over an area and then we would get another heavy rain. You know how last summer was, just constant rainfall. And anyway, the slope would turn yellow. So anyway, we had a profusion of blossoms, again closely related to the availability of water, certainly the seasonal distribution of water. Here you can see another patch of the Washington monkey flower. And also, and here it is on the gravel beds along the north fork of the John Day River near Monument. Also in the same area in waterhole areas, we have another sensitive species. The arrow-leaved filipodium, it's in the mustard family, and we didn't know that we had that one until last summer. And that was another cartwheel of discovery. That was a new lifer for me to find that on the Umatilla National Forest. This plant is a biennial, and anyway, that means that it's very vulnerable to grazing. We find then that in our discussion of plant life and water, throughout the Umatilla National Forest and the Blue Mountain Biotic Province, plant life and plant health are inextricably linked with the health of watersheds. Water is essential not just for special sensitive plant species, but for all forms of life, no matter how well-adapted they may be for survival under Xeric conditions. From snowpack, to rivulet, to stream, to river, and from sun, to plant, to animal, to man, the fascinating interrelationships of this ecosystem called Earth spell out both dependencies and interdependencies between and among plants, animals, man, and water. Our watershed resources are precious and in need of special attention and care may a life-sustaining river run through them, over them, and under them forever. In closing, I offer a quotation from Aldo Leopold's thinking like a mountain. And before I put that up here, I will close the slide presentation and try to get used to high tech. Okay, the next thing I do is to move this plate over there and we have a blackout, the thing that I always worried about. So anyway, in closing this, a quotation from Aldo Leopold that some of you may be familiar with. And the slide that I showed you of the Matterhorn, many of you are familiar with the Matterhorn which is in the Willowas. It's not on the Umatilla National Forest. It's on the Willow Whitman. Just as a deer lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. That's from thinking like a mountain in the Sand County Almanac. And if you think about that, you realize that the earth's green mantle, its vegetation, protects the watershed. And if that vegetation is removed, we find that the watershed is adversely affected. And so are our lives. Thank you. Thank you very much, Carl. You're welcome. Let's see. I'm on. Let's go ahead and answer some questions then. Ask some questions of Carl and see if you can answer those. See if you can stump Carl. Let's start here in LeGrand. Just don't ask any questions about biochemistry or physiology. I'm old. I'm rusty on that stuff. Any questions here? Let's go to the remote audiences then and see if we've got any questions there. EdNet1 should be up now. You can telephone in. I think you have a number on your screen. Go ahead and call. Boy, that's quiet out there. Question from Monmouth. Go ahead. Yes, you were talking about the relationship of individual plants to hydrology and water. Have you seen any kind of relationship between plant associations and water? Certainly. In fact, the plant association guidebooks that we use in the Forest Service are geared largely to gradations from xeric to mesic to hydric. Of course, we don't have all of those association guidebooks developed, but very definitely we find that, especially in the Blue Mountains, we have a transitional gradient from the drier areas to higher elevations where more moisture is available. We might start out, for example, with sagebrush and then get into sagebrush juniper and then move up to ponderosa pine and then move into grand fur and then finally into subalpine fur. We do find, yes, very definitely that our plant associations do reflect the integration of both the hydrology and also precipitation factors. Does that answer your question? Yes. Other questions? Another question from Monmouth? Go ahead. You were talking about the importance of hydrology. I was wondering, do you work closely with your soil scientists and hydrologists in the course of your work? Whenever I sense that there are conflicts, I do, and in the case of the clustered lady slipper orchid, I did my best to work it through that area of expertise on our forests. We find that hydrologists are few and far between and we have not always had hydrologists available on our forests for consultation. Unfortunately, in my work, I'm usually in the field a lot and I don't have an opportunity to communicate with the other disciplines. However, if I have questions, I certainly refer to the soil scientists and also to the hydrology team. Yes. Next question? I have a question from Brianville. From where? Brianville. This is kind of follow-up on your last question. I'm interested in what sort of connections you found with geology and, in particular, land stability. Have you found any connections between moist sites and, say, fault zones or situations where you might have joints in the basalt? I guess that the best indication of a geological factor would be with our batricium site. The meadow that I mentioned is very close to a contact zone between serpentine which comes up from the John Day Basin and it does barely get on to the Umatilla National Forest. Anyway, the vegetation on the serpentine faces is quite different. I would suspect, then, that there is a component in the soils in those batricium sites that perhaps originates with the parent rock material in the serpentine zone of our forest. So, very definitely, geology, along with hydrology does determine the distribution of the sensitive species as well as the plant associations and plant communities. Yes. Question? I think serpentine is a magnesium silicate mineral. And how did I not answer the question? I didn't say it was basalt. No, I wasn't saying that. No, I was just adding that maybe it's a magnesium interdependence with that particular plant. Okay, yeah. As you can tell, you aren't talking to a geologist, but I do recognize the serpentine rock as far as the composition of it, the mineral composition. Thank you very much, and very definitely, magnesium is critical in the center of the chlorophyll porphyrin molecule that, of course, is the molecule that causes photosynthesis to or allows photosynthesis to occur. So, thank you for adding that information. Yes, another question. Yes, Carl, what has the increased use of our watershed areas, such as in commercialization like mushroom pickers and that kind of stuff done as far as the effects on the sensitive plants and what you speak of? So far, we don't have a good handle on how to monitor mushroom picking. It's fortunately most of the harvest on our forest occurs at a time when the sensitive species are not vulnerable, and many of our sensitive species do not occur in areas where we have large populations of mushrooms. There is a potential conflict, and I will not deny that, and I'm just, I'm really concerned about how we're going to assess the impact. Certainly, if we find, if we can document that mushroom harvesting is impacting the sensitive plant resource, then we will take appropriate actions, probably setting those areas or restricting access to those areas for mushroom harvest. In dealing with the sensitive plant species, it is extremely important that we protect and even enhance the foresting populations. We do not want them to push over the threshold to federal listing, and that's what my job is all about with the Umatilla National Forest. And I'm really happy to say that the forest has really accepted my recommendations. I haven't had any real problems with that. Does that answer your question? Yes, another question. Have there been any attempt to propagate any of these sensitive plants in a domestic situation to try to then transplant them back out to the wild? A lot of the work is in its infancy. We do have seed banks. In fact, there's a large one in Portland at the Berry Botanical Garden. And so seeds in many of these species have been placed under special conditions to store them for posterity. At the same time, those parts or portions of those seed lots have been grown out and the seeds from those plants have been used to increase the species. As far as transplanting them back, we're just getting into that phase right now because we have not had enough plant materials to use in restoration and rehabilitation. Right now, our real concern is in not causing genetic pollution. We don't want to take sensitive species, say, from the Calville National Forest and gather seeds from it, grow those seeds out, and then transplant those plants down to the Umatilla National Forest because we sense that there is a genetic difference. And so we're going into this business of restoration or revegetating with natives real cautiously, trying to keep the genetic lines pure as possible. But anyway, that's in the works right now, and eventually it will get out to the commercial nurseries, I'm sure. Let me interrupt here just a moment. We only have Ednet One up for about five more minutes, so we should try and get questions from Ednet One sites out there if we can. Does anybody have any questions on the Ednet One sites? Go ahead if you do. Hopefully we can hear you. How about Ednet Two? We have a question from Bend. Alright, go ahead. Go ahead. The question is, with cloning of orchids being so successful, why not work out of cloning with a slipper orchid and redistributing it? Or are you worried about the genetic pollution? That could be done if the clones were returned to the same geographic area. There are some problems with cloning. I used to work in tissue culture and there's a problem. You grow a plant out in a test tube and then you put it out in the cold crew world and it's like a human that has no immune system. It doesn't thrive, but anyway there is that possibility and to stay within the same geographic area, I can see no problems with that. Yes, cloning with orchids has been successful, but those plants are kept happy and healthy, usually inside greenhouses rather than putting them back out into the cold crew world. Very definitely a good suggestion though. Any other questions from the remote sites? I know we had one back in the back of the room here in LeGrand. You'll need to get to the microphone so the outlying people can hear. My question is rather selfish in this point. Can you give me five recommendations for private landowners in protecting sites for botanical species? In protecting sites for private landowners. Unfortunately right now the provisions of the Endangered Species Act for plants does not apply to private landowners. There's a difference between the way that act covers animals and the way it covers plants. Anyway, I guess the recommendation would be to determine the habitat requirements of the particular species if you happen to find it on your private land holding. If you sense that it was going to be a problem that you wanted to conserve the species and yet you had a need to till the soil or to build a building or to relocate a septic tank, that sort of thing. There might be a possibility that you could work out a land exchange with a federal agency and then the population would fall under the auspices of protection, legal protection. Another possibility would be for you to contact the Nature Conservancy and perhaps to name your price. They are very much interested in the conservation of plant resources. And then some other possibilities would be to do your own propagation to enhance and increase the species and at the same time to expand the micro habitat that you had identified. And that's sometimes very difficult. You try to analyze that micro habitat. You try to say, well, why do I have this population of sensitive or endangered species and then you find, well, there's some strange soil component or there's an underground spring that you are unaware of. And so trying to match the habitat requirements is sometimes difficult. I think I'm up to four. Does that help? Are there any more questions from the remote sites? Hearing none, let's go to LeGrand again. I just wanted to suggest a fifth one, Carl, if you wanted to add to that list. Okay, Bill. For those private landowners, just manage very, very lightly. Manage lightly. And I certainly concur with that. I'm going to be doing a training class next week and it's been some time since I took students from Blue Mountain Community College out on field trips and so in preparation for this training course, I went out to some of my old field trip sites and I was really saddened because those sites are now filled with unwanted vegetation with noxious weeds. It's really a serious problem and it's a virtual sea of napweed and teasel and so what you're saying, Bill, certainly is true. Manage with a light hand. Yes. That's a definite lead in for our next seminar series. It's going to be on noxious plants and so I hope that you'll all attend that one too. Are there any other questions? Yes. Can you theorize what would happen to a lot of these sensitive plants if we had a catastrophic fire, such a lot of what we've had? Certainly. With the fuel load as it is, there's some areas that I go into and I'm just really afraid to even move because I'm afraid of torching the entire Blue Mountains. The fuel load is that heavy but if there were a catastrophic fire because of that unnatural fuel load that has accumulated over all the years, many of the sensitive species would probably be destroyed. Especially those that are in the forested areas, the Douglas clover that I showed you, the clustered lady slipper orchid, I feel that those would be eliminated from the Umatilla National Forest at least. The one that would probably survive is that annual monkey flower and the reason I say that is that it usually does its thing as although Leopold said quickly and well it germinates in May and by July it's usually powder and of course our fire season usually comes after the fact. We do know that there's a tremendous seed bank in the soil and the area in which it grows does not have much fuel load on it. It's scabland and cheatgrass and it doesn't carry an intense fire so that one would probably survive. Again, we're talking about a catastrophic fire. I think that all of these sensitive species have evolved under a normal fire regime and that is associated with the natural fire cycle where we have a moist spring and then we get into drier and drier conditions and then finally we get into August and we have a real high likelihood that we're going to have some natural ignited fires and most of the sensitive species that I deal with will survive that natural regime, fire regime because they have entered a period of dormancy by the time the fires occur but the catastrophic fire is a much different story and I'm really concerned about that. That's why in dealing with these sensitive species I have to go through prescribed fire or prescribed burning plans I have to do environmental clearances on those and so anyway I'm real aware of the fact that if we do not have the prescribed fires to reduce the fuel load that we're going to have a catastrophic fire that is going to put me out of business I'm not going to have any more sensitive species to deal with and the sad thing about that is that we will also lose this green mantle that protects the watershed our streams are going to sediment shut we're going to have some big problems. Let me ask, oh is there one more? Are there any more questions for Kent? Did anybody write anything down that you could ask Kent? What water resources? Yes, there's one here. I had one question for the first speaker. Yes. At one point you mentioned that your job was managing water in terms of quantity not quality. Is there anything in the works that might change that? In the future are you going to be working more or is that just the domain of the DEQ? Well actually I think this watershed health program is bringing a lot of people together. A lot of different agencies are beginning to discuss their needs with the other agencies and trying to coordinate all of the state and federal programs as much as we can. We are operating some gaging stations that also have quality parameters associated with them such as temperature. We are willing to operate stations to collect turbidity samples water quality samples. We do have some staff on board who have worked for EPA, DEQ and other agencies so we have a little bit of insight at the field level. But right now we haven't figured out all of the parameters and trying to resolve everyone's needs jointly. We would like to. Anything else from the remote sites for Kent or for Carl? Either one doesn't matter. Question from Ben for Carl. I was wondering at the site where the Triflorium, the glassy eye was you mentioned that the rattlesnake was there. Was there also any gopher activity and do you feel that that would impact the remaining 1,300 plants that are left there? That's really very interesting because yes there was evidence of gopher activity and I guess the problem there is that there might be a possibility that the gopher activity would breach the meadow. It's kind of perched on the edge of a canyon and if the gopher hole were to form a drain tube out of the meadow then the water would not stand on that meadow where the Trifolium, the glassy eye, the Douglas's clover grows. So the rattlesnake probably was playing a very beneficial role and I think it had probably eaten that gopher just before I photographed the clover because I almost stepped right on it. It was so fat it just crawled off but anyway it was the biggest one I'd ever seen. We probably really need a D8 to go in there and compact the soil on the lower end of that. Make sure that there's no drainage. Any other questions? For either of the speakers, if not next week we're going to learn about watershed condition and some restoration activities. I know that we're focusing a lot on northeast Oregon but watersheds are watersheds and I think there are similarities amongst them even from the west side to the east side and I hope the people on the west side are benefiting from the discussions that we're having over here. I know down in southwest Oregon, down in the Medford area, there are a lot of plants found in that area so there are switchovers from each side of the system. I find that very interesting. That should conclude our session for this evening. Be sure and sign the sign up sheets and I ask the technicians to return those to me with a head count, not just the number of people on the sheet with a head count from your group if you would please. Thanks a lot and we'll see you next week.