Date          Place            Co-host

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8/9/2017 Oak Creek Canyon sites – Trout Unlimited
9/4/2017 Red Rock Crossing – Rotary Club of Sedona (Oak Creek Village satellite)
9/16/2017 Forest Road 237 – REI & Flagstaff Climbing Gym
9/19/2017 Mormon Crossing – Sedona Wyndam Resort
10/14/2017 Oak Creek Canyon sites – Keep it Wild & ARLA Earth
11/4/2017 Oak Creek Canyon sites – Trout Unlimited
11/5/2017 Carroll Canyon – Mitzvah Day
11/18/2017 Midgely Bridge – REI & Flagstaff Climbing Gym
12/6/2017 Chavez Ranch Rd, Crescent Moon, Forest Road 89B – Red Bull stewardship event with Friends of the Verde River
1/12/2018 Mormon Crossing – Red Mountain Sedona
2/10/2018 Chavez Ranch Road – REI & Flagstaff Climbing Gym
2/18/2018 Oak Creek Canyon
3/28/2018 Midgely Bridge – City of Sedona

NAU journalism student Jamie Nielsen is writing an article about the March 28th cleanup and the environmental impact of NAU students “Creeking” at Midgely Bridge. Creeking is when hundreds of people party along Oak Creek in the springtime. The next cleanup is scheduled for April 22nd at Midgely Bridge. OCWC will cohost this event with NAU’s Sigma Pi Fraternity.

Photos at the end of this report highlight two notable VolunTourism cleanup events: Oak Creek Canyon Cleanup with Keep It Wild and Red Bull Stewardship Event.

Oak Creek Ecological Health

On November 11th and 18th, 2017 twenty-two volunteers were trained in scientific survey methods and collected data for a study to investigate the impacts of sediment on Oak Creek stream ecology. Volunteers collected sediment and macroinvertebrate samples from three habitat types (pools, runs, and riffles) upstream and downstream of a sediment input point at the mouth of Carroll Canyon Wash, which drains west Sedona. Macroinvertebrates are small but visible (macro) organisms without back bones (invertebrate) that live on the stream bottom. They are good indicators of possible pollution impacts to the integrity of the stream food web. Preliminary findings were presented by Dr. Larry Stevens at the OCWC February 2nd members meeting. Volunteers will return in April and May to complete spring 2018 sampling and a report will be issued afterward.

Conservation Work

Volunteer work for the Carroll Canyon Erosion Control to Protect Oak Creek project has been postponed to Winter 2019, because of delays in development of a U.S. Forest Service cost-share agreement for the project. Once the project is underway, volunteers can participate in planting native seeds and mulching to reduce soil erosion.

Oak Creek Canyon Cleanup Event with Keep It Wild
On October 14th, 2017 Oak Creek Watershed Council cohosted with Keep It Wild a large cleanup event in Oak Creek Canyon that drew 71 volunteers. This group photo captures most of the volunteers. More than 30 volunteers from the Hispanic Christian environmental organization ARLA Earth joined this event. (View ARLA Earth’s video of that day here.) Volunteers met at Slide Rock State Park. Some remained at the park to do volunteer work there while groups of 10 to 15 dispersed to sites throughout Oak Creek Canyon on Coconino National Forest land to pick up trash.

This stewardship event was filmed by a team of two women journalists – Anastasiia Baidrakova and her camerawoman Viktoriia Soshnikova from the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia who were hosted by the U.S. State Department. Their documentary about volunteerism on public lands in the United State will air in Russian and likely be picked up internationally. The journalists also interviewed Sedona Mayor Sandy Moriarty.

Red Bull Stewardship Event with Friends of the Verde River

210 Red Bull employees assemble at Enchantment Resort to receive instructions for their day of stewardship volunteering at 11 sites throughout Oak Creek Watershed and along the Verde River. OCWC helped coordinate this event and provided staff to lead cleanups at three sites.

Oak Creek Ecological Health