Local High School Students Will Have Summer Jobs Fixing Trails on California’s National Forests

USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Region
Student Conservation Association
Western Region

Contacts: Jay Watson, SCA (510) 435-7937; John Heil, U.S. Forest Service (707) 562-9004

Local High School Students Will Have Summer Jobs Fixing Trails on California’s National Forests

Vallejo, Calif., Dec. 30, 2009—The Student Conservation Association has received funding through the U.S. Forest Service and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to locally recruit high school students for summer trail crews on the Klamath, Tahoe, and Plumas National Forests. SCA will work with local high school employment offices in Yreka, Quincy, and Truckee to find 20 interested crew members. The crews will serve from between 30 and 60 days and earn $9.00 an hour for their service. Additional crews may be possible with additional funding.

The crew on the Klamath National Forest will work in the Russian Wilderness, the crew on the Tahoe National Forest will spend 60 days in the Granite Chief Wilderness, and the crew on Plumas National Forest will serve in Feather River Canyon and elsewhere on the forest. The SCA trail crews undertake trail maintenance projects designed to reduce and control runoff and erosion, provide safe public access, and protect other forest resources. Logs and rocks will be used tobuild waterbars, rocksteps and retaining walls will be built, trail corridors brushed, and windfalls removed using crosscut saws.

“SCA is thrilled to be partnering with the Forest Service to provide conservation-based jobs to high school students in forest communities. The partnership is good for the land, good for the public, and provides summer employment to students facing difficult economic times,” said Jay Watson, Western Regional Director for the Student Conservation Association.

“I am proud that the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region is playing an important role in creating jobs for these students on their national forests,” said Regional Forester Randy Moore. “This is an excellent way to gain natural resource experience and we are pleased to work with SCA on this project.”

Additional SCA projects funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act include a two-year, comprehensive effort on the Pacific Crest Trail in partnership with the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Pacific Crest Trail Association, and college-age trail crews on the Eldorado and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests in the Sierra Nevada.

For more information, see: http://www.thesca.org.