Staff
Eric Anderson brings significant history in stream restoration to his new position as coordinator for the South Santiam Watershed Council.
He started his new job on March 29.
Anderson grew up in Wisconsin. After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, he moved to the Northwest in the late 1990s, when he was in his late 20s, to join a forestry crew with the U.S. Forest Service in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southern Washington.
“I always loved the Northwest, the woods, the big trees and rivers,” Anderson said. He had a blast measuring trees and doing timber plots. He applied to the Forest Service and ended up doing a lot of restoration jobs around Hood River. The work included reforestation, wildlife and fish surveys and stream temperature monitoring.
Later, he served as a preserve manager with a land trust in southwestern Washington, where he was involved in experimental forestry, using thinning and other forest management techniques to accelerate the formation of different forest structures. He also worked with representatives of the neighboring Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.
The work involved decommissioning forest roads, digging out stream crossings for fish passage and moving roads to more stable areas.
In 2010, Anderson earned his master’s degree in water resources sciences from Oregon State University. While at OSU, he studied adult and juvenile winter steelhead passage in the South and North Santiam Rivers. That’s when he became familiar with the South Santiam Watershed.
After completing his studies at OSU, Anderson went to work with an “effectiveness monitoring strike team,” helping the watershed councils in the South Santiam, the North Santiam and the Calapooia watersheds. Later he provided monitoring in the Middle Fork of the Willamette, the Long Tom, Mary’s and Luckiamute watersheds.
He was based in the South Santiam office at the U.S. Forest Service Sweet Home Ranger District.
His team would see if the councils were meeting their goals and objectives for restoring watersheds, Anderson said, watching for changes in in-stream habitats and stream temperatures, for example.
“That lets us know if we’re on the right track,” Anderson said. “I saw a lot of things Eric Hartstein (whom Anderson succeeds as coordinator) was working on that were really cool.”
That’s why he applied for the coordinator position, he said.
“I like Sweet Home,” Anderson said. “I think there’s a lot of good people committed to the environment and doing what they think is best for this community.”
The Youth Watershed Council is doing excellent work, he said, and coordinator Angela Clegg has done a “fantastic” job getting people involved with it.
He also is involved with the Sweet Home All-Lands Collaborative, yet another example.
Anderson said he likes the work he’s seen in the Soda Fork, Canyon Creek and an upcoming project in Moose Creek, he said. More redds – spawning nests – are appearing in the watershed.
Anderson wants to see the ripple effect from a growing fish population, he said, for example, leading to more fish licenses and more people fishing the area, people coming to Sweet Home.
Restoration is one piece of the SHALC puzzle, improving Sweet Home’s livability and economics, he said.
It’s a part of a bigger picture, but it’s small actions like it that add up to something.
Anderson’s job is to make sure the Watershed Council has what it needs to do its job, he said. He wears many hats, administration, budgeting, writing grants. He needs to help the council sustain and build on its previous projects.
“We’re thankful for the community and all of our partners,” Anderson said. The council is 20 years old, working in the community on a voluntary basis, working only with willing landowners on restoration projects.
“We’re a very small and nimble organization,” Anderson said. The Watershed Council doesn’t have a lot of layers and no bureaucracy or need to jump through hoops to get its work done.
The council works with the Forest Service, city, Cascade Timber Consulting, Weyerhaeuser and many other landowners, he said.
Anderson lives in Corvallis with his wife, Heidi and two daughters, 2 years old and 4 months old.
Watershed Council meetings are open to the public at 3 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month in the conference room at the Lebanon Public Library.
For more information, visit the council’s website, sswc.org, or call (541) 367-5564.