Walker Basin Conservancy

Restore the Walker Basin ensuring a healthy lake, river and communities.

• About Us
  Established in 2014, the Walker Basin Conservancy (WBC) is leading the effort to restore and maintain Walker Lake while protecting agricultural, environmental and recreational interests in the Walker Basin (www.walkerbasin.org). The nascent and dynamic nature of the WBC and its diverse management obligations provide unique opportunities to develop operations from the ground level up, working closely with staff who are passionate about their mission.
  
  The WBC currently manages thousands of acres of land and assets on multiple properties in the Walker Basin. Land planning activities are underway and focus on assessing public use opportunities, conservation values, long term land ownership and stewardship, active and passive revegetation and restoration activities.
• Our Impact
  In 2017 the Walker Basin Conservancy (WBC) accepted the lead for all Walker Basin Restoration Program (WBRP) activities. The WBRP was established by Public Law 111-85 (2009) for the primary purpose of restoring and maintaining Walker Lake, and to protect agricultural, environmental and habitat interests in the Walker Basin consistent with that primary purpose.
  
  Many decades of reduced freshwater inflows have resulted in declines of the lake level and increases in lake salinity, which today threaten to cause its complete ecological collapse. The health of Walker Lake is critical to recovery of the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, and the lake has long been an important stopover for common loons and other migratory waterfowl.
  
  WBC's Land Stewardship Program is a priority on lands where water has been purchased for the benefit of Walker Lake. Primary restoration goals for stewardship activities address three main issues: fugitive dust abatement, soil stabilization and noxious weed control. Improved habitat is addressed where appropriate and possible. Establishing arid-land vegetation that can ultimately survive without supplemental irrigation is the long-term goal for the Land Stewardship Program.
  
  Restoration is accomplished through two broad strategies: passive restoration and active facilitated restoration. Passive restoration relies on minimizing disturbance, monitoring and controlling weeds to allow infilling and regeneration. Active facilitated restoration uses techniques that help speed the process of natural regeneration. Thereby, stabilizing the site while speeding up the process of vegetative community succession; the species that are initially planted at the site are not necessarily those that are ultimately desired in the longer term, but help to establish the conditions needed for high quality late-seral stage communities.
  
  A common example of active facilitated restoration WBC employs is planting grasses and then inter-planting ‘pods’ of shrubs. The grasses minimize dust and compete with agricultural weeds in the short term, and the shrubs become a seed source and expand into the restoration area while the grasses decrease as irrigation water is removed. Over time a plant community that more closely resembles the surrounding desert and river corridor habitats becomes established and can thrive without supplemental irrigation.