Sierra Streams Institute (SSI) opens the doors to anyone and everyone. We strive to create a space where anybody can participate in our community science programs, to allow locals to actively do science within their watershed, and exchange knowledge and ideas with staff and other volunteers. Volunteers are core to SSI and are integral to the ongoing monitoring that we do. Whilst most folks get involved in our quarterly water quality monitoring and bi-annual creek surveys, others offer their time and knowledge through other avenues. There are many volunteers who come and go from SSI, leaving a small mark on the organization. However, not Kathy. Kathy is one of those long standing volunteers whose effect can be seen embedded in our creek monitoring programs.
Kathy is a powerhouse of a woman, an example of ‘women can do anything’ even when they are told they cannot. She has been an avid backpacker her whole life and followed a career that kept her outside. She was a backcountry land surveyor in a time when women weren’t hired for backcountry work. During this time, she applied for a land surveyor job but the hirer told her dead straight that he “does not hire women”. However, Kathy had such an impressive resume that they ended up hiring her, a real exception to the times and work space culture. After nine years, she changed paths and did trail maintenance for another nine years along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from the boundary of Desolation Wilderness to the boundary of Plumas National Forest. Whilst out working in the backcountry, they met a hiker who knew a guy that needed someone to do outside work with him. This guy – Everett – hired Kathy and her husband, Fosten, to do piling and burning on his property and she worked there for eight years.
While her background was not in the obvious science scene, Kathy felt the desire to do “real science” with her daughter. She searched locally for an opportunity for her family to get out and contribute to local scientific initiatives. That was when she, her husband Fosten, and her daughter started volunteering with SSI. They started doing water quality monitoring and benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) collection on Deer Creek below Lake Wildwood. This gave her, Fosten, and her daughter the space to do community-based participatory science together.
The first time they went out monitoring was eventful! It was a cold November morning with sleet soaking them to the bone. Getting down to the creek, the rocks were slippery to walk on and ultimately they changed the location of the monitoring site to make it less treacherous. When the teenage years hit, her daughter started monitoring another site along Deer Creek as she absolutely could not be seen with her parents!
Kathy was also learning to identify the BMI that she was collecting in the field. She began to manage the BMI lab as a volunteer in 2017 before there was a paid member of staff to do this. At the time, AmeriCorps interns were running the lab, but in her words, “They didn’t know what they were doing so I had to tell them how to run things correctly!” She advocated for hiring a paid member of staff to run the lab, as she realized it was a lot of work to run the BMI lab and could create a full time job.
In 2020 with the pandemic, Kathy took a step back from her BMI lab duties and is now a committed volunteer on a more casual basis. She comes in once a week to identify samples to the highest taxonomic resolution – usually to species – which is very important work for our long term monitoring dataset for Deer Creek and Bear River. Her favorite BMI are Trichoptera – caddisflies – although one family in particular (Leptoceridae) causes her a headache since they are small and without a lot of distinguishing features. She says that she enjoys identifying BMI to the genus and species level as she had become so good at identifying them to the family level that she could do this by sight, and going further gives her an extra challenge. She is our most competent volunteer ID person. Dave, our regional BMI expert from Meet the Volunteers Episode 1, does not count as this has been his life’s work, whereas Kathy has achieved amazing identification skills as an amateur!
Kathy remains an avid backpacker, with plans to hike part of the John Muir Trail this summer, and enjoys taking her granddaughter out on the trails to instill the love of the backcountry that is so dear to Kathy. She also keeps a beautiful garden and helps to look after family members. She is a star volunteer and her contribution to SSI throughout the years has not gone unnoticed. I – the author and BMI lab manager – am grateful for her work running the BMI lab before a paid staff member could be bought on, and am happy she advocated for such a position. She continues to gift her time and knowledge to the BMI lab and monitoring projects, and receives fulfillment in her work.