Contact
Grace Haskins, Coordinator
PO Box 567 Lakeview, OR 97630
Phone:  541-219-0787
Email:  gracehaskins@yahoo.com
 
 
The following questions were answered by cooperators as part of an Oregon CWMA survey project in 2009.
 
CWMA Mission
The Lake County Cooperative Weed Management Area operates an a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  The Lake County CWMA mission is to provide a link between landowners and agencies, and work towards cooperative noxious weed control efforts across the many jurisdictions of Lake County.   The Lake County CWMA promotes noxious weed awareness through public/ landowner educations and youth education.   The Lake County CWMA is known for planning and facilitating many successful large scales on the ground noxious weed control projects across Lake County.
 
List the Cooperators involved in your CWMA.
USDA Forest Service (Fremont- Winema National Forest), Bureau of Land Management Lakeview Resource Area, Oregon State University Extension, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of State Lands, Oregon Department of Agriculture, The Nature Conservancy, Oregon Department of Transportation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Hart Mountain Antelope Refute, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Modoc National Wildlife Refuge, Lakeview Soil and Water Conservation District, Fort Rock/Silver Lake Soil and Water Conservation District, Lake County Umbrella Watershed Councils, Collins Timber Company LLC, Harvey Ranch, Pete Talbott, Withers Ranch, Paul Bowers and  Lake County Board of Commissioners.
 
What makes the structure of your CWMA successful?
The Lake County CWMA has a group of active members that have been working together to make the Lake County CWMA successful for almost ten years.  Lake County is a county that is still highly driven on natural resources; therefore it is very important for the land mangers to protect their natural resources. 
 
What is the highest priority species in your area?
Yellow Starthistle, Spotted Knapweed, Perennial Pepperweed, Hoary Cress, and Medusahead.
 
Describe your most valuable outreach/education tool.
The Lake County CWMA provides a wide variety of educational across the entire county.  The Lake County CWMA began a mandatory landowner education for those participating in their cost-share and herbicide assistance programs.  These educations were very well accepted by all of the landowners and this program has give all of the participating landowners the tools and knowledge to not only control noxious weeds, but to control them correctly. 

The Lake County CWMA does several different community education programs including a “Weed Corner” in the local newspaper, a educational booth at the Lake County Fair, hosts project tours and “Noxious Weed Wipe Outs.”

The Lake County CWMA also steps into the class room to educate Lake County’s youth using the weed curriculum.
 
What are some of your most successful on the ground accomplishments?
The Lake County CWMA has had a very great success story of receiving OSWB grant funds to get large scale noxious weed control project accomplished across Lake County.  The Warner Valley Cooperative Noxious Weed Control project has been a great example of persistence and keeping landowners motivated.  The Lake County CWMA began working with a group of approximately 30 private landowners and all of the State and Federal agencies across the Warner Basin to control perennial pepperweed, hoary cress, Scotch thistle, and Russian knapweed.  As of 2012, the Lake County CWMA has coordinated 6,751 acres of noxious weed control across the Warner Valley through aerial and ground application.  The goal is to follow up these treatments with an additional 2,000 acres in 2013.   
 
List your highest priority on the ground projects and why they are high priority.
Lake County is known for extremely productive wetland habitat used by the Pacific Flyway waterbird populations.  The Warner Basin, Goose Lake Valley, Chewaucan Mashes, Summer Lake Basin and Pulina Marsh are areas of key importance her in the Intermountain West.  Migration staging habitat is probably of greatest importance.  Fall migration waterbirds from the arctic and boreal habitats across North America and Russia stop to replenish energy reserves in route to wintering areas in California and further south into Central America. 

Wetland habitats and surrounding uplands are also very important to locally breeding waterbirds.  A short list of significant spices would be: Canada geese, mallard, gadwall, cinnamon teal, redhead, secretive march birds, American coots, sandhill cranes, raptors, and several shorebirds species.  Over the past few years wildlife biologist have also noticed the importance of the Lake County flood irrigated agriculture fields for the waterbirds.