Job Announcement – Summer Internship

Job Announce­ment – Sum­mer Internship 

 Post­ed: May 7th, 2022

Appli­ca­tion first review date: Posi­tion open until filled

Loca­tion: Stay­ton, Ore­gon, Office loca­tion is in Stay­ton, Ore­gon, Field­work focus­es on the North San­ti­am Riv­er
Sub­basin (Mileage reim­burse­ment will be provided).

Sta­tus: Hourly, Exempt (1.0 FTE, 40 hours/week)
Pay range: $20.00/Hour
Start Date: June 2022; End Date: August 2022

Back­ground

The North San­ti­am Water­shed Coun­cil (NSWC) is a local­ly dri­ven, non-gov­ern­men­tal, non-reg­u­la­to­ry com­mu­ni­ty-based non­prof­it that facil­i­tates stew­ard­ship and restora­tion projects to improve water health, and devel­ops part­ner­ships to plan, fund, and imple­ment those projects.

In 2020, the North San­ti­am Water­shed was hit by the Beachie Creek & Lion­shead wild­fires. The wild­fires had a great impact on both our com­mu­ni­ty and our envi­ron­ment, result­ing in half of the water­shed being burned. In response to this tragedy, the North San­ti­am Water­shed Coun­cil shift­ed its focus to work­ing togeth­er to imple­ment post-fire recov­ery efforts and assist in the rebuild­ing of our communities.

Get­ting ahead of inva­sive weed prob­lems before they get out of con­trol is an impor­tant part of pro­tect­ing the vul­ner­a­ble native plant com­mu­ni­ties that are still recov­er­ing from the 2020 North San­ti­am Water­shed wild­fires. There is a very high risk to native plant com­mu­ni­ties and wildlife habi­tats from new inva­sive plants and/or the spread of estab­lished local weed pop­u­la­tions intro­duced by fire sup­pres­sion, sal­vage log­ging, and rebuild­ing activities.

Pri­ma­ry Duties & Responsibilities

• Con­duct pub­lic out­reach to landown­ers liv­ing in the hard­est-hit areas of the Beachie Creek and Lion­shead Fire perimeters.
• Assist Water­shed Restora­tion Spe­cial­ist in obtain­ing Coop­er­a­tive Landown­er Agree­ments between landown­ers and the water­shed coun­cil out­lin­ing the roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of each party.
• Con­duct Ear­ly Detec­tion, Rapid Response (EDRR) sur­veys on pub­lic & pri­vate prop­er­ty for 8 inva­sive plant species includ­ing False Brome, Spot­ted, Mead­ow & Dif­fuse Knap­weed, Ital­ian This­tle, Gar­lic Mus­tard, Knotweeds, and Yel­low Archangel.
• Col­lect presence/absence data and doc­u­ment the fol­low­ing: loca­tion, infes­ta­tion size, per­cent cov­er, and any spe­cial notes will be col­lect­ed
  using iMap Inva­sives. Oth­er inva­sive species of con­cern will also be documented.
• Col­lect pre- and post-pho­to points of restoration/ sur­vey sites.
• Work to edu­cate the pub­lic about the impacts of aquat­ic inva­sive plants to help stop the spread.
• Par­tic­i­pate in meet­ings, train­ings, and peer-to-peer learn­ing events as appropriate.

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions:

• Abil­i­ty to col­lect high-qual­i­ty, detailed, accu­rate data.
• Strong inter­est in work­ing with plants, nat­ur­al resources, and/or envi­ron­men­tal science.
• Abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly or as part of a team, man­age time, and pri­or­i­tize tasks.
• Posi­tion requires sit­ting, typ­ing, stand­ing, and car­ry­ing up to 40 pounds. Com­fort in con­duct­ing field­work inde­pen­dent­ly, often in remote areas, includ­ing walk­ing over uneven ter­rain and on steep slopes, and work­ing in inclement weath­er. Trav­el on grav­el roads is expected.
• Valid Ore­gon driver’s license and reli­able per­son­al trans­porta­tion (work-relat­ed trav­el reimbursed).
• Will­ing­ness to have a flex­i­ble work schedule.

Key Attrib­ut­es of a Suc­cess­ful Candidate:

• Abil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy plants using a botan­i­cal key, dis­tin­guish inva­sive plants from native plants, and will­ing­ness to learn plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion skills.
• Pas­sion­ate about water­shed restora­tion, com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, and education.
• Inter­per­son­al skills, includ­ing a per­son­al com­mit­ment and demon­strat­ed abil­i­ty to work with peo­ple from diverse back­grounds and with diverse per­spec­tives in an equi­table and inclu­sive fashion.
• Famil­iar­i­ty with GPS and iPads
• Excel­lent orga­ni­za­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

To Apply

Please sub­mit a cov­er let­ter, resume, and three ref­er­ences via email to WRS.NSWC@gmail.com. In your cov­er let­ter, please describe lived and pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence in nat­ur­al resource con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment. All emails — both appli­ca­tion sub­mit­tals and ques­tions regard­ing the posi­tion — should have: “Sum­mer Intern­ship — Appli­cants Last Name” in the sub­ject line. Incom­plete appli­ca­tions will not be accepted.

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