Resources

As the Hood River Soil and Water Conservation District's mission states, our goal is to help you find the educational, technical and financial assistance you need to protect and conserve our natural resources. On this page we have tried to provide a thorough list of resources, links and tools to help you achieve your land management and conservation goals. The categories are as follows:

If you have any additional ideas to add to this page, please contact us at hrswcd@gorge.net to give us your thoughts, comments and feedback.

Are you trying to enhance your land but can't find the funds to achieve your goals? If there are conservation enhancements that result from your land management objectives, there may be a program available to help provide you with both financial and technical assistance. Check out this list of available programs for some ideas and resources that may match your needs.

	City of Hood River	This is the place to go to find City codes, ordinances, contact information for your City Councilors, City documents, forms, and much more. Or, follow this link for the 2006 Hood River City Directory.
	Chamber of Commerce	The Hood River County Chamber of Commerce welcomes you to discover your next advenure in Hood River County -- a great place to live, play, and do business! This site is a great resource for finding local businesses and services.
	Columbia Riverkeeper	Columbia Riverkeeper's mission is to restore and protect the water quality of the Columbia River and all life connected to it, from the headwaters to the Pacific Ocean. One of their primary efforts right now is to expand water quality monitoring of the Columbia River and its tributaries.
	Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute	The Gorge Ecology Institute endeavors to promote knowledge, stewardship, and curiosity of the local environment among the people who live, work and play in this region. The Institute is a great resource for educators throughout the region.
	Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area	This site provides helpful information about visiting and recreating in the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. Information ranges from history and geology of the region to safety alerts, fires, closures, restrictions, advisories and road conditions.
	Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs	This is the official website of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, a major partner of the Hood River Soil and Water Conservation District. The page provides information about the tribal community, current events, projects and contact information.
	Hood River County	This site has everything you need to know about Hood River County including a calendar of events, links to county departments and a very helpful set of county maps.
	Hood River County Noxious Weed Program	Do you have questions about noxious weed control in Hood River County? Contact Nate Lain at 541-387-7075.
	Hood River County Planning Department	This is the place to go if you have questions about developing your land. These are the folks to contact with questions ranging from what you need to know to build on your property to what permits are required to do work on your land.
	Hood River Grower-Shipper Association	Hood River Grower-Shipper Association is a non-profit organization of 350 growers and 18 shippers of tree fruit in the Mid-Columbia area.
	Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District	This the official website of the Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District. It provides information about upcoming events, lessons and other recreational opportunities and needs in Hood River.
IRRIGATION DISTRICTS	East Fork Irrigation District	Contact: 354-1185
	Farmers Irrigation District	Check out Farmers Irrigation District's innovative fish screen with their live web-cam on this website. Contact 541-386-3115
	Middle Fork Irrigation District	Contact 541-352-6468
	Dee Irrigation District	Contact: 541-354-3248
	Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center	The Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center is a branch of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station of Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Underwood Conservation District	Underwood Conservation District	Our counterparts across the river; this website gives you all the facts about the Underwood Conservation District, its programs, and the people involved.
	Oregon Utility Notification Center	These are the folks to call before you dig. Remember to call the OUNC at least two business days days before you dig to have your utilities identified and marked for free. The number is 1-800-332-2344.
Wasco Soil and Water Conservation District	Wasco Soil and Water Conservation District	Our counterparts in Wasco County; this website provides information about the Wasco Soil and Water Conservation District, its programs, technical resources, watershed assessments and their sub-basin plans.
	Columbia Gorge Earth Center	The Columbia Gorge Earth Center is a non-profit organization (501c-3) whose mission is "To promote the link between ecology, economy, and community in the Columbia Gorge."
	Gorge Rebuild-It Center	Gorge Rebuild-it Center is a not-for-profit retail store whose product line consists of used building materials. Products are obtained through donations from contractors, homeowners and businesses. Contributors receive a tax deduction for their donation.
	Oregon Water Trust	The Oregon Water Trust mission is to restore surface water flows for healthier streams in Oregon by using cooperative, free-market solutions. They focus on streams where small amounts of water provide significant ecological benefits.
	Gorge Grown	Gorge Grown Food Network is a citizen-driven project of the Columbia Gorge Earth Center, a local 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to “promote connection between Economy, Ecology and Community in the Gorge”

Want to keep track of when the fish are moving on the Hood River? Check out the fish counts at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website by following this link:

AgriMet: The Pacific Northwest Cooperative Agricultural Weather Network. AgriMent, a conjunction of the words "agricultural" and "meteorology", is a satellite-based network of automated agricultural weather stations operated and maintained by the Bureau of Reclamation. The stations are located in irrigated agricultural areas throughout the Pacific Northwest and are dedicated to regional crop water use modeling, agricultural research, frost monitoring, and integrated pest and fertility management.

CSU Beef: This is the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University's site on beef outreach site to serve beef producers. Included in this site are resources for all aspects of your operations, a form where you can ask your beef question to their specialists as well as the Western States Beef Cattle Manual which contains hundreds of articles on Beef Cattle production.

IFPnet: Integrated Fruit Production (IFP) is a progressive orchard management system designed to produce quality fruit using environmentally responsible production techniques. The IFP Network, or IFPnet, looks to help implement IFP practices by using the data collected from weather stations placed in area orchards. Currently, 47 weather stations make up the IFP Network. Each station collects environmental data every 15 minutes and transmits these data via radio telemetry or the internet to a central web server. The server posts data on the internet. The data are used by producers, orchard managers, pesticide applicators, and crop consultants to make pest/disease management decisions. With this data, orchardists will be able to use new generation soft pesticides.

Food Alliance Certification: Farmers now have a free online tool available that allows them to compare their current management practices with “best practices” for sustainable agriculture. This self-assessment tool allows you to compare your management practices with “best practices” for sustainable agriculture embodied in Food Alliance’s certification standards, and can help determine if you qualify for Food Alliance certification. This tool also includes resources and incentives to help you identify, select and implement strategies to manage production, environmental, human resource and other risks.

Adult Salmon Counts from the Fish Passage Center: This website gives you the daily totals of adult salmon counted at each of the dams along the Columbia River. These data are updated periodically throughout the day.

Stream Net: StreamNet is a cooperative information management and dissemination project focused on fisheries and aquatic related data in the Columbia River basin and the Pacific Northwest. The project provides a variety of kinds of data related to fish resources and maintains the 1:100,000 scale hydrography layer for the Pacific Northwest.

Forest Seedling Network: FSN is an interactive website that connects forest landowners with growers who have surplus seedlings. FSN currently serves Oregon and SW Washington with plans to service all Pacific Northwest forest landowners.

Forestry Images: The overall objective of Forestry Images is to provide an accessible and easily used archive of high quality images related to forest health and silviculture, with particular emphasis on educational applications.

Oregon Department of Forestry GIS Maps & Layers: This site provides interactive mapping tools, atlases, data and downloadable GIS layers relating to Oregon forests, debris flows and other current projects.

USDA Forest Service GIS Maps and Layers: The tables on this web page display links to the Pacific Northwest Forests and other Regional Programs with an amazingly comprehensive gamut of GIS data layers currently available.

Microsoft Terra Server: The TerraServer-USA Web site is one of the world's largest online databases, providing free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States. TerraServer is designed to work with commonly available computer systems and Web browsers over slow speed communications links.

Soil Survey Information: This link takes you to the NRCS Soil Survey information page which provides soil information as viewable maps and tables for more than 2300 soil surveys along with downloadable soil tabular and spatial data and much more.

Best Management Practices for Pesticide Use: This is a tree fruit grower's handbook for pesticide handling created for the Hood River Valley orchardists by the Hood River Grower-Shipper Association through grants from the American Farmland Trust and the US. EPA Office of Pesticide Programs.

Extonet ~ Extension Toxicology Network: This web page is designed to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about exposure to toxicants in our environment. It covers everything from food safety issues to air, water and soil pollutants.

Hortsense: This site provides home gardener fact sheets for managing plant problems with IPM or Integrated Pest Management. Cultural controls and Washington-registered pesticides are included.

Integrated Pest Management Weather: This site provides a table of integrated pest management weather data for agricultural and pest management decision making in the United States.

Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management: The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management is a non-profit, grant funded site that provides research-based information on how to responsibly handle wildlife damage problems.

OSU Plant Disease Diagnostics Center: This site contains the alphabetical text sections of the 2005 Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook and control recommendations based on the unique mix of climate, crops, regulations and growers of the Pacific Northwest.

Oregon Invasives Hotline: If you spot a potential invasive species in Oregon, use this online form to report it. Or you can call their toll-free number 1-866-INVADER.

Oregon Pesticide Use Reporting System (PURS): Starting in January of 2007 all pesticide users will be required to report their pesticide use to the Oregon Department of Agriculture. This link takes you to the forms you will need to comply with the PURS requirements.

Pesticide Handling and Storage Guidelines: This tutorial focuses on the point source contamination of ground water by pesticides used on the farmstead and on the prevention of such contamination. From this main menu, you can choose numerous paths to investigate. These include on pesticide use, an overview of the subject, farmstead risk assessment, risk improvement tips, and a list of references if you may wish to investigate

PNW Weed Management Handbook: This handbook is designed as a quick and ready reference of weed control practices used in various cropping systems or site/situations in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

UC Integrated Pest Management Program: Solve your pest management problems with UC's best information, personalize it with interactive tools, or find out about pest management research and extension projects.

Western Forest Insects and Disease Catalog: This site provides you with links to information about most western forest insects and diseases including identification, biology and management.

Western Invasives Network: Designed to promote communication and cooperation in invasive species eradication and removal, this site focuses on providing the tools and information you need to identify and manage invasive plants.

What to Expect When You've Had a Spill: This is a link to a fact sheet from the Department of Environmental Quality providing links, forms and information about what to do if you have a spill and how to report it.

Building a Rain Garden or Bioswale: This is a link to University of Wisconsin - Extension in partnership with Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources and DNR that is a home manual for building bioswales or rain gardens.

Garden Gate: The official website of Garden Gate Magazine. Includes great information and step by step procedures in just about al gardening aspects, all sustainable methods.

High Country Gardens: This is the official website of the online plant catalog for Santa Fe Greenhouses. Their newsletter and website have a lot of good information on Xeriscaping and choosing the right plants for different situations.

ID It ~ Plant Identification Tool: Have you got a plant that you can't identify? This site walks you through a simple process to figure out what it is!

Laboratories Serving Oregon Soil testing and plant analysis aid commercial growers, gardeners, and homeowners in making decisions about fertilizing or applying soil amendments. This fertilizer guide lists a variety of laboratories serving Oregon, and provides specific information about laboratory services.

Lead/Arsenic Soil Contaminants: Online extension bulletin with information for gardeners in areas where soil might be contaminated with lead and/or arsenic.

Native Gardening and Invasive Plant Guide: For each state they have compiled a list of native plants and some of the plants that are best avoided in the garden because they can be weedy or invasive. This is a great tool to use when planning your garden.

Veg Spec: VegSpec is a web-based system that can help you plan and design of your garden and landscaping plans based on soil, plant, and climate data. It uses this data to select plant species that are (1) site-specifically adapted, (2) suitable for the selected practice, and (3) appropriate for the purposes and objectives for which the planting is intended.

OSU Extension Gardening Encyclopedia: This website is a great resource to get all kinds of gardening questions answered. Information ranges from planting calendars to insect identification.

Northwest Berry and Grape Information Network: Everything berries and grapes! This site includes information about fruit growing, research, markets and trade, communication, resources and news.

Soil Test Labs ~Oregon Tilth: This site lists laboratories serving Oregon growers and lists contact information and the types of tests performed.

Mt. Hood National Forest Trails List: This is a comprehensive list of Mt. Hood National Forest Trails which you can sort by trail number or name.

Northwest Hiker: This site includes maps, weather, webcams, hikes, photos and even astronomy information for the hikers of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana.