The Scott River is a tributary of the Klamath River in northern California on the Oregon border. The main stem Scott is predominantly surrounded by farm and rangeland, 53% of the watershed acreage; upland subbasins are predominantly privately and federally owned timberlands with approximately 32% of the total acreage being federally owned.

The Scott River Watershed Coordinated Resources Management Planning (CRMP) committee was founded in June 1992 under the sponsorship of the Siskiyou Resource Conservation District as the Board saw a need for the community to become proactive in resource management issues in Scott Valley. Funding comes from the Klamath Fisheries Restoration Program under a cooperative agreement with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Scott River CRMP is a consensus group of 18 members representing a range of interests, landowners, and agencies. Without going into a long involved history of the group, let it suffice to say that there has been a fair amount of struggle and much hard work since 1992.

With the help of three part-time employees: a Project Manager, a Program Coordinator, and a Project Implementor the CRMP has progressed to the point where the Water, Fish and Agricultural Plans are guiding numerous projects totaling over one million dollars in the last three years. The projects include fish screen construction, riparian planting and livestock exclusion/management fencing, river channel rock structure work, alternative stock watering systems, experimental "beaver" gravel dams to raise the water table and provide some fall release flow enhancement for fall chinook runs, water temperature monitoring, public education on resource issues via workshops and including students in educational projects.

The guiding vision for all of this activity is to "seek coordinated resource management in the Scott River Basin which will produce and maintain a healthy and productive watershed and community." The short-term goal is to "work for adequate water flows in the Scott River system to protect the migration, spawning, and rearing needs of the salmon and steelhead stocks while also protecting other beneficial uses."

The group has also recently adopted a "Strategy for Guiding Project Development and Selection" which includes the statement: "Wherever possible, projects should be integrated in a particular geographical setting to achieve synergistic positive impacts on fish habitat, fish population, water quality and local economies."

Efforts to include affected landowners in the assessment and project planning phases is also a focus of the group at this time. The CRMP's continued success depends upon a broad-based community involvement.