HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CCWG ANNUAL MEETING ...

VOL 2
A EWENIQUE WAY TO MANAGE VEGETATION ...... 3

No. 2

February 2010

BILLS CORNER .......... 5

ADDRESSING THE NEWEST ISSUES EFFECTING THE COTTONWOOD CREEK WATERSHED

Watershed watch
the garden will serve as an outdoor classroom for adults and school children. As an outdoor classroom, youth will have the opportunity to learn valuable skills, like those involving nutritional benefits of sustainable gardening. CCWG strives to maintain a healthy watershed. It is our belief that the watershed is not healthy if the people living within the watershed are not healthy, says Brynn Nolan, Executive Director. Excess produce will be donated to the Shepherds Heart Food Bank, also located in Cottonwood. The garden will feature seven raised beds for tomatoes, peppers and onions; in addition to a large area to plant row crops such as corn, pumpkins, watermelon and potatoes. Garden plans include a place for composting, an area for a greenhouse, how-to classes for beginner gardeners, rainwater recycling and pollinator demonstration projects. CCWG urges community members to volunteer and help grow this garden. For information on how you can contribute please contact CCWG by calling (530)347-6637 or email khackney@ccwgrp.org.

COTTONWOOD CREEK COMMUNITY GARDEN TAKES ROOT

After months of planning and going through the process of obtaining funding from the Tehama County Community Action Agency, the Cottonwood Creek Community Garden is one step closer to breaking ground. The new garden doesn't look like much now, but over the next several months, the quarter-acre piece of property at Evergreen Middle School will be transformed into a community garden. CCWG recently signed a 5 year commitment agreement with Evergreen Union School District and look forward to breaking ground early February. Ditch work will be completed as soon as there is a break in the weather followed by laying waterlines and the completion of raised beds. After all immediate construction has been completed deer fencing will be installed to protect the garden. The Cottonwood Creek Community Garden is a project to help enhance the food supply of low -income families in the Cottonwood community. Among feeding the low income, senior citizens and disabled in our community,

practical math, communication, responsibility and cooperation. It will also provide the opportunity to learn about the importance of community, stewardship and environmental responsibility. Through the creation of the community garden, CCWG seeks to promote the social, environmental, and

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CCWG ANNUAL MEETING

The 2010 CCWG Annual Meeting was held on January 28th
The Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group held their Annual Meeting on January 28th at the Cottonwood Community Center. The event kicked off with a potluck dinner. CCWG provided the main course, cornbread, biscuits and drinks and community members brought salads, side dishes and desserts to share. Executive Director Brynn Nolan gave a presentation on the past years significant accomplishments and announced upcoming projects for the 2010 year. There were 45 community members and agency personnel in attendance. After the presentation Ms. Nolan opened the floor for community comments and questions. Les garden, environmental education and community enrichment projects such as the Farmers Market. He also noted he was pleased to hear that we were funded to eradicate noxious weeds and do the sediment budget. Prior to the meeting two of the qualified candidates running for the CCWG Board of Directors withdrew their candidature for personal reasons. Therefore, no elections were held and the two remaining candidates were elected to the Board of Directors by default. CCWG welcomes Louise Wilkinson and Ronald Myers to the Board of Directors.

Baugh, Shasta County District 5 Supervisor, stood up towards the end to give his support to the group. He commended CCWG for taking action with Fuel Reduction efforts, community

Turmoil in Power Sector

Falling electricity demands trips up utilities plans for infrastructure projects As Reported By: Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal
Falling U.S. electricity production in the past two years is frustrating the utility industry and shaking up timetables for some major infrastructure projects. Electricity output decreased 3.7% last year, the steepest drop since 1938, according to federal statistics, following a nearly 1% decline in 2008. The recent downward trend is making it trickier for utilities to forecast future power consumption, a critical component of planning investments in new power plants and transmission lines. The falling electricity demand and production are attributed to a weak economy, conservation efforts and, in 2009, a relatively mild summer in many parts of the country. The possible completion date for the $1.8 billion Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline, or PATH project, that Allegheny Energy Inc. and American Electric Power Co. intend to build from West Virginia, through Virginia, to Maryland may be delayed by several years because of weaker electricity demand. Government energy experts believe a strengthening economy will lift electricity production this year, but don't foresee a return to prerecession levels anytime soon. The Energy Information Administration expects industrial demand for electricity to increase 2.2% this year and 2.5% in 2011, which suggests a return to prerecession levels by 2013. Energy industry consultants Black & Veatch, which recently polled utilities, said it expected "a moderate economic rebound" this year that meet about a third of that through energyefficiency investments that would permanently reduce consumption. Puget Sound estimated that its energy efficiency efforts would reduce natural-gas consumption by the equivalent of 108,000 homes by 2020 and would cut electricity usage equal to 400,000 homes by that same date. Utilities are being encouraged by regulators to find greener ways to meet customers' energy needs, relying less on fossil fuels that create pollution and waste-disposal problems. "There have been tremendous numbers of cancellations of proposed coal-fired plants," said David Owens, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investorowned utilities. "There has been a dash to gas," which burns more cleanly. EEI counts 43 coal plant cancellations or deferrals since 2008 and 15 new projects announced. Lower energy use is already having an impact on the U.S.'s carbon-dioxide emissions. In 2009, emissions fell by 6.1% to 5.45 billion tons, according to the Energy Information Administration's monthly short-term outlook. Greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to rise 1.5% to 5.53 billion tons in 2010 as a reassessing its customers' energy needs, which it healthier economy lifts industrial demand. A 1.7% increase in greenhouse-gas output is may have underestimated last summer, "in an effort not to overstate our need," said spokesman expected in 2011. President Barack Obama has set a goal of Roger Thompson. The utility based in Bellevue, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to 17% below Wash., now estimates that it will need 1,600 to 1,800 megawatts of new generating capacity by 2005 levels by 2020. 2017, mostly to replace aging power plants and expiring energy contracts. The company plans to would lift electricity demand 1.7% a year from 2010 to 2013 before slowing to a 1.1% growth rate. Those estimates take into account increasing energy-conservation efforts. Mark Griffith, managing director of Black & Veatch, said utilities may be forced to defer infrastructure projects that weren't critically needed in light of the recent weak demand. Puget Sound Energy said this week that it was

A EWENIQUE WAY TO MANAGE VEGETATION

A look at a local and green business to help you manage vegetation on your property.
Hi, my name is Raul, I own and operate Ewenique!, A Vegetation Management Company, based in Shasta Lake, CA. I have been in business since January 2008, eight months in Lompoc, CA in Santa Barbara County, and one year and four months in Shasta County. For over seven years prior to my business venture, I cleared lots, fields, hillsides, and even yards informally using Navajo-Churro sheep. Before continuing Ill briefly discuss my background in sheep. My great-grandfather was a sheep-herder in Arizona and New Mexico and grazed his band of sheep throughout the Four Corners region. My grand-mother and mother spoke often of him, though they never mentioned if they accompanied or assisted him with herding duties, but my dad says sheep herding is in my blood, so if anything, they forwarded the sheep-herding genes! Some of my first memories are of horses, sheep and goats. O.K., so here is my official description of the business. Ewenique! is a Sole-Proprietor, Service Based Business specializing in small and large scale vegetation management projects using grazing livestock; Navajo-Churro Sheep and Spanish Goats, in urban, sub-urban, and semi-rural areas within a 50 mile radius of Redding, CA. I have a and goats to perform vegetation management services including vegetation suppression, weed abatement and fuel load reduction, I have successfully completed numerous grazing projects for numerous homeowners and subdivisions. An advantage I draw on is the small size and sure footedness of sheep and goats, enabling them to graze small and large land areas that are; uneven or steep, heavily treed, or contain fixtures or obstacles where large equipment, prescribed burning, hand crews, or herbicides, are not safe, practical, or cost effective. For heavier work beyond the scope of grazing such as limbing low branches, thinning dense brush, and removing fallen trees, I employ a hand crew using gas operated power equipment such as chain saws, power hedgers, and weedtrimmers. For more information contact: Ewenique!

thorough knowledge of livestock husbandry for sheep and goats, as well as a strong understanding of the invasive vegetation common to Redding and Shasta County. By utilizing the natural physiology, characteristics, and foraging abilities of sheep

P.O. Box 5281 Shasta Lake, CA 96089 (530) 275-1657

Buying your food from local farmers will help keep their farms profitable, reducing the pressure to sell their land.

RAINS NOT WITHSTANDING, STATE DROUGHT ISNT OVER

Storms help, but spring snowpack will hold key. As Reported By: Matt Weiser, The Sacramento Bee
The question now gurgles up from every storm drain and creek in California: Is the drought over? The simple answer is no. The reasons why are not so simple. Two weeks of heavy rain and snow nice as it is cannot entirely erase three years of drought statewide. For starters, California's largest reservoirs are far from full. This includes Shasta, Oroville and Folsom, all vital storage points for state and federal water supply canals. These reservoirs likely won't fill completely with the snowpack on the ground now, especially if there is no more of it by April Fools' Day. "Until we get the reservoirs back to normal and see a normal to slightly above normal spring snowmelt coming, it would be perilous to suggest the drought is over," said Rob Hartman, hydrologist in charge at the California Nevada River Forecast Center, an arm of the National Weather Service in Sacramento. "There's a lot of winter yet to go and anything could happen." Beyond that, and despite the state's economic woes, California keeps growing. That means ever-greater water demand, which each year pushes total salvation from drought further away. Nature gives California a finite water supply, whether it's snow in the mountains or groundwater deep beneath our feet. It is now widely recognized that all of our water supplies are overtapped. The governor's Delta Blue Ribbon Task Force, for instance, revealed in 2008 that state officials have granted water rights equal to eight times the average annual flow in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed, which catches half of California's precipitation. Even more waterrights applications are pending. Climate change throws another wrench in the works. Global warming is expected to bring more rain and less snow. This will mean less water melting from the mountains to slake California's thirst through summer and fall. Environmental protections are another limitation. To save salmon and protect water quality in the Delta, federal officials have ruled that we must divert less water. For all these reasons, the state Department of Water Resources estimated in a draft report this week that it will be able to send State Water Project customers only 60 percent of contracted water amounts in average water years. Drought years would produce even less. The water project serves a portion of the water demand for about 25 million Californians from Napa to San Diego. "We have to operate under the premise that there's less water to deal with than we've had in the past," said Mark Svoboda, climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska. "It's all of our responsibility to really manage water like we are in a drought every year." The state snowpack on Thursday stood at 117 percent of average for the date, thanks to those big storms over the past two weeks. That's good news. But it's not enough good news. What really matters is snowpack on April 1, considered the end of winter. Maury Roos, DWR hydrologist, said a snowpack that's still at 117 percent on April 1 could mean the end of drought conditions. But we don't know what the next two months will bring. Long-range forecasts still suggest increased odds for above-normal precipitation through April due to El Nio conditions in the Pacific Ocean. But the next 10 days look relatively dry. And El Nio can be fickle. "We're being cautious because we've seen

them fizzle in the past," said Roos. Without more storms the snowpack will continue to shrink. Water will be lost to evaporation and groundwater percolation. Reservoir operators also are required to release water to maintain flood-storage space through June. Even if this winter's snows continue piling up to above-average depths, it could be just a wet pulse in a much longer string of drought years. With these factors in mind, there is no formula in a dog-eared state policy manual for declaring an end to the drought. Instead, it's a "judgment call," said Wendy Martin, DWR drought coordinator. "Regardless of what this year is or what this month is, the message is that we have to change how we use water," Martin said. "People need to prepare for a drier reality."

BILLS CORNER
A series of articles for decision making for you, your family and your land.
Hi Folks. It seems this century is whizzing along. Were into 2010 already!! Make this year count for you. It is the first year of the rest of your life! The first Bills Corner article focused on What to Do now that you have a piece of heaven in the country. We reviewed together the first step in making your ranching experience provide for quality of life, income generation, and enhancement of your land for future production. Hopefully, applying Step 1, you have sat down with your family members and asked them individually what they enjoy most about country living (young children should be part of this process since their feelings count too), and what their future expectations or dreams are for what they want this land to provide for them. If, or when, you have this discussion consolidate their responses to develop a picture of your familys needs and/ or desires. The second article, second step focused on dividing your family goal into three parts: (1) Quality of Life (2) Forms of Production and (3) Future Resource Base. You should now be ready for STEP THREE, the fundamentals of what biological principals your land is based upon. Remembering why you have decided to live in the country vs. living in an urban subdivision. Remembering why you are a ruralist rather than an urbanist is really important since you will probably need to remind yourself when the coons get into your chicken pen and dine on several chickens, or your goats get out and eat your roses, or worse your neighbors roses!, or you have a grasshopper outbreak that consumes your whole garden. The list of fun challenges goes on and on, doesnt it? But isnt it wonderful to have a great day with your family building a fence together or picking fresh peaches from your own trees, or simply enjoying your little piece of heaven. Hopefully you have completed the first and second steps by writing down why youre doing this land thing and have possibilitized the kinds of crops or animals you want to raise to provide for family needs, or to sell or trade for profit, and have written down what you want your land to be and look like far into the future. Youre now ready for Step 3, which is understanding how biological systems work. Biological systems (agriculture and natural resources) are much harder to manage then mechanical systems. We were able to put a man on the moon which was a phenomenal accomplishment. The reason we were able to do so is because it was a mechanical lineal system. For example we would run into one problem at a time, evaluate, troubleshoot and solve them until all the kinks would be adjusted and the mission could be accomplished. Biological systems do not work in such a lineal way. Let me illustrate by an example: Envision a calm pond with no ripples. Now envision throwing a pebble into the pond (representing an infestation of insects attacking your garden). Now throw another pebble into the pond that would represent a disease infesting your garden, add another pebble that would indicate extremely cold nights and/or extremely hot days. You could continue adding pebbles that would represent all the variables that could affect the productivity of your garden. Biology is a very complex interaction in nature that our lineal minds usually have a hard time understanding. So to understand biological systems we must understand the complexity of our ecosystem (ecosystem = the relationship of environmental factors that affect the resulting behavior of an environment). Even though there is only one ecosystem in any given area or environment Im going to break an ecosystem into 4 parts for ease in understanding the importance of each part, or process. Im going to begin with one process most of us understand the Water Cycle. Water, of course, is fundamental for any living organism from the very simple to the very complex. In agriculture we need to understand how to maximize the use of this aspect of the ecosystem, how to filter water into the soil and save it for plant growth whether it be from seasonal rains or from some type of irrigation. We can store water in the root zone of plants for long periods of time if we know how. Ill cover this how in a future article. The second ecosystem component is the Mineral Cycle. Notice I use the term cycle since we need to cycle minerals on our own farm or ranch rather than losing them to run-off, leaching, volitization or other means. There are 16 or 17 essential nutrients/minerals for plant growth and a couple more for effective animal growth. So cycling these nutrient/minerals is very important in building biological capital on your land. The third ecosystem component is called Community Dynamics. Many biologists would probably call this process succession. However, succession simply means the moving of an ecosystem from simple to more complex. Community Dynamics includes all biological inter-relationships, including insects, weather, man and others. The final ecosystem component is Energy Flow. This relates to how much solar energy we can collect from the sun by using solar panels daily and annually. A leaf is nothing more than a biological solar panel. The number of plants, size of leaves and length of sunlight shining on the leaves determine the amount of energy we can harvest which is collected through photosynthesis. Perennial grasses have a longer growing season than annuals and therefore collect more energy. I hope this discussion of ecosystem processes hasnt confused you, however it is a very important aspect for agriculturists to understand. To simplify your understanding of

About Bill

Bill Burrows is a Certified Registered Educator for Holis -tic Management International, with International headquarters in Albuquerque, NM. He has given seminars throughout the Western US, and several countries in Africa. He and his family operate a Sunlight Har-vesting ranch west of Red Bluff, CA, raising cattle, sheep, goats, dry land farming with majority of income from Agritourism (Hunting club for Wild Boar, Blacktail Deer, Wild Turkeys, Dove, Quail and a guided California Ground Squirrel hunt).

the ecosystem processes you need only to keep in mind one major idea here it is: KEEP THE SOIL COVERED WITH GREEN GROWING PLANTS AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Once the plant dies get it on the soil surface as soon as possible to rein corporate the minerals and give the soil cover for solar protection and to minimize erosion. This installment may prove somewhat confusing to you if you are embarking on farming for the first time so dont hesitate to give me a call (530-529-1535 or email: sunflowercrmp@msn.com) for clarification or discussion on any aspect of Bills Corner. An excellent reference for these articles is: Holistic Management by Allan Savory w/ Jody Butterfield. Island Press, Washington D.C. or Covelo, CA. ISBN 1 55963-488-X

TAKING CARE OF HISTORY

BY DOTTIE SMITH OF REDDING.COM
Ghost town No. 33: Pinckney Pinckney was established in 1881 when most of the residents who lived in the low lying areas of Cottonwood Creek at Gas Point moved 2 miles away to Pinckney for one reason: to escape the rampant malaria carrying mosquitoes who lived at the water. Gas Point resident Dr. Kenneth Davidson spearheaded the move and named it for a Michigan settlement where he once speculated on land. Pinckney was located just northeast of the present Pinckney Cemetery on Gas Point Road. As far as I know, nothing remains. The entire area has been completely dredged for gold.

Re/Max Top Properties

KEN ROBISON
605 Main Street Red Bluff, CA 96080 (530) 527-1111 ken@kenrobison.com

Brynn Nolan Executive Director Keith Hackney AmeriCorps VISTA Board of Directors Jim Curry President Jim Busher Vice President Sheri Curry Secretary Judy Huddleston Treasurer Louise Wilkinson Director Ronald Myers Director

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS HERE! Contact CCWG to find out how. (530) 347-6637

ABOUT US The Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group (CCWG) is an organized association of landowners, residential home owners, business owners, and other private parties. The groups goal is to work together to maintain, conserve and restore a healthy and productive Cottonwood Creek Watershed. CCWG will work to preserve the environment, private property and water rights, and the economic resources of Cottonwood Creek Watershed through responsible stewardship, liaison, cooperation and education.

UPCOMING EVENTS
FEBRUARY 10th - Fire Safe Council Meeting located at 3645 Main St., Cottonwood. Limited seating, call to RSVP (530) 347-6637. FEBRUARY 10th - Buy Fresh, Buy Local Farmer Workshop located at the Farm Bureau Conference Room, 831 5th Street, Orland, CA from 3-6pm. For more information call (530)8947738. FEBRUARY 11th - CCWG Board Meeting located at 3645 Main St., Cottonwood at 5:30pm. FEBRUARY 15th - 19th National FFA Week. MARCH 11th - CCWG Board Meeting located at 3645 Main St., Cottonwood at 5:30pm.

A PUBLICATION OF: Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group

PRDUCED BY: Sheri Curry

MARCH 26th - 28th - Spring Home & Garden Expo at the Shasta District Fairgrounds in Anderson, CA. For more information visit www.reddinghomeexpo.com.

P.O. Box 1198 3645 Main Street Cottonwood, CA 96022 Office (530) 347-6637 Fax (530) 347-6346 www.ccwgrp.org

If you would like your event added to our Calendar be sure to contact CCWG by calling (530) 347-6637 or visit us online at www.ccwgrp.org.