by Grace Marvin
For the Mother Lode chapter (MLC) and Yahi Group March 3, 2009
Yahi Conservation and more! Report: January and February, 2009
AIR QUALITY: Yahi member, Julian Zener, has been serving as the club’s representative on the city of Chico’s Sustainability Committee. As a physician, he has been pointing out at city meetings and the board of the Butte County Air Quality Management District how air from wood stoves has been shown to be extremely unhealthy -- with Chico’s air being third worst in the state. He and his fellow committee members, along with support from much of the wider community, have succeeded in having the board create far stricter rules regarding Particulate Matter 2.5 for Chico, while making it possible for those impoverished people who rely on wood stoves to obtain funding for alternative heating .(The opposition has been vocal too, of course.)
BUTTE COUNTY GENERAL PLAN: The Yahi Group shares the concerns of many other citizens in the 5 county Yahi region about transferring water out of our counties. I have been representing this concern at Butte County General Plan meetings, e.g., at a nearly all day forum held in Oroville on February 19. I addressed the Board of Supervisors about our concerns and mentioned that I had gone to the Mother Lode Chapter to seek their understanding of our concerns. I told them that the MLC supported the League of Women Voters position (and document) concerning the need for Butte County to first assess how much water we have and will need before allowing its transfer. This would require that the Supervisors not to allow staff members to make the final decision. We will see…
CLEARING TRASH, INVASIVE TREES AND PLANTS:
Dave Garcia, our enthusiastic and very effective new Yahi Chair answered President Obama’s call for volunteer work by organizing crews of volunteers to work in seven different sites on January 19. He wrote in this month’s Yahi paper that:
The local Sierra Club Yahi Group organized and teamed with California State Parks, City of Chico Park Division, Friends of Bidwell Park, Chico Creek Nature Center, and Habitat for Humanity to provide community service projects everyone could participate in on this historic day. Seven service projects were developed, publicized and posted on www.USAservice.org. Four of the projects filled to capacity and even had eager non-registered volunteers show up to participate. City of Chico employee Raul Gonzalez, who led the bike path cleanup, said his project was a huge success. Volunteers arrived excited, energized and ready to work. Thirty volunteers collected 12 cubic yards of trash and debris along the five-mile bike path from Big Chico Creek to the airport. On the other projects, volunteers removed 1,100 feet of barbed wire along the Potter Ravine Trail at Lake Oroville; removed 1,500 invasive trees and saplings in Bidwell Park; cleared 2,400 square feet of invasive blackberry and periwinkle in Bidwell Park; planted five Santa Barbara sedges, 12 Deer Grass plants, and 10 Willow trees in Bidwell Park; worked in the native plant garden preparing for spring planting at Chico Creek Nature Center; planted over 30 Valley Oak seedlings at Woodson Bridge State Park; and removed trash, pruned trees and removed invasive trees in a pre-construction lot preparation for a Habitat for Humanity home. A group of Pakistani students from CSU Chico International Student Exchange Program participated in the habitat restoration service project. They were in the U.S. to learn about community volunteer involvement programs, and got a real hands-on experience. We also had 15 eager students from the Oroville High School Ecology Club participate in the trail maintenance service project. Most of the students were of Hmong descent, obtaining their service experience in preparation for college….
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DISC GOLF; I have been attending many one on one and city meetings regarding disc golf. City Council changed its mind about not having disc golf in Upper Park in January, and now will allow the long course, i.e., the one used by the “experts,” to continue existing where it has been illegally for a decade. New infrastructure and mitigation measures will be needed.
A new location for the short course (played by non-experts) must be found within 18 months. Supposedly, the experts will not miss the mark as much as the more novice players, and thus will cause less ecological damage, e.g., to trees, soil, plants, etc. Friends of Bidwell Park has been taking the lead in trying to keep disc golf out of the park, and our Yahi Group has been the major supporting group of Friends of Bidwell Park. Please see the following video to view the tremendous amount of damage that has already been done: http://tinyurl.com/c4cvmr..
While the Chico City Council asked in January that the short course be located elsewhere, the preference by the disc golfers for a Bidwell Park site has meant that they have not seriously considered proposed sites outside the park; we believe that some of these would be far better, since our chief interest is in preserving nature in the park. But in the sprit of compromise, we have expressed willingness for the short disc golf course to be established in one area of Lower Bidwell Park that is currently not used by anyone and which is overrun by invasive plants and doomed trees. If the disc golfers would consider that area, they would actually be helping the park, since they would need to clear the area first. Unfortunately, we have heard that they do not like it because they want a much bigger area for an 18 hole course. This sounds unreasonable to us for a number of reasons, but more to the point: the city does not have the money to establish a short course, and as one city council person said in January: the disc golfers are supposed to get organized, so that they can show how they would raise the money for establishing a new short course, mitigate expected damage, plan and develop required infrastructure, and monitor players to be sure that they are not abusing the land. Thus, I raised that issue of finding out about the progress of such “bench marks” at the most recent meeting I attended, i.e. the Bidwell Park and Playground commission, the body what was just given the task of locating a new short course. There does not seem to be any such organization by the disc golfers. The Bidwell Park and Playground Commission will be developing policies and evaluating proposed courses, with public input encouraged. March and April will likely be the determining months for the decision, so we should have interesting times ahead of us.
Note: The editors of the two major papers in Chico are in support of the disc golfers, as are the park director and politicians who want the support of the very vocal, if not well organized, disc golfers. We have had a tough road to hoe, but we’re as passionate as the disc golfers! Thank goodness, more members of the City council seem to once again be concerned protection of the park. They will have the final decision, so it is up to us to make sure the BPPC does its job properly. That’s where one-on-one meetings have come to be quite important.
SNOW GOOSE FESTIVAL: Several Yahi Group members, including the past and present Chairs helped create and staffed a booth at this annual festival held in Chico but with tours to many other places, where one can see snow geese and other wildlife galore every January. They collected 100 signatures for Marily Woodlouse’s petition to stop clear cutting and they raised $100. - by selling a terrific trail guide, put together by Alan Mendoza with help of other Yahi members. Check out our web site for more information.
TREES AND TRAILS:
Clear cutting and logging: Several of us supported Marily Woodhouse’s campaign both (1) when she was working to get Home Dept not to buy SPI wood and (2) this past month with her campaign this past month to also get Meeks Hardware not to by SPI wood. Meeks has a hardware store in Chico, by the way.
National Forests: Patricia Puterbaugh has been handling several logging issues – as she explains in these excerpts from this month’s Yahi paper:
The Lassen Forest Preservation Group, the forestry committee of the Yahi Group Sierra Club, has been working on several large Lassen National Forest (LNF) projects... We have spent much of our time on the Hat Creek Ranger District, northwest of Lassen National Park, studying and planning with the Forest Service on the North 49 logging project. This project has been appealed, litigated, and finally resolved over the last four years. It is a very large project - 10,000 acres - and will be done in stages. After each stage, we will have the opportunity to see and study the results of the logging… Another project we have been working on for years is the Creeks project. This 10,000-acre project stretches from Humbug and Humboldt summits east down to Yellow Creek. It is one of the most biologically diverse and ecologically important regions in the Lassen National Forest. Several major creeks drain to the Feather River, making fisheries and water quality a huge issue. The area is also home to the healthiest numbers of California Spotted Owl, migratory songbirds, American Marten, and Northern Goshawk on the LNF. ... The Sierra Club generally supports thinning projects close to communities and along roads. Some of these projects are finished or ongoing in Prattville, Butte Meadows, Jonesville, Mineral, and near the High Lakes. These projects remove the smaller trees and leave the forests in a more fire-resilient condition. Considering the state of the economy right now, it is difficult to predict how much logging will take place over the next few years. Loggers work on a very small profit margin, and there is already a huge surplus of logs from clear-cut Sierra Pacific lands. With the downturn in construction, there is very little market for timber. This may be an opportunity to look to alternative markets such as wood chipping, small log construction, and cogeneration of energy from forest waste products. We also comment on some private land logging projects in our vicinity, but if you have taken a trip up into the foothills, you will see that the clear cutting continue… Please contact me, Patricia Puterbaugh, at cohasset@shocking.com regarding National Forest issues.
Off-Highway Vehicle Use. Stephen Sayre has been educating us in email and in news articles about this issue. (See Forest Travel Management Process Deeply Flawed for more information at www.//motherlode.sierraclub.org/yahi .
YAHI PROGRAMS: We have resumed monthly programs. Bob Woods presented a very interesting program in February about Lassen Trails at the Butte County Library. Other great programs are being planned for the months ahead.
YAHI OUTINGS: Alan Mendoza coordinates an excellent and varied array of Outings, with 9 listed for March alone
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