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Forum Board Meeting Schedule
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The Forum Board of Directors has set a meeting schedule for the rest of 2014. The meetings will alternate between Granzella's in Williams and Rolling Hills Casino in Corning.Check our website for directions to each location. The next meeting dates will be:
- July 24
(Williams) - September 25
(Corning) - December 11
(Williams)
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Looking upstream
at Kopta Slough. |
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Rock revetment along the Sacramento River bank upstream of Kopta Slough. |
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Excerpt from 2009 Riparian Map prepared by the CSU Chico Geographic Information Center. The habitat from this map will be compared to a new 1988 map to identify the change in habitat acreage within one mile of the river's edge.
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Thank you for connecting with the Forum. In our next issue, we will update you on more of our projects and programs.
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Hello all,
This newsletter provides information about new Forum committees. We also have an exciting new project that looks back on habitat restoration on the Sacramento River corridor, to determine how much land was converted from agriculture and the economic change associated with the restored lands. More Forum information and news is available on our website: www.sacramentoriver.org/srcaf
Jane Dolan, Executive Director |
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The Forum's New Committees
The Forum Board of Directors has established three new committees to more effectively accomplish its work and to provide for enhanced public participation. The Projects and Resource Committee (PARC) will have a broad membership of organization representatives, from agricultural organizations to conservation nonprofits to federal, state and local agencies; two Forum Board members will also serve on the committee. The PARC will provide a forum for information exchange and a discussion of projects and issues of interest and importance to river corridor stakeholders. The PARC will provide input, knowledge and review of projects and activities and may make recommendations to the Forum Board. Its work will be primarily by email, with possible semiannual forums broadly noticed with public participation.
The Forum Board is forming a local stakeholders' committee to advise the Department of Water Resources (DWR) as it works to develop the Woodson Bridge/Kopta Slough project. This multi-benefit project will provide protection for the Woodson Bridge, improve recreation and enhance riparian habitat. Supervisor Burt Bundy and agricultural landowner Brendon Flynn are the Board representatives. Stakeholders representing businesses and landowners in the area will be invited.
To fulfill the Forum Administrative Policy of implementing the Safe Harbor program so that it respects the value of agriculture in our region, two board members, Supervisor James Gallagher and Supervisor Leonard Moty, will serve on the Programmatic Safe Harbor Agreement Committee.
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and Economic Analysis Project
The Forum has received a grant from DWR FloodSAFE Ecosystem Sustainability and Statewide Resources Office to answer two long-standing questions:
- How much agricultural land has been restored to habitat along the river?
- What has been the economic change associated with that conversion?
There have been different studies and mapping efforts associated with these issues in the past. What is different about our project is:
- We are looking back historically and trying to document what has actually changed on the river, rather than projecting forward what changes might be associated with a certain acreage of restoration, and
- We are approaching the economic study with primary data collection, rather than disaggregating statewide statistics.
The six tasks for this project are:
- Map riparian vegetation in 1988,
- Analyze habitat and ag land use changes 1988 to 2009,
- Analyze private to public ownership change 1988 to 2012,
- Analyze the economic effects of conversion,
- Coordinate public participation and write a project report and
- Establish web-based distribution of the project's products.
The economic study will include four components: an analysis of changes in agricultural output; an accounting of property tax changes and payments in lieu of taxes for conservation properties; an analysis of recreation value of the river corridor, including a yearlong survey of recreation users and an analysis of historical creel surveys (fishing surveys conducted by the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife); and a literature review of riparian ecosystem services.
We'll soon be updating our website with more details on this project, so check in for more information.
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We have had some wonderful interns from CSU, Chico working for us over the past year and would like to recognize their efforts. Nancy Lor, an Anthropology major with a Certificate in GIS, has been with us the entire year and we are grateful for her hard work, versatility and skill set. She graduated in May, so congratulations to Nancy! Eric Stark is an Economics major and joined us this spring. He will be helping us with our economic study and other tasks. In addition to his academic work and his Forum job, he is a tutor on campus. Nancy is a Chico High graduate and Eric comes from Durham. They are outstanding interns and we are lucky to have them.
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