District Manager's Corner
by Pat Frost
This issue of the Conservation Almanac, like previous issues that you have read, focuses on some of the District’s many outstanding projects. Often times we highlight our recent accomplishments, the great fun we have working with your children, or some of our partners. In my little corner of the newsletter, I like to put a spotlight on some of the newer projects or ones that seem special in one way or another.
The latter is the case with the Lower South Fork Road Fuels Reduction Project just outside of Salyer. This is a project idea that came to us from the landowners a couple of years ago. Members of the Tsnungwe Tribe, who live along the Lower South Fork of the Trinity River, submitted a fuels reduction proposal to the Trinity County Resource Advisory Committee (RAC). The RAC focuses on projects on Forest Service land, but this proposal was for work on private lands. The RCD promised to try to help find funding for the project. This summer we were awarded a grant from the California Fire Safe Council to implement a shaded fuels break along the road. It is exciting to have an opportunity to work with this particular community, which has been left out of funding in the past. There is a lot more potential conservation work that could be done – work that will connect to other projects that are a part of the community wildfire protection plan for Salyer and Hawkins Bar. A small grant from the California Association of RCD’s is providing us the opportunity to deliver technical assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and inform the community members about NRCS cost share programs that help private landowners manage the resources on their property.
We have a community meeting scheduled for December 10th to kick-off this new project – a project that will just be the beginning of what I hope will be a long and productive relationship for the landowners in the Lower South Fork Trinity River watershed.
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