Saturday, May 11, 2019

Liz Writes Life 5-8-19


May 8, 2019

Liz Writes Life

Gotta start-off with the hot temps and garden. Wow, 80-degree temps make it easy to get behind on irrigating. The perennials are sucking-up all the water I can get to them and farmers are hustling to get irrigation going on their fields. After the wet, snowy winter I did not expect such a warm end-of-April and start-of-May.

The frosts last week were not kind to anyone who had purchased annuals and didn’t have them covered. I bought three six-packs of flowering impatiens and covered them twice, but the night I forgot is when the frost got them. Ugh! I think they will make it -- I heard from friends they did the same thing.

Most of us expect frosts anytime in May, but in checking and re-checking the forecasts it really does look like the rest of the month could be frost-free! So, yep, I planned and laid out my garden on Saturday and will be planting seeds and tomato plants this week. For several decades, I haven’t even thought of planting until late May.

I am blaming the heat on last week’s growth of asparagus. Some jumped to three-feet high and are starting to bolt into the froths. Or maybe it was the manure I put on. I don’t think that was a good idea, cuz the stalks came up extra thick as well. I prefer the smaller pinky-sized stalks not the giant thumb-sized ones.

In mid-April, I planted a packet of peas. About half of them sprouted and are now four-inches tall. The 10-inch tall garlic was looking puny, but a lot of irrigation has perked them up. Lettuce is six-inches high. The two rhubarb plants were huge and I harvested over 20 pounds from one of them last Thursday. Hope to do the other one this week. Oh, and the Fowler lilac, encroaching on my porch, is in full bloom and smells wonderful. Ah, spring!

Snow

The snowpack looks great after the USFS employees surveyed the five major snow stations in our surrounding mountains on May 1. The two lower-level areas in the mid-5,500 ft. elevation were melting fast and Swampy John on Salmon Mt. is already down to 61 percent of average with 31 inches of snowpack.

But, Scott Mt. boasted the highest with 50-inches of an historic average of 26-inches making it 191 percent of average. It is at 5,900 ft. elevation. The other big one was Middle Boulder 1 at 6,600 ft. elevation. It measured 90-inches with 53-inches the historic average showing 170 percent of average. Over all, the snowpack is 144 percent of average. This is really great news!

POW

Brandon Criss, who is Dist. 1 Siskiyou Co. Supervisor and serving as chairman of the board, spoke at the Scott Valley Protect Our Water meeting on April 25, 2019. He said the new Siskiyou Co. jail is finally moving forward. The county revised its design and will now use the Charlie Byrd Probation Youth facility, which only housed a few juveniles because of new state regulations. Most juveniles that are deemed difficult are housed in other counties. It has become probation’s goal to get troubled youth back with their families. The new jail will increase the inmate capacity from 107 beds to 160 beds.

Brandon was asked about the cost of the upcoming June election and why the state doesn’t reimburse the county for the exorbitant cost of the special election. He said the state just will not do it. The previous Siskiyou Co. Clerk, Colleen Setzer, pursued every avenue she could think of and found the state would not budge. So, the county has to pay for special elections. Yep, costly.

Discussion on saving the Klamath dams was short. Brandon said the county detailed its concerns in a (135-page) response to the non-profit Klamath River Renewal Corp. Definite Plan for removal of four hydro-electric Klamath dams. Bottom line: Klamath dam destruction must meet all state and federal environmental regulations and those documents have not been completed or released. In fact, KRRC has asked, for a second time, to extend its deadline for answering the extensive questions by Siskiyou Co., PacifiCorp and other legal interveners. KRRC did not meet the last deadline on April 30, 2019 and lucked-out because the Federal Regulator Energy Commission did extend the deadline to July 31, 2019.

Water Users

Brandon also spoke last Saturday night at the Siskiyou Co. Water Users Assoc., dinner fundraiser, held in Yreka with 200 people in attendance. He said, “The loss of the Klamath River dams will harm flood control, a productive fish hatchery, land values and clean hydropower electricity. That’s why 79 percent of Siskiyou Co. voted in 2010 to oppose dam removal.”

Measure G was the first major accomplishment by the Siskiyou Water Users, which was an advisory vote on the 2010 ballot. Brandon thanked the Water Users for this educational campaign and result. He added that the county supervisors have used that statistic many times, when lobbying, discussing or doing legal maneuvering in Washington D.C. on the dam removal issue. Brandon also thanked Dist. 1 Congressman, Doug LaMalfa, for his “solid support back in D.C.” to save the Klamath dams.

The supervisors have been “pro-active with a slew of solutions for the dams and the Klamath Basin Agriculture,” Brandon said, and then explained a recent legal case that was a good win for the county and (in my opinion) a black eye to the state.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe argued in a lawsuit that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s relicensing process should continue and that the 401 clean water certification process had been waived.

“As many of you know, from the outset, purely based upon politics, the State of California has been one of the parties holding-up dam relicensing by denying the required 401 permit,” Brandon said.
Years ago, the state did not do the 401 certification within its legal time allotted. So, the county joined Hoopa’s lawsuit claiming, “yes, the State of California has waived its 401 authority all these years and that the 401 process should not be used to delay the FERC process.”

The court agreed with the Hoopa and Siskiyou Co. -- and an appeal by the state has already been denied.

Brandon said the county continues to strategically monitor this and the myriad of Klamath dam issues.

Liz Bowen began writing ranch and farm news, published in newspapers, in 1976. She is a native of Siskiyou County and lives near Callahan. Columns from the past year can be found at: lizwriteslife.blogspot.com. Call her at 530-467-3515.

# # #

No comments:

Post a Comment

Liz writes her last column

June 1, 2022 Liz Writes Life Well, I have some news – don’t know if it is good or bad? I have decided to end my newspaper column “Liz Wr...