Stream Team (Environmental Committee)
Chairman: Randy Smith

“We must handle the water, the wood, the grasses so that we will hand them on to our children and our children’s children in better and not worse shape than we got them” --Theodore Roosevelt   White House Conference May 1908

Schedule for 2011-12

Oct 1st 2011
0800-1200 Community Creek Claenup #6, Henderson Open Space

Oct 8th 2011
1203 PM Decication of Diestelhorst Monument(s), south Diestelhorst trailhead, South Sacrmento River Trail

Jan 21st 2010
0900-Noon Wood Duck Nest Box #IV, Riverview Golf and Country Club

Mar 3rd 2010
0800-noon Scouting for Trees - location to be announced.

 

 

For 2010-2011

Welcome to the Stream Team 2010-11.  There are forty of us, seven are new including Barry Sylvester whose email address is not here.  We will do more with less money than any committee in our club.  In the last several years this committee has organized and completed over a million dollars of local resource rehabilitation, restoration, enhancement and public information.  This is the first time in over a decade that committee membership has been known to its chair before the Directory was published in July.  You can thank President Elect Balkovek for being so organized and supportive of what we do.

In that vein, President Greg has asked for a Club Program on 23 September to highlight what we have been doing so that the entire club will better understand what has been achieved, what is anticipated.

This early message comes to inform you of three dates already on the calendar for our activity next year.  Saturday, 2 Oct 2010 is the 5th Annual Community Creek Clean Up.  This important work is an effort now in its 26th year of sponsorship by the California Coastal Commission.  All but five counties in California participate.  Our leadership in this event is going statewide this year as many other organizations are beginning to do more than pick up trash.  This year's activity is fully supported by City of Redding and, like last, is primarily aimed at elimination of non native and dead plant material along the Sacramento River.  Our goal is to galvanize the community (404 volunteers last year) to help improve the North Sacramento River Trail from the North Market Street Bridge to the Sundial Bridge.  "Wild Salmon Man" Preston has Section One beginning at the Market Street Bridge, "Big Oak" Murphy and Lynda Burkhalter with the California Conservation Corps have Section Three upstream from the Sundial Bridge and your chair has Section Two in between these.  There will be Rotarians throughout the project running chain saws and supervising loading of material into donated chippers.  "Techie" Gaston is helping to run the single Command Center.  Hopefully, "Itchy" Morrison, "Puncture" Stubblefield, "Bees Nest" Yelverton and other wounded veterans will find combat much easier this year.  More later.

Saturday, 15 Jan 2011 will be our third effort at installing American wood duck nesting boxes along the Sacramento River and other corridors near by.  We have been building and placing at least ten boxes each year.  This time besides servicing what is already in the resource, we will expand to upper Churn Creek and Cow Creek for at least two boxes in each location of the ten to be built this fall.   This is a wonderful family time which young and old enjoy and find most rewarding.  Our success ratio has been very high and if you know the location of the boxes, you can take friends and visitors at this time of year and see a hen with her chicks in several places throughout our area wet places.

The spring project is on Saturday, 5 Mar 2011.  We are joining the USFS and local Scouts in their annual tree planting adventure.  The site has not been chosen at present, but the method and fun to be had is well known and very worthwhile. 

Above are the major efforts which should involve you at least once during the year.  Otherwise, there is ongoing work available virtually every week of the year.  If you saw this morning's paper, you will understand that the Allied Stream Team is engaged in a wide variety of non native plant removal from our area.  This activity occurs generally every Monday and Wednesday throughout the year and Environment Committee members are always welcome.   Arundo, Himalayan blackberry, Ailanthus and recently Spanish broom are our primary targets and we have pledged to help eradicate or control them on public lands in and near Redding.  Also, your committee is responsible for maintenance of Palatine Trail and the South Rail Trail from Court Street to Salt Creek parallel to the South Sacramento River Trail.  It is the force of our effort which will hopefully keep wonderful if largely unknown Henderson Open Space, Riverland and Kupusta Reserve in City ownership.  There are a wealth of projects coming to us from BLM and other resource agencies which find budgets and personnel stretched beyond the breaking point.  Things like Magnolia Neighborhood Trail, Stillwater Tire Curtain removal, Diestelhorst Auto Camp interpretive signs and play areas, needed benches and picnic tables along the River and many other good ideas will not become reality unless and until we perform them.

Your committee has representation on the Weed Management Area Committee of the Office of the Shasta County Agricultural Commissioner as well as a number of ad hoc or standing committees throughout Shasta County ranging from the Cottonwood Watershed Action Group to the Western Shasta Resource Conservation District.  So there is much to do and hopefully you will find time in busy schedules to participate and enjoy our great outdoors.  BTW, one hallmark of this committee, for new and old alike, we follow very strict adherence to "Tool Crib" Reynolds' Dictum.  We "meet only to work", or may be an annual social.

Thank you for signing on and never be afraid to bring something else to committee attention.  The bleeding resource will only find surcease in your volunteer efforts.