These topics are inside:
New Years Resolutions and Some Data
CRC Annual Membership Meeting Results
What if This Happened Here?
Equipment and Help Needed
The WILLAPA, Our Neighbor
The January CRC seminar was held at Trout Unlimited's facility in Aberdeen. They were very gracious hosts and we appreciate their support.
The January seminar dealt with why the CRC focuses on water quality. Now at the start of the year, it seems a good time to review some of the findings that are presented in the Chehalis River Basin Action Plan. Among the many issues, these seem quite specific and easy to understand:
IMPAIRED WATERWAYS
STREAMBANK PROBLEMS
544 miles known problems
268 miles serious problems
37 CONTAMINATED SITES
In Lewis County
In Thurston County
In Grays Harbor County
These are the issues that were known when the report was completed in December 1992. Is there work to be done? Yes, there is! NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS Now that the rush of New Years Day is past, and life has settled down, perhaps it is time to rethink those resolutions and include some which deal with improving the issues surrounding our water. Certainly, among the items listed earlier, there is something you may see that you could have an impact upon. Either working through the CRC, with an agency, or with an organization of your own choice, why don't you take the time to work towards resolving some of these known problems? I can promise you the results will far exceed the effort. What do you mean? We sometimes view our basin as a small, rural, undeveloped part of the state. Certainly the few people here can have no major impact on the environment. Well, here is another way to look at things. First, focus on the area we live in, next the animals we raise and then some of the practices which are too common: Impact of society Here we also find: Here we find: If our residents create only If there is 1 vehicle for every 4 people In addition we seem to experience: The amazing fact about all of this is that no one, anywhere, knows or understands the accumulative impact of all these pressures on an already stressed watershed. As you think about these issues, remember the first step towards making a change is the single most important step you can take. If you want to live in a pleasant environment, leave something good for the future, or protect what you have, now is the time to take that first step. CRC Organization News December and January were busy times for the CRC board members. A two day intensive planning session, in December, was only the start of a lot of hard effort and decision making. At the annual meeting of the CRC members, January 17, a number of announcements were made. First among them was the decision by the Board of Trustees to open the CRC Resource Library effective January 22nd. This has been a long term goal of the organization and the Board is committed to it. The Board of Trustees also announced their decision to advertise for two employees to carry out the duties which the Board of Trustees has already identified as a result of their planning effort. The two positions are: Watershed Coordinator to implement the grant activities and a part-time clerk to staff the office and perform the clerical work which is identified for that position. Both positions have been advertised in the newspaper , word of mouth, and even on the Internet. The closing date for the clerk and the Watershed Coordinator position will have been reached by the time you receive this newsletter. Applications will be screened by the Board of Trustees and a selection committee will aid in the final selection process. Next month's newsletter will identify the individuals hired. At the same meeting the Board of Trustees reviewed the financial condition of the CRC. A copy of that report and the detailed report to CRC members is available to anyone submitting a large, self-addressed stamped envelope to the CRC, P.O. Box 586, Oakville, WA 98568. Anyone interested in the detail planning session results can request a copy in the same way as the financial reports. The meeting was also the occasion of an election of two new board members. Dan Vander Kolk and John Miller had both requested that they be allowed to remain members but asked to step down from board positions. Their replacements were found and appointed to the Board of Trustees at a regular board meeting. As is the practice the appointed members were subject to election to the board by the general membership. The CRC is pleased to announce that two long time residents of the watershed, Mr. Dave Spogen and Mr. Brady Engvall, were elected to the board by the general membership at the annual meeting. Mr. Spogen has a long and extensive background in education and management. He is very active in the Chehalis community and has served as board member and president of many organizations. Mr. Engvall is well known in the Westport and Aberdeen area. His company, Brady's Oysters, depends upon our ability to preserve clean water. (Class A water, for fish, has a fecal coliform limit of 100 colonies per milliliter. Oysters cannot be harvested if the colony count exceeds 14.) Brady has lived and worked in the area for many decades. Oyster growers around the country benefit from Brady's early work in creating an alternative culture for raising oysters. Without this solution, most of the smaller oyster growers could not compete. The CRC is happy and pleased that these individuals have joined the Board of Trustees. The CRC also acknowledges the support and effort provided by Mr. Vander Kolk and Mr. Miller. Their participation on the board was significant and appreciated. The Board of Trustees also announced that in January the board approved the temporary hiring of Ellen Palmer to staff the Resource Library until the applications are received, evaluated and a clerk employee selected. The Board of Trustees also announced that the process for applying for nonprofit status with the Internal Revenue Service (501C3) had been completed. Finally the board reported that membership in the CRC had increased over 37% since the reorganization in October. WHY NOT HERE? WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 from the U.S. Newswire: -- American Farmland Trust, a national farmland conservation group based in Washington, will present a national achievement award to Lancaster County, Pa. in recognition of its permanent protection of 20,000 acres of some of the nation's best but most threatened farmland. The total represents the third highest number of agricultural acres ever protected by a county nationally and was achieved five years ahead of schedule. It comes at a time when the fabled and picturesque agricultural area, widely known for its dairies and Amish community, is facing ever-increasing urbanization pressures. Just two years ago, AFT named Lancaster County and 26 other counties in the mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake area as the nation's fourth most threatened agricultural region. "This is a milestone achievement on the part of Lancaster County,"said Bob Wagner, national director of state and local programs for AFT. "The 20,000 acres of farmland saved is only several thousand acres less than the states of Connecticut and New Jersey have protected individually during the life of their programs. This county is truly setting the pace for the rest of the country." The Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board is a publicly funded county program which has been protecting farmland since 1980. The board's establishment preceded that of the state of Pennsylvania's in 1987. Today, the county's board employs what is regarded as the country's most comprehensive set of farmland protection programs, including agricultural zoning, agricultural security areas and urban growth boundaries. AFT is a national, nonprofit membership organization working to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that will lead to a healthy environment. AFT's national office is at 1920 N St., N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036. ### CRC Needs Your Participation If you have free time the CRC can use your help. We need folks with time to address newsletters, perhaps build some bookcases, or even lay some carpet! If you have news or a story, send it in. We also want to find a large portable projection screen and a used overhead projector. If you have either of these items, please let us know? THE WILLAPA, OUR NEIGHBOR Dan'l Markham was a guest speaker at the January Chehalis Watershed Council meeting. A recent story in the February/March 1996 issue of National Wildlife summarizes the Willapa success story as follows: "Change in the region was inevitable: Oyster harvests from the estuary's productive beds were shrinking, in part because a nonnative grass, spartina, had infiltrated aquatic wildlife habitat. Salmon runs had slowed. Developers stalked the beachfront property, threatening to overburden the county's rural infrastructure with vacation homes. Unemployment rose while per capita income fell. Residents grew concerned, but didn't know what to fix first. "We had never heard the term 'sustainable development,'" says Dan'l Markham, executive director of the Willapa Alliance, a coalition of local interest. "We just knew that our ecosystem was the goose that laid the golden egg. And that was beginning to be threatened." Enter Ecotrust, a nonprofit organization with roots in international conservation and development. Ecotrust Director and southern Washington native Spencer Beebe wondered if some principles of sustainable development might work in the United States. Ecotrust helped organize the alliance of local fishermen, oystermen, timbermen, cranberry farmers and civic leaders that launched a conservation-based development plan. "We had to move from 'hunt and harvest' to managed resources'" says Markham. The process has meant a lot of "cussin' and discussin'," with "some oxes getting gored," he says. But the community has realized that if the bay dies from being overextended, so does the community. For now all the extractive industries have agreed to more closely monitor their harvests as the development plan unfolds. The alliance has helped fund a $500,000 stream restoration project and has helped get loans for small industries like a specialty cranberry business that makes jams, condiments and even cranberry fudge. Markham's hope is that the economy eventually will be based on sustainable harvests. "To us," says Markham, "ecology is economy.""
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