Your Holiday Giving Will Make A Difference in Cobb
We’re passionate about building resilient communities where people and nature coexist. In our world full of challenges, it’s our unity that makes a difference. It takes everyone to make a change.
This holiday season, support SSCRA’s holiday giving goal of $2,000. We’re the only local nonprofit focused on building resilience around the Cobb Area by linking policy-making with boots-on-the-ground projects.
Your contribution directly supports:
- Forest health through fuel reduction and controlled burns.
- Watershed health – by restoring riparian habitats.
- Our capacity to address LOCAL priority projects, helping us apply successfully for grants
Please donate on our secure page. Your contribution will help us transition to the next phase of this important work.
Your prompt action is key. Let’s create a brighter future together.
Warm regards,
Eliot Hurwitz
Executive Director
PEAR Workshops Renew Collaboration Towards Wildfire Resiliency
On October 29th SSCRA joined a slew of local agencies, nonprofits, and community groups to accelerate our collaborative efforts towards wildfire adaptation and resilience. The P.E.A.R. workshop (Preparedness, Engagement, Action, Resilience) was hosted here on Cobb by the Mandala Springs Retreat Center.
SSCRA has been a central local player in the coalition, including Calfire, CalTrans, local Firewise Communities around the county, the Tribal Eco-Restoration Alliance, Clear Lake Environmental Research Center, County Resource Conservation District, North Coast Opportunities, and County District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska. This work lies at the heart of our commitment to hyper-local teamwork, building our local capacity to restore our relationships with each other and the land.
We all know that the challenges are daunting and that resources are limited and that we will do much better if we can work together and leverage each other’s efforts. As climate experts had already forecasted in 2018, wildfires in the state will increase by over 70% in coming decades. The ongoing accumulation of dense brush and the proliferation of invasive species like broom plants, combined with warmer and dryer projected conditions, are continuing to flash warning signals for our community.
We have already seen the results of collaboration in the 2023 update of the Lake County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) which qualified county groups to receive millions of dollars in Federal assistance. We are on a roll and want to keep going! SSCRA will be working with many of these same partners to complete a Cobb Area CWPP (see our last newsletter) that will qualify our local community for even more funding.
In the next few weeks, the Lake County Fire Safe Council will be digesting the results of this first PEAR workshop – drafting a collective vision of a Lake County wildfire adapted community and in alignment across the board on the indicators and measurements for evaluating success.
A second workshop, slated for January 10, will review that vision and focus on creating the necessary communication and coordination agreements and continue where possible with creating joint solutions for the immediate challenges.
Resources for the Clear Lake Watershed in new State Bond Funds
One of the state bond measures passed in this year’s election was “Proposition 4”, a comprehensive statewide climate and environmental initiative that includes $20Million in funding for projects in the Clear Lake Watershed. Potential local projects include continuing the Cobb Watershed Education and Restoration Project (Cobb WERP). Conceived and managed by SSCRA, Cobb WERP has been active in the community for the past two years, building partnerships between local landowners, local Tribes and experts in creek/watershed resilience.
In a major development for environmental and climate issues in California, voters approved Proposition 4, which passed 57%-43% in Lake County, slightly less than the statewide margin of 60%-40%. Dozens of environmental groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, water agencies and renewable energy companies supported the argument that the environmental projects are crucial to the state’s future and will help prevent costly disasters such as wildfires and coastal erosion.
The measure notes that more than 60 percent of California’s rivers and streams fail to meet federal clean water standards, that fifteen of the 20 most destructive wildfires in state history have occurred in the last decade alone, and that the changing climate creates increased risk of catastrophic wildfires, drought, severe heat events, as well as impacts agriculture, water supply and water quality, and the health of the forests, watershed, and wildlife.
Without intervention, the cost of climate change to California is estimated to reach $113,000,000,000 annually by 2050, according to the California Natural Resources Agency’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. The measure also notes that these risks can overwhelm the resources of local communities and thus requires a statewide investment to increase climate resilience.
The $10 billion bond measure will finance a long list of climate-critical projects that had been curtailed in the wake of last year’s state budget deficit and will play a significant role in California environmental programming in the coming years, especially given uncertainty for support for such programs at the national level.
Prop 4 provides for over $600 million to “protect and restore rivers, lakes, and streams, and to improve watershed resilience, including the resilience of fish and wildlife within the watershed”, including a specific reference to $20 million “to improve the climate resiliency of, or for the protection of, the Clear Lake Watershed.” Projects include some experimental treatment technologies to treat the lake water and inhibit the growth of harmful algal blooms. Also on the list of potentially funded projects is a two year extension of the Cobb Watershed Education and Rehabilitation Project (Cobb WERP).
Cobb WERP has been active in the community for the past two years, building partnerships between local landowners, local Tribes and experts in watershed resilience. A half dozen local workshops have focused on Kelsey and Cole creeks and their tributaries, the most recent in the Schwartz Creek neighborhood. Workshops addressed water quality, invasive species removal and potential strategies to restore more natural creek flow, especially during winter flood conditions.
Prop 4 funding will potentially allow SSCRA to continue the program, with an additional dozen workshops along Keley and Cole creeks and their tributaries. Cobb area creekside owners who wish to participate can write to info@sscra.org for details.
Photo Credits: SSCRA except PEAR workshop photos by Lake County RCD
