Water users recently received an increase for water master service on their tax bills for 2006 and 2007.  Some found this increase to be as much as 300% over last year's rate.  SOSS sought help from Siskiyou County Farm Bureau who obtained assistance from Tony Francois, Director of Water Resources for the California Farm Bureau.  Francois took the assessment list with the 300% increase to State legislators who in turn fought for that budget item during negotiations.  The request was to hold water master fees at last year's level, and those legislators had it corrected within 24 hours.

These however are temporary fixes and we all are working to create a permanent remedy.  We are convinced the only solution that offers long term assurance of reasonable water master fees is to create a locally controlled special district that will provide water master service.

In order to provide adequate information on this issue, to you who pay the bill, SOSS and the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau will conduct a meeting at the Yreka Community Theater on September 12, 2006 at 7:00 pm.  This is important to you so please mark your calendar and plan to attend.

Other activities by SOSS helped to ensure appropriate language was included in two regulatory documents with State departments.  Since the coho salmon were listed by the State Fish and Game Commission, the Resource Conservation Districts in the Shasta and Scott Valleys have been working with the Department of Fish and Game to develop a programmatic Incidental Take Permit (ITP) and 1600 permitting process.  On behalf of irrigators, SOSS assisted in this effort by helping to shape acceptable language for the programmatic ITP.

Soon after the coho listing, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and their parent organization, the State Water Board, were in the process of finalizing their action plans for the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulations.  The TMDL's were clearly designed to gain control of long held adjudicated water rights in the Shasta and Scott valleys.  These rights are the very life blood of ranching and farming economies in our communities. 

 

SOSS stepped in and offered language for the action plans in various hearings held by the North Coast Board and State Board.  The response that was undertaken by SOSS was very involved and costly.  It required many trips to participate in hearings held in Sacramento and Santa Rosa as well as a considerable legal expense.  The end result was that we were able to affect the removal of objectionable and threatening language and provide a recovery plan that meets the goals of improving stream health without our agriculture communities being held hostage with the threat of losing their livelihood and therefore they are able to continue their contribution to our overall economy and the well being of our entire area.

If we had a motto, it might be 'GET INVOLVED'.  We would wish that you too could be involved and suggest that you visit our website at http://www.sossvalleys.org/www.sossvalleys.org where you will find our monthly meeting agendas giving you dates, time and location.  Additionally, the website offers the minutes of previous meetings and the history of SOSS.