LAKE COUNTY – The Upper Putah Creek Stewardship has begun work on a recently awarded grant to do a complete assessment of the local watershed.

This grant, administered by the California Department of Water Resources must be completed by the beginning of summer of 2010.

The purpose of the grant is “To understand current and potential threats to our watershed, and provide a comprehensive watershed assessment that will address a myriad of ecological, economical, cultural, and social issues as they relate to our watershed.”

The stewardship is forming a Technical Advisor Committee whose purpose is to review currently available data and determine strengths and weaknesses in the data and possible needed remedies.

From this basis the public will be informed of the course of the assessment through articles in local publicatiions and several planned workshops. This will give the public an overview of what is planned and also offer an opportunity to comment on the process and add in items that they feel should be included in the assessment.

Timely announcements of these meetings will be published in local publications and on the group's upcoming Web site.

For further information or to voice input to this process call Chris Simon UPCS Chair at 987-1109 or Dwight Holford, watershed coordinator, at 987-0663.

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