October 22, 2016

Attendees:

• Laurie Tippin Honey Lake Valley RCD
• James Brink PG&E
• Heidi Ramsey NRCS
• Ryan Hilburn WM Beatty
• Chris O’Brien Lassen NF
• Eric Ewing Lassen OES
• Leah Sandberg CALFIRE
• Victoria Basnett CALFIRE
• Cort Cortez LMUD
• Ken Collum BLM

Discussions:

• Eric Ewing read the revised objectives & working group assignments of the Incident Action Plan (IAP).
• The Public Education/Outreach working group met in Sept to develop 2 objectives and a number of general actions to take to meet objectives (document attached). It was suggested that a few key actions should be prioritized that resulted in reaching the largest audience. After much discussion, the top action to implement first is:
  • Create & distribute a public service announcement/press release to susanvillestuff.com, Lassen Times, radio, LMUD’s Ruralite monthly magazine. The PSA will explain the issue of drought & tree mortality, factors that contribute to healthy trees/forests & those that don’t.
    • Leah Sandberg to draft the PSA & identify documents that support the info presented, which could also be used to provide as educational material at public events. She’ll also look for CALFIRE written material that has ability to add local logo’s.
    • Laurie Tippin will gather healthy tree/forest info from state/federal agencies to be used in the PSA
    • Item to be resolved – need to identify a source to include in the PSA to direct the public if they want more information (“for more info, contact…”)
    • No timeline for completion was agreed upon.

• A 2nd action we discussed was the need to identify forest landowners in order to provide more specific info & resources available to them. We agreed that county land parcel maps, querying for TPZ zoned land (for > 40 ac), & data from the Fire Safe Council could provide us this info. This work will occur later.

• The Lessons Learned working group may not have met. However, Eric Ewing is talking with Cal OES & neighboring county OES on decision points they identified for when emergency declarations were prepared and presented. James Brink identified that he can reach out to southern CA utilities for their actions & timing.
• Eric Ewing was going to talk with the County Administrator to ask if there could be a tree mortality page or topic on their website. We’d write s little blurb & then provide a list of links to other info resources.
• No update from the Risk Assessment working group.
• Victoria Basnett, active with the Plumas Co. task force, reviewed their IAP & working groups, which track with the Governor’s Task Force Working Groups. Plumas Co Task Force has 5 working groups:  data collection/mapping, materials disposal/storage/utilization, permits & regulations, public outreach & information, and resource allocation/funding. We agreed that all topics were important but focused on the importance of us adding a material disposal/storage/utilization working group, as we thought this topic might take the longest amount of time to pre-plan. We also recognized organizing for some of the other working groups could become important should mortality spread closer towards Lassen Co. No action was taken on organizing a disposal/storage/utilization working group. Plumas Co. Tree Mortality IAP available upon request to Cathy Dirden.
• Next meeting TBD, tentatively for December. Terri Frolli will send out a doodle poll.

Notes by L.Tippin