Amador County – The Amador County Waste Management Department announced Monday a new free Green Waste Recycling Program to correspond with America Recycles Day.

The new local program begins December 1st, 2010 and continues throughout the next year.

Amador Solid Waste Program Manager Jim McHargue said in an announcement that green waste “consists of yard trimmings, tree pruning, lawn clippings, pine needles, leaves, weeds, brush, limbs” and other similar trimmings.

The program is not open to business or commercially-generated waste products – only private citizens.

McHargue said recycling green waste is a far better alternative than burning, which is unclean and sometimes unsafe. He said participation in this program will reduce smoke from burning and help to reduce landfill space.

A standard “pickup size” load can be brought in any vehicle, but it must not exceed the amount of material that would normally fit in the bed of a pickup truck.

In order to participate, get your “Green Back” recycling voucher to begin recycling by visiting the Waste Management Department in Jackson, the Air District office in Martell, ACES Waste Services in Pine Grove, or Vicini Brothers in Plymouth. For more information, please call the Waste Management Department at (209) 223-6429.

America Recycles Day, which also took place Monday, is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products.

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Amador County – Proponents of the Foothill Charter School submitted a petition to form the school last Wednesday to the Amador County Unified School District board of directors, with one potential location being the former Safeway building on Highway 49 and 88 in Jackson.

Ramona Longero, president of Foothill Charter School, said she submitted a petition with more than 70 signatures of parents of children of eligible age to attend the proposed school. She also submitted a support document that was signed by other members of the community who do not have school-aged children, but wanted to support the charter school.

Longero said the petition was placed on an agenda for an open public hearing on December 10, as it was required to be heard within 30 days of the filing of the petition. She said the time of the meeting is yet to be determined, but the school board had initially tried to set it for 9 a.m. Longero said she was worried that it would not allow people interested in attending to be able to make a daytime meeting, and she preferred the hearing be held at night, as are the school board meetings.

Foothill Charter School submitted the petition to the school board Wednesday, November 10th and the public hearing was set for Friday, December 10th at the Jackson Civic Center. The hearing will allow public comments, including concerns or issues.

Longero said they would “take closer look at the budget than anything else,” and the company will have a financial consultant, Delta Services, attend and answer questions.

Locations considered ideal for the school were Upcountry and Ridge Road areas, but the former Safeway seemed like a good central location for people coming from Upcountry, Ione, Mokelumne Hill, or other areas. She said Safeway was really interested in subleasing to the school, and realized there are needs in the community.

The Foothill Charter School petition proposes to have seven grades in its first year, from kindergarten up to sixth grade. Longero said it would have a limit of 20 children per class, and one class per grade, and could serve up to 140 children. She said subsequent years at the school would add another grade annually, until it reached K-12 status.

The school has a goal of opening in Fall of 2011.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County - Alleged mountain lion attacks on livestock in the West Point area have raised concerns amongst the area’s residents.

TSPN confirmed Monday that one West Point resident living on Jurs Road lost 9 of his 10 goats to predators last Thursday night. A mountain lion is presumed to be the culprit.

Another resident of the area called TSPN Monday to say she lost a goat earlier in the week. “I have a feeling the lion came over the fence from the hills behind us. I saw the same thing happen at a neighbor’s place two years ago,” she said.

The possibility that a mountain lion could possibly attack a human only stoked concerns.

But according to Steve Diers, a Ranger with the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), it is good to put concerns over the alleged attacks “in perspective.” He said he has been fortunate enough to witness 13 lions in his 34 years as a ranger, but “in all those years I never felt threatened.”

In a widely circulated email last weekend, Diers said “bees, along with dogs and deer, are responsible for more deaths each year than sharks, mountain lions, poisonous snakes, and spiders combined.”

“Three times as many people die from lightening strikes each year as the total number of people killed by mountain lions in North America during recorded history,” he said.

He said his duties have included the relocation of rattlesnakes, which pose a far greater threat to humans than mountain lions.

He said the most dangerous creature in the region is by far the black-legged tick, which is known to carry Lyme disease. In 2007, four cases of Lyme disease were reported to the Calaveras County Health Department. Between 2002 and 2007, four cases were reported in Amador County. “Lyme disease is a far greater threat than mountain lions,” said Diers.

Despite this perspective, West Point residents still seem to be taking the threat of a lion attack very seriously. Signs were posted on Highway 26 warning of the possibility of mountain lions in the region.

According to the Mountain Lion Foundation, livestock owners with free-grazing livestock are advised to bring pets indoors at night and place livestock into fully-enclosed barns. Mountain lions can enter through unsecured openings like windows, doors or large gaps.

Story by Alex Lane This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – TSPN has more details on the vehicle crash and subsequent loss of phone services that affected residents across Amador and Calaveras counties beginning Sunday night.

According to the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department, a car crashed into a PG&E power pole Sunday evening, cutting out some AT&T land line, Internet and cell phone services.

In Jackson Valley and areas of Calaveras County, the temporary outage left many residents who depend on land lines for phone service without the ability to call 9-1-1.

Both AT&T and PG&E sent technicians to the scene to repair damaged fiber-optic lines. All Comcast-based 911 calls were temporarily rerouted to the Stockton California Highway Patrol dispatch center.

The Calaveras Sheriff’s Office said it was still able to receive most 9-1-1 calls, and public safety outlets communicated using radios.

Amador County Undersheriff James Wegner said Monday that his office conducted “informal surveys” of 9-1-1 connectivity from Jackson Valley early Monday morning and found the lines working.

AT& T could not confirm when the repairs would be completed, but expected most services to be restored by 3 a.m. Monday morning.

Amador County – TSPN has more details on the vehicle crash and subsequent loss of phone services that affected residents across Amador and Calaveras counties beginning Sunday night.

According to the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department, a car crashed into a PG&E power pole Sunday evening, cutting out some AT&T land line, Internet and cell phone services.

In Jackson Valley and areas of Calaveras County, the temporary outage left many residents who depend on land lines for phone service without the ability to call 9-1-1.

Both AT&T and PG&E sent technicians to the scene to repair damaged fiber-optic lines. All Comcast-based 911 calls were temporarily rerouted to the Stockton California Highway Patrol dispatch center.

The Calaveras Sheriff’s Office said it was still able to receive most 9-1-1 calls, and public safety outlets communicated using radios.

Amador County Undersheriff James Wegner said Monday that his office conducted “informal surveys” of 9-1-1 connectivity from Jackson Valley early Monday morning and found the lines working.

AT& T could not confirm when the repairs would be completed, but expected most services to be restored by 3 a.m. Monday morning.

Amador County – The Ione City Council today (November 16th) could discuss the next steps in its wastewater treatment plant.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board in a letter November 4th called for a “Wastewater Master Plan” that will prevent “seepage discharges to surface water,” and said the city’s “Report of a Waste Discharge” at the facility remained incomplete, stemming from a 2003 Cease & Desist order at the wastewater treatment plant.

City Manager Kim Kerr said they “don’t necessarily agree,” and city staff is “looking at not building Pond 8 at all.” She said that proposal has not yet been considered by the Ione City Council, but that could be part of discussion tonight.

Kerr said one solution to problems with proposed Pond 8 would be to reduce the size of the project from 800,000 gallons a day to 500,000 gallons a day. That “would reduce the need for Pond 8, so potentially Pond 8 would be eliminated,” she said.

Kerr said the seepage remained an issue of contention. The water has been tested and it was “inconclusive as to whether it comes from a treatment plant or not.” She said city staff will propose an “isotope test” to “see if it is effluent or if it is ground water.”

She said “that will answer the question whether we have a seepage problem or not.” Any studies so far have been inconclusive, because they are not showing that it’s treated effluent from the wastewater treatment plant. She said people are making assumptions, but the city also can’t be 100 percent sure it’s not seepage from the plant.

She said if the city “did nothing on our project, we would still have to deal with the seepage issue.”

The state believes it is seeping effluent, based on visits to the site in 2003 and 2005, when visual dampness was seen at the creek bank, and it was called a seepage of treated effluent. Kerr said since then, after repair, it has not been seen to be damp.

Kerr said studies done on samples from that damp area have proven to be inconclusive to the city, though the Regional Board refers to it as seepage.

Kerr said they need the isotope study to give the state a conclusive answer to the seepage question. The isotope study should be done in about 4-6 weeks, in the time it takes to get the samples take and tested and right the report.

She said if the seepage were proven, the city would have to get a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, which would increase requirements, such as monitoring, and it “opens the city to Clean Water Act violations.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.