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THURSDAY Winning Quilts Lions All-Stars on Display APRIL 4, 2013 Pastimes Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com See Page 6A SPORTS 1B DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Showers likely 65/50 Weather forecast 6B TEHAMA COUNTY DAILY 50¢ T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Teen's father frustrated by court delays `By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer Attorney Shon Northam, who is representing Quentin Ray Bealer, 39, who has been charged with the murder of 14year-old Red Bluff High School student Marysa Nichols, asked Wednesday to delay entry of a plea for another week. Ricky Nichols, Marysa's father, was in attendance at Wednesday's hearing along with family friend David Walls, who had a daughter murdered five years ago, and Marysa's aunt, Margaret Crone. Nichols, 52, drove up Tuesday evening from his residence in Tulare, which is where Marysa lived until about five years ago when she moved to Red Bluff, he said. An auto recording was used to inform the family that 'I've traveled five to six hours for nothing. I have a lot of questions and I need answers' — Ricky Nichols Marysa had not attended her class earlier in the day and that did not come until 4 p.m., Nichols said. Museum supports Round-Up As the 11 Days of Round-Up approach, the Tehama County Museum strives to do its part by proclaiming all the unique events to those who visit the museum. The museum will host its own special affair, an open house with tours and refreshments, on Sunday, April 14, with extended hours of operation from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum will be selling fundraising raffle tickets for two Round-Up prizes — each consisting of four Main Grandstand tickets for the 7 p.m. show on Friday, April 19, and four pairs of logoed cotton association gloves both provided by the Red Bluff Round-Up Association. In thanking Corky Kramer of the association, Museum Executive Director Pam Britting said, "This is a welcome example of collaboration for mutual benefit, and we greatly appreciate this opportunity to help support the event." Each Round-Up prize has a value of $50 or more, and the fundraising raffle tickets will sell at the Museum for $5 for one or $20 for six.The two raffle drawings will be held at 3:45 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, during the See MUSEUM, page 5A He first found out Marysa was missing about 7:30 p.m. the day she went missing, when her mother called his sister's home to ask if he had picked her up. "AB 109 killed my daughter," Nichols said. "The charges he had should have kept him in jail. I'd like to thank Governor (Jerry) Brown for that." The entire process has been See DELAYS, page 5A City residents sound off about homeless A group of concerned residents used Tuesday's Red Bluff City Council meeting as an opportunity to question city leaders about whether they have a plan to deal with the city's homeless. The women who spoke said the homeless have caused residents and their children to fear walking the streets, had lowered property values and in some cases had caused residents to question whether they wanted to live in Red Bluff. See CITY, page 5A Camping season opens at Black Butte Lake Courtesy photo Tehama County Museum Executive Director Pam Britting practices her Red Bluff Round-Up ticket sales pitch on an unsuspecting cowboy at the museum. ORLAND – Spring is here, and the campsites in Buckhorn recreation area and the Orland Buttes campground reopened April 1 at Black Butte Lake, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers park near Orland. Individual and group campsites in both areas can be reserved by calling the National Recreation Reservation Service at 877-444-6777 or on the internet at http://www.recreation.g ov. The fee for a standard campsite at the Buckhorn campground is $20 per night and the Buckhorn group campground is available for $175 per night. The fee for a standard campsite at the Orland Buttes campground is $18 per night, with the Orland Buttes group campground available for $100 per night. Day-use and camping fees are half price with a federal recreation pass. For more information on federal recreation passes, visit http://store.usgs.gov/pas s/index.html. Day-use fees of $4 See CAMPING, page 5A Farmers, Willits tree sitters pulled from trees researchers fatten fish in rice fields By Linda Williams MediaNews Group WOODLAND (AP) — Alongside a flooded field of rice stubble, Jacob Katz dipped a fish net into turbid water and came up with a half dozen or so silvery juvenile salmon. After a century of watching rivers held back by levees and California wetlands developed into farm fields, conservation groups are having some success reversing environmental consequences — at least when it comes to sensitive salmon. And in a state where farmers and environmentalists fight constantly over scarce water, finding a way to use the same supply for two purposes could be game-changing. In February, researchers released 50,000 chinook salmon juveniles into a flooded 20-acre test field lined with canals and levees. On Wednesday, the last of those fish made their way down the Tule Canal 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 toward Northern California's Sacramento River and toward the ocean. Farmers and biologists collaborated to place young salmon in flooded rice fields to mimic the vast marshlands that originally lined the rivers of the Central Valley, where the fish thrived in their natural habitat. The Sacramento River used to spill its banks into rich tule marshes that were five miles wide in places, but it has since been channeled. ''When I look at the fish in the marsh, I say almost glibly that it's almost as if they evolved there, which of course they did,'' said Katz, a salmon researcher with California Trout. ''We've only recently come to understand that marsh was really, really valuable habitat,'' said Katz. ''Our system of dams and steep levees was built when very little was known about biology and very little consideration was given.'' See FISH, page 5A A large contingent of California Highway Patrol officers removed three tree-sitters Tuesday morning, and was in the process of removing the remaining two that evening. Amanda "Warbler" Senseman, who announced she was on a hunger strike March 28 after spending two months in a pine tree at the south end of the bypass route, was the first person removed. Officers suspended in man-lifts positioned themselves on two sides of her tree and removed her in the predawn hours. Conditions at the site were foggy and bystanders gathered on the west side of Highway 101 had poor visibility. As Senseman was being driven away in a squad car, Sara Grusky ran after the car and was promptly arrested. Will Parrish ran onto Highway 101 and sat down. Officers then dragged him off the highway and placed him under arrest. Shortly after the scene was secure, "Warbler's" pine tree was cut down. CHP and CalTrans vehicles, complete with MediaNews Group photo flares, had lined up bumper-to-bumper on both shoulders of Highway101 near Senseman's tree-sit in the darkness in anticipation of her extraction. Shortly after the arrests, officers began shifting to the East Hill Road site to begin removing the next two tree-sitters, currently only identified by the nicknames of "Rain" and "John." These tree-sitters had established nests in a small grove of pine trees on March 21. In anticipation of the raid, they had pulled their platforms up higher into the trees earlier in the week. The duo also had established a rope-andpulley network in the tops of most of the trees in the grove. They used this high-level network to move acrobatically from tree to tree as CHP officers approached. Officers used the newly created roadway between Highway 101 and East Hill Road to mass their forces and hold protesters and other observers behind the bypass fencing. Two large man-lifts, one with two officers and one with three officers, had the main task of removing the two men from the trees. Officers first began cutting and removing the ropes in an attempt to reduce the tree-sitter's mobility. The tree-sitters retaliated by throwing feces from their own See TREE, page 5A