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THURSDAY RB - Corning SEPTEMBER 19, 2013 Oakland Aced Shootout Preview tab Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com See Inside SPORTS 1B DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF Sunny 91/59 Weather forecast 8B 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 Grant will build abused women's shelter By RICH GREENE DN Staff Writer Tuesday's Red Bluff City Council meeting was light on elected officials, but heavy on good news for the community. While the agenda was kept light with Mayor Wayne Brown and Mayor Pro Tem Daniele Jackson not in attendance, some breaking news led to smiling faces in the council chambers. City Manager Richard Crabtree announced the city had received word Tuesday that it won a $1.35 million Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grant will provide $1.25 million for Alternatives to Violence's emergency shelter and transitional housing project. The non-profit group assisting victims of domestic violence is constructing a 24-bed emergency shelter. The facility will house supportive services and transitional housing is also planned for the property. The Daily News is not naming the location of the facility for security reasons. The remaining $100,000 in grant funding will pay for the city's Americans with Disability Act Self-Evaluation and Transition Plan. The city must pay a $5,000 cash match for Hoarded dogs seized that portion of the grant. By happenstance Alternatives to Violence officials for were in attendance Tuesday as the city proclaimed Domestic Violence Awareness Month as one of three proclamations. The city also proclaimed See GRANT, page 7A East Sand Slough fire cleanup talk The Mendocino National Forest invites people interested in learning about the plans to remove charred vegetation from the East Sand Slough fire area to attend the Sacramento River Discovery Center's Thursday evening program meeting tonight at 7, at the Farm Bureau building, 275 Sale Lane. Forest Service personnel will be starting vegetation removal in the slough area in the next couple of weeks. The USFS wants to be sure that the vegetation is safely removed from the fire area and asks residents to refrain from entering the slough. Materials from the slough will be relocated to a safe location. Questions and concerns will be addressed by trained USFS fire personnel at the meeting. Applications for wood cutting permits will be available at the end of the meeting. Wood cutting permits will be required for any vegetation removed from the site. There are plans to leave some vegetation in the See SLOUGH, page 7A Klamath water task force making progress Daily News photo by Andre Byik Christine McClintock, who manages the Tehama County Animal Care Center, cares for one of the 27 dogs seized by the Tehama County Sheriff's Office from a feces-ridden Red Bluff home Wednesday. By ANDRE BYIK DN Staff Writer The Tehama County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday seized 27 dogs from a repossessed and feces-ridden Red Bluff home. Authorities were completing an eviction notice at 240 San Joaquin Drive when they discovered the dogs, said Phil Johnston, Tehama County's assistant sheriff. The 52-year-old woman who lived at the residence was not home at the time and has an outstanding warrant for running an unlicensed kennel, Johnston said. The woman, whose name was not released, is still being sought and now faces potential animal cruelty charges. "There was mounds and mounds of dog feces piled in different corners of the residence," Johnston said, adding, "Living conditions were deplorable really." Most of the dogs were between 2 and 3 years old, said Christine McClintock, who manages the Tehama County Animal Care Center. "I was shocked at the conditions they were in as far as the fearfulness and the undersocialization," McClintock said. "That's all human caused. Their behaviors, their medical conditions all stem from a human cause." McClintock said the dogs seemed to have been contained in the house for years without ever being let outside. "Their feet are all matted from constantly walking on fecal matter and urine," she said, adding the dogs also suffer from eye issues and have mats in their hair. "Most of them are pretty terrified and they have sad souls," McClintock said. "You look at their eyes and they're just, they're kind of blank right now." She said the dogs also were See DOGS, page 7A GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A task force working on an agreement for sharing scarce water in the Klamath Basin has made progress on securing lowcost power for irrigators but will need more time to complete its work, officials said Wednesday. The thorniest issue — finding ways to ensure cattle ranchers have irrigation water while the viability of fish sacred to the Klamath Tribes is protected — is proving the toughest to resolve. The task force's last meeting had been scheduled for Thursday in Klamath Falls, but it will need a few more weeks to finish. ''All the parties involved in the water negotiations are working hard to get to agreement,'' said Richard Whitman, the governor's natural resources adviser, who is overseeing the task force's work. The task force was created by the governor and members of Congress after drought and newly recognized water rights for the tribes forced irrigation shutoffs to ranchers on the former reservation. Its report will serve as a supplement to the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which is a companion deal to an agreement to help salmon by removing four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The restoration agreement has been bogged down in Congress, where it is adamantly opposed by House Republicans. A draft report being conSee WATER, page 7A Cleanup continues from Panther Fire near Butte Meadows By ASHLEY GEBB MediaNews Group BUTTE MEADOWS — Listen quietly, and you can hear the crunchmunch-gnawing of countless wood beetles fattening themselves on fireravaged timber. Several miles deep along the J Line off Highway 32, the dense forest opens to an impressive view akin to a black, brown and green patchwork quilt. Barely four months ago, the thousands of acres were ablaze with a fast-moving fire that licked up canyons and raced over ridgetops with a changing intensity that left varied impacts in its wake. For some people, the Panther Fire is a distant memory from the more recent Swedes, Deer and Rim fires. But for firefighters who continue to monitor still-smoldering 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 trees and lumber companies trying to harvest charred timber, impacts of the May blaze continue. "The best thing you can do is get in, salvage the merchantable timber, get some trees growing and start sequestering carbon in there again," said Jay Francis, forest manager for Collins Pine. "That's the best thing for the environment, the wildlife and the owners, who want to see a stream of cash for their value into the future." The cause of the 6,965acre fire eight miles outside Butte Meadows remains undetermined. It sparked May 1 and burned for eight days before it was fully contained, with 821 firefighters battling the blaze at its peak. The fire ripped through 2,000 acres of Collins Pine's timber production, causing significant damage to 80 percent of it. In order to save the wood, the company scrapped plans for green timber harvest elsewhere and Media News Group photo by Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record District Forester Jesse Barnett surveys the charred ridge line in an area ravaged by the Panther Fire in this Sept. 11 photo. quickly started in the burnt forest. "We pride ourselves in sustainable forest management," Francis said. "We have been operating on this particular forest for over 70 years. Our goal is to make sure we never harvest more than what we grow, and any time we have a fire like that, it throws a wrench into our plan." Timber companies don't have long to recover. The longer it takes to harvest, the more time the hot summer sun, wood beetles and other factors have to wreak havoc. "The day that the tree dies, it starts the process of deterioration," Francis said. "The sooner you can get in there and harvest those trees and get them to the mill, the less value you will lose." Quick to harvest Some stands have already been picked clean but a few are still thick with dead trees. In the steepest areas, helicopters partner with ground crews to get the logs out. Last week, a shovelloader contracted by Sierra Pacific Industries was wrapping up harvest, sorting piles of charred timber by size, species and length before transport to a mill near Lincoln. When its engine was off, the voracious munching of beetles added a quiet chorus to the otherwise still forest. Short, blackened stumps dotted the hillside along with smaller fallen trunks. Sierra Pacific Industries lost about 900 productive acres of pine and fir in the Panther Fire's path, said company spokesman Mark Pawlicki. It was all secondgrowth forest less than 100 years old, with trees ranging up to two feet in diameter. The fire-damaged acreage is only a fraction See FIRE, page 7A