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FEBRUARY 18-19 2012 WEEKEND 94 and Still Teaching Glory Days Page 7A RED BLUFF Breaking news at: www.redbluffdailynews.com Weather forecast 10B Mostly sunny 58/37 DAILYNEWS TEHAMACOUNTY DAILY $1.00 T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Learning the ropes Woman charged with burning arm of son, 10 A Red Bluff mother was arrested Thursday after reports that she intentionally burned her 10-year-old son with a curling iron. Staff at the boy's elementary school called police Thursday morning when he said burn marks on his arm were from his mother burning him with a curling iron. Officers interviewed the boy and his mother and determined that she had deliberately burned her son, See SON, page 9A Dry year, low level threaten salmon By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer The Sacramento River Discovery Center Thurs- day evening program fea- tured U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Fish Biologist Tricia Parker- Hamelberg with an update on salmon. Daily News photos by Andrea Wagner Colton Campbell, shown during a cutting event, is one of more than 180 high school students from all over the North State who are competing this weekend at the California High School Rodeo Association rodeo that started Friday at Tehama District Fairground. Below: Chelsey Bushnell of Red Bluff practices with her rope while visiting with other students. By ANDREA WAGNER DN Staff Writer Pulling out their horses and skills after slipping into their jeans and boots, 186 high school students are competing for buckles here this weekend at the California High School Association District Rodeo. The dirt was stirred up Friday afternoon as the competition began at Tehama District Fairground with boys and girls cutting events. Red Bluff falls in the associa- tion's district one, which stretches as from Butte County to the Oregon border and almost to the coast, said District Secretary Stephanie Ham- mons of Corning. Students through- out the district come to compete. In addition, organizers invited District 3, from the Lincoln area, to participate in the local rodeo, Ham- mons said. In all, 75 students from the local district are competing out of the 186 total. For many, getting to rodeos is not easy, Hammons said. "I want people to know how hard students work to be here," she said. The high schools have to sign-off on the students' attendance, so stu- dents have to make good grades and have good behavior, Hammons said. Many of the students are involved in other sports, as well. Each participant must have par- ent involvement, Hammons said. Getting into rodeos is a big invest- ment. See ROPES, page 9A Sept. 30 is the bench- mark for measuring water as Oct. 1 is the beginning of the new water year. Since that time, the water storage at Shasta Dam has been high and is at 71 per- cent full, she said. However, the rainfall has been low. Redding, which normally has an average of 22 inches between Oct. 1 and Jan. 31 only received 6.6 inch- es for that same period this water year. Low rainfall, combined with a reduction of water released, has left some of the salmon nests high and dry. Redds are the nests in the gravel where salmon eggs sit under gravel between January and April. With a reduction in water released of 3,000- 7,000 cubic feet per sec- ond, there are some nests that have been left out of the water. "Water right now is very important to redds," Parker-Hamelberg said. "The frys are very frag- ile." The frys, the first stages of salmon, need to stay in and be surrounded by water for a certain amount of time. Not all eggs were laid on the same day, so how long the redds need to be covered varies, she said. Since the rain was pro- jected to be late in arriv- ing, plans should have been made to take the salmon redds into consid- eration. The flows of the Sacra- mento River were high in October and November when chinook salmon, who are in the peak of spawning season in Octo- ber, were laying their eggs. That isn't the case now. About 10-20 percent of the chinook redds are out of the water, Parker- Hamelberg said. "We're especially con- cerned because not many came back and spawned in 2011," Parker-Hamel- berg said. "We are very concerned, but we know that the salmon popula- tion has fluctuations." Frys emerge between February and June, when the flow is strong enough go downstream. "They basically go where the water takes them," Parker-Hamelberg. Background on the Central Valley Project, which took place 1973- 1991, and the Central Val- ley Project Improvement Act of 1992 was given. The purpose of the pro- ject was to balance the needs of fish and people and focused on flood con- trol first, irrigation second and hydropower tied for third with fish and wildlife needs. In 1992, that priority See DRY, page 9A Corning to move 6th-graders, denies charter plan By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer The Corning Union Elementary School Dis- trict will be reconfiguring its schools, changing Maywood Middle School to a junior high and Woodson Elementary to a K-6 school. "We will be moving sixth grade back to the elementary site next year," said Superinten- dent Dr. Catherine Reimer. "We're excited about that opportunity. It will offer more choices to parents." The district, which includes five schools, has researched the reconfigu- ration, which included a parent survey in which several parents expressed a desire to have the kindergarten-sixth grade option, she said. 'The district felt it would take substantial work to correct what was in the petition' — Dr. Catherine Reimer "We're being respon- sive to the needs of the parents," Reimer said. "The District Site Lead- ership Team has done quite a bit of research. Empirical evidence shows the transition of students in fifth and sixth grade can have a negative effect on academic out- come." The board voted to make that change at the Feb. 15 meeting, when it also denied the petition for the proposed charter school Benjamin Franklin Preparatory Academy. "The charter school petition was denied for several deficiencies," Reimer said. "Deficien- cies in the education pro- gram, facilities and finan- cial statements were the major reasons why the district voted not to approve it." The petitioners said the issues could be cor- rected in talks with the district, however, the board decided that was not the case, Reimer said. "The district felt it would take substantial work to correct what was in the petition," Reimer said. "It has five other schools to run. At this time it was not incum- See CORNING, page 9A