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THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2012 www.redbluffdailynews.com See Page 4A Breaking news at: Pastimes Cinderella Waltz Tonight RED BLUFF Semi Previews SPORTS 1B Partly cloudy 68/47 Weather forecast 8B DAILYNEWS TEHAMACOUNTY DAILY 50¢ 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 Man nearly loses thumb in attack off Wednesday by a butcher knife during an altercation with another man. A 44-year-old man almost had his right thumb cut Around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, Tehama County deputies responded to Ash Lane in the Bend area of Red Bluff for a report of a man being stabbed. According to a Tehama County Sheriff's Depart- ment press release, deputies learned two Red Bluff men, Jeffrey Laverne Miller and 42-year-old David Martin McDonald, had been arguing for several hours. Eventually McDonald picked up a butcher knife and See THUMB, page 7A Corning budget hinges on fuel sales By JULIE ZEEB DN Staff Writer CORNING — The City Council received an update on projected 2012- 2013 budget versus the actual budget from City Manager Director John Brewer at Tuesday's meeting. Several key factors may adversely affect the rosy picture the council was given at the mid-year budget meeting in Febru- ary, Brewer said. Two of the larger fuel sellers in town are down with construction with a third close to going under construction for upgrades, he said. Brewer said. "Fuel sales are 61 percent of our sales tax revenue. Having the fuel islands closed is not good for us, but we can't really gauge the impact until the third quarter in January." "I am concerned," John Richards of Corn- ing's Walberg Construc- tion, which is working on the Petro and TA truck stops, was asked to give the council an update on the project. While the project at Petro is going well and the company was expect- ing to do backfill work on Wednesday, there have been snags at the TA truck stop and it could take until January to get it fully back in working order, Richards said. While most of the sales tax areas were up, fuel sales were down 5.6 per- cent, Brewer said. Salmon fall short Daily News file photo By RICH GREENE Reduced pumping due to the fuel islands could be mitigated by the higher fuel prices that hit the North State a few weeks ago, he said. There was $210,000 in sales tax revenue misallo- cated to Butte County, but it was expected to be recovered during the See FUEL, page 7A that was part of the lawsuit that spurred the permanent raising of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam gates is saying federal agencies are still fail- ing to meet salmon repopulation goals. DN Staff Writer An environmental organization The Natural Resources Defense Council released a new salmon index Tuesday showing the Sacra- mento-San Joaquin Basin Chinook salmon natural population is only at 13 percent of a required federal goal. The index comes out as Califor- nia's ocean fishing season closed Sunday and in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the Central Val- ley Project Improvement Act, which set a goal of doubling salmon runs from 495,000 to 999,000 wild adult fish by 2002. Ten years ago the index reported 64.33 percent of the goal had been reached, but salmon numbers have plummeted since then. In a press release the Natural Resources Defense Council blames the decline on ineffective enforce- ment by federal and state agencies and continued excessive pumping of water from Bay-Delta water- ways. The study shows the salmon goal reached a record low of 7 percent in Tiny survivor thriving By KACI POOR MediaNews Group Chips, the bobcat kit- ten who attracted national attention after she was rescued by a Six Rivers National Forest Mad River Ranger District hand crew working the Chips Fire near Lake Almanor in July, has made a full recovery, a new friend and soon will have a new home. Tom Millham, secre- tary and treasurer for the Lake Tahoe Care Center, said the 3-and-a-half- month-old bobcat has gained about six pounds and moved on from her diet of mushed mice to pork ribs, chicken thighs and baby chicks since arriving at the center in August. "Chips is growing up to be just a normal little bobcat," he said. Cheryl Millham, exec- 2010. It blames increased water diversions, citing a 20 percent increase in pumping between 2000- 2006 as compared to 1975-2000. "Despite indefensible foot-drag- ging and countless lawsuits, salmon restoration has remained the linch- pin of federal water policy in Cali- fornia for 20 years," U.S. Rep. George Miller is quoted as saying in the press release. "California salmon support busi- nesses and communities up and down the West Coast and it's long past time for the federal agencies to take their responsibility to our state's wild fisheries seriously," he See SALMON, page 7A Calif debuts landmark program to cap emissions SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California began auctioning permits Wednesday for green- house gas emissions, launching one of the world's most ambitious efforts to cut heat-trap- ping gases from industrial sources. The California Air Resources Board said it began selling the pollu- tion ''allowances'' in a closed, online auction expected to create the world's second-largest marketplace for carbon emissions. MediaNews Group photo utive director of the cen- ter, said Chips, who sur- vived the fire that burned tens of thousands of acres in the Plumas and Lassen national forests, got a new roommate in late Septem- ber. Sierra, a male bobcat estimated to be about a week older than Chips, came to the care center after he was found orphaned in Lassen Coun- ty. With plenty of energy, Cheryl Millham said she hopes Sierra will show Chips how to be a "proper Chips, a female bobcat rescued by a Mad River hand crew working a forest fire near Lake Almanor in July, plays with her new roommate. Sierra, a male bobcat, was rescued after he was found orphaned in Lassen County. Photo provided by Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care Center secretary and treasurer Tom Millham. bobcat." Over one of the care center's webcams, the two young bobcats can be seen pouncing and tum- bling across the obstacles in the bobcat enclosure as they wrestle with each other. Chips, a female and younger, appears to hold her own as she playfully bats at Sierra. Hand Crew Superinten- dent Tad Hair, who said he found the young kitten as he was driving through a burnt swath of land on his way back to camp an Aug. 25. the kitten whimpered as Hair approached. "I thought at first she "I got out of the truck and I couldn't believe it," Hair said. "It was a kitten, a bobcat kitten." 7 5 8 5 5 1 6 9 0 0 1 9 Cheryl Millham said the young bobcat has fully recovered from the burns to her four tiny paws and an infection in her eyes since she was rescued by Mad River Hair said he trailed the kitten through the dust for a few minutes before he decided to intervene. He could tell something was wrong. Alone, seemingly dazed and with second- degree burns on her paws, was blind," Hair said. "Her eyes were full of soot and puss. I knew a mama cat would never have let that happen if she was around. At that point, I decided I had to do something." After unsuccessfully trying to locate the kitten's mother, Hair contacted supervisors and brought the bobcat to the incident command post where offi- See TINY, page 7A Under the program, the state sets a limit, or cap, on emissions from indi- vidual polluters. Busi- nesses are required to either cut emissions to cap levels or buy allowances through the auction from other companies for each extra ton of pollution dis- charged annually. scope, and it currently operates the world's largest carbon market- place. A much less inclu- sive The board said the results of the auction — what price is paid for a ton of carbon, and how many companies partici- pated — would be released Nov. 19. The cap-and-trade plan is a central piece of AB32, the state's landmark 2006 global warming regula- tions. scheme covers only elec- tricity producers in the northeastern United States. Failure of the Califor- nia program would be a devastating blow to car- bon control efforts nation- ally, said Severin Boren- stein, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an expert on energy economics. ''Cap and trade is still probably the most likely way we eventually could get to a national carbon mitigation program,'' Borenstein said. For the first two years of the program, large industrial emitters will receive 90 percent of their allowances for free in a soft start meant to give companies time to reduce emissions through new technologies or other means. cap-and-trade The auction was being closely watched national- ly, as the world's ninth- largest economy institutes a program that has eluded lawmakers in Washing- ton. Only the European Union has implemented a similar plan in terms of allowances, will decline over time in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions year-by-year. If a business cuts emis- sions below its cap, it could profit by selling its extra allowances at a later auction. The cap, or number of Firms can also gener- ate credits by investing in forestry and other projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere. Those credits can satisfy up to 8 See DEBUT, page 7A