E-R Article: May 4, 2004

Creekside project is moving ahead, slowly

By LAURA URSENY, May 4, 2004

Stream expert Roger Cole is moving forward on a Big Chico Creek project, but it's not the project he originally envisioned and it's not moving at the pace he expected.

Needless to say, Cole is happy to be working. Less than two months ago, he had no funding, a growing price tag on his project, and no hope of getting it off the ground.

Now he can pay for an engineer, a botanist, and a topography map of the targeted creek site. But his current dilemma is over what work might actually happen this year.

Cole's project is to create a flood plain at a particularly affected part of Big Chico Creek, near Bidwell and Nord avenues. The creek has cut deep into its bed and creekside erosion is occurring. By building a flood plain in an unoccupied area next to the creek, Cole believes he can avert erosion.

Earlier this year, Cole found the stream project stalled because of a California law that prohibits a mixing of paid workers and v! olunteers.

Like many other creek projects around the state, Cole was planning to use volunteer labor to help pull weeds and clear the creekside area so that the bank dirt work could get started.

Cole and Streaminders proposed the project, got it endorsed by the county and found state funding. It wasn't until the 11th hour that Cole discovered he couldn't use the volunteers he wanted.

State law requires a project using state funding to pay prevailing wages,largely to protect union wages.

Cole received a state grant for $197,449 for the creek work. The grant was originally frozen by the state's budget crisis, but has now been released.

To save his budget, Cole found he can use California Conservation Corps crews, which the Legislature has excluded from the prevailing wage law. Cole will still have to pay them, but $12 an hour rather than $32.

Because of the wages he has to pay, Cole has had to par back the project, probably by removing fewer weeds.

Because of the delay associated with the grant f reeze and prevailing wage issue, Cole has fallen behind where he expected to be at this point in time.

While the engineering work and a botanical study will probably occur next, it's unlikely that any weed removal or bankside digging will happen this year.

That means that Cole will have to petition the state for an extension of the project.

The creek "is subject to bank erosion. The water's banging against the bank here. We're trying to give it some room."

After the new flood plain is created, native trees and plants will be planted to help stabilize the bank.

Watershed groups throughout California have decried the situation Cole and others have faced with the shutdown of volunteer labor.

Cole said he understood legislation to correct the conflict is being proposed, but is still caught between environmental and union groups.

Berkeley Assemblywoman Loni Hancock is working on a proposed bill that would lift the prevailing wage r! equirement as it pertains to watershed projects.

Cole said he talked with an assistant to Chico Assemblyman Rick Keene about the issue, but didn't get a feel if Keene, then deep into workers' compensation issue, would support the legislation.