{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Board moves forward with plan to create water agency","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"August 8, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors agreed in a narrow vote last week to approve the idea of a water agency. During budgeting in June, the board agreed to allocate $250,000 from the PG&E settlement to form the agency.\r\n\r\nAnd, to comply with a new law, SB 552, which requires drought planning, the board agreed unanimously to formalize the drought task force into a standing committee, consisting of Supervisors Glenn McGourty and John Haschak. At the moment, the Department of Transportation is in charge of water issues, but McGourty told the board that he thinks the county should create a water resources team consisting of the drought committee and county staff collaborating with experts at the U.C. Davis Cooperative Extension. Some of them, including McGourty himself, have already done water studies in Mendocino County. In 2012, McGourty led a study on ag water use in the Navarro River watershed.\r\n\r\nCEO Darcie Antle offered a quick calculation of how much she thinks it will cost to hire a consultant for a quarter million dollars. “If you are going to be payin ga consultant $200 an hour for roughly a thousand hours, our staff would be required to attend the meetings as well to stay current,” she said. “I believe that happened last year, where I had Sara Pierce on most of the meetings, and also Judy Morris or Steve Dunnicliff, as well as Brent, who helped coordinate all the calls with CalOES. So for every consultant hour you’re probably looking at two or three hours of staff time…if we’re going to do the grant writing, and I don’t believe we want to pay a consultant that amount of money to help write our grants. We have another contract out for grant writing. Typically, for every grant, it’s costing us anywhere from six to ten thousand dollars per grant, so it’s going to add up quickly. I would estimate roughly, with the staffing level that we’re out, we would be doubling the amount.”\r\n\r\nHaschak favored another proposal, by Department of Transportation...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}