DiamondXX.net

Our neighbor Moya Garcia posted this comment, but I think it belongs on the front page!

FYI about the red legged frog blocking creek crossing. It really exists someplace. One more strike against a bridge.

California Red-Legged Frog Named State Amphibian

Sacramento, CA…California now has an official state amphibian: the California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii),a state species of special concern. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has worked for many years to conserve and restore populations of this rare species….

Brownish frog with an orange back sits on a piece of wood in a wetland
A brownish-green frog with a reddish underside blends into mud and vegetation
A brown, black and coral-colored frog on multi-colored fallen leaves
Masses of purple eggs cling to vegetation in brown wetland water
By declaring the California red-legged frog the official state amphibian of California, the Legislature and Governor acknowledge the species’ important place in the ecology, culture and history of California. It also broadcasts and reinforces the state’s commitment to protecting its rare resources, which include amphibians.

Within California, it lives in various aquatic habitats from sea level to more than 5,000 feet in elevation, occupying a variety of aquatic habitats and their adjacent uplands in the coastal mountain ranges from southern Mendocino to northern Los Angeles counties and a few isolated areas in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It has been lost from most of Southern California, but some populations still persist in northwestern Baja California, Mexico. The California red-legged frog is the largest native frog in the western United States. Amphibians, especially frogs, provide an important function in aquatic ecosystems by eating insects and being a food source for other animals. They are also excellent indicators of the environmental quality of an area.

This species is the highly renowned frog that Mark Twain wrote about in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in 1865. They were abundant until the 19th century Gold Rush, when the human population suddenly tripled, and the “forty-niners” nearly ate them into extinction at a rate of approximately 80,000 frogs per year. When the over-consumption of California’s native frogs created a shortage, food sellers introduced non-native bullfrogs to replace them in the frog leg (food) market. Now those bullfrogs have become widespread, and compete for the same food source thus threatening the native frog species’ existence.

The California red-legged frog is listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, which prohibits them from being “taken” (harassed, harmed, pursued, hunted, shot, wounded, killed, trapped, captured or collected). It also prohibits adverse modification of their designated critical habitat without adequate mitigation.

The primary threat to California red-legged frog populations has been habitat loss. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the frog has seen a 70 percent reduction of its former geographic range, primarily due to conversion or degradation of habitat.

“We’ve learned a great deal about our impact on California species and their environment during the past century,” said CDFW Senior Environmental Scientist Rhianna Lee. “These frogs are unique members of their native ecosystems and the food web, evolving together so that all the pieces support each other for long-term survival. Removing one or more of the pieces can have a negative effect on the health of the environment.

Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill 2364 (V. Manuel Pérez, D-Indio) into law June 28. The proposal for a state amphibian was made by an after-school club at Sea View Elementary School in Salton City. Third grade students suggested the designation in a letter to Assemblyman Pérez.

Details about the California red-legged frog are on the web at http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=D02D

Thanks Moya!

Our neighbor Leo sent this to me:

The 20′ long 1′ wide I-beam at Singletree washout is gone.

Where is it, who took it, why?

It was used for crossing by multiple residents, it was quite helpful in

recreational activities, and helped kids to get places with their

bikes. Quality of life.

Missing one has slight bend to prevent rainwater standing in it. Like a

historic Asian bridge.

No assumptions yet whether someone sold it for scrap, made themselves as

raised bed, or some agency thought it wasn’t “to code”.

Looking for info, conversation before putting another one there.

If you cannot reply here, write to [noroadb4 then at sign then nrvr then

dot com]. More looking to prevent a repeat, not out to get anyone.

– Leo

I received this update from Adam Whitman at RKM:

Meridian didn’t get everything we wanted in this Basin Plan Amendment but we think that after 3-years and huge legal fees the Water Board has produced something we hope will provide regulatory certainty in the RMK site’s closure. To their credit, certain folks in the Regional Water Board worked hard on this too. We understand The Basin Plan Amendment to essentially authorize the Regional Water Board to say that there is salty water, some natural and some increased by mining, within some specific areas on the RMK site and that the overall impacts from mining are not significant enough to warrant any further action. This will  provide the Board with the legal authority to say it is OK for us to essentially continue doing what we have been doing for the last 7 years in order for Meridian to comply with the regulations over the long term. So the good news is that essentially no activity will change from what has happened at RMK in recent years. This project has been a lot of wrangling with multiple interpretations of regulatory definitions and analysis of technical data in order to change the verbiage in the Basin Plan to legally account for what many of us have known about the area for a very long time. Assuming this passes at the Regional and State Board meetings it will still be a VERY happy 2014 to have this issue resolved. We then will work on a “Comprehensive Management Plan” to complete formalizing what activities are to take place over the long-term at the site, followed by the Water Board issuing Final Waste Discharge Requirements (WDR’s) formalizing their requirements of how the Comprehensive Management Plan and monitoring be implemented. Using this last pace as a metric, that likely puts us into 2020 for completion of these two remaining permits! Haha! Please feel free to share any part of this with the rest of the neighbors, and post the Water Board’s notice link on the Diamond XX website. They are soliciting comments and as demonstrated in the public meeting held in Copperopolis, your comments can make a HUGE difference.

Water Board link

I hope that you had a great Christmas and have an even better New Year. Adam Whitman

To an open house with our new neighbors Dave & Casey Grimshaw:

Join us for some Christmas cheer…good food and good drinks. We’d love to meet our new neighbors!

Sunday, December 15th, 3pm until whenever

2868 Singletree Dr.

Please drop by to say hello!