December 2017

CTD Newsletter: December 2017

Happy Holidays!!

From all of us the the CTD: We wish you a warm holiday season and the best going into the new year!

Good News for Planners!

NRCS Washington has consolidated and improved the Resource Concerns Checklists as of September 2017!!

We now have only four cehcklists: cropland, farmstead, range and pasture, and forestry. The new resource concerns checklists are easy to find for your county in the Washington Electronic Field Office Tech guide (eFOTG) at: https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/efotg_locator.aspx?map=US. Under the eFOTG, Section 3, table of contents, you'll find the “FY18 Cropland Resource Concerns Checklist”, along with the others. Along with the checklists, take note of the "Resource Concerns Checklist Overview", a document which will help you to better understand how to use the checklists.

One checklist change that many of us will appreciate is that riparian planning is now incorporated within the four land uses, rather than having its own individual "Associated Ag Land" (or "Other Land") checklist. So now, when doing riparian planning, you use the checklist for the adjacent land rather than a separate checklist. Easy-peasy!

Another improvement is the clarification that a "True" check indicates the resource concern is not a problem, and a "False" check indicates the resource concern must be assessed to determine if it is actually a resource concern that needs to be addressed.

There is also some nice margin space for additional notes that some of us like to include about what we note in the field. Additional documentation notes are often helpful to remind us of our reasoning when reviews are done.

I certainly appreciate the folks at the Washington NRCS office who helped make these improvements! I am sure you will too, once you use these new and improved checklists.

If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact Larry Brewer at lbrewer@scc.wa.gov or call and leave a message at 360-701-7859.

District Highlight

District Name: San Juan Islands Conservation District

Size: 621 sq mi

Population: 16,252

# Employees: 11

Main Programs:

• Voluntary Stewardship Program

• Resource Management Planning: Farm and Forest

• Shoreline Stewardship

• Youth Conservation Corps

• Farm & Forest Cost Share

• Fire-wise Communities

• Water Resource Management, including water quality and flow monitoring

• Habitat Restoration/Salmon Recovery

• Energy Conservation

• Energy Roundtable

• Green Home Tours

• Community Solar

• Solar for Schools

• San Juan Islands Electric Vehicle Association

Key Partners:

• San Juan County

• San Juan County Terrestrial Managers Group

• Bureau of Land Management (National Monument)

• San Juan County Agricultural Resource Committee (ARC)

• Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC)

• Orcas Power and Light Cooperative (OPALCO)

• San Juan County Noxious Weed Board

• Washington State Parks

• National Parks Service

• San Juan County Land Bank

• Lopez Community Land trust

• Islands Climate Resilience

• The Madrona Institute

• San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild

• USDA -REAP

• Spark Northwest

• Northwest Straights Foundation

• Marine Resource Committee

• San Juan County WSU Extension

Most Proud of:

In 2017 The San Juan Islands Conservation District has taken over the San Juan Islands Youth Conservation Corp. We are so proud of all our YCC Kids this year and all of the amazing work they did to help conserve the natural beauty of the San Juan Islands! The Youth Conservation Corp. fosters the spirit of stewardship, conservation and community to the next generation of Islanders.

Fun Facts

• The San Juan Islands have the largest amount of Public Electric Vehicle Charging Stations per capita in Washington State, with more chargers being added all the time!

• There isn't a single traffic light anywhere in San Juan County.

• Plus, there is an average of 158 days of Sunshine a year. That is half the rain of Seattle!

Aglearn/eauthentication Accounts* REMINDER

This is a friendly reminder to all of those with Aglearn accounts to remember to log in to your account every 30 days to main access by using your eauthentication User ID and password to get into Aglearn. The CTD recommends setting up a reminder in your Outlook calendar. If you do not take the Information Security Assessment your account will be inactivated, this normally happens around April of each year. If you are locked out of Aglearn, contact the Aglearn helpdesk directly to reactive your account: NRCS.AgLearn@ftw.usda.gov. If your eauthentication account is inactivated or your password does not work you need to contact eauthentication helpdesk directly. Click here for more information to help you out.