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Kings County Eyes "Mini Jail"

Kings County - Having failed twice to get taxpayers to cough up more money for a new 400 bed jail, Kings County supervisors are now considering using the funds they have on hand to build a mini jail - some 200 beds. “I guess half a jail is better than no new jail,” says supervisor Tony Oliveira who is pushing the idea along with his colleagues with the support of the sheriff.

County administrator Larry Spikes says the board held a study session on the problem some 6 weeks ago talking about the idea of using the $25 million in funds available to the county to build a correctional facility near the old facility on county property. Now the board has hired Teter Consultants and the Durant Architectural Group to advise them about the cost and feasibility of building a new 200 bed facility, says Spikes. “We expect some answers by the first of the year.” He says “we though it would be a good idea to get a third party to look at it.”

Spikes says the strategy they are pursuing now is to leave the older main jail alone, bring in the inmates from their branch jail that houses 161 detainees into the new 200 bed mini jail and allow the branch minimum security facility to house juveniles. Spikes says the county needs maximum security cells to house today’s tougher criminal.

While Kings voters were asked to approve funding to cover the 40% of the cost of a new 400 bed jail and did so by well over 60%, the vote fell short of the two thirds needed. Spikes says officials don’t want to try to get taxpayers to vote yes a third time - leaving them with this option. “We always told them we had enough ($25 million) to fund 60% of the cost of a new 400 bed jail,” says Spikes.

The county needs more future jail space, but this interim plan will only partially remedy that since it keeps what Spikes admits is an outdated old jail in place. But the plan does add about 40 beds for adults overall and its new design promises to be a more efficient jail, he notes requiring fewer staff per inmate to guard.

The community has faced the problem of detainees being let out of jail weekly because there was no room to hold them.

Getting a new juvenile facility will help that part of the equation if the county can afford the staffing.

Spikes says if the board gives a green light it could be 3 to 5 years before the new jail is built.

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Waterman To Close Exeter Foundry

Exeter - Exeter’s Waterman Industries will close its foundry and pattern operation that has been in town since the 1940s resulting in the layoff of about 65 people.

President of the company, David Appling whose grandfather built the foundry on G St., says the foundry was a drag on the business requiring expensive upgrades on emission controls but costing the operation more than he could buy cast items made elsewhere. “We can buy castings made elsewhere at half the price we can make it ourselves,” shrugs Appling. Then he finds himself paying more for his manufacturing operation located on Spruce to the south of town. The foundry makes parts for products made at the company’s machine shop and manufacturing plant that will continue and employs 200 people.

Waterman makes irrigation valves for agriculture along with equipment used at waste water treatment plants which is now some 60% of their business. They make water control gates, valves and equipment.

Despite the news, Waterman is thriving. “We are experiencing an increase in sales and profitability,” says Appling. “This will undoubted be one of our biggest years ever. The decision to close the foundry, instead, came from a strong desire within the company to sharpen our focus on our true strengths. With a constant stream of anti-business legislation coming from Sacramento, and the ever increasing demands placed on foundries by the air quality boards, EPA and other regulatory agencies, the foundry business in California has become very unattractive. We have chosen to concentrate our capital and efforts on the part of our business that continues to be vibrant and profitable, the manufacture of irrigation and water control equipment.”

The Waterman Foundry melted old engine blocks and other mostly recycled raw materials down to make caste for products that would be further manufactured at the company machine shop. Appling says they will now get such casting from specialized suppliers.

With tougher air emission expected, Waterman would be able to meet regulations as they are today but not the tighter standard of tomorrow, the figured. Appling says the 109,000 sq. ft. facility will be dismantled and its components sold off.

Waterman Industries began in 1912 just as irrigation was becoming big in Tulare County and central California. Located in the orange groves in Exeter, the company founded by William Waterman made products designed to deliver water to the thirsty orange groves that had sprouted in the area.

In 1951 son Herrick Waterman acquired the business and Herrick’s stepson Don Appling began working in the machine shop. This was about when massive irrigation projects around the central valley began that Waterman geared up to supply including casting large iron gates. Since then the company has expanded nationally and even internationally.

In January 2001 the fourth generation became owners when Don Appling retired and two sons, David and Ken and son-in-law Randy Mullins bought the firm.

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Packing Company Opens In Exeter

Exeter - Peninsula Packaging is opening a manufacturing plant on Anderson Rd. near Exeter this month. Plant manager Ed Byrne says the privately held company expects to hire up to 50 people by January with the installation of high tech equipment purchased from Germany recently.

The plant - the former Sequoia Pacific facility - is being leased between this company who will take 230,000 sq. ft. and Sequoia Voting Systems who retains 110,000 sq. ft., says Butch Oldfield of Facility Partners - the owner of the facility. Facility Partners bought the plant back in January after the printing operation there downsized.

Peninsula will make mostly plastic packaging material for the food, ag and baking industry, says Byrne who says the company was drawn to locate here both because it was the natural marketplace for the products and “the great workforce” he says. Byrne says the company will be hiring locally.

Peninsula was attracted to the building owned by Visalia-based Facility Partners “because of its availability and high tech security system,” says Bill Wittlatch, the broker who represented the owner. Welcome Home Realty represented Peninsula.

The news means that two former empty industrial buildings just west of Exeter will now be filled with new manufacturers now that Weyerhaeuser is making boxes at their Anderson Rd. plant, a former Workman Industries facility that was sold to them.

Sources say that Peninsula Packaging could grow into a major employer in Tulare County in the future - good news for a county that has long suffered unemployment and most recently has seen scores of empty industrial buildings on the market.

The good news about empty buildings - especially well designed buildings like this one - is when the market begins to turn around, companies can find space in a hurry. That appears to be the case with this firm.

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Drug Cartel Linked to Sequoia Pot Garden

By Miles Shuper

Tulare County - Professional gardeners have been raising outstanding crops this year in Sequoia National Park, but a 600 percent increase in harvest isn’t making them happy.

That’s because a task force of federal, state and local law enforcement officers including park rangers, did the harvesting.

So far this year about 53,000 plants, worth an estimated $170 million to $180 million have been seized as federal, state and local law enforcement agents conducted well-planned raids on nearly two dozen marijuana gardens. In the last six to seven weeks alone, the Mineral King and South Fork areas of Sequoia National Park 19 pot gardens yielding more than 35,000 plants worth about $140 million, were cut down and disposed of at a secret Tulare County location.

Authorities say the cultivation in the Park and the surrounding Sequoia National Forest is being funded and operated by a major Mexico based drug organization , the Magana cartel, which has found it easier and more profitable to grow the pot here instead of bringing it in large quantities across the border. Some officials say the crackdown on the border in the wake of Sept. 11 has added to the infestation of the national parks and forests by the Mexican drug kingpins.

Officers say the methods of layout, cultivation techniques, equipment and irrigation methods along with campsites and camouflage materials are quite similar in most all the gardens, further proof, they say, that “professional” pot farmers are being brought from Mexico to run the operations. Investigators say the identities some of those recently arrested and names of other suspected co-conspirators are connected to the same drug cartel which the task force targeted about two years ago. Some of those arrested in the Year 2000 operation are just beginning federal prison terms.

As part of the current multi-agency investigation, code-named Operation Big Foot, on Oct. 8 authorities in Tulare, Fresno and Madera counties executed 19 federal and state search warrants and arrested 24 persons, most of them undocumented Mexican aliens believed to be part of the cartel. Five of those arrests were made in Yettem. Lt. Bob Masterson, of the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department and Bill Mayfield, special agent with the California Department of Justice Narcotic Enforcement, said all five of those arrested in Yettem are suspected of being major players in the cartel. In the three-county raid, involving about 200 officers, numerous weapons, including assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols and shotguns, were seized along with about $45,000 in cash and some processed marijuana and other drug-related items.

Mayfield said the number and types of weapons being seized is an indication that the cultivation of the illegal crop is well-organized and funded and pose a serious threat to the safety of not only law officers but to park visitors.

Tulare County Sheriff Bill Whitman said the increased amount of weapons is just one indication that the intensified pot cultivation is the work of highly organized drug organizations. “They are becoming more bold and more dangerous,” the Sheriff said.

Several months ago one Tulare County pot farming suspect was killed in a shootout with authorities at a pot garden outside the forest. Special Agent Mayfield said there have three or four pot garden related shootings in the state in the last several years. He said there is evidence that pot gardeners have been ordered to shoot in defense of their crops. Bob Wilson, chief law enforcement officer for Sequoia National Park, said heavily armed camps have been found close to areas visited by park tourists, In one case, he said, a garden was found within one-quarter mile of a popular trail head.

Lt. Masterson said most of the gardens being raided are similar in design and materials used as well as in comparison to plots found in previous years. He believes that the Mexican Nationals being brought into the area are veteran pot growers who have honed their skills in the pot fields of Mexico where the cartels have long been established.

Wilson said cross-county hikers have been confronted by gardeners who pointed guns at them.

He also said natural resources and park wildlife are being endangered by the pot farming operations. Pesticides, fertilizers and other cultivation practices are harming water quality, human waste is contaminating streams and rivers, trees are being cut and ditches dug in preparing the plots. Rangers have found trees with graffiti carved into them and park wildlife is being poached and trash is piling up.

Authorities admit they have been keeping close tabs on the operation and suspects for months. In some cases, one investigator said, suspects were watched as they made trips to the growing areas. Officers also know where the suspects bought their cultivation supplies and camping supplies. Park Service personnel have the ability of detecting a pot garden up stream by checking for trace fertilizer helping officers with their monitoring efforts.

Law enforcement officials say the shift in major pot farming that despite the risk of discovery and arrest, and eradication of their crops, big time growers are finding it easier to grow the drug crop in the states than to smuggle it across the border.

One investigator, citing the intense surveillance of the Mexico-U.S. border since Sept. 11, put it bluntly: “It’s easier to smuggle people across the border than to smuggle drugs.” But, authorities say, Operation Big Foot is putting has put a big dent in the highly profitable activity.

Participant in the operation include the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department, the Park Service, the California Highway Patrol, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, the California National Guard and the Department of Narcotics Enforcement.

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After McNally Fire
Forest Restoration Job One

By Elizabeth F. van Mantgem

With the 150,696 acre McNally Fire finally 100% contained, the United States Forest Service (USFS) is now fully entrenched in the complicated task of forest restoration. While restoration sounds like a simple goal, it involves everything from emergency erosion control to long-term revegetation planning, monitoring, and research. Currently, only the Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) Team has been assigned to the task, but Terry Kaplan-Henry, USFS Forest Hydrologist and BAER team leader for the McNally fire, hopes to see National Fire Plan (NFP) money awarded to the McNally Forest restoration effort within the next year. In the meantime, Mother Nature is already initiating her own long-term restoration plan.

The Fire

The McNally fire was ignited accidentally on July 21st, close to the Roads End Resort in the Kern Canyon, jeopardizing the communities of Johnsondale, Ponderosa, and many other private and public holdings. It even burned within one mile of the nearest Giant Sequoia Grove, located within Sequoia National Monument, before it was successfully contained on its western border. On the fire’s northern boundary, it reached as far as Toowa Ridge (Inyo National Forest). To the south, it went as far as Baker Peak, blocked partly by the low fuels of the northern boundary of 1990 Stormy Fire. To the southeast, it was finally stopped at Bald Mountain Lookout, at the edge of the northern edge of the Manter Fire.

It took 489 incident personnel, four helicopters, two bulldozers, and five handcrews to contain the human caused blaze. The fight against the active burn was managed by the South Central Sierra Interagency Incident Management Team, led by Tom Rios, incident commander. When the fire was finally considered 100% contained on September 3rd, the Forest Service switched teams. According to their standard fire management protocol, emergency restoration of the burned McNally acreage then became the responsibility of the USFS BAER team.

BAER’S Emergency Plan

BAER teams all over the country are made up of specialists like the ones on the McNally Fire team. The specialists include people like soil scientists, hydrologists, geologists, biologists and engineers. Because a BAER team is literally “first aid” for wildfire damage, it must quickly map the area and prioritizes high severity zones for treatment. Part of what lends priority to a site is its public “value”, as in homes, campgrounds, and businesses, as well as its resource “value”, as in water quality and soil integrity.

For now, Ms. Kaplan-Henry says that there’s only money for the McNally BAER Team to, “target life, property, and resources.” With just $4 million dollars, she and her crew are focusing emergency erosion and runoff control efforts on a few high severity places, like Rattlesnake Creek, Nine Mile Creek and the headwaters of Manzanita Creek. Those creeks are considered high severity zones because the fire was so hot that even the pine needle litter was burned away, exposing bare soils on steep slopes and increasing watershed erosion rates to as high as 470% more than normal for downstream habitats, including towns. “Values” other than towns and property used to prioritize McNally emergency areas include: road and drainage structure integrity, trail drainage damage, threatened archeological and heritage sites, fragmented and reduced habitats for extremely vulnerable animal species like golden trout, threatened riparian and meadow zones, and the potential spread of noxious weeds like cheat grass.

Adhering to the BAER program’s stated goals, Ms. Kaplan- Henry reports that, “We’ve created burn severity maps by looking at different values downstream. The main ‘value’ for this burn is Kernville”. Because Kernville is downstream from the high severity burn areas, the town could really suffer from sediment runoff with late summer and autumn thunderstorms. Even worse, she says that in the winter months, “rain on snow will really get you”. And so the crew is absolutely hustling to beat the wet weather. So far, they’re right on target. The Sierra thunder and snowstorm of October 1st caused little damage.

To protect towns like Kernville and Johnsonville from rainstorm runoff, the BAER Team is heli-mulching (dropping one ton/acre of straw by helicopter) approximately 2,000 high severity acres, then contour felling (cutting and securing trees along steep slopes to stabilize soils) about 1,500 more acres. These activities, plus some sandbagging and about $300,000.00 dollars of roadwork will completely deplete the $4 million dollars of emergency funds from congress. Ms. Kaplan-Henry added that, “We requested more money for vegetation planning and monitoring, but only received the $4 million”. While no winter wheat seeding is planned, they would like to do some strategic willow planting for the further prevention of excessive stream bank erosion.

Longer Term Restoration Plans and the NFP

After BAER completes its “first-aid” tasks, the land will be largely left alone to heal. To augment this natural process, the government has created funding for long-term restoration and research. Every year, through the Dept. of the Interior and the Related Agencies Appropriations Act, the National Fire Plan (NFP) makes millions of dollars available for post-fire rehabilitation and restoration work all over the country. The work might include replanting and reseeding, wildlife habitat restoration, reforestation, watershed restoration, and research concerning erosion, flooding, or the spread of ecologically necessary, native fungi.

In fiscal year 2001, the NFP provided over $246 million dollars for 549 fire restoration projects in 19 different states. In this past 2002 fiscal year, it provided over $102 million dollars to continue many of the previous year’s projects, as well as to start new projects. The new projects that get funded in the upcoming year must still be evaluated and prioritized. Although NFP money has been requested for the McNally Fire site, it’s not necessarily guaranteed any assistance. Likewise, the USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW, Riverside) has shown some interest in conducting restoration research in the area, but as of yet, no plans have been confirmed. While the people interested in long-term restoration of the McNally Fire area will probably get some financial assistance, it’s still very early in the restoration process. The extent of the assistance must still be determined.

Mother Nature Takes the Lead

But even without long-term federal funding, natural restoration has begun, as expected. The region is naturally dry and fire prone, a place where the plants and trees are adapted to burning as often as every 10 to 20 years. While the large acreage of the McNally Fire may have been more extensive than any naturally occurring fire (largely because of human fire suppression and the resulting buildup of natural fuels like downed wood and small trees), most ecologists agree that fire needs to be carefully introduced back into the Sierra ecosystem.

Today, wildlife has already started to return to the McNally area and new trees are growing from burned stumps. “This black oak (picture) is not a survivor, it is a resprout from a burnt stump that came up about two weeks after the fire. These are all over the place and are about 3 to 4 feet high now. Ma Nature’s Recovery!” says Ms. Kaplan-Henry. It’s an encouraging sight.

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