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| Keith Crossley and Dale Warmuth |
GUESTS OF ROTARIANS: Carlton introduced 3 guests from Teen Challenge Tim, Rachel and Emily. Carol Rische introduced John Friedenbach, Business Manager at Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. STUDENT GUESTS: No student guests but Ted Loring said he’s talked to our outbound student Eli Savage who is having too much fun in Brazil. We’ve selected our outbound student who will be going to Bolivia.
PAUL HARRIS: Keith Crossley introduced our newest Paul Harris Fellow, Dale Warmuth. Dale received a standing ovation from his fellow Rotarians along with a pin, giant necklace and certificate. BIRTHDAYS: Bob Morse, Neal Carnam, Chris Freeman, John Gierek Junior and Nathan Nilsen are all celebrating birthdays this week. John Gierek celebrated with his favorite drink… a gin and tonic, dinner with his family and by working all day. Nathan’s celebration is still to come. President Gregg asked them to please think about their fellow Rotarians while they are out celebrating. NEW MEMBER: Our newest returning member, Cici, owner of the Irish Shop was re-introduced by Past President Dr. Kim Bauriedel. She received a red badge that will quickly be exchanged for a blue badge since she had already earned the blue badge in her past life as a Rotarian. Cici was welcomed back by the club. Past President Tom Schallert provided the Past President address. RECOGNITIONS: Carlton donated the majority of his weekend to cooking for a gathering of 22 exchange students, barbecuing trip-tip one night and pork shoulder the other. Carlton said it’s amazing how much food teenage boys can eat.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: J Bahner reminded us that February 14th is coming up… the date of our annual fundraiser. Right now only 50% of the club has purchased their tickets. Please get your money to J as he needs to let the caterer know how many meals to prepare. President Gregg reminded the club that the Annual Fundraiser is part of our annual commitment when we join Rotary. Everybody is required to purchase a ticket and if possible attend the event. J noted that if you are unable to attend, please give your ticket to somebody who would enjoy a nice dinner and a great time. President Gregg announced there is a board meeting tomorrow, 12 noon at the Ingomar. Red badges are welcome. Doug Lanning was welcomed back after a year and a half absence. He looks forward to being able to attend more often in the future. SPECIAL PRE-PROGRAM: Teen Challenge graduate, Rachel talked about Teen Challenge noting that Teen Challenge has partnered with our Rotary Club on many projects including Winship School and now the Boys and Girls Club… Teen Challenge helps people whose lives have been affected by drug or alcohol addition become contributing members of society. They purchased the Garden Motel on 4th Street and house 50 men there who are turning their lives around. At 7th and T Streets there is a Woman’s House that houses 25 women. Rachel is a 1988 graduate of Teen Challenge. This program provides a structured vocational program for people leaving prison, those who may have been homeless, in the foster care system, etc. They provide tree, lawn, construction, janitorial services and more. They are going to be adding curb appeal services soon that will include the cleaning and weeding of curb areas on various streets. If you have a need call to schedule their time. Tim introduced a video featuring Past President Bush who spoke about the value of Teen Challenge, a national and even worldwide program. Emily told us her story. She’s from Toledo Ohio, 18 years old and came from a good, supportive family. She started shooting heroin when she was 15 and dropped out of school, lost all of her friends, etc. Her mom found Teen Challenge and she’s been in the program 6 months and can already tell that she’s changed for good. She said it’s the first time she’s ever looked forward to having a future.
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| Pat Folkins |
SPENGLER-HOWARD RAFFLE: Pat Folkins won a bottle of Riverbend Cellars wine. Jerry XXXXX drew from the deck of cards for the joker and a pot of $400. No luck. The pot next week will go to $420. GUEST SPEAKER: Past President Bruce Rupp was our guest speaker representing the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) where he sits on the board of directors. Bruce noted that the presentation he is making has already been made to the Humboldt and Trinity County Boards of Supervisors. He also noted that after a 20 year history with the HBMWD General Manager Carol Rische is retiring. He talked about Carol’s time with the district and the valuable asset she has been to the district and our community. He hopes that in June, prior to her retirement, Carol will have the opportunity to give a presentation before the club discussing the many changes that HBMWD has made over the past 20 years. Bruce said that the HBMWD has been focusing on Water Resource Planning. When the water system was built over 50 years ago there were two large pulp mills using a lot of water. They basically underwrote the cost of developing the infrastructure and helped to keep costs down for other water users. Today we have no more large industrial customers. The result is idle infrastructure with a significant cost increase to the district’s municipal customers and a potential loss of water rights. The State basically owns our water and leases it to us. If we don’t use it they can take it back. The HBMWD has been addressing this issue for the past 6 years since the loss of their industrial customers. They are focused on 1. The protection of water rights 2. Fiscal sustainability 3. Environmental Sustainability. To do this they must evaluate how they can increase local water usage, understand the environmental benefits to enhancing stream flow, and the possibility/costs of transporting water out of the area. They hired HSU students to study which industries would utilize a lot of water and found that basically if we recruited every brewery to Humboldt, we still wouldn’t use all of the available water. The pulp mills used a lot of water. In regards to the transportation of water they initially focused on transferring water to the Northern California area… Sonoma County, etc. The cost to use water bags that would float to these areas, came in at $6,000 an acre foot. Right now Sonoma and other counties in this area are paying much less an acre foot. Then HBMWD started looking at pipeline possibilities which brought the costs down to $1,800 to $2,000 an acre foot. Focus initially would be Sonoma, Marin and then if that didn’t pan out on to other areas. The cost of pipeline construction very roughly is estimated at $491 million for an eastern route and $759 million for a southern route. These are rough figures and Bruce thinks these numbers can go down. Time was up and that was the end of the talk. MEETING ADJOURNED: 1:30pm Respectfully submitted, Alicia Cox
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