Chestatee Chattahoochee RC&D Council

170 Scoggins Drive

Demorest, Ga

Frank Riley, Executive Director Activities 1/15/14 thru 3/26/14

Continuing to develop the Fire Adapted Communities pilot program in Towns County. The 2014 funds are $5,300 to cover expenses from January 2014 to June 2014. The program and grant has been extended to December 2015 which will give us time to spread the program around the surrounding area and eventually the Southeast. We already have presented the concept to White and Dawson counties and several others have expressed interest in joining our program.

I attended the Fire Learning Network meeting sponsored by the Nature Conservancy and others in Blairsville

I presented our FAC and Firewise program to Towns County Fire Rescue officers and County wide training

I was one of the two presenters in a Fire Adapted Communities webinar in February. There were 100 + people listening to what a lady in Texas and I had to say about our FAC programs. We are leading the Nation with our FAC pilot hub development.

I have assumed the Administrative duties for all of our EPD 319 grants and am directly involved with the EPD, the farmers who are having the actual field work done, and the agencies who lend technical assistance such as NRCS, Extension, Soil and Water Commission, UGA, and any others that offer help.

I have signed up 7 farmers to participate in our Coldwater Creek EPD 319 program. We will meet with the Steering committee next week to finalize the projects so the landowners can start their work. The Coldwater Creek grant runs through the end of December 2014, but our EPD rep has said that we can extend it if necessary. I don’t intend to ask for an extension.

The Mud Creek and Little Mud Creek EPD 319 grant ends in June 2014, but Cornelia has the last piece of it and is progressing nicely.

We facilitated the filming of the International Association of Fire Chiefs national Public Service Announcement in Towns County. This PSA was shown at the opening session of the IAFC convention in Reno and will be shown nation-wide and ChestChatt was given credit for it along with the GFC and Towns Fire Rescue.

I attended an Adopt-A-Stream class and now am certified to take water samples so I can handle our preliminary water samples with our EPD 319 projects which will save us money.

I attended the Georgia RC&D and GACDS meeting in Macon in January.

I have started my second round of yearly talks about what ChestChatt is doing to our 13 county commissioners and so far have met with Towns, Union, Dawson, and with the White County Emergency Preparedness group.

I was invited by the NARC&DC (at their expense) to Calabasas, California along with the other participating Councils, to attend a Debriefing session for the Wildfire Safe Sound and Code Smart workshop that we hosted back in August. The National RC&D Board of Directors was there for their annual meeting so I was able to meet most of that group and naturally I promoted our programs to the board. I also spent time with our National Executive Director, Andrew Gordon.

I am working with Doug Towery, the NRCS Conservationist for Union, Fannin, Towns, and Rabun counties to learn how to write Ag conservation plans and I am teaching him about Forestry. My goal is to complete the activities needed to become a TSP for the NRCS.

I attended the International Association of Fire Chiefs convention in Reno NV and presented our FAC program in a breakout session and also was in attendance when they previewed our FAC PSA during the opening session of the conference. At the conference, I was invited to participate on the IAFC Ready Set Go technical

Committee along with representatives from all across the US and the United Kingdom. While at the conference in Reno, I met the Who’s Who in wildfire agencies and groups from all over the world including the Deputy Chief of the US Forest Service who is talking to the NRCS about some collaborative programs that I intend to become a part of.

Each week of 2013 and 2014 to date - I have written a weekly newspaper article promoting Chest/Chatt projects and providing information that helps fulfill our mission of “assisting local people in planning and carrying out activities that conserve natural resources, support economic development, enhance the environment, and improve the standard of living for all citizens”. I send these articles to all of our 13 county’s newspapers each week. During the week of April 1st, our Customized, Ready Set Go Guides will be inserted in all 3,000 Towns County Herald newspapers. These RSG guides and other Firewise activities are funded by a $15,000 Firewise grant thru the Georgia Forestry commission.

I have had interest from Habersham County in renting, leasing, or buying our building. They are working on finding funds to lease, buy or a combination. The Public Defender’s office is the group that is interested in it.

I continue to attend (when possible) the 5 Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisors meetings.

Things to come soon

I will continue to work with Chest/Chatt RC&D council members to explore potential projects in their counties

I will promote Chest/Chatt to surrounding county officials using Fire Adapted and Firewise as programs that we can help them implement in their counties. Several of our counties have requested programs in the near future.

I have been invited to present our FAC program to the Cohesive Strategy Southern Region Partners group in Atlanta in April. This group is made up of people from the agencies that fund the FAC and Firewise programs and I plan to procure funds for Chest/Chatt to use to make our program grow.

I will travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado in June (all expenses paid) to attend the annual Fire Adapted Communities Coalition meeting.