President's Outlook

December 2008

  The present activities of the Westside Resource Conservation District (Westside RCD) address large, far-reaching issues that no one person can fully understand. As President of the Westside RCD I rely on our resourceful General Manager for knowledge and experience and on fellow Westside RCD Board Members and friends of our district for their interests and expertise. This web site will be our means to share our concerns and challenges with the world; the world can look back into the problems we trying to solve and suggest remedies. Potential collaborators and even the general public inside and outside the United States can share their insights and ideas. Even critics of us farmers who import water from Northern California to irrigate drainage-impaired soils can exact criticisms that identify the problems we most urgently need to solve. Our web site is our means of talking to all parties. Earnest exchange is the way we'll walk with others toward progress.

  We propose to keep west side streams from transporting and depositing harmful quantities of selenium and asbestos fibers on farm land. If we succeed, our techniques can be used in thousands of locales in arid states like Nevada, Arizona and Utah and arid countries like Australia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. The Integrated On-Farm Drainage Management (IFDM) method we are perfecting may be applicable any place in the world where imported water is used to irrigate drainage-challenged soils. Ethiopian rain water is imported to irrigate crops in Sudan. China is setting up large irrigation projects. If the Chinese, Sudanese and others need our IFDM method, we'll be able to license its use. The Westside RCD is embarking on an upland habitat development project that will may ultimately encompass tens of thousands of acres. If a substantial portion of this habitat provides refuge for endangered species, that particular upland habitat will have an enormous value for mitigation of large scale irrigation drainage management and commercial development. The Westside RCD's Clean Energy Project will help farmers and agricultural processors reduce their use of fossil fuel based electricity and petroleum based motor fuels and in doing that will create carbon credits. In many cases the sale of carbon credits will yield more revenue than the value of the energy cost savings gained by implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

  We have initiated important programs, and we deserve to be rewarded if we execute them well. Our web site will help us gather information, knowledge and wisdom from other people. It will facilitate the collaboration of other organizations with the Westside RCD to carry out our programs effectively. Let us exchange information and ideas and learn together. We are many people working toward common ends. One person cannot do all the information gathering, synthesizing, program development, grant writing, program implementation, evaluation and the rest. We'll need the contributions of the Westside RCD General Manager, fellow board members, friends, collaborators, the general public, and even our critics. We have the world wide web at our disposal. Let's communicate!


Philip Erro, President
Westside Resource Conservation District
philiperro@sbcglobal.net