ACCW Wants Your Input on Bond Freeze Impacts

Los Angeles River - photo by Elon Schoenholz

I received word from Freeman House that there’s a new statewide watershed group just formed. Freeman put me in touch with David Simpson, who is coordinating the ACCW – the Association of Conservation Contractors and Workers. For background, see this ACCW article at Conservation Maven. They’re bringing together folks who’ve been impacted by the recent bond freeze.

The ACCW is gathering information on the impacts of the freeze, and requests that organizations fill out their survey. Some of these impacts were gathered by the Sonoma Ecology Center, and in L.A. by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council. See ACCW’s survey request below, including the link to their survey:

Invitation to Survey

Colleagues

We are writing to ask for your help in restarting and maintaining the flow of funding to conservation work that was halted by the December 2008 bond freeze. Corroborating the ongoing impacts of the freeze and bringing that information before decision-makers and the public is the best tool we have to get back to our work of protecting and improving the California environment.

To this end, we ask you to participate in this on-line survey on behalf of your organization or get it to someone else who might be better positioned to respond. All surveys received will remain confidential, and we will share the total results with all respondents. The link is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=M5PqcnjMxikktXf2DsN6yA_3d_3d

We urge you to tolerate us if we get more than one invitation to you, and we hope you will take the time to help make this survey successful — both by answering as fully as you can, and by passing on the survey to other groups. Policy-makers and the press still do not realize how severely land conservation and restoration continue to be impacted by the freeze, and gathering this data may be a powerful tool to remedy that situation. Thank you,

Association of Conservation Contractors and Workers

Mattole Restoration Council

Sonoma Ecology Center

For Additional Information contact accw.California@gmail.com