In my spare time I troll the Internet for information that pertains to river restoration and the other areas of interest for our flood recovery efforts.

If you know where to look, there are thousands of presentations on the Internet about river restoration. Last night I came across a whole new concept: HabiTubes.



They are tubes made of a rope-like material that get stuffed full of dead leaves from the riverbank and anchored in the water to attract bugs and micro-organisms that will bring back the bio-diversity of a damaged river. Following our big flood event, much of our river has been scoured of plants and bugs so there is nothing for the fish to feed on when they get ready to come back. I'd never come across this idea before, so it's exciting to think of the possibilities.

Most of today I worked on developing a procurement policy for our river coalition. If we don't handle our contracts correctly, the government could ask for their millions of dollars back. One example of what we have to do is affirmative hiring of contractors that are owned by minorities and/or women. It's not enough to advertise the opportunities where that sector might see them, we have to develop a list of those entities and contact them directly to let them know we are looking for a contractor in their area of expertise.

We didn't do that on the first contract, but now that the second contract is coming up, we'll make more of an effort and see how it goes. Our county has some kind of economic program that is supposed to help small companies obtain government contracts, so I will contact them to see what they suggest. Maybe they've already got that list, and we'll be good to go.


Look at that background - it looks like a painting.

Monday night we had a foot of snow and I can barely make it to the highway without high-centering the truck. A couple more inches and I'd have had to get out my Bobcat and do some plowing. What a process that is, the difficulty is compounded by the damage the bears did to the garage door. Once I get inside, I'd have to move the riding mower, move the wood chipper, jump start the Bobcat battery, and get it outside. Thinking about all that right now, I realize next summer we should plan things so all this equipment isn't out in front.