A new erosion control handbook for California is due out in April. On behalf of the California Department of Conservation (DOC), the Western Shasta Reource Conservation District (WRSCD) in association with Salix Applied Earthcare has conducted a survey to determine California's needs for a new Soil Erosion and Sediment Control Handbook.

The last Erosion and Sediment Control Handbook produced by the State of California was developed and published by the DOC and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Governor Edmund G. Brown in 1978. As "the first of its kind for California and the Western United States," the original handbook provides erosion and sediment control information to "those agencies and individuals involved in planning and construction of roads, large graded areas, waste disposal sites, mine-land reclamation, loffing, landslide mitigation, off-road vehicle sites, and ski slopes." The survey administrators have asked if it might be beneficial in the 1990's to add guidelines for erosion and sediment control for utility easements, storm water pollution prevention plans for construction sites and municipalities, mitigation for wildfires and floods, park and timberland rehabilitation, wind erosion, oil refineries, rangeland management, and agricultural induced erosion, etc.

The primary purpose of the handbook is to provide the answers to such question as--What information is used? What information is unavailable? What information or activities by agencies or organizations could be combined with this project to leverage resource expenditures to produce a better product? How should a handbook be assembled to be most useful? But the second element of the questionnaire--a survey and compilation of existing erosion control information--promises to take erosion and sediment control to the next level: "The survey team asked respondents to recommend possible collaborations between agencies, organizations, and individuals and identify sources of expertise, materials, and financing," said John McCulla, principal of Salix Applied Earthcare whose company name reflects their specialty in more ways than one.

*Salix is the botanic name for willow, often used in vegetative erosion control methods.