[env-trinity] Serious Threat to Volunteerism for Watersjed Restoration Projects

[Tom Stokely]

State levies $33,549 penalty over watershed restoration 





Scott Mobley
Record Searchlight



March 14, 2004 - 2:07 a.m.
State labor officials are serious about enforcing a law against mixing volunteer and paid labor for public works. 

A Redding nonprofit faces a $33,549 fine under the law, which requires prevailing wages for crews on projects using more than $1,000 in public funding. 

The law allows volunteers only if the state finds they won't deny jobs to skilled labor. Such workers would earn between $12 and $50 an hour in Redding. 

The Sacramento Watersheds Action Group (SWAG) underpaid college students in a campaign to clean up a creek and plant trees along Old Highway 99, the state Director of Industrial Relations ruled in November. 

More than 60 workers should have earned prevailing wages for hauling trash out of the canyon and planting young trees on the hillside just west of the Sulphur Creek hill along North Market Street, the state determined. The cleanup and planting day was in March 2003. 

SWAG will appeal the fine. 

"When California passed bonds to do restoration work, I don't think the public intended this would be a subsidy," said John McCullah, SWAG founder and director. "Did we intend this money to go to parks or to prop up the construction industry?" 

The assessment for back wages and penalties against SWAG has spurred adopt-a-creek groups up and down California to lobby furiously against the law, which could also doom a city of Redding neighborhood park. 

Watershed groups that rely on volunteers were surprised to find themselves in the state's labor code crosshairs especially when California faces a chronic budget crisis. 

"The work of these watershed groups empowers citizens, captures the imagination and passion of students, collects and expresses the wisdom of our seniors and weaves our communities together," Michael Wellborn, president of the California Watershed Network, said in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I cannot think of anything more stifling to these efforts than the loss of volunteerism." 

Wellborn's Jan. 23 letter asked Schwarzenegger to "resolve this issue quickly." 

Lawmakers are responding. Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-El Cerrito, introduced a bill last month excluding watershed restoration projects from prevailing wage requirements. The bill would not help the city of Redding build its neighborhood park with volunteer help. 

Hancock's bill needs a majority vote for passage to the governor's desk. 

SWAG won a $260,000 state Department of Water Resources grant to shrink old Highway 99 from a 40-foot-wide roadbed to a 10-foot-wide foot and bicycle trail linking Lake Boulevard and the Miracle Mile. 

The nonprofit tapped Shasta College students to unearth a creek, clear flammable thickets, fix culverts and install cataract-calming rock beds in erosion-prone gullies. The students earned course credit in watershed restoration. 

SWAG also hired crews to use backhoes and dump trucks. 

The state Department of Water Resources approved the budget for labor and its plans to use volunteers for cleanup days and planting days, said McCullah, the SWAG director. 

Contractors noticed backhoes working in the canyon in December when city law requires crews to take a winter hiatus. Redding demands this annual bulldozer break to curb erosion and silt pollution. 

Laborers Local 185 asked the Construction Industry Force Account Council (CIFAC) to investigate whether prevailing wage laws covered SWAG's work. 

"If you are getting grant money, you should still know the law," said Sally Riley, a field representative for the San Francisco Bay area-based watchdog nonprofit. 

The union also filed the complaint with the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement that triggered the SWAG fine. 

SWAG crews recently mulched a grassy hillside above the Sacramento River Trail extension, tackling a perennial erosion problem at the old Hilltop Burn Dump. 

SWAG performed the work for Turtle Bay, which won a $915,000 state Wildlife Conservation Board grant for restoration in the nearby McConnell Arboretum. 

SWAG crews earned prevailing wages for churning up soil, sewing seeds and planting baby cottonwoods, Oregon ash, California sycamores, native grass and willows above the Hilltop trail. 

Those hourly wages ranged from $12.76 for willow planters to $36 for tractor operators, McCullah said. 

SWAG paid crews $10 to $15 an hour depending on the task and their experience - before the state stepped in. 

The prevailing wage requirement boosted Hilltop reseeding costs by 30 percent to 40 percent. That means less money for seeds, trees and rich soil from SWAG's $150,000 slice of the grant. 

"I can understand why highways need to be public works projects," said McCullah. "Everyone pays a gas tax. But this is different. We need maximize the money to protect the natural resources." 

Reporter Scott Mobley can be reached at 225-8220 or at smobley at redding.com. 





Sunday, March 14, 2004 
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