A monthly update regarding the important work of RCRC's affiliated entities, providing innovative services for the benefit of rural communities.
GSNR Awarded Region 5 Pacific Southwest Stewardship Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)
Last week, the USDA Forest Service awarded Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR) a Region 5 Pacific Southwest (PSW) Stewardship Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) on the El Dorado, Klamath, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta-Trinity, Sierra, and Stanislaus National Forests.
Under this BPA program, the Forest Service has now placed GSNR on an exclusive pre-qualified bidders list for certain low value forest thinning, fuel reduction, and tree salvage service contracts on each National Forest. Only entities on this list will be invited to evaluate and bid on these types of projects where the value of the forest products removed will not pay for all of the important fire hazard reduction work the USFS needs to complete. Historically, these types of service contracts were open to all contractors regardless of experience and ability, resulting in inconsistent results on many projects. GSNR hopes to be successful in being awarded many of these low to no-value forest resiliency projects using one or more of their local highly skilled logging and chipping contractors to create resilient forests, watersheds, and communities, while using the removed biomass in one of GSNR’s export wood pellet facilities that are currently under development in the southern Cascades and central Sierras.
To learn more about GSNR and its forest resiliency projects visit www.goldenstatenaturalresources.com
Golden State Connect Authority
The CPUC began delivering award notifications to applicants of the Local Agency Technical Assistance Program (LATA) earlier this month. Many Golden State Connect Authority (GSCA) member counties were among those receiving notification. Of the seventy-two applications that have been submitted since the program opened on August 1, more than half represent GSCA member counties, and several cities therein.
The LATA program will provide up to $500,000 per applicant to fund pre-broadband deployment projects that will ultimately advance the deployment of broadband across the entire state. Most GSCA member counties are utilizing LATA funds to develop construction-ready, low level network designs for priority unserved/underserved project areas in their communities.
The LATA program is serving an invaluable role in providing access to the technical assistance and expertise needed to expand access to broadband across the entire state, towards the goal of Broadband for All.