-January 7,2022-

Pump House gets new owners

Legendary neighborhood bar- also known as the town’s best dive bar – will be changing hands this month. The Pump House bar at 1075 E Main St in Visalia will get new owners as Jacob Gayer and Nathaniel Cary will now manage the popular watering hole, according to a public notice.

Rite Aid on Mooney to close Jan 19

Rite Aid drug store will close its Mooney Blvd store January 19 according to the store manager.The 21,440sf storefront at 2727 S. Mooney is for lease according to a real estate website. Rite Aid announced last fall that it will close 63 stores in a cost-cutting move designed to help the pharmacy chain be more competitive reporting that it is “conducting a rigorous assessment of its store base and has implemented a store closure program.” The company didn’t disclose locations of the closures that began in November. The closure will leave two Rite Aid stores in town in east and west Visalia. The store manager said “we just found out” about the closure despite California law that requires a 60 day notice to employees.

Mooney Union Bank building on the sales block

The vacant Union Bank on Mooney Blvd at Walnut is officially for sale through the real-estate firm CBRE. The bank closed in Visalia last year. Sources say the bank is unlikely to be reused as-is since it has no set-back from Mooney. The 5759 Sf building was posted for sale just this week. The asking price was not listed.The property sits next to the Visalia Mall who will likely be a bidder.

Riggin Ave widening on deck

Now that more development is coming along Riggin in the Visalia Industrial Park, the news has put the city on notice on the need to widen and improve the street network in this part of Visalia. Assistant City Manager Nick Mascia says they have been planning to widen Riggin to 4 lanes this year from Kelsey -where Amazon is -to Shirk. Plans are in the works as well to widen Riggin in segments clear to Mooney. Mascia says what is new is the need to widen smaller streets north of Riggin including Ave 320 (Kibler),American and others with several million square feet of projects on the drawing board. “We are seeking federal grants to help us out” says Mascia. The one mile improvements on Riggin involves the reconstruction of 1 mile of an existing 2-lane Riggin Avenue between Kelsey Street and Shirk Street to accommodate a 4-lane arterial street with 110’ total ROW. Improvements would include new 12’ vehicular travel lanes (4 lanes total), new Class II bike lanes, new street lighting, new landscaped medians, a new bus turnout, new fire hydrants, new sewer line, new traffic signal, and curb returns at all involved intersections.Riggin has become a busy truck corridor after the new Betty Dr interchange was completed connecting the industrial area to Highway 99.

Former Goodwill could become Senior Center

Plans have been filed to remodel the Goodwill store at 2240 S Mooney Blvd into a senior center. George Ouzounian is the owner of the property. PACE is a national program sponsored by the federal government through Medicare to enable individuals who are at risk for moving into a nursing home to continue to live safely in their homes and communities.The center would be a day-use facility to help these people. Construction of the facility would be complete in March 2024 The project would employ 80 full and part time employees.Once enrolled as a participant, the PACE provider coordinates all Medicare, Medical and other payments to the participant’s care and service providers. Even though the program’s services are available 24/7, 365 days a year, the facility operates Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. as a daily care center. PACE services are delivered in participant’s homes, in the community and at the PACE facility in order to help the senior live independently in his/her home and community.

New Jack N The Box on Lovers Lane

Demo of the property is underway at 1145 S Lovers Lane to make room for a new Jack N The Box drive-thru at the northwest corner Lovers Lane and Tulare Ave.

CalWater wants to take down Giddings water tank

CalWater has filed notice to the city that an ATT communication tower on the Giddings Ave water tank will be relocated with plans by Cal Water to take down the landmark water tower next to Redwood High School in the works. CalWater has not said when this could happen.

-January 5,2022-

Plans for three more logistics buildings in the Visalia Industrial Park are being reviewed this week (January 5) by the city Site Plan Review Committee. The three buildings add up to an amazing 3 million square feet.

The new plans barely waited for the holiday break for a hearing, continuing the frenetic pace of industrial activity since 2019, going in 2022.

The largest projects are being submitted by CapRock Partners of Newport Beach calling for construction of 2 side-by-side concrete tilt-up buildings adding up to 2.68 million sf. The building would be located west of Plaza Drive and south of Ave 320, a parcel north of Riggin. Developer Pat Daniels says they hope to break ground later in 2022 .

CapRock was the company that started this Visalia logistics boom selling acreage to UPS who built their new 450,000sf package distribution hub, now in operation. That was followed by construction of the 1.1 million sf Amazon fulfillment center, operational as of last September. Between the two- they employ about 1700.

This past fall CapRock was well under way on construction of another 1.2 million sf building – again with no tenant announced – but most observers speculating it will be another Amazon facility, just north of the existing complex on Kelsey. CapRock plans another twin buildings just north of there, reaching Ave 320(called Kibler) between Plaza and Kelsey. These projects- east of Plaza, are called Center Point Phase 2.

Now leaping across Plaza, CapRock’s Center Point Phase 3 is being proposed

“Our generation is witnessing a massive shift in how the world economy operates with the integration of ecommerce and highly sophisticated technology in the industrial sector – CapRock is at the forefront of this evolution with a wave of support from some of the world’s leading institutional investment groups,” said Patrick Daniels, co-founder and chief executive officer of CapRock Partners.

Besides Visalia, the company is busy in Las Vegas, Texas and Phoenix along with southern California.

Founded in 2009 CapRock Partners is one of the leading private industrial real estate investment and development firms in the Western U.S. The company specializes in acquiring middle-market value-add industrial assets, developing large-scale institutional-quality Class A industrial warehouse facilities in key locations, and providing third-party asset management services for institutional investors. The firm is actively acquiring land for development across the Western U.S. and Texas Since inception, CapRock’s total investment, entitlement, and development pipeline is nearly 30 million square feet of industrial real estate.

Built or in the pipeline in Visalia, CapRock has an estimated 6.5 million square feet. It took 60 years, 1958 to 2018, for the Visalia Industrial Park to get to 16.6 million square feet.

CapRock is not the only game in our town. As we speak, another 1.1 million sf complex is being built on Plaza north of Goshen Ave for Ace Hardware to be ready late this year developed by Seefrid Industries. The distribution facility will employ 400.

This week two new projects moved forward as well.

G4 Enterprises

Also filed this week at Site Plan Review is a project to build a 320,000sf building on Kelsey south of Goshen Ave on 15 acres being proposed by Fowler Packing’s Parnagian family (G4 Enterprises Ltd.) who already own MidState 99, a 720,000 warehouse complex in Visalia. G4 has been busy in Fresno where they brought in Amazon west of 99 a few years ago.Now the developer is being thwarted for now, on expanding in West Fresno due to opposition from community groups.

At a hearing last spring ,developer Leland Parnagian noted that “The US is really undergoing a shift in how people buy things from in-store to online and that’s really driving changes in employment around the country.”

Looking to add more industrial space in Fresno County, BOS chair Steve Brandau was reported to say at the same hearing “I’ve just been appalled over and over again at the number of jobs and businesses that our community has lost to other regions, other cities in California.”

The Fresno EDC added several companies unable to find warehouse space in Fresno County over the years have found land to expand in both Visalia and Madera.

YS Industries

Add another project to the Visalia list. Another 365,000 sf “spec” building has broken ground on Clancy south of Rigging being built by Visalia’s B J Perch for YS Industries, based in Los Angeles. YS Industries built its first “spec” logistics warehouses last year.These were two 300,000-square foot behemoths across from Amazon on the south side of Riggin in the Visalia Industrial Park.They are now filled. The buildings were also built by Perch.The new building is just to the east of the twin structures. Spokesperson Freddie Molina says this too would be a spec building expected to be complete in 11 months. Molina says they are negotiating on another parcel for more projects.

Besides these players, the Ritchie-Vidovich partners are working on both smaller and massive industrial projects on land they own to be built in the Visalia Industrial Park continues to march north.They own hundreds of acres just east of the CapRock-clear to Shirk and north of Riggin.

Also busy is John Brelsford of Fresno (DDG) who will soon begin developing a 160-acre parcel at the northwest corner of Plaza and Riggin, likely following the pattern he has built in the industrial park of clustering medium size buildings on a parcel.His latest is on display at the SE corner of Riggin and Plaza.

-January 2,2022-
Cold storms over the past weeks have been impressive, raising hopes for a wet water year in California. A review of precipitation totals up and down the state shows Jan 1 rainfall since October 1, are already ahead of all last water-year. Snowfall is big this year too with Yosemite’s famous Tioga Pass recording just one foot on the ground December 13 and now 7 feet as of December 28. Statewide snowpack is 153% of average for the date and 49% of April 1 average. Sierra Snow Lab in Tahoe is reporting December’s total to 202.1″, which makes it the third snowiest month on record here (back to 1970). That is just under 17 feet with a few days of snow to fall.

Pictured: Drought Monitor shows less

In Northern California the precipitation index stands at 172% of average for Dec 28. That includes the state’s most important reservoir at Shasta Dam. The dam has a good way to go to fill to pre-drought levels, however.Today, storage reached 1.3 million af but the reservoir holds 4 million af. This time in 2020 it held 3.3 million af.

The San Joaquin Precipitation Index is at 169% of average for the date – runoff that will fill the Friant Kern Canal next spring.Tulare Basin average is 149% – on a track for the second wettest year ever. The latest precipitation number from Pine Flat dam shows around 9 inches to date, ahead of all last year when the dam got just 8 inches.

Also ahead of all last year’s precipitation are Giant Forest in fire- scared Sequoia with about 18 inches approaching New Year after seeing just 13 inches of rain all last year. Lake Shasta has received around 30 inches to date as of Jan 1 compared to 25 inches all last year. Call it another Santa Claus rally. The rally will continue at a lower volume with about another inch of precipitation in the southern Sierra between Dec 29 and Jan 2 says a forecast repor

-December 8,2021-

Task force will monitor electricity needs for industrial park

A new task force made up by City of Visalia and Southern California Edison officials  as well as industrial companies reps will meet to monitor and discuss power needs for the fast growing area. Edison spokesperson—says there is no clear direction except to ensure the area has adequate electric infrastructure to meet the needs of new companies locating here .The area has added  several million square feet of uses in the past two years The area’s only substation is at Shirk and Goshen Ave. It is possible the discussion could lead  to investment in power storage for the park

BJ Perch set to build new 350,000sf warehouse

Visalia builder BJ Perch has been given the contract to build a new 350,000sf warehouse in the industrial park from the company, property owner YS Industries, based in Los Angeles.  YS Industries built its first “spec” logistics warehouses last year.These were two 300,000-square foot behemoths across from Amazon on the south side of Riggin in the Visalia Industrial Park.They are now filled. The buildings were also built by Perch.The new building is just to the east of the twin structures. Spokesperson Freddie Molina says this too would be a spec building expected to be complete in 11months.

On tap for at least 2.5mil sf

-December 8,2021-

Mystery Logistics project 

The City of Visalia has issued a permit for construction of a 1.1 million square foot warehouse just north of Amazon. Located at Plaza and Ave 320 (Kibler), the permit covers the foundation for another huge industrial building.The land is owned by CapRock Partners, the same property owner that sold to Amazon and UPS. They are not commenting.The conventional wisdom is that the mystery tenant is a second Amazon facility. But a spokesperson denies that.
“All I know is that it is not Amazon” says  Amazon’s Natalie Wolfrom.

“Construction is underway at our site at ave 320 and Kelsey”said CapRock representative Pat Daniels, confirming work was underway.

The contractor on the project is Kentucky-based Gray Construction, the same builder for the Visalia Amazon complex that opened late this summer.The new building is one of two proposed north of Riggin by CapRock totaling 2,274,048 SF. For now, they are only building the one that fronts Plaza and Kelsey – expected to take a year to complete.If it is not Amazon, my wild guess is that it is Target.

Ace Hardware under construction

Developer Seefried Industrial Properties, along with capital partner USAA Real Estate, announced November 23 that construction has commenced on a new warehouse and distribution center for a major hardware retailer, as part of the Visalia Industrial Park in Visalia, CA.  Ace Hardware, a Fortune 500 hardware corporation will lease a new 1,033,500-square-foot building when construction is complete in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The facility will be designed to have the ability to expand, in the future, to approximately 1.3 milsf.

Located at 2045 N. Plaza Drive, the new distribution center is being developed on an 81-acre site that USAA and Seefried assembled through the acquisition of two parcels in Q3 2021. The project will be best-in-class and will feature 155 dock-high doors (four grade-level) in a cross-dock configuration, oversized truck courts that are up to 140 feet deep, ample parking, +/- 20,000 square feet of office space and a minimum clear height of 40 feet. Off-site improvements will include construction of a new private road along the southern portion of the project site to provide access to the remaining land to the south, which is intended for future development, unrelated to the project, as well as a secondary access for trucks and emergency vehicles.

The distribution center is said to employ 400 and is valued at $90 million in construction costs.

Regards the rest of the property that Seefried continues to market  there is  another 33 acres the would front on Goshen Ave and Rd 76 with room for around 600,000sf or more.Seefried bought approx 114 acres and Ace is taking up 81 acres of that.

-December 8,2021-

An investment group is proposing to build a new 20,000sf Veteran’s Affairs medical clinic near the outlet mall at the corner of Retherford and Corvina. The project is being proposed by CPA Tom Gaebe of Visalia. The project will get a preliminary hearing at the city site-plan review meeting December 8. The new proposed clinic is far larger than the current VA facility. The federal agency has been seeking a larger facility expected to add more counseling services to the care offered in Tulare County.

The site-plan is being proposed on land owned by the Hillman family believed to be part of the investment group looking to keep the clinic in Tulare. Visalia had entertained possible locations after Tulare hospital decided not to lease their buildings including their Evolutions gym to the VA.

-November 23,2021-

Redwood Mountain Grove may have lost two thousand large Sequoia trees

Losing the Sugarbowl group

The 3100-acre Redwood Mountain Grove is the world’s largest gathering of Big Trees located mostly in Kings Canyon National Park even though it is drained not by the Kings River but by the Kaweah.

The lightning-caused KNP wildfire that impacted Sequoia National Park late this summer did little damage to the most famous stand of trees located in Giant Forest that includes the 2,100 year old General Sherman Tree, visited by millions every year.

But it has devastated the less-visited but stunning Redwood Mountain Grove where a just released damage assessment of the September/October fire concludes that the firestorm that whipped up winds to 60mph,may have wiped out up to 2000 large sequoias- many of them over a thousand years old.That is a rough estimate says Park ecologist Tony Caprio, one of the few National Park scientists who have ventured into the gloomy disaster zone to assess the damage. It’s an early estimate.

A 1969 inventory of this sequoia grove found almost 16,000 sequoias standing here measuring at least a foot in diameter.

Damage to the scattered but clustered sequoia groves of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks caused by the KNP Complex fire as well as the Windy Fire to the south of the Kaweah, were hit and miss affairs with some groves left mostly untouched and others suffering severe burning – killing thousands of the ancient trees.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Christy Brigham, head of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.The fire that first started Sept. 9 burned portions of 15 giant sequoia groves in the park, Brigham says.

But the greatest amount of damage was done in Redwood Mountain Grove in Kings Canyon National Park. Brigham led a media tour of the area in the past week and resulted in the headline that about 19% of the mature sequoias in the southern Sierra have been killed as a result of two consecutive years of wildfire. The legendary trees, the largest living things on earth, grow nowhere else.The two fires burned about 1000 acres of sequoia trees to a degree of high severity. Here, the trees died and land was scorched so the seeds will likely not germinate. There is some talk of a replanting effort.

Alarming trend

The summary of a report ”2021 Fire Season Impacts to Giant Sequoias” says “Combining both NPS and non-NPS lands burned in the KNP Complex with the Windy Fire, ~2,261-3,637 large sequoias are estimated to have been either killed outright or will die within a few years. This suggests that the 2021 fire season resulted in a loss of ~3-5% of the large sequoia population. When considered with mortality from the 2015-2017 fire events and the estimated loss of 10-14% of large sequoias in the 2020 Castle Fire, this fire season contributes to an alarming trend.”

A portion of the estimated 2000 large sequoias in Redwood Mountain lost in the conflagration are in the national park, some clearly dead or others expected to die in the next few years. Also impacted are those sections of Redwood Mountain in the National Forest and lands under UC Berkeley management in once-logged Whitaker’s Forest.

The analysis says the percentage of large trees suffering moderate to severe burning include 42% of the trees in Redwood Mountain within the King Canyon NP jurisdiction, 59% of the Redwood Mountain trees in the National Forest and and 13% of the grove managed by UC Berkeley

The analysis expects 60% of the 4400 sequoia acres that burned in the KNP Fire were in Redwood Mountain.Of that almost 600 acres were in the severe category. The hit and miss aspect to the wildfire is clear from this map of fire severity.

Sequoia National Park forest ecologist Nate Stephenson, says to view this map of Redwood Mountain Grove, with estimated fire severity (derived from satellite images) shown in the various colors. Red shows high severity — areas where it’s likely a large majority of sequoias died. Shades of green show low severity — areas where the large majority of sequoias likely survived. Yellow is intermediate severity.

“It immediately jumps out that the southernmost parts of the grove fared poorly. These were areas that either had never had a prescribed fire, or had had a prescribed fire so long ago that heavy fuels had built up again. In contrast, the green areas tended to be those that had had prescribed fires within the last 15 years or so.”

Stephenson comments on the fate of two very large Sequoia trees in the grove, the Hart Tree and Roosevelt trees

“I don’t know of anyone who has checked on Hart and Roosevelt yet (although it’s possible someone has). However, when I check the map, the Hart/Roosevelt area burned at lower severity (light green), so I’m hopeful they’re okay. But they were also fairly close to an intermediate severity area, so it really will take an in-person visit to assess how they are.”

As for other landmarks in the grove, Christy Brigham says others have checked on Barton’s Log (along the start of the Hart Trail). Even though fuels were cleared around the log, and it was wrapped in protective foil, it apparently burned. Also the Redwood Saddle Cabin burned.

Sugarbowl group lost

Stephenson adds that “For me, one of the saddest results is the Sugarbowl group of sequoias, which shows as red on the map. Additionally, Tony Caprio has flown over the Sugarbowl group on a helicopter recon flight, and his first estimate is that most of them are dead.”The pure stand of Big Trees in the Sugarbowl Grove is located along one of the most popular trails in Redwood Mountain.

View of the Sugarbowl Grove within Redwood Mountain before the fire

The top photo in this story is an aerial shot from late October of Redwood Mountain hit by severe burning showing a wide swath of dead sequoias.

Also said to suffer widespread sequoia deaths is a smaller grove further south, in Sequoia National Park – the Suwanee Grove. The bulk of the grove burned with high or moderate severity with a couple of small low severity patches.

Overall, the KNP Complex and Windy Fires burned all or portions of twenty-eight sequoia groves, burning a total of 6,109 grove acres out of an estimated ~28,000 grove acres rangewide -almost a quarter of the acres.Sixteen groves in the KNP fire area burned and twelve groves in the Windy Fire in the Tule watershed.

Much of this acreage burned at low severity (3,905 acres) and is expected to have beneficial effects on grove ecosystem functioning, although a total of 2,204 acres burned at moderate to high severity.

The analysis says regarding the Windy fire, they estimate that between 931-1,257 sequoias over four feet in diameter have already been killed or will die within the next three to five years.They do not yet have results from two groves in the Tule River reservation.

Yes, climate change

Stephenson says the widespread extermination of these species is unprecedented.” Data from previous prescribed burns, wildfires, and tree-rings indicate that prior to the impacts of climate change and fire exclusion, large numbers of large giant sequoias were not killed during fire events.”

Looking to the future, the expert analysis suggests “Soil erosion modeling indicates that several groves may experience erosion significant enough to remove seeds located on the surface of the soil. Large areas of Redwood Mountain Grove and Skagway Grove appear subject to surface erosion. Where these areas overlap with large areas of high burn severity, grove regeneration may be compromised.”

“The least understood impacts of these wildfires are impacts to sequoia regeneration in high severity areas. Sequoias generally regenerate well after wildfire, though reports of inadequate regeneration in high severity areas are raising concerns. Regeneration failures could potentially occur if the cones and/or seeds were incinerated during crown fire, seeds did not survive the smoldering fire, or seeds washed away due to surface erosion. In these cases, regeneration would be dependent on proximity to live tree seed sources.”

On a hopeful note “much of the grove area in the KNP Complex burned at low severity and we expect beneficial results for giant sequoias in these areas. These beneficial effects include fuel reduction, small canopy openings ideal for regeneration, and removal of litter and generation of ash – also ideal conditions for giant sequoia seedlings.”

These famed trees “are the premier destination within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI), attracting over 1.5 million visitors per year. SEKI has 38 delineated groves of giant sequoias, covering roughly 10,000 acres. Extensive surveys in the 1960s and 1970s, covering 90% of SEKI’s current grove areas, found 84,822 individual sequoia trees greater than 1 foot in diameter at breast height and 25,181 greater than 3.5 feet. All told, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks manage approximately 37% of all existing sequoia grove area.”

While Giant Sequoia are highly fire-adapted, they are not adapted to extensive high severity fire. They cannot sprout after crown loss, and recent work suggests that large sequoia are unlikely to survive with >~85% crown damage for trees with one or more existing fire scars and >~90-95% crown damage for trees without existing fire scars.

The KNP complex burned a total of 4,374 acres of sequoia groves, of which 616 acres burned at high severity. Simultaneous with the KNP Complex, the Windy Fire also burned 1,723 acres of giant sequoia groves in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, of which 411 acres was high severity.

“The sobering reality is that we have seen another huge loss within a finite population of these iconic trees that are irreplaceable in many lifetimes,” Clay Jordan, superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks told the press. “As spectacular as these trees are- we really can’t take them for granted. To ensure that they’re around for our kids and grandkids and great grandkids, some action is necessary.”

Cutting the risk

Since 2015 there has been a dramatic increase in area burned and amount of high severity fire in sequoia groves, resulting in significant mortality of large, legacy sequoias.This increase is consistent with increases in high severity fire throughout the western US, which has been linked with warmer, drier fire seasons and increasing fuel aridity linked with climate change. The warming climate is also directly impacting forests via “hotter droughts”. The hotter drought of 2012-2016 resulted in widespread conifer die-off, which could be increasing fire severity in this region. The interaction of these climate-driven trends with elevated fuel loads, a result of fire exclusion, is increasingly putting sequoia groves at risk of severe fire.

Other than the whims of the wind, a key factor in how Giant Forest fared better than Redwood Mountain was likely history of prescribed burns. Of the ~10,000 acres of giant sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings NPs, 4,610 acres have received one or more prescribed or managed wildfires in the last 20 years, mostly in Giant Forest. UC Berkeley’s Whitaker’s Forest began prescribed burning in the 1940s.

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Fire severity map Redwood Mountain
Aerial photo of Redwood Mountain Grove in late October
All these- credit Shive, Brigham, Caprio and Hardwick 2021

Sugarbowl credit Redwoodhikes.com

-November 23,2021-

Non-farm jobs jump 2000 in Kings

The unemployment rate in Kings County was 7.9 percent in October 2021, unchanged from a revised 7.9 percent in September 2021, and below the year-ago estimate of 9.8 percent. This compares with an unadjusted unemployment rate of 6.1 percent for California and 4.3 percent for the nation during the same period.
Over 4% more residents were working in October 2021 compared to October 2020. Year over year there were more than 2000 more non-jobs in the county. Farm jobs are flat year over year.The county jobless rate has declined by 18.5% with 10000 fewer unemployed. By category- the biggest jump has been in the hospitality sector—up 1000 jobs year over year.

Kings property roll value up 4.58% to $13.1 billion

The 2021-22 Kings County property roll increased in value by 4.54% year over year according to the Assessors office. The total adds up to $13.1 billion compared to $12.5 billion in 2020/2021.By city Lemoore was up 5.1%, Hanford up 3.9%, Corcoran up 3.5% and Avenal declined 4.3% based on a $16 million drop in land value.

Hanford HSR Viaduct takes shape over Hwy 198

The High Speed Rail structure they call the Hanford Viaduct continues construction just east of Hanford. The elevated rail bridge will be more than a mile long and will house the future rail station for the area. As of this month, crews continue to do substructure work erecting support columns that will allow the tracks to span the east-west freight rail line as well as Highway 198 – seen in this recent drone photo. As of November 22, some 257 of the 286 columns have been poured and crews continue to set column barrier pads – the pads that sit on top of the columns that girders will eventually be placed on – to the northern and southern portions of the structure.The span is the longest in the HSR system.

Covid cases down here

The spike in Covid-19 cases has eased in Kings County following the similar trend across California. As of September 1 daily new cases in Kings County averaged 156 compared to just 10 new cases as of now- Nov 22. California new cases are averaging around 5000 compared to 23,000 back on September 1. The trend is helping to reduce the overflow of patients at Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia now reporting 61 Covid patients – down from 120 as of November 1.

Kings County reports 48% of residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, one of the lowest numbers in the state.

Wildfire hits largest Sequoia grove hardest

Redwood Mountain Grove may have lost two thousand large Sequoia trees
The 3100-acre Redwood Mountain Grove is the world’s largest gathering of Big Trees located mostly in Kings Canyon National Park even though it is drained not by the Kings River but by the Kaweah.

The lightning-caused KNP Complex wildfire that impacted Sequoia National Park late this summer did little damage to the most famous stand of trees located in Giant Forest that includes the 2,100 year old General Sherman Tree, visited by millions every year.

But it has devastated the less-visited but stunning Redwood Mountain Grove where a just released damage assessment of the September/October fire concludes that the firestorm that whipped up winds to 60mph, may have wiped out up to 2000 large sequoias- many of them over a thousand years old.That is a rough estimate says Park ecologist Tony Caprio, one of the few National Park scientists who have ventured into the gloomy disaster zone to assess the damage. It’s an early estimate.

The KNP Complex fire has been estimated to have killed up to 3600 large sequoias in a just published report. So it is clear the estimated 2000 trees lost in this one grove is more than half of the number of trees lost in the disaster.The analysis expects 60% of the 4400 sequoia acres that burned in the KNP Fire were in Redwood Mountain.Of that almost 600 acres were in the severe category.

Damage to the scattered but clustered sequoia groves of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks caused by the KNP Complex fire as well as the Windy Fire to the south of the Kaweah, were hit and miss affairs with some groves left mostly untouched and others suffering severe burning – killing thousands of the ancient trees.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Christy Brigham, head of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.The fire that first started Sept. 9 burned portions of 15 giant sequoia groves in the park, Brigham says.

But the greatest amount of damage was done in Redwood Mountain Grove in Kings Canyon National Park. Brigham led a media tour of the area in the past week and resulted in the headline that about 19% of the mature sequoias in the southern Sierra have been killed as a result of two consecutive years of wildfire. The legendary trees, the largest living things on earth, grow nowhere else.The two fires burned about 1000 acres of sequoia trees to a degree of high severity. Here, the trees died and land was scorched so the seeds will likely not germinate. There is some talk of a replanting effort.

Captions: Looking north along Hanford Viaduct -courtesy HSR

NPS photo from late October showing dead trees in Redwood Mountain Grove

-November 7,2021-

Water purveyor California Water Service has filed plans with the California Public Utilities Commission to move to Stage 2 water restrictions in Visalia. A notice says restrictions are needed in light of the ongoing drought.

CalWater filed Advice Letter 2426 with the CPUC on October 20, 2021. Stage 2 restrictions include outdoor irrigation limits and increased water waste penalties. If approved, Stage 2 will become effective December 14, 2021, says a public notice.

Earlier this year the Visalia City Council authorized that Stage 2 (Water Alert) conservation measures be implemented effective March 1, 2021 through November. The City says 9 out of the last 11 years, Visalia has experienced below average rainfall, and the groundwater table the City relies on for its water supply remains critically low, measuring 30 feet lower than in 2010.

Regarding the new notice, CalWater is hosting a public meeting to help customers understand and comply with these new restrictions. The meeting will educate customers on Stage 2 of Cal Water’s Schedule 14.1, water-use restrictions, and a range of conservation programs and tools available to assist customers. DATE: Tuesday, November 16, 2021 TIME: 5:30 p.m. LOCATION: ImagineU Children’s Museum, 210 N. Tipton Street, Visalia, CA 93292 Cal Water invites customers in its Visalia District to attend this public meeting to learn more.

At the meetings, Cal Water representatives will provide details about new irrigation restrictions as part of Stage 2 and discuss current prohibited uses of water. Some of the restrictions include:

Outdoor landscape irrigation is limited to two days per week between the hours of 6 p.m. and 8 a.m., unless local ordinances state otherwise.

All leaks, breaks, or other malfunctions in a customer’s plumbing fixtures and/or irrigation system must be repaired within five business days of written notification by Cal Water.

Vehicles may only be washed with a hose that has a shutoff nozzle or similar device.

Water may not be used on driveways or sidewalks, unless for health and safety purposes.

No watering of outdoor landscapes may occur during and within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.

Restaurants may only serve water upon request, and hotels and motels must provide guests with the option of not having towels and linens laundered daily.

Customers can direct questions to Cal Water at (559) 624-1600 or infoVIS@calwater.com. More information is also available online at www.calwater.com/conservation. Customers who would like to provide comments on this plan directly to the CPUC can write within 20 days of this notice to: California Public Utilities Commission; Attn: Program Manager, Water and Sewer Advisory Branch; Water Utilities Division, Room 3106; 505 Van Ness Ave., 3rd Floor; San Francisco, CA 94102. Please reference California Water Service Advice Letter No. 2426. Pub: November 3, 2021 #0004982500.

California Water Service Company (Cal Water) has provided service to Visalia residents since 1926.Cal Water’s Visalia District serves about 147,000 people through 46,700 service connections.

Water levels have declined over the years. The 2020 Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District groundwater report says in fall 2020, the average comparable depth to groundwater was approximately 143.3 ft., which reflected a groundwater level decline of 10.6 ft. from the prior year. In the mid -80s, Visalia groundwater levels were just 50ft after several wet years.