A fascinating evening with a true pioneer & innovator of the Organic movement. Since 1998, Betsy and her company, Sustainable Growth Texas, have been healing soils all across America. Some notable local projects include the George W Bush Library, MD Andersen Prairie and Mandolin Gardens Park. Betsy is recognized across America as a noted soil and ranch consultant. She’s known for providing analytical evaluations of soils and then prescribes treatments to get the soils and the plants into a premium state of health by using amendments, subtle energies, biology & compost tea. Betsy will walk us through her procedures and as a result we will all become better property managers.

For more information, and to register, please go to: ohbaonline.org/events

Join us for our final public meeting where we’ll share the team’s full recommendations for Hermann Park’s master plan, which will guide the next 20 year’s of Park improvement projects.

Can’t make our open house but still want your thoughts and ideas heard? Send us an email at ideas@hermannpark.org.

U.S. Forest Service (FS), begins a four-year process to revise the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas (NFGT) Forest Plan (FP). The revised FP will occur in three phases and include an assessment of existing information; revision of the FP; and monitoring that ensures the FP is implemented and does what it says it will do. The FP must use the best scientific information and contain desired conditions (a snapshot of what the forest will look like in the future with FP implementation); objectives that provide measurable progress using a reasonable budget; standards/guidelines to constrain projects or activities; suitability of lands for multiple use activities (wildlife, range, water, timber, and recreation); and goals which provide broad statements of intent.

Some of the issues to bring-up at public meetings include:

1. Special Management Areas – Add additional scenic or special management areas along Henry Lake/Double Lake Branches, East Fork of the San Jacinto River, and blackland prairies/savannahs in Sam Houston NF and Piney Creek in the Davy Crockett NF.

2. Red-cockaded Woodpecker Management – Continued expansion of the population along with corridors to connect and allow for migration.

3. Reduction in Oil/Gas Development – Reduce the amount and impacts of oil/gas development in the NFGT.

4. Climate Change Management – Adapt to climate change via protection of core areas, corridors, and buffers that allow plants and animals to migrate.

5. Trail Corridor Protection – All trails need a corridor which protects each trail and its scenery.

6. Prescribed Burning – We need to protect the use of prescribed fire as a management tool which protects RCWs and other wildlife and helps restore forest ecosystems.

7. Snags (standing dead trees)/Downed Trees – These important forest features are biological legacies that help restore forest ecosystems and should be maintained.

8. Solitude, Quiet, and Natural Sounds – We must protect and enhance these important forest conditions.

9. Urban Effects – Our NFs/NGs are surrounded by urbanized areas. We need collaborative measures methods that protect our NFs/NGs from these impacts.

10. Non-Native Species – Feral hogs, Chinese Tallows, and other non-native species compete with native wildlife and plants and must be controlled.

Whether you can or cannot attend the public meetings, please use one or more of the 10 issues mentioned above to write a personal letter or email to the U.S. Forest Service which expresses your support for better protection of the NFGT. Send your letter or email to: Mr. Robert Potts, NFGT, 2221 North Raguet, Lufkin, Texas 75904 or robertpotts@fs.fed.us.

U.S. Forest Service (FS), begins a four-year process to revise the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas (NFGT) Forest Plan (FP). The revised FP will occur in three phases and include an assessment of existing information; revision of the FP; and monitoring that ensures the FP is implemented and does what it says it will do. The FP must use the best scientific information and contain desired conditions (a snapshot of what the forest will look like in the future with FP implementation); objectives that provide measurable progress using a reasonable budget; standards/guidelines to constrain projects or activities; suitability of lands for multiple use activities (wildlife, range, water, timber, and recreation); and goals which provide broad statements of intent.

Some of the issues to bring-up at public meetings include:

1. Special Management Areas – Add additional scenic or special management areas along Henry Lake/Double Lake Branches, East Fork of the San Jacinto River, and blackland prairies/savannahs in Sam Houston NF and Piney Creek in the Davy Crockett NF.

2. Red-cockaded Woodpecker Management – Continued expansion of the population along with corridors to connect and allow for migration.

3. Reduction in Oil/Gas Development – Reduce the amount and impacts of oil/gas development in the NFGT.

4. Climate Change Management – Adapt to climate change via protection of core areas, corridors, and buffers that allow plants and animals to migrate.

5. Trail Corridor Protection – All trails need a corridor which protects each trail and its scenery.

6. Prescribed Burning – We need to protect the use of prescribed fire as a management tool which protects RCWs and other wildlife and helps restore forest ecosystems.

7. Snags (standing dead trees)/Downed Trees – These important forest features are biological legacies that help restore forest ecosystems and should be maintained.

8. Solitude, Quiet, and Natural Sounds – We must protect and enhance these important forest conditions.

9. Urban Effects – Our NFs/NGs are surrounded by urbanized areas. We need collaborative measures methods that protect our NFs/NGs from these impacts.

10. Non-Native Species – Feral hogs, Chinese Tallows, and other non-native species compete with native wildlife and plants and must be controlled.

Whether you can or cannot attend the public meetings, please use one or more of the 10 issues mentioned above to write a personal letter or email to the U.S. Forest Service which expresses your support for better protection of the NFGT. Send your letter or email to: Mr. Robert Potts, NFGT, 2221 North Raguet, Lufkin, Texas 75904 or robertpotts@fs.fed.us.

Presented by Jeff Bishop, Managing Director of Key Capture Energy, a firm focused on becoming the leading battery storage development

company in the East. This talk will cover the current state of the market an the potential ways it can evolve in the future.

Full Day CE – April 12, 2017

• 8:30-9:00am Breakfast and Registration
• 9:00-10:00am
  Opening Protectives, New Perspectives in Fire & Smoke
  Presented by Nathan Clark, Griesenbeck Architectural Products
  1.0 HSW
• 10:00-11:00am
  Monolithic Roof Coatings
  Presented by Kristine Moore, Gaco Western
  1.0 HSW
• 11:00am-12:00pm
  Sustainable Solution for Large Openings
  Presented by Nicole Zimmerle, TRW Houston
  1.0 HSW
• 12:00-12:30pm
  Lunch
• 12:30-2:30pm
  Recommended Guidelines for Design and Construction of In ground Swimming Pools in Texas
  Presented by David Eastwood, P.E., C.A.P.M., Geotech Engineering and Testing
  2.0 HSW
• 2:30-3:30pm
  Site Planning
  Presented by Sana Cooper, Lentz Engineering
  1.0 LU

6.0 Learning Units

AIA Members will have their credits reported.
All Non-Members will receive certificates.

We will be discussing project progress over the last year, and ideas and plans for the future. Stakeholder participation is an important part of achieving success in these efforts, so we encourage you to come share your successes, ideas, and feedback. Please feel free to share this invitation with other members of your organization or others that may be interested in efforts to improve water quality in the Oyster Creek system. An agenda is attached for your review.

People often think of climate change as something that will affect the “world” at large, but we often lose sight of what the ramifications will be to our own community and the entire Gulf Coast Region. Dr. Kremer will discuss the long-term effects of climate change on our weather (increased periods of severe weather such as droughts and flooding), rises in the level of the Gulf of Mexico and the inundation of our coastal populations, and the effects of these changes on our local environment and our county’s economic viability.

Larry Kremer worked for decades in research and product development for Baker Hughes in the areas of refining, power, steel making, and renewable fuels. Since retiring in 2014 he has been a mentor of start-up companies at Houston Technology Center. He has also worked to develop the political will to act on climate change with the Citizens Climate Lobby.

Larry has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Utah. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Nuclear Physics Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale 7 p.m. Montgomery County South Regional Library, 2101 Lake Robbins, The Woodlands, 77380. This event is free and open to the public and is not sponsored or endorsed by Montgomery County Memorial Library System.

DATE:            April 13

TIME:             7 p.m.

LOCATION:  South Regional Library, 2101 Lake Robbins, The Woodlands, 77380.

This event is free and open to the public and is not sponsored or endorsed by Montgomery County Memorial Library System.

Texas A&M Forest Service partners with the U.S. Forest Service to collect annual data
of select cities across Texas through the Urban Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program.  My City’s Trees is a web application which allows users to tailor information to selected areas
and themes and returns statistics and reports giving detailed information of the benefits and services of the city’s trees.

Webinar Details

Topic: My City’s Trees Houston

Date and Time: Tuesday, April 18, 2017 12:00 pm, Central Daylight Time (Chicago, GMT-05:00)

Event number: 920 583 091

Event password: houston

Apr. 23, 6 p.m.: Connections between People and Nature – Climate Change
At the April 2017 web meeting, we welcome Professor Cymene Howe from Rice University, Anthropology, who will speak on Climate Change. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face collectively, globally and inter-generationally. While progress has been made to reduce carbon emissions in some sectors, there remains much, much more to be done. In this presentation, Professor Howe addresses the cultural and social dimensions of climate change as well as energy sources and their impacts. A cultural anthropologist, Professor Howe is among a growing group of scholars who engage with questions of energy and environment from a socio-cultural point of view, believing that solutions to our current ecological dilemmas lie not only in technological fixes but in understanding and reshaping the ways that we, as people, engage with the environment.  Professor Howe will address Connections between People and Nature from the perspective of anthropology on Sunday, Apr. 23 at 6 p.m. After her talk, there will be time for Q&A. If you would like to join this online conversation, please register and you will receive an invitation to the web meeting. Questions about this event may be addressed to Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com.