Scott Shasta Comment Builder Mount Shasta rising above a green valley, with cattle grazing near a ranch gate, a red barn and a dirt road

Tell the Water Board what its Scott and Shasta River order would do here

The Water Board needs to hear from Siskiyou County's farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens. If we stay silent, the Board will take it as agreement. This page helps you write your own comment letter in less than five minutes.

Start my comment ↓

Comments dueNov 16Monday, 5:00 pm
Text size

Why your comment matters

  • Silence counts as agreement. If the people this order affects do not speak up, the Board can say no one objected.
  • The Board has to consider every comment and respond to it. Every letter from Siskiyou County goes into the official record.
  • This is not a form letter. Your answers, the issues you pick and your own story make your letter different from everyone else's. Agencies often count hundreds of identical letters as a single comment. Personal letters each count on their own.
  • Come back as often as you like. You can send more than one comment before the deadline on Monday, November 16, at 5:00 pm.

How it works

  1. Choose how you want to write using the two buttons below.
  2. Answer a few questions and check the issues you care about. Tap the big Next button at the bottom to move along.
  3. Read your letter. You can change any words you like. Then tap Copy my letter.
  4. Tap Open my email. Press and hold inside the message, choose Paste, and press send.

About your privacy: To see which issues matter most to our county, this page keeps an anonymous count of the choices people make, such as the issues checked, the watershed and how people heard about the order. Your name, contact details and letter are never saved. If you choose to join the update list at the end, only the email and details you type there are kept.

Nothing is sent until you press send in your own email. Prefer paper? You can print your letter and mail it. Need a hand? Sit down with a family member or neighbor and do it together.

How do you want to write your comment?

Step 1

About you

Only your name is needed (marked *). Everything else makes your comment stronger.

Step 2

What should the Board do?

Check as many as you like.

Pick the issues that matter to you

Three to six is plenty. We checked a few common ones to get you started. Tap a topic to open it, and check or uncheck anything you like. These come from the Yreka, Etna and Shasta Valley meetings and from the Draft Order itself.

Step 3

Say it in your own words

This is what staff read most closely. Even one or two sentences helps. Your details also keep your comment from being counted as a form letter.

Ideas for sharing your own experience

Write the way you would explain it to a neighbor. Real, specific stories from your own place carry the most weight. Some ideas:

  • Your history: how long your family has worked this land, and how you irrigate or graze it.
  • What the order would change: acres you would lose to setbacks, fences you would have to build, months you could no longer graze, costs you would face.
  • What you have already done: fencing, pivots or sprinklers, meters, tree planting, cost-share projects, and roughly when.
  • What you have seen: floods, fish, water temperatures, springs, how the creek has changed over the years.
  • Your dealings with the Board: whether anyone asked for your input, came to your place, or answered your questions.
Words you may run into (definitions)
TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load)
The limit set for how much of a pollutant, including heat, a river can take and still meet water quality standards.
WDR (Waste Discharge Requirements)
The permit type. This draft is a general WDR that would replace the 2018 conditional waivers.
Tailwater
Irrigation water that runs off the end of a field.
Associated Grazing Lands
Non-irrigated grazing land on an irrigated parcel under the same control, when it is run together with the irrigated land. Rotating cattle between the two is enough. Draft Order Finding 26.
Streamside Area
The zone measured out from the waterside edge of vegetation: 100 feet on perennial streams and the mainstems, 60 on intermittent, 35 on ephemeral.
Enrollee
An owner or operator signed up under the order, alone or through a coalition.
Make your comment stronger
  • Attach dated photos, meter readings, invoices or a map. Email attachments up to 15 MB are accepted.
  • Only state what you know firsthand or can point to. Leave out numbers you cannot source.
  • Stay on the issues. A calm, specific letter is the hardest kind to dismiss.
  • You can send more than one comment before the deadline.
Read the documents
See my letter