Another drought-fueled fire season is underway across northern California, when any passing storms are more likely to bring blaze-sparking lightning strikes than enough rain to ease the danger.

CalFire maintains a frequently updated online map of all active fire incidents throughout the state, and you can see it here.

Just as doctors move quickly to detect and treat infectious diseases before they can spread, botanists and habitat managers are teaming up to use the same approach against invasive weeds in the Bay Area.

California Invasive Weeds Awareness Week (CIWAW)is July 20-26, 2009. This  an annual event that brings attention to the problems caused by invasive plants in California (such as the yellow star thistle, shown in flower at right), and to the work of local groups that work to protect our natural areas and rangelands. In 2004, the state legislature signed a proclamation declaring California Invasive Weeds Awareness Week to begin the third Monday of July each year.

Arundo dorax, above, spreading rapidly in the middle reach of the Russian River, and threatening to become established downstream as well.

Dan Gluesenkamp, is Director of Habitat Protection and Restoration for the multiple preserves owned and managed by Audubon Canyon Ranch, explains that the basis methods employed by the BAEDN are those used by his and other, like-minded organizations, but scaled up to work on a regional basis.

Additionally, says Gluesenkamp, the new parternship is dedicated to operating in accordance with two key core principles.

Goals of the Bay Area Early Detection Network include:

• Have effective detection efforts covering the nine counties.
• Ensure that detections are supported with sufficient response funds to eradicate priority invaders while still cost-effective.
• Increase effectiveness and strategic nature of invasive plant work in the region.
• Involve and train citizen detection partners.
• Realize a coordinated system of regional Early Detection networks across all California.

In Sonoma County, ludwigia is one of the most conspicuous invasive plants, growing agressively in the Laguna de Santa Rosa and in slow-moving portions of the Russian River, as seen in the foreground below.

Democrats in the state legislature have consistently opposed deep cuts in programs that serve California's neediest citizens.  Wednesday, a crowd of those citizens turned out in downtown Santa Rosa to raise their voices in their own defense.

(Photographs courtesy of Becoming independent)

Demonstrators outside the state office building in Downtown Santa Rosa July 16 (above) were uniformly concerned, and some such, as a woman named Bridget, were angry and upset.

Cammy Weaver, Executive Director of Becoming Independent in Santa Rosa, is alarmed at the way proposed budget cuts in the California legislature are eroding the protections of the state’s Lanterman Act.  Moreover, she fears, once those cuts are enacted, they will remain in place for years.

Although the state budget  "trailer bill" - the actual legislation to implement the spending cuts that are being debated in more general terms-is still tentative, it includes 36 specific items that the staff at Becoming Independent has been carefully watching. Chief among their concerns are these four:

Cuts to Early Intervention - 6,000 babies between 0-3 years of age will lose their services. Another 11,000 are at risk to lose of see major reductions in services. The result will be life-long disabilities for these babies who, with early intervention, may not even need ongoing services in their adult years.

 Use of Least Costly Program - For the first time as a matter of law, regional centers will have the authority to assign or transfer a consumer from where they want to be to a program entirely of the regional center's choosing to save money. That choice will not be subject to appeal. The IPP is destroyed for those who will be subjected to a life of someone else's choosing.

Cuts to Transportation - Relying on public transportation to move people with severe disabilities from where they are to where they need to be is a failed concept. It will work for some, but not for most. Unless the bus stops directly in front of their home and goes directly to where they need to be, it is simply impractical. It will trap people with disabilities in their homes. They won't be able to reach your program!

Cuts to Respite - The goal was to save $5 million by capping respite hours at no more than 90 hours per quarter. Instead, this cap imposes at least a 20% cut, "saving" more like $35 million. The reason saving is in quotes is that failure to get vital relief from 24-7 care-giving or people with severe disabilities will collapse many families and lead to much more expensive out-of-home placement.

The long-running debate over an historic oyster farm in Drakes Estero, within the  the Point Reyes National Seashore,  has jumped from western Marin County to Washington D.C., and shows few signs of cooling off.

Fredrick Smith, Executive Director of the Environmental Action Coalition of West Marin says that, Senator Feinstein's statements to the contrary, he fears that her legislative intervention on behalf of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company will set a bad precedent that could have wide implications.

The fate and future of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company and the Estero has been a long-running and hotly debated issue in the Point Reyes area for years. Recent developments have been chronicled by the Point Reyes Light.

The gorgeous airborne view of the estuary below was taken by Sonoma-based pilot and photographer Robert Campbell . See more of his work here .