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Central Coast Forest Watch - Forest Update: Eureka Gulch THP, Major Amendments, Redwoods and Fire, and more!

Forest Update, March 2009

1. County Large Woody Material Revisions Approved
2. Eureka Gulch West THP
3. Soquel Demonstration State Forest THP Update
4. Major Amendments
5. Grizzly Flat NTMP
6. Water Board waiver policy changes
7. Redwoods and Fire
8. Gleaned from the SRF Conference

1. County Large Woody Material Revisions Approved
After more than 2 years in development, County staff brought a proposal to the Board of Supervisors on March 3rd, to amend the county's logjam modification (or large instream wood removal) program. The report was approved unanimously. Supervisor Campos was absent.
Under the amended program, "County staff will not remove, cut-up or otherwise modify accumulations of large woody material (LWM) in county streams that support salmonids or other special status species unless it is determined that such accumulations pose a clear and immediate threat to public safety, public infrastructure or aquatic habitat." Any modification or removal of LWM will be carried out only as directed by a state or federal agency or by Water Resources Division Director following a consultation with a geomorphologist, fishery biologist, DFG and/or NOAA Fisheries.
Private property owners who wish to have other LWM removed or modified will need to contact DFG for approval and permits. The County will disseminate information to the public on the value of LWM for habitat and natural stream function and the terms of the county policy. The county will also document, including photos, the large wood that is modified or removed and that which is retained as is.
Truly a victory for the fish! Bravo and thanks to the folks who urged the county to undertake this policy change and kept after them, those who wrote support letters and those who showed up at the Board of Supervisors to urge adoption of the change in policy implementation. And thanks to John Ricker, Environmental Health and his staff for listening to the comments and concerns and modifying their final recommendation.
The staff report, supporting documents and comment letters can be found at:
http://sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/bds/Govstream/BDSvData/non_legacy/agendas/2009/20090303/PDF/049.pdf

Footnote: The County Planner who is responsible for issuing riparian permits spoke briefly during the Salmonid Restoration Conference (for more info see #8 below) tour on large instream wood and lagoons. Her responses to a couple of questions highlighted the fact that she did not know what 'large instream wood/large woody debris/large woody material' actually was. Clearly education of staff will need to take place as well as education of the public. Unfortunately this individual did not participate in the whole tour where she would have learned a lot about the importance of instream wood for stream health and fish habitat.

2. Eureka Gulch West THP 1-08-159 SCR
The Eureka Gulch West saga continues. This Redwood Empire THP covers 196 acres, which are transected by 20 Class III watercourses, 10 Class II watercourses, 1.8 miles of dirt road and numerous skid trails. Two new landings are proposed to bring the total number of landings to 16. In addition, there are 46 mapped landslides including one major culvert failure in a Class II, which occurred after the last entry in the mid 1990s.
Santa Cruz County and the Department of Fish and Game have both non-concurred because this plan does not have a cut-off for winter operations. The Winter Operating Plan is so complex none of us are really clear about what is or is not allowed. The plan is to serve as direction for the Licensed Timber Operator, so one can assume he may also not be sure exactly what is allowed when and where. The plan does propose to keep three roads, landings and skid trails open at a time during the winter. If there is a 30% chance of rain predicted for the next day, the various roads and trails will be closed with waterbars, straw or slash each time and remain closed for ten days after a 1/4 inch of rain, then reopened as needed.
When the county presented a request to Supervisor Pirie's office to bring the plan to the Board to appeal to the Board of Forestry, staff was directed to try to work out their concerns with Redwood Empire. Staff then met with RE foresters and tentatively agreed to several additional mitigations, including permission to conduct site visits during operations, particularly during the winter period. At the request of Sierra Club, a meeting was held with Supervisor Pirie to share our support of staff's non-concurrence and express our serious concerns with this particular THP and the potential precedent setting change allowing winter-long winter operations throughout the county.
While the meeting originally was planned to include members of Sierra Club ExCom and Group's Forestry Consultant, Supervisor Pirie and county staff, the participant list grew to include Terris Kastner of DFG and Rich Sampson and John Ferreira of CAL FIRE. Interestingly, Sierra Club was not asked if it was ok to include these additional folks, nor were we even advised that CAL FIRE would be attending.
While Pirie expressed concern that CAL FIRE was not protecting Corralitos Creek, she apparently continued to encourage staff to work with Redwood Empire.
After the meeting, County staff sent additional comments expressing a 'desire' for a winter cut-off, but acknowledging that they would still accept an alternative. They asked for additional mitigations to remove their non-concurrence.
Prior to that letter, RE RPF, Duffy, submitted a response to the meeting with the County erroneously stating that the County had agreed to remove their non-concurrence.
Now CAL FIRE has 'reopened' the Public Comment period for 30 days, beginning on March 9, though we are unaware that Public Comment was ever officially closed. In addition, CAL FIRE seems to be ignoring the County's last submittal and have not posted it to the ftp site. Moving target: the County's letter was posted on March 10 along with the RPF's response that he will not cede to the County's new requests. One can assume that the County will now proceed to appeal the plan before the Board of Forestry.
Sierra Club and CCFW believe that, at a bare minimum this THP must have a winter cut-off and must adequately address the TMDL, which identifies a need for 95% sediment reduction in Corralitos Creek.
CAL FIRE review continues with the new Close of Public Comment set for April 9.
ftp://thp.fire.ca.gov/THPLibrary/North_Coast_Region/THPs2008/1-08-159SCR/
3. Soquel Demonstration Forest THP Update THP 1-04-046 SCR
For those who have been receiving these updates, you will remember that SDSF had submitted a timber harvest plan in 2004. The review came to a halt after efforts to protect an old growth redwood, originally proposed to be cut to make way for a new road, went awry. A smaller stem from the same root system was cut so an engineer could get a clear view of the remaining stem to try to determine where to locate a cable to support the tree which was leaning in the direction of the proposed road. At about the same time, Ed Orre, the SDSF RPF who ill advisedly allowed for the OG stem to be cut (the enabling legislation for the state forest prohibits cutting OG), made an even more egregious error. He allowed a CDF chain saw training class to fell dozens of large trees inside the THP boundary. Of course, the THP had not yet been approved, so falling trees was not authorized.
Mr. Orre has had his license suspended for six months for these actions, but that did not stop him from pushing to have review of the five-year old proposed THP re-commenced. Fortunately, CAL FIRE in Sacramento intervened and word has it that the THP has now been withdrawn.
4. Major Amendments
Starting in 2005, CAL FIRE began a pilot program in Region 3 (the Coast Region which includes the Southern Sub-district) to post THPs, NTMPs, agency comments and RPF responses on an ftp site. The program has not been without its ups and downs, but by and large, it has been a success. While public comments are not posted, THPs are now easily accessible without having to travel to the Felton CDF office, pay per page, or contact Santa Rosa. Most documents are posted the day after they are received by CAL FIRE.
However, there have been a few problems of note. CAL FIRE has refused to post NTMPs which were approved prior to the development of the ftp site. This means that not all 'current' or active plans are available electronically. CAL FIRE has consistently claimed that they do not have time to add more categories. CAL FIRE has also refused to post any documents generated after a plan has been approved. These may be significant, particularly when they are Major Amendments!!! Major Amendments are required to undergo the same review process as THPs and NTMPs and allow for full public participation. I only learned about the one to put a bridge across Soquel Creek just upstream from the 173 coho juveniles found last summer, because I was alerted by an agency staff person. The amendment was not posted to the ftp site and it was not included in the 'new' THP on-line list either. And when I visited the Felton office, it was not even posted on their white board.
After CCFW submitted a letter and similar concerns were brought up by DFG, CAL FIRE has now decided to post Major Amendments submitted in 2009 and forward. This is a step in the right direction, but only a step. I was told CAL FIRE now has time to do this because timber harvest plan submissions are down statewide. But I was also cautioned that they were hamstrung because they have only one copy machine in Redding they can use.
Of course, the documents are usually scanned from paper submittals. How hard would it be to require submission of all agency and RPF documents as pdf files, which could simply be uploaded? Not sure, but it might take a rule change by the Board of Forestry. However, a 'request' wouldn't be any trouble at all....
From Leslie Markham, CAL FIRE on how to find new THPs, NTMPs and Major Amendments:
<
Having said the above, I did notice that all of the NoS's since we began the ftp site are in the folder. I have directed staff to make a subfolder, and put all of the NOS's prior to 2009 in that so that the main folder is less cluttered, and you can get to the 2009 NoS that you are interested in more quickly.

Here is the address that will take you to the North Coast Region information:

ftp://thp.fire.ca.gov/THPLibrary/North_Coast_Region/

Here is the specific folder that contains the weekly Notice of Submission-Recirculation's:

ftp://thp.fire.ca.gov/THPLibrary/North_Coast_Region/Notice%20of%20Submission-Recirculation/

Once in this folder, double click on the specific document (identified by date), and it will provide you with the specific Notice of Submission.

Hope this helps....Leslie>>

5. Grizzly Flat NTMP (now named Eureka Gulch NTMP: 1-08NTMP-010 SCR)
The City of Watsonville's Eureka Gulch NTMP (aka Grizzly Flat) was accepted for filing on February 12, 2009. (Curious, since the Notice of Filing was posted on the ftp site on February 11, 2009.) We have reviewed the First Review Team Questions and feel that this plan was accepted for filing in error. There was no Domestic Water Supply Notice included in the plan and the newspaper Notice of Intent was from March 22, 2008. The rules require that the Notice of Intent be published concurrent with plan submission. The plan was originally submitted in June 2008, but a re-submission half a year later should require re-noticing. People move, sell and buy property and a year old notice doesn't do the job it was designed to do.
In addition, the plan is deficient in several other significant ways. It does not include information required for a number of rules pertaining to Contents of an NTMP. This seems to me to be grounds for refusal to file the plan and I have submitted a comment letter saying so. Waiting to see how CAL FIRE responds.
The plan can be reviewed at: ftp://thp.fire.ca.gov/THPLibrary/North_Coast_Region/NTMPs2008/1-08NTMP-010SCR/
6. Water Board waiver policy changes
In 2005 the Central Coast Water Board adopted a General Conditional Waiver of Waste Discharge Requirements for Timber Harvest Activities in our area, ostensibly to protect beneficial uses of waters. The Sierra Club, Lompico Watershed Conservancy and the Ocean Conservancy actively participated in development of the waiver through public input. Each timber harvest plan since that date has been required to submit an application to the Water Board, receive a waiver approval and conduct some level of post-harvest monitoring.
As of September 2008, this program was modified. (While I have been advised that I was sent the notice of program change in September, I only just received the notice.) Under the new program, requests for coverage under the General Waiver are tentatively approved 14 calendar days after the Water Board receives a complete application. Foresters are to follow Tier III monitoring requirements (dry season temp monitoring and storm-event triggered turbidity monitoring), until they receive an approved waiver from Water Board staff. Staff may drop them to a lower tier, or may determine that the plan is not eligible for a General Waiver at all, but must get an individual waiver (Tier IV) requiring approval by the Water Board itself at a public hearing. In that case, operations must stop until the Individual Waiver is approved.
7. Redwoods and Fire
Q. Wildfires are a serious concern in California. Should people who live in and around the redwood forest be worried about potential forest fire hazards?
Anybody living in the urban-wildland interface should practice basic fire safety by clearing defensible space around structures. As vegetation types go, however, the coast redwood forest is remarkably fire resistant. Individual trees survive fire due to thick fire resistant bark. A lack of flammable resins makes the bark difficult to ignite, and air pockets act as insulation protecting the living tissue below. The height of the coast redwood also provides protection from fire. With the lowest branches far from the forest floor it is difficult for fire to travel up to the crown. During the most sever fires when significant foliage is destroyed it quickly sprouts back, and only the youngest and smallest redwood trees are lost. Generally speaking, the older and larger trees are the most fire resistant. The coast redwood forest community, as a whole, also tends to be less susceptible to fire than many other vegetation types due to high moisture content in both live and dead fuels. For more information on defensible space check the Cal Fire website at www.fire.ca.gov.
- By Will Russell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at San Jose State University in the Department of Environmental studies. (With permission from: The Mountain Echo, Sempervirens Fund Quarterly Newsletter, Winter 2009)
8. Gleaned from the SRF Conference
The 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Federation Conference was held in Santa Cruz from March 4 through March 7. Attendees participated in tours and workshops, plus heard presentations covering coho recovery efforts, steelhead genetics and recovery strategies, dam removal, fire ecology, hydrologic legacies and more. Dr. Peter Moyle, Dr. Bob Curry, Dr. Astrid Scholtz, Mike Furniss and Dr. Josh Israel delivered outstanding plenaries. Friday ended with a lively poster session and the Conference concluded Saturday night with a wonderful Copper River salmon banquet, an awards ceremony, a no-host bar and excellent dance music by Bay Area band Lo Cura.
Here are some of the tantalizing bits I gleaned over the four days (any errors are my own):
Sean Hayes, NOAA Fisheries (has been doing tracking studies of steelhead)
There is a strong tidal influence at Scott Creek. The tidal surge delivers kelp into the lagoon and some kelp has been found 90 meters upstream. Scientists now believe the kelp is an important nutrient source in the lagoon system. Fish grow larger in the lagoon than in the stream reaches. Fish have been found to migrate upstream when lagoon conditions are unfavorable. Some fish identified in the lagoon that were not large enough to smolt, returned upstream to spend a second season in the creek.
Steelhead have been found to travel as far north as Alaska.

Robert Curry, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Watershed Institute, CSUMB
Bob talked at length about healthy lagoon function stating that 80% of the problem for local salmonids is poor lagoon habitat. He noted that as long as the sand bar at each river mouth is not artificially breached, wave action can overtop the sand bar and deposit more sand to increase the bar height and thereby increase the lagoon depth and breadth, while adding salt water to enable smolts to adapt to salt water conditions in preparation for entering the ocean. This creates an ideal habitat for smolts, with enough depth to allow small fish to avoid many avian predators.

When sufficient rains increase flows enough to naturally breach the sandbar, outmigrating salmon are carried seaward in a turbid, sediment laden flow that carries them en masse down and out onto the shelf, hidden in the murk from predators. As tidal surge and increased rain runoff provide adequate flows, returning salmon are able to swim sufficiently far upstream to find suitable spawning habitat. Sandbars prematurely breached allow fish to enter the lagoon before there is sufficient stream flow to move upstream as well as causing other well-known problems with fresh water/salt water balance.

A combination of ocean action and heavy stream flows can scour the river/lagoon bottom significantly below the ocean floor.

The second most significant problem identified by Bob Curry is the absence of large wood and pools.

Brian Spence, NOAA Fisheries
Large instream wood collects sediment that actually acts as a sponge, slowly releasing additional cool, percolated water into the stream channel. While the large wood helps scour pools on the downstream side, the sediment held upstream slowly releases cool water into the pools that fish, particularly coho, need.

Carlos Garza, NOAA Fisheries.
Carlos does genetic research to assist in determining which coho to breed together in the Captive Broodstock program currently operated by NOAA labs in conjunction with the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Program. Carlos mentioned a study done where brother/sister steelhead were deliberately bred and offspring were analyzed and measured for multiple parameters, with no significant differences discerned relative to offspring of unrelated parentage. However, members of the tagged control group returned from the ocean to spawn the following year, but none of the brother/sister offspring returned. Clearly some unidentified factors rendered these fish unviable.



Jodi Frediani
Forestry Consultant
Santa Cruz Group
Ventana Chapter, Sierra Club
ph/fax 831-426-1697
JodiFredi@aol.com

Jodi Frediani
Director
Central Coast Forest Watch
ph/fax 831-426-1697
JodiFredi@aol.com


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