THE Gienger REPORT...Diggin' In

by RICHARD GIENGER 
April 4, 2005


As of mid-March, it's been a fairly mild winter on the North Coast--in contrast to the extremely high rainfall and resulting damage in Southern California. Significant rains generally came late. An early December storm raised the water, but in the Mattole and elsewhere, it wasn't enough or prolonged enough to get significant numbers of spawning salmon into the prime headwaters spawning areas. A set of storms at the end of December and early January enabled significant numbers of salmon to reach the more stable spawning areas high in the watershed. Not one of the storms was overwhelming, but an inch per day for clusters of days was enough
to enable basin-wide salmon and steelhead migration.

In early January, Campbell Thompson reported the most coho nests and live coho spawners he'd seen in a single day in Thompson (no relation) Creek. Thompson Creek is a major tributary of the Mattole River in both Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Campbell has been doing spawning surveys in the Mattole River watershed for the Mattole Salmon Group for more than a decade.

There was also joy in January for the folks in the Seely Creek watershed. Verified coho salmon were observed spawning in some of the better habitat mid-watershed. Seely Creek is a tributary to Redwood Creek, which enters the South Fork Eel River at Redway. The Seely Creek Watershed Association has conducted concerted road and watershed improvement efforts since the early 1990s, so evidence of coho was especially heartening. Seely Creek is currently left off the Critical Habitat designation for the federally listed coho, but parts of it are designated Critical Habitat for the federally listed Chinook and steelhead.

The late project starts at plate arch construction sites at Gibson and Stanley Creeks--tributaries to the Mattole River upstream of Whitethorn--came out "more or less" O.K. These DF&G-funded County projects to correct fish passage problems didn't start until well into September. There was significant downcutting and release of fine sediment from above the Gibson Creek site, but at least some bedrock elevation controls were in place under the finer material. The Stanley Creek site had visible bedrock elevation controls above the site to begin with. An older log structure that the California Conservation Corps had installed below the Stanley Creek crossing to increase the chance of passage through the old culvert was not removed, however, and looks as though it impedes passage. With some "fine-tuning" this summer, the plate arches with their natural streambed bottoms will ensure easy passage to vital coho and steelhead spawning and rearing areas. Thorough planning and implementation of these projects is very important.

A recent development in the new legislative season is the introduction of Senate Bill 153 by State Senator Wesley Chesbro and Assembly Member Patty Berg (along with a number of other legislators). If successful, SB 153, the "California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2006" would place a 3-billion-dollar bond initiative on the March 2006 ballot. The bill is about 16 pages and deserves your scrutiny--check it out on the California LegInfo website. Its stated purpose is "financing a program for the acquisition, development, and preservation of park, recreational, coastal, agricultural land, air, water, cultural, and historical resources, as specified...." It would answer some real needs, but I'm anxious for real endowment funds to materialize that will enable steady watershed and habitat recovery to take place without the cyclic ebb and flow of funding and hyper-competitiveness for funds that often cause worthy efforts to be overlooked, hampering sane prioritization of recovery measures.

And speaking of sane prioritization of recovery measures, the coho Recovery Team--which along with the Department of Fish & Game authored the coho Recovery Strategy that was approved by the Fish & Game Commission--will be meeting again in March. Ideally, key parts of the strategy will start to be implemented this year, goaded by the Recovery Team. The F&G Commission has yet to put rules in place to begin making the listing effective, and implementation of key elements of the coho Recovery Strategy is still lagging.

Oh, yes--you may have heard--Governor Arnold's attempt to do away with close to 90 Boards and Commissions has been beaten back. Included on the list was the Board of Forestry. He may come forth with a reduced and revised proposal. The Board of Forestry does need some reform, but for better or worse, it is the monthly venue for the public (regulated and unregulated) to be made aware of forestry issues and to attempt to make positive changes. As one Capitol wag put it, "The only thing worse than the Board of Forestry making rules is the Department of Forestry making rules." Of Arnold's attempt to "blow up the boxes," State Senator Liz Figueroa quoted something to the effect that people were saying, "Hey, that's my box, and you don't even know what's in it."

Fuel hazard reduction continues to be an issue, including arguments about the maximum diameter of trees to be removed. There are ongoing concerns for monitoring, for any necessary adjustments to prevent abuse, and what financial incentives are reasonable to ensure adequate implementation. The BoF measure focuses on the "wildland interface" with human homes, infrastructure, and firebreak ridges. AB 2420 measures extend out into the forest. Check the Board of Forestry website for pertinent rules language and related issues.

The Old Growth/Heritage Tree disclosure rules package continues in the BoF's Forest Practice Committee. Committee Chair Dr. Susan Britting is hopeful that the Board will pass on a set of recommendations in March or April. Of course, even though some proposed actions will improve the situation, they do not go far enough. The July 2003 Petition has kept the issue in front of the industry month after month for a year and a half now. Additionally, the Heritage Tree Bill, which almost passed the Legislature last year, is being reintroduced in a modified form (not yet determined) as SB 1057 (Perata). Word has it that the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups are going to work with the Citizens Campaign for Old Growth and Senator Perata to come up with a bill that can become law and make protection of the remaining old growth in California possible.

One of the BIGGEST issues is happening right now: the fight to set a rate of harvest that allows recovery of damaged watersheds. We're in the ninth year since the 1996-1997 New Year's storms ripped up Stafford and caused Elk River and the Freshwater, Bear, Stitz, and Jordan creeks to be designated as "especially and cumulatively adversely impacted by sediment." After fruitless attempts to get the Board and Department of Forestry (CDF) to adequately respond, citizens turned to water law and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (WQ) to achieve justice and recovery. It's been another long and protracted struggle with Pacific Lumber (PL)/Maxxam, the largest landowner in those watersheds by far.

The specific immediate focus is on Freshwater and Elk. Sedimentation has reduced channel capacity in crucial reaches, causing increased frequency and severity of flooding. CDF set a yearly limitation on cutting to 500 "equivalent clearcut acres" in the Freshwater watershed, and 600 "equivalent clearcut acres" in the Elk River watershed. This figure is based on canopy removal and its effect on peak flows. They modeled it to 1998 conditions--an already severely degraded condition--not on a recovery model. The CDF limitation also does not take into account landslide and road sedimentation.

PL was supposed to submit a Report of Waste Discharge in a timely manner to WQ, so that a Watershed-Wide Waste Discharge permit could be issued January 1st. This permit would set logging rates that would allow significant recovery to take place. PL/Maxxam wasn't timely, and the permit won't be ready until at least April, so PL bullied approval of 4 plans at the end of December, and claimed that they would go bankrupt if 12 more weren't immediately approved. On February 25th, two days after a packed meeting in Eureka, WQ said that only 50% of the CDF logging cap would be permissible. The residents, Humboldt Watershed Council, EPIC, and PL/Maxxam were all upset. Financial considerations are not supposed to be a factor: "Creeks not Cash" read one headline. PL/Maxxam wants to use their "engineered" solutions (e.g. flood walls) with no reduction in cutting rate. The residents and supporters of protection of the public trust want recovered watersheds and protection of the beneficial uses of water. The saga will continue.

The Buckeye Forest Project (BFP) is sponsoring a watershed/cumulative impact workshop April 7th & 8th. The cumulative impact evaluation and response process is way overdue for reform. Some of the labor pains are noted above in Elk River and Freshwater Creek. Cumulative impacts as they are currently handled in the Timber Harvest Plan and related processes are costly and essentially meaningless. Various positive and negative reforms for those processes are anticipated to be fought over at the BoF and in the Legislature in 2005. There needs to be a protection/recovery plan for each Planning Watershed derived through an interagency/landowner/public process. Once this is done, expenses for individual projects would be significantly reduced, yet provisions would be there for adequate watershed protection and recovery.

Get in touch with EPIC at 707/923-2931 and Humboldt Watershed Council at 707/822-1166 for the latest information on many of the above topics and other issues.

Please get involved in ways that are effective for you, and that contribute to real solutions.--rg


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