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Some general and specific issues that are obvious as of July 2000 ? and which intertwine in complex and interesting ways ? include the following:
- The continued disjointed, stop-and-start, half-baked-and-worse struggle among the state agencies, legislature, governor, industry, landowners, and public to come up with protection for and recovery of listed species and watersheds.
- The effort to help small landowners cope with the real costs of ?doing it right? and/or the various regulatory burdens. This often translates into keeping small forestland ownerships intact in the face of pressures to sell out to big industry or rampant development.
- The struggle on individual Timber Harvest Plans to ensure compliance with existing regulations for sustainability and resource protection. These range from Sierra-Pacific THPs in the Sierra Nevada for hundreds of acres of clearcuts in 20-acre patches, to Santa Cruz-area THPs that violate County no-cut stream buffers, to Pacific Lumber/Maxxam THPs that fail to respond to cumulative impacts (like the recent Redway THP 044 that, with other THPs along the unstable bend of the South Fork Eel River, threaten the town and the river).
- The ongoing struggle over funding sources and allocations for fisheries and watershed restoration.
- The effort to bring compliance with federal and state water law to ?control? the ?controllable sources? of impairment in water bodies. The Eel River system and most other North Coast river systems are impaired by sediment and/or high water temperatures. The focus must be on correcting sources of sediment and causes of high water temperatures.
- The costly and complex effort to address the above problems through litigation continues. Arguments were recently delivered in federal and state courts, respectively, to prevent CDF from allowing ?take? of Coho salmon, and to prevent CDF from allowing cutting to start in the ?Hole in the Headwaters.?
Some heartening developments:
- Joe Blum, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) liaison to California for listed, or candidate, coho and chinook salmon and steelhead trout, made a forthright declaration in the EPIC et al. v. Andrea Tuttle et al. case about ?system breakdown?: ?NMFS concluded that the California Forest Practice Rules with the recently adopted interim changes are inadequate to protect anadromous salmonids or provide for properly functioning habitat conditions.? NMFS has been able to inspect, at best, one percent of plans received from CDF. Blum states, ?Every timber harvest plan that NMFS has reviewed has been found to have disparities between what was written in the timber harvest plan and what NMFS staff found to be occurring on the ground during pre-harvest inspections.? Blum has repeatedly addressed the Board of Forestry and encouraged them to take adequate action, and has offered guidelines and information crucial for the protection and recovery of the listed anadromous species. Blum has ?explained that timber activities under timber harvest plans approved under the California Forest Practice Rules are resulting in the destruction of salmonid habitat and are harming listed salmonids.? Ideally, his courage in formally stating the obvious will help to catalyze some real change.
- Representatives of EPIC, the Institute for Sustainable Forestry, small landowners, foresters, agencies, and legislators have been meeting in Fortuna for a few months to reach consensus on some modest but essential steps to help small forest landowners survive biological necessity and regulatory and economic pressure. Some changes may be forthcoming in legislation to allow cost sharing for adequate preparation, with qualified personnel, of watershed protection and recovery plans.
- Approximately $6 million of federal money in the California Coastal Salmon Recovery Program (CCSRP) is available right now ? and is awaiting formal proposals. The deadline for proposals is August 11, 2000. Further information is available at the California Department of Fish and Game at 916-327-8845. Other funds will soon be available. Programs of NMFS (call 707-575-6050) and Water Quality (call 707-576-2220) are also in place with dollars for restoration.
Recent developments:
- Governor Gray Davis ?blue penciled? the trailer bill language attached to the money for the Resources Agency seven -year North Coast Watershed Assessment Program (that now has no immediate and essential connection to current activities?including regulation) with the message that, ?Although I am deleting this language, I wish to express my commitment to work with the legislature during the remainder of this session on the development of a watershed proposal, to address logging-related impacts to salmon and water quality.? The language which he deleted would have required passage of adequate Interim Measures for the protection of listed fish and passage of Fred Keeley?s bill (AB 717) affording a science-based watershed analysis process with peer and public review. For starters, I?d feel a lot better if the Governor?s commitment went past August 31?the end of the current legislative session. Please involve yourself in the struggle for sanity, and a future, for stable watersheds and fisheries recovery.
- Interim Rules and ?Watershed/ cumulative impacts assessments or analysis or evaluation or monitoring Rules? will have hearings starting
in September (with the always-important committee discussions in July
and August). The Board meets in Sacramento September 11-13. Meetings in Sacramento are proposed for October 2-4 and November 6-8. Call the Board office at 916-653-8007 to be at the right place at the right time! - Negotiations are underway in some form to ensure comprehensive monitoring of any mitigations or logging under PL?s THP 044. We hope these negotiations will also achieve an agreement for no operations until acquisition can occur. We need everyone?s help on this?adjacent logging by other landowners is a part of this picture. The Department of Parks and Recreation is contesting PL?s claimed access.
- Trial hearing comes up on August 4 in Superior Court in Eureka on the Chapman Ranch NTMP 98-038?over failure to adequately survey and protect cultural sites and failure to consult with Native Americans. Call EPIC for information at 707-923-2931.
- The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) comes to Eureka in September (707-576-2220). It will be another ?showdown? on the Freshwater Watershed Assessment, as well as on WQ standards and monitoring for all of PL?s holdings?plus North Coast water quality issues in general.
To end on a positive note: The Third Annual Coho Confab will be held August 19-20, centered at the Nadelos BLM campsite on the Chemise Mountain/Usal Road (near the Shelter Cove Road). Please call Trees Foundation at 707-923-4377 for more information. Hope to see you there for an inspiring time working and learning from local restoration projects. This year there will be a focus on concerns of landowners and other restoration issues.