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Spring 2001
Friends Of
the Russian River's
C U R R E N T S
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Table
of Contents
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President's
Greeting
by
Dan Wickham
As
the new board president for the Friends of the
Russian River I extend my greetings and my
gratitude for working with a unique group of
people, all dedicated to the care and restoration
of one of California's authentic natural
treasures.
I
feel embarrassed that I could have lived for 30
years in Sonoma County without really appreciating
the Russian River. My eyes were opened two years
ago, when my wife Dee and I moved to a riverfront
house in Duncan's Mills. Like so many people, I had
the subliminal sense that the River was a stricken,
polluted watercourse passing through communities on
the edge of collapse. Thank our cynical Press
Democrat for shaping my view.
What
a pleasant shock to walk down to Duncan's Mills
shore, dive into crystal water and gaze up and
downstream to natural vistas usually reserved for
national parks. I have now had the chance to canoe
through the stunning Alexander Valley to Healdsburg
stretch and the intriguing meander to Forestville.
But I am in my own special Eden when I canoe in the
supernatural midnight silence through the sublime
stretch from Duncan's Mills to Jenner.
The
message I would like to get to residents of the
Redwood Empire is complex. First, the River faces
serious and continuing threats to its health and
vitality. Poorly regulated logging, virtually
unregulated gravel strip mining, vineyards pushed
through crucial riparian habitat to the very edge
of the water, pesticides, fertilizers and sewage
discharges, and worst of all, urbanization and
traffic beyond the River's capacity or our
tolerance.
Where
are our salmon and steelhead, our bald eagles? When
will we finally clean up the Laguna de Santa Rosa,
source of virtually all of the pollution in the
lower river? When will we control the thousands of
tons of silt our activities generate?
All
are important issues that FORR members engage in
daily. But the real message is not how bad our
River is. It is how beautiful and vibrant the river
is. How worthwhile our efforts to preserve the
river intact and restore the impacted
area.
Don't
despair but, rather, rejoice that we still have the
chance to preserve this treasure. But we must act
now or that chance is gone forever. The pressure to
strip this natural resource so a select few can
establish their dynasties is on us with an almost
maniac frenzy.
FORR
is pushing on virtually all fronts, but some
special programs are in the making that will help
us focus our energy. The most exciting to me is our
RiverKeeper Project, with board member Don McEnhill
at the lead as our new RiverKeeper.
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Russian
RiverKeeper Project
by
Don McEnhill
In
the middle of the night someone dumps barrels
containing solvents...someone, without a permit,
bulldozes a creekbed...an irrigation line breaks
and spews pesticide-laden water on the
ground...urban runoff efficiently carries trash,
toxics and homeowner-applied herbicides or
pesticides into a tributary, a state agency writes
a permit that increases the amount of treated
effluent a municipality is allowed to dump, a
timber harvest creates a huge sediment flow
smothering juvenile Salmon fry in a
tributary.
It
is a public right and the law of the U.S. and
California that the Russian River and its wildlife
be protected and preserved. The river is a Public
Resource that also provides drinking water and
recreational opportunities to our region, which,
like the wildlife, are protected under law. With
three species of Salmonids listed as threatened
under the Endangered Species Act and one of them,
Coho Salmon, virtually non-existent, it is time to
bring major efforts to bear on protecting the
Russian River. That is why we are establishing the
Russian RiverKeeper Project. When someone fouls the
Russian River or a tributary, it degrades the water
quality and incurs a cost for people, government
and businesses in the watershed. It costs taxpayers
money to clean up problems and address declining
wildlife populations. It's an unfair advantage over
other businesses when one business cuts corners or
breaks the law and, again, taxpayers usually foot
the bill for mitigation. When someone makes a
decision based solely on self interest, they have
to account for each decision's impact on the
community. That is why we have the federal Clean
Water Act, Department of Fish and Game regulations,
Endangered Species Act and planning and zoning
laws.
Just
as a neighborhood watch program seeks to supplement
the police in fighting crime, a full-time FORR's
Russian RiverKeeper Project will supplement the
efforts of public agencies, private organizations
and responsible businesses to protect, enhance and
restore the Russian River. We intend to be living,
breathing witnesses who don't work for government
or industry, who represent the public interest,
collecting evidence, monitoring the health of the
Russian and what people are doing to it. Not just
taking pictures or sticking test tubes in the
water, but saying: "Here's the bad guy, here's what
he did, the date he did it on, and why it's
illegal," and presenting that evidence to
authorities. We do not intend to put anyone out of
business, just put people out of the pollution and
habitat degradation business. We will always employ
cooperation over confrontation with offenders and
public agencies, reserving litigation as an
absolute last resort.
We
have been working on this project on a strictly
volunteer basis for the last six months; our goal
is to employ a full-time person to run the program.
Your continued support of Friends of the Russian
River will make this happen. We are currently
looking for any volunteers with the following
experience and capabilities: research and report
writing, grantwriting, water quality sampling
program design. In the future we will need
volunteers who will learn how to analyze and
comment on pollutant discharge permits and
streambed alteration permits, water quality
sampling, data input and reporting and other
areas.
Russian
RiverKeeper Project promises to be an exciting way
for Friends of the Russian River and our community
to help address the problems and threats to our
most valuable public natural resource, the Russian
River, and ensure we pass it to the next generation
in more healthy, abundant and sustainable
condition.
Our
work over the next year will include:
On
Land
- Survey
public agencies and existing private
organizations for input on program focus and
unmet needs
- Perform
data gap analysis on water quality information
in the Russian River watershed and prioritize
needs
- Create
a project plan to address water quality
monitoring needs
- Participate
in Basin Plan update by North Coast Region Water
Quality Control Board and attend their board
meetings
- Create
a web site for pictures and documentation of
pollution sources and riparian destruction as
well as well-preserved or restored riparian
habitat; try this link and bookmark it for
future reference: www.russianriverkeeper.org
- Work
with national Waterkeepers Alliance and local SF
Bay/DeltaKeeper to maintain currency of
approach
On
Water
- Create
methods and procedures for river patrols
focusing on pollution detection and riparian
habitat protection
- Acquire
a boat for RiverKeeper
- Establish
a volunteer water quality sampling
program
To
assist, support or participate, please write
info(at)russianriverkeeper(dot)org.
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Gravel
mining threatens the Russian
River
By Thérèse Shere
[Check
subsequent event(s): EC
Notices
or
EC
Issues/Topics
]
Aggregate
mining production from instream bars and floodplain
pits along the Russian River in Sonoma County
averaged 2 million tons per year during the 1990s,
about half of total aggregate production in the
county. Mining occurs only along a 40-river-mile
stretch from Cloverdale downstream to about 7 miles
south of Healdsburg. Instream mining is
concentrated in the Cloverdale and Alexander Valley
Reaches, and floodplain mining (officially called
"terrace" mining in Sonoma County) in the Middle
Reach below Healdsburg, where there exist about 900
acres of deep pits in the seven-mile long Russian
River Valley.
Although
mining actually occurs along only 40 miles of
river, its impacts are far-reaching. Instream
mining removes gravel directly from a river system
already starved for sediment. Channel incision has
been serious in the Russian. Riverbed level dropped
up to 12 feet in the Alexander Valley since 1940.
In the Middle Reach, where deep gravel dredging in
the riverbed itself was the preferred mining method
in the 1950s and 1960s, downcutting since 1940 is
as much as 20 feet. Large amounts of sediment
coming into the Russian River system are trapped
behind the Coyote and Warm Springs dams, further
reducing the sediment supply in the Sonoma County
reaches. Sonoma County's Aggregate Resources
Management (ARM) Plan claims to limit instream
mining each year to "sustainable" levels--the
amount of gravel naturally replenished the season
before-but this requirement does not apply to the
first year of mining, and there is a great deal of
controversy about how to reliably measure what that
"natural replenishment" amount is each
year.
The
impacts of downcutting from decreased sediment
supply extend far up- and downstream of mining
locations. They include bank erosion, tributary
downcutting, and drops in groundwater levels,
affecting wells. Tributary downcutting makes
streams wider, shallower, and warmer, making them
inhospitable to threatened salmonids. Spawning
gravels are frequently scoured out under these
conditions as well. And downcutting can mean fish
passage problems too. Water level drops cause
losses of riparian vegetation, which in turn raise
stream temperatures.
Floodplain
pits are up to 60 feet deep, their bottoms well
below the riverbed level. In most cases they are
separated by narrow unengineered earth
"levees"-simply strips of unmined earth left in
their original locations. In high flows, these
separators can easily be breached suddenly, which
can cause sudden, extreme downcutting up- and
downstream. Salmonids may reach the pits during
high flows and remain trapped there when flows
recede, to be preyed upon by resident warmwater
species. Some pits are used for wastewater
deposition, and breaches mean sudden release of
large amounts of minimally-treated wastewater into
the river. Pit mining can also affect groundwater
levels and flows, threatening aquifer recharge and
well water supplies (including wells of the Sonoma
County Water Agency and the City of Windsor) and
removing the natural filtration capacity of the
mined gravels.
 The
threat of gravel mining is not going away. Sonoma
County's 10-year ARM Plan adopted in 1994 specifies
a 10-year phaseout of "terrace" pit mining, the
aggregate production slack to be taken up by
hardrock quarry mining, granted some minor
incentives in the Plan. However, since 1994 the
quarries' production share has increased very
little, and quarry expansion projects have so far
not been approved and encounter serious opposition.
In spite of the listing of Coho and Steelhead under
the ESA, instream mining continues, albeit with
conditions imposed by NMFS. The problem of how to
achieve "sustainable" instream mining has not been
solved. The ARM Plan makes it a priority to fulfill
local aggregate demand with local production, and
there is heavy development pressure in Sonoma
County which is likely to mean heavy aggregate
demand in the future. Several current or possible
major infrastructure projects such as Highway 101
widening and construction of the Geysers wastewater
pipeline will consume huge amounts of
gravel.
The
Russian RiverKeeper Project program can help
address these threats best by publicizing them.
Riparian lands along the Russian are almost
entirely privately owned, and what is out of sight
is out of mind for most people. The constant
presence of an advocate who can be on the river
much of the time, see what is going on and document
it, bring other people onto the river, and
communicate what they are seeing will be of
inestimable value. The public awareness this can
bring is a necessary prerequisite for public policy
changes to reduce the threats posed by mining and
other destructive land use practices. Also, the
County program to monitor gravel mining operations
is weak. Inspections are supposed to be done on
every 60 days, but in practice that doesn't occur.
The Russian RiverKeeper Project will be in an
excellent position to see any violations and report
them to the County.
[Photo
courtesy of Scott Hess. See Scott's
RiverGuardians
web pages for additional photos, text and diagrams
that show how the regions's greatest gift of
nature: a productive acquifer that supplies half a
million people, is being sacrificed for private
short-term gains from gravel
mining.]
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Letter
from
Marty
Griffin
Most
North County residents are fed up with Santa Rosa's
LA style of rampant growth. Its sprawl depends on
degrading our Russian River resources with
wastewater discharges, gravel mining, water
diversions, oily urban runoff, and poisoning the
Laguna de Santa Rosa with phosphates, heavy metals,
and chemicals. Santa Rosa's treated wastewater is
proving to be of inferior quality, potentially
unsafe for native plantlife and salmon.
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Now
we are faced with the doubling of Santa
Rosa's Geysers pipeline capacity to 40
mgpd, with branches to distribute and
store wastewater along 75 miles of
pipelines and on 22,000 acres of sensitive
watershed lands extending from near
Guerneville to Cloverdale. This ecocide is
to be done without a current EIR on the
entire project, under the guise of reuse
and Geysers recharge.
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We
are led to believe that disposal in the North
County will save our creeks and salmon. But the
reverse is true. Each gallon exported out of the
Santa Rosa basin into North County watersheds
allows Santa Rosa to reach its goal of 20,000 new
households by 2020. This growth requires more
storage reservoirs in steep canyons, which leak,
killing aquatic life downstream.
The
availability of cheap wastewater will encourage
North County farmers to subdivide into 100 acre
vineyard estates with superb views of the
Geysers.
We
invite citizens to join our legal crusade and help
force Santa Rosa and the Water Agency to stop
segmenting its Geysers project and disclose in a
new EIR exactly where and how much wastewater will
be stored, discharged into the river, sprayed,
irrigated, or used for Geysers recharge. There are
alternatives to the North County disposal scheme,
such as: aggressive water conservation, tiered
water prices, recycling wastewater in the central
county, limiting population growth, limiting growth
to available water, double piping and low flush
toilets for all.
To
Join: Healdsburg Area Citizens for Wastewater
Reform, Please send name and address to: Treasurer,
531 Jachetta Ct. Healdsburg, CA 95448
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CEQA
Suit Update
By Don McEnhill
Since
our last newsletter, the Friends of the Eel
River-led CEQA case against the SCWA Water Storage
Transmission and Supply Plan (WSTSP) EIR went to
trial for the first two of four causes of action.
FORR is a petitioner in this suit. The WSTSP seeks
to increase diversion from the river system by 40%.
The Court ruled against the first two causes last
summer (2000), and used Sonoma County's
recommendations almost word for word in its
judgement. FOER plans to appeal but has to try the
remaining causes of action before proceeding to
appeal on the first two. The third and fourth
causes pertaining to the damage caused by the
Potter Valley Project's diversion of Eel River
water to the Russian over the last ninety years
will be tried this summer. The surprise
resurrection and approval of amendment 11 by
Petaluma has spurred the SCWA to plow ahead with
the WSTSP despite the ongoing legal proceedings
against it. During this time, FOER has filed a
timely protest to SCWA's application for the water
rights pursuant to the WSTSP. Based on FOER's
protest SCWA has twice requested an extension of
time, but will surely be blocked or
rejected.
For
more detail on the suit and related issues,
see:
[Table
of Contents]
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A
View from Inside
RRWC
by Tim Derry
In
February the Executive Committee for the Russian
River Watershed Council met for the first time.
This committee consisted of representatives of the
USACOE, State Resource Agency, Sonoma and Mendocino
counties, and the three caucuses from the RRWC. The
purpose of this meeting was to gauge the level of
support by all participants. From my perspective,
although continued support was promised, it was
clearly a mediocre response. The indication was
that the RRWC could be a successful gateway for
public approval of restoration projects in the
watershed, but that little more in terms of
watershed management policy should be expected.
Meanwhile the RRWC continues to struggle with its
identity with the debate presently being whether to
incorporate into a non-profit or not. What I see is that presently
the RRWC is successful at bringing a diverse group of stakeholders
together to discuss the complex issues of this watershed
but continues to follow and be manipulated by the money
for restoration projects.
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AB
38 and
AB
679
by Susan Emblen-Richtsmeier
Have
you ever thought the Sonoma County Water Agency has
too much power in its hands with its "Water Agents"
also acting as Board of Supervisors? You don't need
to look too closely to see that the obligations of
servicing development and stewarding resources
might regularly be in conflict with one another,
and that stewardship suffers as a
consequence.
Assemblywoman
Virginia Strom-Martin is trying to alter this
situation, and has authored two bills related to
returning some of the control of Russian River
water back into stakeholders' hands. She finds it
unfortunate that, while 95% of California Water
Boards are directly elected, Sonoma County's Water
Agency officials happen to obtain this position as
an add-on when they are elected to the Board of
Supervisors.
AB38
would, "require the Board of Directors of the
Sonoma County Flood Control & Water
Conservation District to be an elected body whose
members shall be elected on a districtwide
basis".
AB679
would require: implementing a more open SCWA plan
review process, quantifying the instream flow that
satisfies current Agency obligations,
identification of all water service contracts, a
50% conservation plan, and public access to all
SCWA plans via their posting on a
website.
As
ratepayers for SCWA-managed water, we deserve to
have our representatives paying more attention to
resource concerns instead of empire-building
through unsustainably exploitating resources. We
deserve to have a healthy watershed, as do the
Mendocino residents deserve a healthy Eel River.
The SCWA wearing two hats is inhibiting viablity of
natural watershed systems in Northern California.
We need to eliminate the Board of Supervisor's dual
power of controlling development and water
resources, and, for the health of our communities,
reassign the latter to directly-elected
representatives.
I
urge you to get involved with these measures right
away. We need widspread public support of bills
such as these if we are to make a significant
difference in politics as usual in Sonoma County.
Take a bold step and get involved. Let's shake up
the new good ol' boy network!
FORR
supports AB38 and AB679. I urge you to write your
representatives today about AB 38 and AB 679. For
your convenience, our State Representatives and
Assembly member contact information is listed
below.
- John
Burton, Senator 3rd District
Ph#(415)479-6612, Fax#(415)479-1146
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 425
San Rafael, CA 94903
- Wes
Chesbro, Senator 2nd District
Ph#(707)576-2771, Fax#(707)576-2773
50 D Street, Suite 120A
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
E-mail
Senator Chesbro
- Joe
Nation, State Assembly 6th District
Ph#(415)479-4920, Fax#(415)479-2123
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 412
San Rafael, CA 94903
E-mail
Assemblyman
Nation
- Virginia
Strom-Martin, State Assembly 1st District
Ph#(707)576-3536, Fax#(707)576-2297
50 D Street, Suite 450
Santa Rosa,CA 94504
E-mail
Assemblywoman
Strom-Martin
- Pat
Wiggins, State Assembly 7th District
Ph#(707)546-4500, Fax#(707)546-9031 50 D Street,
Suite 301
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
E-mail
Assemblywoman
Wiggins
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**Thanks
to Susan Emblen-Richtsmeier for making this issue
of Currentshappen, on paper and
online!**
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