Humboldt Watershed Council is having its 13th Birthday Party & Annual Meeting
Friday, Nov 20 from 6 -9 + at the Bayside Grange (corner of Old Arcata & Jacoby Creek Rds.)
From 6 – 8 enjoy a Pot-Luck Dinner, No-Host Bar, Silent Auction, and these great Speakers:
Jeremy Wheeler, ED of the Mattole Restoration Council……………………..Mattole River and Watershe
David Hope, ED of the Friends of the Eel River…………………………………….Eel River and Watershed
Dr. Paul Trichilo, Dir of the Van Duzen River Project and FoVD……………Van Duzen River and Watershed
Greg King, President/Program Dir of Siskiyou Land Conservancy…………..Klamath River and Watershed
Aldaron Laird, Dir Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District…………………..Mad River and Watershed
Hawk Rosales, ED of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council………….Native Watersheds
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From 8-9 the HWC will present a short program on its past and future activities and a quick tutorial on our recently launched “Interactive” website:
www.voicesofhumboldtcounty.com
Followed by a short business meeting to elect its Directors for the next year. The current board is running for re-election and there is an open seat, so interested parties are invited to send their resume to HWC, PO Box 1301 Eureka, 95502 or attand the meeting in person. Following the election we will close the Silent Auction and announce Winners.
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AND FINALLY, ABOUT 9 PM
The music will start, the bar will remain open, desserts and coffee will be served. This last hour or more is for YOU to relax and meet your neighbors from the next watershed…we are all connected.
For more information, contact: Bill Thorington, tcgroup@suddenlink.net or call 707-496-4703
REMEMBER,
THIS IS OUR ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND FUNDRAISER…
BE PREPARED TO JOIN OR RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP AND ENJOY THE SILENT AUCTION!
19 comments
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November 9, 2009 at 7:44 am
edsvoice
Eric,
Here’s your chance to go and share how great instream gravel extraction and cement/concrete processing is for the watershed and habitat for Coho, Chinook and Steelhead. You can use the Community Park as a model. That no where else in the world, Community Park property is being used for instream gravel extraction and helps the fish and their habitat! I’m sure you could get the studies from Tim Metz & John Rogers, they quoted this ides to the public at meetings this year.
Thanks
Ed Voice & Voice Family
South Fork Eel River
Fighting to keep it Wild & Scenic since 1985
November 9, 2009 at 8:47 am
anonomous says
David Hope, ED of the Friends of the Eel River…………………………………….Eel River and Watershed
why was hope demoted by friends of the eel river and natananda back as ed?
and it’s really weird that f.e.r. is closing the gville office and moving to marin.
did they run out of local $$ and support too like the other enviro groups???
November 9, 2009 at 9:20 am
longwind
It’s actually not weird. Captured Eel River water flows through the Russian River for delivery to south Sonoma and north Marin. In California water is money, so you just follow the water to see where money’s spent.
Our water is sucked to Sonoma, with five times our population, and to Marin, with six times our population and even more money. That’s a very sound reason to focus efforts where they will matter most.
btw, the same truth was at play in corking our dead railroad. No end of contradictory lies and fantasies were retailed up here, where we don’t have the population base to create an educated public. Our small-town BS was repeated and analyzed down in Marin and poof! the Novato city council filed suit, and put paid to the whole fraud. We still don’t seem to understand this up here, for the same reasons.
November 9, 2009 at 9:45 am
Dave Kirby
The Eel river system is choking on gravel. The floods of 55 and 64 totally changed the river. The ensuing migration of gravel down stream has had severe effects on the Salmon and Steelhead in several ways. Many of the deep cool holding pools are gone. Shading stream side vegetation was pushed back to the edge of wide shallow bars that spread the flow and allowed excess solar warming. It takes considerably more rainfall to make the river passable for spawning fish. As the continued harvesting of gravel from the same interior bend in the river has been carried on for decades at Randalls it would seem the process is continuing. The Corps of Engineers has declared the Eel River System the fastest eroding watershed in the U.S. that carries a heavier load of sediment per cu’ ft than the Mississippi when the Eel is at flood stage. The geology being Franciscan( old sea bed ) is being worn down at a relatively fast rate. The impact of surface mining varies by location. If there is proof that this specific operation is harming fish I,d like to see it.
November 9, 2009 at 10:34 am
edsvoice
Here is one for starters, http://www.ncriverwatch.org/wordpress/2008/01/30/comment-letter-on-mad-river-watershed-gravel-mining/ I am very familiar with it. If you Google “effects of instream gravel extraction on rivers” you will find paper after paper of helpful information to answer your questions. Effect of instream or near stream gravel extraction is nothing new. It was after logging came under some control that instream gravel extraction started to be seen as more of a problem to river systems than before, For Humboldt County, regulation of river gravel extraction did not take effect until after problems on the Mad River and it’s effect on a bridge, sometime in the early 1990’s. From that point on the rest is history.
Northern California is one of the only known places left, that takes the most amount of instream gravel from the largest section of State & National Wild & Scenic Rivers. Northern California also has more Threatened & Endangered species (Coho, Chinook, Steelhead), listed by State and Federal agencies on those same Wild & Scenic rivers along with other are not Wild & Scenic.
November 9, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Ernie"s Place
I agree with many things that Ed says, but on the river issue- Dave Kirby is exactly right this time. I think that Ed may have a personal axe to grind over gravel mining.
I am 5th generation native of the south Fork of the Eel River. I don’t have to study it. I have lived it, and I can, without any reservations whatsoever, say that I have spent more time in, on, and around that river that anyone writing to this blog.
I know how deep the gravel is in the former deep holes. I know where the old meanders used to be. I know how the rivers has changed its course. I know places that I saw the river run that now have 3 foot diameter trees growing on it. Just like people don’t understand how hard it rained in 1964, they wouldn’t believe where the river used to run before 1955. I lived the whole summer as a ten year old boy in the river, in the whole area from to Kimtu to Redway. I know where the old deep holes used to be. I know where the ice cold underground springs used to come into the river. I saw many people dive off of the bridge going out to the airport.
I read and understand every word of what Ed Voice wrote about the “anthropogenic changes” (Man caused changes to the river) and the “geomorphically-effective sediment transport”. (the Gravel that Mother nature moves down the river) He neglects the fact that modern man has a lot to do with sedimentation going into the river. In-stream Gravel Mining is one of the single most important benefits to the river and the fish.
After the ‘64 flood the Eel River was going to be dredged by the Corps of Engineers to restore the stream beds to their former state, but there was not enough funding. They decided that we would just have to live with the river the way it was, or maybe private industry would someday be interested in cleaning it.
I could tell you that before ‘55 there was silt and mud at the bottom of the large deep holes. Baby eels, bullheads, turtles, and freshwater clams lived in the mud. There were large water-smoothed rocks the size of cars. The beaches were silty and smooth. The only place that there was a significant amount of gravel, the size of pea gravel up to head size rocks, was in the riffles. It was fresh clean gravel and the water was cold. I don’t have to do any surveys, drill any test holes, check any water flow to know what the river was or should be… I saw it. Kirby is right!
Sorry Ed, you my have found some scientists out there that agree with you, but if you give me a person with an open mind I can show them that I’m right on this one.
November 9, 2009 at 4:35 pm
edsvoice
No problem Ernie, I’m glad we can agree to disagree.
And by the way, I did not have to find any scientists that agree with me, it’s what most of them have known for years, long before I read any of their findings.
Thanks Ernie,
November 12, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Ernie's Place
Ed
You are talking about taking the gravel out of the river bed as being a bad thing. I am saying it is a good thing. You are making words from scientists about other rivers seem like they apply to this one. They don’t.
I was right about it being the wrong thing to do when they removed the log jams in the creeks that your scientists thought were so destructive. They provided rearing holes for the small fish.
When they found that they made a mistake by taking out the log jambs, they tried to replace them with chain link tied bundles of rock to make weir dams. The gravel washing over them sharpened barbs on the metal in the stream bed that gutted the spawning fish. Common sense should have told your scientists that would happen.
Now, they are doing more pontificating about the “Spawning Gravel”. And, they don’t want it to be disturbed. They are wrong about that also. By removing the sedimentation in the river, the holes will deepen again, the sandy beaches will return, the deep water holes with muddy bottoms full of aquatic critters will return. The large river boulders that are now buried will be exposed again, The water will cool, and the gravel in the riffles will be clean and fresh again.
I saw the river that way once before. Why can’t you understand that what I say is from experience. No amount of scientific chest beating will change that. There is nothing worse than bad science. Even if you agree with it. A hundred years from now, they will say I was right. Thanks for nothing!
November 13, 2009 at 8:49 am
edsvoice
Ernie,
I thought we were past this. You have your idea, and I share a different one, thats all.
I have not been around as long as you, nor have I seen as much as you. I do know what you mean. I just thinks that it is good that we can agree to dis-agree and still talk about it, with out yelling.
I too know the river from Benbow to Dean Creek, because as a kid that is where we spent all of our time. I too have seen all of the changes.
Thanks Ernie for the information, it is always welcomed by you.
November 13, 2009 at 9:30 am
Ernie's Place
Ed it is hard to disagree with such a nice guy. Thanks
November 9, 2009 at 10:38 am
Anonymous
So do we extract more or less gravel since 1964? We also have many more dirt roads.
November 9, 2009 at 11:50 am
edsvoice
More, far.more. After the 64 flood anyone with a backhoe and dump truck was in the gravel extraction buisness. New 101 was being built. The demand for gravel was more than weed today. Back then, there was no regulation at all. You just took as much as you wanted until it was gone. Kind of like logging was. Nobody cared what was happening to the watershed, it was all about money. Like the gold rush.
Even roads leading down to the river bar, if you spotted a good place down on the river bar (best place at the bend or mender) you just punch a road thru and that was it.
Oh ya, I forgot to say, it was all free for the taking. Unless you had to drive thru someones elses property to get there.
November 9, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Dave Kirby
I asked some kind of proof that the operation adjacent to the park is harming fiish. And I would venture that I know as much about S.M.A.R.A. as you do. In most cases gravel mining on a river like the Eel is like taking down a sand dune with a teaspoon.
November 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm
edsvoice
Here Dave, you can read this one…….
http://www.ncriverwatch.org/legal/case_pdfs/settlement_agreement_4-27-05_randall.pdf
November 9, 2009 at 12:59 pm
edsvoice
Dave,
I have no idea if you know more than I do about SMARA, or even OMR, or even CEQA. The idea is, I guess I care more about what happens in the river than what is right or wrong or how much money can be made. I care about changing the law and saving our rivers and everything living in it, including us humans.
Humboldt County is the lead agency for SMARA and also CEQA when it comes to CUP’s for instream gravel extraction in Humboldt County. CHERT is the oversight for Humboldt County & the BOS. The USACE LOP is allowed only because of CHERT. The only oversight, regulation & mitigation in place for Instream gravel extraction that seems to work is called citizen monitoring.
With cut backs to most state agencies like RWQCB, the County and CDF&G. They don’t have the time or money to regulate instream gravel extraction. Hell the County has it’s own instream gravel extraction sites.
Most people don’t know or don’t want to know how they can make a difference. Look how long it took to sort of control logging and it’s effect on the land and rivers. As long as people can see that pot of gold, they will keep on digging.
November 9, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Dave Kirby
Ed I think you’ve pretty much proved my original premise. You and your family have had your shorts in a bunch over the gravel operation for years. You saw a new tack and took it. It has nothing to do with the Community Park and everything to do with an ax you folks have been grinding for years. I guess we’re clear on that point. Thanks for the conformation.
November 9, 2009 at 4:13 pm
edsvoice
No Dave, that is your point. And I am not clear at all. Your point is to poor mouth someone for no reason what so ever. My point is to protect our rivers the best I can before I die. Is it normal for you to chase people down on blogs and seize the moment. It’s like stocking somebody. And that is just too creepy for me.
Feel better now, glad I could help. Have a great night.
November 9, 2009 at 7:54 pm
treebeard
Another Arcata based boutique environmental group who wants to control our land so they have pretty views of our countryside.
November 11, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Deane
Great Discussion. If any one of y’all wants to post some of your writings consider being a Humboldt Watershed Council Voice: Send your post with photos and docs attached to: humwater@gmail.com
Peace