Marijuana vs. Fish

February 21, 2012 in Uncategorized | by Eric Kirk

The impact of marijuana on fish. That will be the topic on the Environment Show on KMUD tonight from 7 to 8. Hank reports.

Scott Creacen, who will be hosting, expects that some people are “not going to like this.”

Photo source.

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41 comments

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February 21, 2012 at 6:21 pm

Anonymous

is this an issue where property rights people are gonna tell us they can do whatever they want with their water? that community interests, or environmental interests don’t trump property rights?

February 21, 2012 at 7:53 pm

tra

I have yet to hear anyone around here — “property rights people” or anyone else — claim that they should be allowed to “do whatever they want with their water,” with no exceptions.

Certainly, in some cases community interests should trump property rights, but first you need to persuade the majority that what you’re proposing is, in fact, truly “in the interest” of the community and the environment, as opposed to an approach that is likely to be ineffective and/or counterproductive.

February 21, 2012 at 8:33 pm

Seymore Butts

tra, only if you have the water rights to support your claim. Property rights have nothing to do with water rights, Nothing trumps water rights. You can even have your water rights taken away:.

• Violation of Permit/License Terms – A complaint may be filed if the holder of a water right permit or license issued by the State Water Board is not complying with the terms and conditions of the permit or license. The Division may investigate the allegations to insure that the water user complies with all terms and conditions of the water right.

• Unauthorized Diversion – A complaint may be filed if a water user does not appear to have a valid water right. The Division may investigate to determine whether the State Water Board has issued a permit or license, or whether the water user may have a riparian, pre-1914, or other type of water right. If Division staff determines that the water user does not have a valid water right, action will be taken to insure that a valid right is acquired or that the person stops diverting the water.

• Waste or Unreasonable Use – The California Constitution requires that all waters of the State be put to reasonable and beneficial use. It is illegal to waste water, to divert water for non-beneficial or unreasonable uses, or to use an unreasonable method of diversion. If one or more of these actions is occurring and causing injury to legal water users, or is causing an adverse impact to instream uses of water, the Division may accept and investigate a complaint. The Division will look at each diversion on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the practices are unreasonable or non-beneficial and what type of action should be taken.

• Public Trust – The State Water Board has a responsibility to protect the public trust, i.e. the public’s right to the use of the State’s waters for instream purposes such as recreation, navigation, and fish and wildlife. The Division generally will investigate complaints, which allege that water is being diverted in a manner inconsistent with public trust uses. The concept of public trust relating to water rights, however, generally involves complex legal and institutional relationships. Therefore, an investigation of a public trust complaint could require considerable time or may not be possible if adequate evidence is not available.

February 21, 2012 at 8:49 pm

Anonymous

you must not get out in the hills much.

February 22, 2012 at 7:52 am

Bolithio

I have seen a wide range of impacts that could effect fish from pot growing. Obviously water diversions. But also roads, grading, and tree clearing. In my opinion any one garden, i.e. 1-3 acre “flat” with a green house or two, an access road, and a spring or creek water source is not a significant impact. Is there a cumulative impact when there are 50 of them in a square mile?

Currently, there is no study that can document how much impact one or several small tributary impoundments have on a river system such as the South Fork.

I really believe that pot can be a excellent compatible use within resource land, but the growers are going to have to start applying BMPs to their practices. Especially water sources and road use. Growers have had a free ride in terms of enviornmental practices and its time to change. I believe they are in serious danger of making the same mistakes the timber industry did. When the industry ignored the concerns of the public and refused to change, the out come was regulation so tight that many small timber companys went under and small scale sustainable harvesting is much more expensive and difficult now than it needs to be. Whats worse, the public perception of forestry and logging is so damaged that there is no sign of change for the better anytime soon.

MJ cultivation is hanging on a thin thread and is in serious danger of falling into the same abyss. For every 1 grower who “does the right thing”, there seem to be 10 who dont. Everyone knows how much money is being made. If growers do not start to improve their maintenance of roads, clean up after themselves, and use more responsible water collection/use practices, the regulators will be dropping a big hammer.

For every 800$ tire, a well placed rolling dip could be placed on a road that would not only eliminate the need for an enormous tire, but save many yards of sediment annually from your road system.

February 22, 2012 at 9:37 am

Anonymous

hate to say it, but i think tra is really an idiot. and my posting that “you must not get out in the hills much”, was meant for tra.

gotta agree with BO about cumulative impacts. no one considers this issue.

i know one person who lives on a creek that flows directly into the mattole. this person has one pump, on a timer, that runs from six in the morning, ’til six in the evening, everyday, all summer and fall, watering their lawn. how disgusting is that? not one person who lives around them has tried to stop them. i talked until i was blue in the face, for years, trying to get them to stop. i should have turned them in, but did not. probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

February 22, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Anonymous

” For every 1 grower who “does the right thing”, there seem to be 10 who dont.”

Truth is the other way around. You gotta ask yourself where you’re getting what information.

February 22, 2012 at 2:13 pm

Anonymous

The one is ten is closer to truth than the other way around. Having lived here for close to 40 years now, I have seen this truth up close. Hippies have a way of turning a blind eye when it suits their own needs, or those of their friends. Anon @ 12:13pm, maybe you should open your eyes, and ask yourself where you are getting your information.

February 22, 2012 at 3:17 pm

Not A Native

I wish everyone would hear this program, not just listen to it. I didn’t know about the “Humboldt mite”, but I’m not surprised.

And Amy Guston’s truth telling email is a classic that should be widely published. It shames the SoHummers who point their fingers at detremental aspects of society as an excuse for growers being no worse and promulgate the lie that growers are actually good for the community.

February 22, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Anonymous 9:26

NAN,
Would you please explain, for those of us who did not get to hear the program.

February 22, 2012 at 3:40 pm

tra

“…hate to say it, but i think tra is really an idiot.”

Well you’re welcome to your opinon, of course. But if you could be a bit more specific about what, if anything, you disagree with in my 7:53 comment, that might be a bit more constructive. Just a suggestion.

February 22, 2012 at 4:37 pm

pathetic actually

And Amy Guston’s truth telling email is a classic that should be widely published…

hey NAN. Who’s Amy Guston and what’s this e-mail?

February 22, 2012 at 6:55 pm

Eric Kirk

In case you missed Scott’s testimony today.

http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2012/feb/22/liveblog-weed-impacts-fisheries-hearing-sacto/

February 22, 2012 at 9:05 pm

bongandablintz?

One place to start might be to have all marijuana land use ordinances subject to California Environmental Quality Act. Humboldt county planning department made the claim that there are absolutely no environmental impacts of growing marijuana so the ordinance they were cooking up was exempt from CEQA.
The purpose of the environmental quality act is to assess the environmental effects of projects. Seems that suddenly people are noticing the cumulative environmental impacts (how could you not?) but can’t figure out where to start with assessing effects and what to do about it. We could use the california environmental quality act.
It may not be just the “bad guys,” it may be the cumulative impacts of so many pretty good guys, too. Water, soil disposal, electrical use…. there is alot to consider.

February 23, 2012 at 8:36 am

scottg

Here’s the email from Amy Gustin that NAN is referring to:

February 23, 2012 at 1:26 pm

scottg

My previous attempt to post this got stuck in moderation. Here again is Amy Gustin’s email to me, which I read on the air during the KMUD Environment Show this past Tuesday night.

Hello Scott,

Thanks for covering this issue. We need to do much more than collect water in the winter and refrain from drawing water in the summer. We are experiencing the cumulative effects of a large amount of pot being grown in our region. We need to grow a lot less pot. We need to diversify our economy. People can develop other home based businesses. Organizations like the Mateel can prioritize programs that encourage economic retraining. People who got in early, when land prices were cheap, and who have done well for themselves, could retire now. They should also remember that selling land at inflated prices is bad stewardship, because what else is the buyer going to do besides grow lots of pot to cover exorbitant prices? As a community, we need to embrace a simpler, less money oriented lifestyle. If living in the woods on a modest income isn’t satisfying enough for folks, then maybe they should live elsewhere. Amy Gustin

February 23, 2012 at 5:53 pm

Anonymous

Nice letter. I appreciate how she is considerate of the fact that water storage tanks is not a solution in and of itself, like some folks around here want us to believe.

February 23, 2012 at 9:19 pm

bongandablintz?

The county has spent lots of time with the growers to create a land use ordinance that says that every home in the unicorporated areas of Humboldt County can have indoor grow scenes. But county staff claims that the ordinance is exempt from CEQA because there are no environmental impacts to every home lighting up a room or two, or maybe a garage,or a backyard shed and a greenhouse.
That’s just phase one of the ordinance.
County council Davina Smith said at a planning commission meeting that all mention of water had been taken out of the ordinance because “people were unhappy.” Planning staff tried to reduce the square footage allowable in the ordinance from 100 sq. ft. to 50 sq. ft. and limit electrical to 1200 watts (pretending that 50 sq. ft doesn’t use 2000 watts, I guess), when citizens asked questions about why the project was exempt from CEQA. Still lots of people were at the planning commission meetings complaining that nobody can regulate anybody’s medicine and the limitations in the ordinance were way too restrictive. Need more weed.
And yeah, the ordinance is on hold now, maybe long enough for people to come down and become involved about how to resolve this mess.The non-profit environmental groups need to talk to the county, not just the grant funders.The cumulative impacts of everybody growing, good guys and bad guys, need to be assessed.
I did not see the environmental groups up there asking for CEQA on this project. What’s up with that?
A fine kettle of fish we’ve gotten ourselves into.

February 24, 2012 at 8:56 am

Anonymous

The county has spent lots of time with the growers to create a land use ordinance that says that every home in the unicorporated areas of Humboldt County can have indoor grow scenes.
County council Davina Smith said at a planning commission meeting that all mention of water had been taken out of the ordinance because “people were unhappy.”

these unhappy people are people like estelle, and our supposed sohum land stewards, who think their personal rights trump everything

February 24, 2012 at 10:40 am

Anonymous

“The one is ten is closer to truth than the other way around. Having lived here for close to 40 years now, I have seen this truth up close.”

You don’t know what you’re talking about and/or associate with shady people.

February 24, 2012 at 3:19 pm

Dave Kirby

There are a multitude of things that can adversely impact a river system. But by far the “64” flood has done more damage to the riparian environment than any other single cause. The load of gravel that continues to fill in the deeper holes in both the creeks and rivers has done more to degrade the ability of the watersheds to support fish population than logging, road building and homesteading combined. Though in it’s current state all of these factors do contribute to the problem.

February 24, 2012 at 4:14 pm

Anonymous

Fishing was HUGE right on the river clear through the early 80’s, there are volumes of books at your local libraries that prove it. Then the water literally started to disappear, accelerating exponentially since. Logging (loss of groundcover canopy and loss of natural open spaces, constant disturbance of the natural environment from hundreds of logging trucks daily and their related machines of industry) are the largest factors thereafter.

February 24, 2012 at 4:17 pm

Anonymous

some simple math for bolithio, who introduces us to the concept:

1/3 acre X 50 lots = ?

How many acres are clearcut in Humboldt alone every year? How many acres are “selectively harvested”? How many logging trucks use how many roads every day of every year?

February 24, 2012 at 4:53 pm

Anonymous

How many gallons of water does Whitethorn Construction pump out of Bridge Creek every day for the last 20 years?

February 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm

Seymore Butts

Where do all those water truck go that fill up from that fire hydrant @ Melville and Redwood Drive in Garberville. In the summer and late fall, those truck are parked and waiting around the block for each other to fill up. Sometimes the water runs down the carb all day while those trucks fill up. I am sure that water comes from the river, not just out of the ground. Who is buying it and where does it end up. I heard Redway will not sell bulk water like Garberville does. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

February 25, 2012 at 9:00 am

Bolithio

@4:17

The 1/3rd acre lot scenario doesn’t occur on TPZ because it CANT. TPZ has a minimum parcel size of 160 acres. Down to 40 acres with a JTMP and approval by the BoS. A roll out of TPZ takes 10 years, after county approval, so that is rare. An immediate re-zone is complicated, expensive, unpopular, and unlikely to be supported by county.

I already showed you how to find out exactly how many acres are harvested each year in Humboldt (and the State for that matter), by watershed, and silviculture (clear-cut, selection, rehab, ect…).

Your adamant, rude attitude towards logging is cute though. Im telling you, hang out with some people who grew up around here. People who live in the woods, have had family who have worked in the woods. Go to school and study enviornmental science, ecology, and hydrology. Until then, you remain a naive ideologue who spouts out irrelevant slogans yet does nothing in practice to advance your goals. When I was young, I held a similar view. Yet when I went to demonstrations and mingled with EF and others, some of us found a sort of hollowness within the movement, and a feeling of ‘besides getting attention, WTF is changing?’. This is what inspired us to go to college, and actually work in the forest to attempt to actually make a concrete difference. If you cant open your mind you will remain angry, and more or less isolated from the community.

February 25, 2012 at 9:23 am

Bolithio

Dave, the question is; what would the outcome of the 64′ flood have been if there hadnt been completely barren hillsides, ridge to ridge clear cuts, all those inner gorge roads, fill crossings, and so on. Based on the areal photography I have examined from these periods, I really believe the logging practices of the era effectively doubled down the catastrophe of the flood. I cant stress enough how hard core the logging of that era was. Entire watersheds where completely striped of vegetation. The roads, in most places, where un-drained, and contained watercourse crossings that were simply fill and logs or had very small culverts. Road building practices in that era had little or no consideration to fill placement, and unstable fills were placed in creeks and on steep slopes which caused un-told amounts of erosion during that storm.

I often wonder how things would hold up in a 500y event today. I think there would be widespread failure of crossings and huge peak flows as in the 64 event, yet I also think there would a dramatic drop in upland sediment deposits in the major rivers when compared to the 64. This would be namely because of clear-cut size restrictions and modern road building practices – which require things like compacted fill lifts, slope considerations, and the avoidance of unstable areas. That and the fact that we have a overall forested condition now as compared to then when there was very little forest cover following the 50-60s logging rampage.

February 25, 2012 at 9:48 am

Anonymous

Bolithio, simple math and simple questions you never answer:

How many acres are clearcut in Humboldt every year? How many acres are selectively harvested? How many logging trucks operate daily on how many roads?

You are able to whip up everything from price calculations of raw logs to retail, yet refuse to address such obvious points of comparison within the industry to which you rely on a hefty paycheck.

February 25, 2012 at 10:01 am

Stephen

But you’re forgetting the increased dirt road exposure that accompanies subdivision development. I’m not talking about the old logging roads from the earlier unregulated logging periods which if not still being used are covered with vegetation that stops sediment flow. I’m talking about the new parcel access roads which when added all together are comparable to a gigantic clearcut that bleeds mud and silt into the creeks, tons of it per year into each creek and then into the rivers. When I was planning out homesites on the South Fork of Salmon Creek land trust back in the mid ’70’s I looked at aerial photos of Elk Ridge/Perry Meadow subdivided land and what strikes you is all these what look like slashes across the landscape, and they just that, slashes, like you slash your arm. The land is cut to ribbons so it’s no wonder it bleeds out each year. And gravity assists this process as the hill side of each dirt road naturally wants to topple down and fill in the gap in the hillside slope that each road makes. Dirt roads are like wounds to the skin of the land that are never allowed to heal. Subdivision development as practiced is disaster for soft soil watersheds. Need to pave those dirt roads and catch road runoff in settling ponds at the bottom of each driveway and access road.

February 25, 2012 at 11:14 am

Bolithio

Again, if you want to know how many acres has been proposed for logging you can go here:

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

and/or here:

http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/watersheds/mapper.html

I cant teach you how. You are obviously very smart, so figure it out.

February 25, 2012 at 11:28 am

Anonymous

So, while bolithio will continue to volunteer the monetary value of our forests, and the calculative toll small marijuana growing operations take on our environment, he won’t volunteer obvious comparative information related to the companies he works for.

February 25, 2012 at 12:42 pm

gpf

Bolitho offers a good description of land covered by TPZ, and the reasons TPZ parcels cannot reasonably be subdivided or rezoned.

The Plan A zealot’s continuing ignorance of the basic facts…don’t they find this embarrasing?

February 25, 2012 at 2:16 pm

Anonymous

WTF are you talking about anon?

February 25, 2012 at 4:09 pm

Anonymous

you can thank bob mckee for all the road slashes in the perry meadow/elk ridge subdivision.

February 25, 2012 at 4:22 pm

Bolithio

@11:28 What comparative information are you looking for? I have tried to answer your questions and you constantly just react all angry and rah rah. You would do better to propose a more concise question. And if you think I have the acres harvested by one of the timber companies at my finger tips your wrong. I dont, and have never, worked for a timber company. Non-industrial forestry is different, and its own pocket industry in many ways. This is something you would understand better if you opened your mind and educated yourself about what is really going on around here.

And speaking volunteering, I just linked you ALL proposed timber harvests in the state since 2005!!! Geese man, WTF else can I do?!?!?!

February 25, 2012 at 5:03 pm

Anonymous

Angry and rah rah, bolithio? We’re members of this community talking on a blog. You presented us with viable food for thought in this thread: 1/3 acre X 50 parcels and potential environmental impacts thereof. So, as quickly as you can recite the price of raw lumber, calculate the yields of board feet etc., pleased be we that you present us with how many acres are clearcut in Humboldt every year, as well as how many are “selectively harvested”, as you industry insiders call it. A ballpark will suffice, this is just discussion, correct? Why beat around the bush with links that present my browser with security warnings, this is where you have always presented your self-disclosed information before, how about it? Can you see how you come across as pretty darn shady by refusing such a simple request that you are fully capable of satisfying?

February 25, 2012 at 5:15 pm

Anonymous

“Non-industrial forestry is different, and its own pocket industry in many ways.”

So you “prescribed” non-industrial clearcuts to approximately 250 acres and non-industrial “selective harvesting” to approximately another 5,000 acres during your tenure (thus far), as well as proudly declaring on other blogs, for the sake of boosting your credibility among readers, that you are in no uncertain terms employed by “the timber industry” as YOU put it. You really are one shady mofo, and no asset to our environment. I wonder what would happen if the timber industry hired somebody who recognized the need for massive and uncompromising restoration of our forests. You certainly wouldn’t have been hired.

February 26, 2012 at 9:59 am

Bolithio

Why beat around the bush with links that present my browser with security warnings,

LMFAO, you are too much

February 26, 2012 at 10:14 am

Anonymous

Bolithio, I like how you really seem to care about how much the freeway system intrudes in places like old growth groves over on the Herald.You really demonstrate a kinship with our natural earth. You really seem to believe in the sanctity of our wooded areas (not so much the ones you “prescribe” to be logged, of course…but hey, gotta keep a roof over your head like everybody else) A real asset to environmentalism. You also get a check from Caltrans? You do “forestry” proud, guy.

February 26, 2012 at 10:28 am

Anonymous

The fact that you refuse to answer relevant questions speaks for itself, Bolithio. Those links are a maze of bullshit and you know it. And you know the answers. You are intentionally directing attention away from the work of people like yourself. (Edited – I’ll allow for heated argument, but gratuitous insults sans substance are prohibited. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed since I haven’t really followed this thread and it missed my skimming, but thankfully Seymore Butts is a tattletale – EVK)

February 26, 2012 at 3:09 pm

Seymore Butts

Wow Eric, I guess 10:28 am is not “name calling”? Just telling the truth?

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