Topic: North Coast Rivers

While it’s fair to say that salmon and steelhead are dying the death of a thousand cuts in the Eel River, Scott Dam is by far the deepest and most damaging of these injuries. Dam removal efforts from Maine to Washington State to here in California have shown time and again that restoring access to historical spawning grounds is key to rebounding fish populations.

I look at Trinidad more like a watershed than simply a square mile of streets, homes and businesses. We provide water to our residents, to some customers in Westhaven, and need to be able to consider new water requests holistically.

The Eel River Recovery Project, also known as the ERRP, has released the public draft of the Tenmile Creek Watershed Conservation and Restoration Action Plan, which is the culminating product of a two-year pilot project.

With dry conditions resulting in low flows and threatening the survival of coho salmon, the State Water Board today sent notices of water unavailability to110 junior water right holders in the Scott River basin in Siskiyou County, urging them to stop diverting.

CalTrout and our partners have been working extensively with landowners to figure out ways to leave some of their water instream for the benefit of salmon. Often this means helping the landowner improve their on-ranch irrigation efficiency to decrease the amount of water needed maintain their agricultural operations.

Having hit a roadblock in negotiations with the City of Trinidad, the Trinidad Rancheria has turned a beseeching eye toward the county’s largest water supplier — the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District — in hopes of securing a reliable water source for future development, including a controversial five-story, 100-room hotel near Cher-Ae Heights Casino.

The researchers discovered that salmon survival depends in part on how long isolated pools spend disconnected from flowing water: the longer the dry period, the fewer salmon were able to hang on until the wetter months of fall and winter. And though fewer salmon overall survived the drought years, the researchers did find reason for hope. In certain streams and pools, which the researchers call drought “refuges,” salmon survival was similar in both drought and non-drought years.

The building of a new hotel on the Trinidad Rancheria has encountered another hurdle as the tribe is now demanding that the City of Trinidad supply the water necessary to supply the hotel or else the tribe will withhold required upgrades to a stormwater management improvement project in Trinidad Harbor, according to a letter the tribe sent to the City of Trinidad.

A partnership of numerous Northern California agencies intends to file an initial plan to acquire the Potter Valley project from the Pacific Gas and Electric Co., multiple sources confirmed. The coalition will submit a document to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its consideration. If approved, the group may be able to form a partnered ownership of complex water infrastructure dividing the Eel and Russian rivers.

Related articles:

• Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Scott Dam slated for removal in plan by Sonoma County and partners to control hydropower project
• News release: Local coalition advances two-basin solution for Russian and Eel River basins

The funding will support projects such as groundwater recharge and stormwater management located near Fresno and Bakersfield, as well as California’s North Coast. More than half of the funding will be awarded for projects that help disadvantaged and underrepresented communities, including Tribal Governments.

Counts of Chinook salmon in the Eel River were lower during the 2019 – 2020 ocean runs than any previous count conducted by the Eel River Recovery Project since the organization began tracking in 2012, according a new report, with estimates the entire Chinook salmon run below 10,000 fish.

The Infrastructure Retrofit Project would mitigate earthquake hazards currently threatening the Redwood Valley County Water District and protect infrastructure against significant damage in the future. The 2017 Redwood Complex fire also destroyed parts of the water infrastructure in the valley and increased the need for the reconstruction project.

Summer streamflow in industrial tree plantations harvested on 40- to 50-year rotations was 50% lower than in century-old forests, data from the long-term Alsea Watershed Study in the Oregon Coast Range showed.

Protecting the North Coast’s waters and the communities that depend on them is a top priority, Congressman Jared Huffman told a town hall at the Eureka High School auditorium Friday night. Making sure fishermen get timely compensation when they’re barred from fishing and ensuring there is enough water in the area to protect fisheries are two key issues, the San Rafael Democrat said.

Lamprey may tread the line between ugly and downright frightening, but these underappreciated fish play similar ecological roles as the salmon that always seem to capture the freshwater fish spotlight.

“In many ways, summer steelhead are the most extreme athletes of the steelhead, allowing them to get up to habitats higher in the watersheds like the Middle Fork Eel River in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, their southernmost stronghold where they have unimpeded access,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Damon Goodman. “Having clear routes of passage to be able to make it up and express their life history is critical to their survival.”

One of the things that we humans have struggled with for centuries, and some countries continue to do so, is how to dispose of sewage and wastewater. People whose sewage is treated in Arcata have a big advantage that has been copied many thousands of times across the world. The Arcata wastewater treatment center and the marsh are the result of science and engineering that is currently under review.

In the early days, these pot farms were small and scattered. But in recent years the industry has intensified. A wave of newcomers planted larger farms, using greenhouses and artificial lights to extend the growing season and yield up to three marijuana crops in a single year. The cannabis boom has polluted waters with fertilizers, fuels and pesticides, triggered erosion that buries the rocky habitats where salmon and trout spawn and grow, and drained streams of water in the dry season.

The number of Coho salmon in Northern California’s Shasta and Scott rivers in 2019 was too low to sustain a viable population. That’s according to a just-released report from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The most recent count identified only 334 Coho on the Scott, and 61 on the Shasta.

West Marin ranchers and a local conservation group are teaming up to plan habitat restoration projects along Walker Creek to restore the once bountiful, but now diminished, runs of coho salmon and steelhead trout. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife awarded the Point Reyes Station-based Marin Resource Conservation District a nearly $350,000 grant this month…

Every year since 2014, I have petitioned the State Water Resources Control Board to end the widespread practice of irrigation, especially of cattle pastures, outside the legal irrigation season. So far, however, State Water Board staff have not taken effective action to end the illegal water use and the resulting degradation of Scott River stream ecosystems…

Nearly two months after the Kincade fire was fully contained in northeastern Sonoma County, Santa Rosa is struggling with an after-effect of the massive blaze: its wastewater disposal pipeline at The Geysers was disabled for six weeks, backing up the Sebastopol-area plant with about 400 million gallons of treated wastewater.

Related article:

• Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Santa Rosa officials tackle severed sewer lines in Tubbs fire rebuild areas

Lower Butano Creek had been clogged by a mile-and-a-half long plug of sediment where the stream once flowed through the marsh to meet the ocean. … In June, the resource conservation district, in partnership with California State Parks and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, embarked on a $7 million restoration project to remove the sediment dam blocking Butano Creek.

An all-out attempt to save the historic coho salmon runs through Muir Woods intensified this year as the National Park Service began a creek restoration and habitat enhancement program in the famous redwood grove.

After a dry fall, the first storms of the winter kicked off the annual migration of coho salmon from the Pacific Ocean to the streams where they spawn. Over 10 inches of rain fell on Lake Lagunitas last week… Streamflows are now high enough to allow endangered central California coast coho to migrate.

CalTrout has identified Scott Dam, which impounds Eel River water in Lake Pillsbury, as one of five aging dams it considers “ripe for removal,” especially in the wake of PG&E’s license surrender. There is, however, a potential middle course backed by Friends of the Eel River, a Eureka-based nonprofit that has long called for the dam’s removal.

Exactly what the Potter Valley Project will look like in the future is not set in stone. The partnership is committed to identifying solutions that meet the needs of the communities and wildlife affected by the project’s operations.

Researchers in Canada and the U.S. investigated potential reductions in streamflow, caused by groundwater pumping for cannabis irrigation, in the Navarro River in Mendocino County, California… Reporting in the journal Environmental Research Communications, they note the combination of cannabis cultivation and residential use may cause significant streamflow depletion, with the largest impacts in late summer when streams and local fish species depend most on groundwater inflows.

For the past two centuries, California has relied heavily on the natural resources of the North Coast region, exploiting its pristine watersheds for agriculture and its forests for timber. … Now the Yurok are working with local and state organizations to revitalize the forests, rivers and wildlife, a comprehensive feat requiring collaboration among community leaders up and down the Klamath and Trinity Rivers.

Related articles:

• KCET: Video: The surprising connection between salmon and redwood forests
• KCET: Video: What it takes to restore a river for salmon runs

A local coalition formed in the hopes of maintaining the most important aspects of the Potter Valley Project is making progress toward a two-basin solution, Janet Pauli told the Ukiah City Council at its last meeting.

The initiative, which the seashore facilitated in collaboration with ranchers, conservation organizations and regulatory agencies, began in 1999 and included three main types of best practices: fencing, hardened stream crossings and the creation of separate water systems for cattle.

A smaller run is expected to return this year because of the lower number of spawning adults recorded a few years ago… Coho salmon spend about a year and a half in freshwater and a year and a half in the ocean before returning to freshwater to spawn and die. What’s encouraging researchers more is how well the newly hatched coho from last season are surviving.

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, or SPAWN, concerns the protection of endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout in streams in Marin’s San Geronimo Valley.

The California Water Boards sent at least 270 letters to farmers in the Emerald Triangle, warning them to come into compliance with regulations or face possible fines and even the loss of their cultivation licenses.

The Round Valley Indian Tribes announced this week that they have signed an agreement to join with users of both the Eel River and Russian River to seek a “Two-Basin Solution” for the re-licensing of the Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project, which diverts water from the Eel River into the Russian River.

The city of Ukiah made its first delivery of recycled water through its extensive Purple Pipe system this week, putting about 2 million gallons of water reclaimed from local sinks, showers and toilets into an irrigation pond just south of the Ukiah Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant.

As a region, Humboldt County has the “highest rate of relative sea level rise” on the United States’ West Coast, according to data compiled by the county’s planning and building department. The data indicate that even one meter of sea level rise would top nearly 60% of the structures protecting Humboldt Bay’s shoreline.

Related article:

• Orange County Register: Dana Point deploys more sand bags in emergency effort to save storm drain, water treatment facility in battle against erosion

We don’t get to see Castor canadensis, the 60-pound North American beaver, in Sonoma County very often, so I jumped at the invitation to see one up close at the Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue. An orphaned young kit, little more than a year old, is there for care and rehab before release to back to the wild.

The Lake County Board of Supervisors approved an amended resolution Tuesday that will open the door for Lake County to join a group vying to take over responsibility for the Potter Valley hydroelectric project.

The headwaters of Blue Creek is also among the tribe’s most sacred sites, said Gene Brundin, a member of the tribe’s cultural committee. The stream begins at a place called Elk Valley near Chimney Rock and its cold water ensures the viability of the salmon runs, he said.

A decade’s worth of junk including cars, refrigerators and even goat carcasses that were illegally dumped into a West Marin creek is being removed this week through a collaborative effort between environmental groups, local businesses and government partners.

Rhys Vineyards LLC, based on the California Central Coast but with vines in Mendocino County’s prime pinot noir region of Anderson Valley, has agreed to pay $3.76 million to settle enforcement actions brought by state wildlife and water regulators for unpermitted diversion of rainwater runoff on property of a planned small vineyard in a northern part of the county.

Independent farmers believe that the “marijuana Monsantos” that are muscling in are only going to make things perpetually more detrimental for the environment. The lack of sustainability, vast amounts of water and electricity necessary for cultivation is the elephant in the room of any smoke session.

Related article:

• Smithsonian: How an oil spill 50 years ago inspired the first Earth Day

Water gives us life, and water does not come easily to California. It made sense to invite it to stay a while and help nurture our Gravensteins, our white figs and pear. So I’ve spent months cutting back bramble and digging out blackberry. The creek has become my workout video. I spend mornings contemplating the flow of water and noticing what mushrooms grow in the leaf litter, what animal prints inscribe the mud.

The winter rains have caused the biggest surge of coho salmon in a dozen years in the celebrated spawning grounds of western Marin County, one of California’s last great strongholds for the embattled pink fish. At least 648 coho this winter made their way against the current up meandering, forested Lagunitas Creek and its many tributaries on the northwestern side of Mount Tamalpais, according to a new census by biologists.

Climate models using SNOTEL data predict a decline in Western snowpack. … In December, University of Arizona researchers presented new on-the-ground findings supporting these predictions. … In parts of the West, annual snow mass has declined by 41 percent, and the snow season is 34 days shorter. Scripps Institute of Oceanography climatologist Amato Evan told the San Diego Union-Tribune that “climate change in the Western U.S. is not something we will see in the next 50 years. We can see it right now.”

The giant Douglas fir hit the water with a great splash just as a powerful gust of wind from the Chinook helicopter rotors blew across the river….  The charred trunk, weighing as much as 25,000 pounds, was one of 300 fire-damaged trees that the [Yurok Indian] tribe and its partners strategically placed in the South Fork of the Trinity River this past week in an attempt to alter the current, scour out accumulated sediment and restore long-lost salmon habitat in the river.

A $1.13 million restoration award from a state agency will buoy efforts to excavate the Salt River watershed, the seven-mile channel of the Eel River that local conservationists have spent decades trying to restore. The money comes from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which this year handed out $27.8 million to a diverse geographical spread of water body restoration efforts.

Critical pools on the lower Eel River where migrating salmon swim toward their upriver spawning grounds are once again saturated with sediment, according to local researchers and river surveyors. Eel River Recovery Project board member and salmon surveyor Eric Stockwell said the shallow pools and channels make it more likely fish will contract disease or become stranded as had occurred in previous years.

The early 20th century wrought significant damage and changes to the Eel River and its fish populations through zealous overfishing and blockage of key tributaries by railroads and dams, which limited salmon and steelhead’s ability to recover. But projects are now underway to restore these tributaries to their previous state with the hope of simultaneously restoring the once bountiful runs in state’s third largest river basin.

Humboldt County tribes, fishermen, city officials and environmentalists on Tuesday called for the Board of Supervisors to support full removal of PG&E’s Potter Valley Project dams Tuesday after the utility company announced last week that it planned to auction off the project.

A controversial plan to log miles of Gualala River floodplain, including nearly century-old redwood trees just outside Gualala Point Regional Park, is back on track, setting the stage for a showdown in court or perhaps among the trees themselves.

A third straight year of low king salmon runs is expected to deliver another blow to one of the North Coast’s most iconic and lucrative fisheries, wildlife managers indicated Thursday, as both regulators and fishermen faced the prospect of a federally mandated plan to reverse the trend and rebuild key stocks.

An award-winning documentary film on the long and storied history of California’s third largest river basin, the Eel River, is set to make its Humboldt County premiere Friday in Eureka. The hour-long film, “A River’s Last Chance,” chronicles the history of the river from its birth 7 million years ago up to modern events such as the impacts of the “green rush” of cannabis farms, discussions on dam impacts and the struggles of salmon populations through the past 150 years.

The governing board for Humboldt County’s main water supplier is set to decide Wednesday whether to appeal the construction of a Glendale cannabis edibles and concentrates manufacturing facility that would be located near one of its drinking water pumps on the Mad River.

Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to designate the North Fork Smith River — which begins in southwest Oregon and flows into California — as an Outstanding Resource Waters.  

The federal government can redirect water from a Northern California dam to prevent mass die-offs of salmon in drought years, water that otherwise would be shipped to Central Valley farmers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

After the state entered into its sixth year of drought on Saturday, Humboldt County walked away with its best rainfall total in the last five years. … A year ago at this time, the Eel River was approaching record low flow levels with salmon showing alarming signs of blindness and lethargy as they waited for heavy rains.

Snow-capped Mount Shasta and the slumbering volcanoes of the Cascade range hold reservoirs of life-giving cold water that nourish threatened fish and could save the species when the changing climate warms downstream rivers, UC scientists say.

As part of an extensive effort to restore decades’ worth of impacts to the mud-choked Elk River, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a nearly $175,000 grant to allow the watershed’s stakeholders to come up with solutions.

Millions of dollars from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will allow for dredging needed to correct unusually heavy winter shoaling that has nearly closed the entrance and channels of Humboldt Bay. … Harbor district Executive Director Jack Crider said sediment carried by the Eel River has drifted into the mouth of the bay, blocking ships that draft deeper than 25 feet.

Marin’s federally endangered coho salmon got an $831,000 boost from state wildlife officials who will fund a plan to take fallen trees floating in Kent Lake and use them to create new habitat.

This month’s rainfall and cooler temperatures have helped lessen the strain on salmon migrating on the Eel River, but not near enough to ease the concerns of local researchers. And they have their reasons.

Recent high tides and brief mid-September rains gave some Eel River salmon a fleeting chance to move closer to their spawning grounds. But a lack of adequate flows on the river is causing many fish to fall ill as they crowd within small pools for weeks at a time, according to a recent survey by the Eel River Recovery Project.

A Mendocino County lawman and a former marijuana grower defended small-scale cannabis cultivation Wednesday at a legislative hearing on the impact of the drought and marijuana on North Coast fisheries.

Shasta County is ground zero for a new state program aimed at cracking down on illegal marijuana grows polluting streams and endangering wildlife in Northern California. Two state agencies have teamed up not to cut down marijuana plants but instead to go after growers, property owners and even contractors involved in work that threatens the environment, wildlife and water quality. 

A multi-agency partnership, involving state and local agencies, this week finished inspections of 14 private properties with active marijuana grow operations along Sproul Creek within the Eel River watershed.

The Eel River received a small boost following record rainfall this past week, with higher flows expected to continue due to rains in Mendocino County.