This Tuesday, January 31, at 9 am, please come to support a County “freeze” on any new vineyard and orchard development in Sonoma County until June 1st of this year.  At that time, VESCO (Vineyard Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance) will be updated to incorporate tree removal protection language.

This will be held in the Supervisors’ Chambers, 575 Administrative Drive, Room 100A, Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

A comparison of Friends of the Gualala River and Gualala River Watershed Council

Two very different organizations

Friends of the Gualala River (FoGR) GualalaRiver.org

Gualala River Watershed Council (GRWC) GRWC.info

FoGR is a leader in environmental advocacy and action dedicated to protection and recovery of the Gualala River and its watershed, defending against threats like:
• industrial water diversion and export,
• mass agricultural conversion of forestland,
• destructive logging in the river floodplain,
• clear-cut logging in slopes above the river,
• pesticide pollution, and
• invasive non-native species.

GRWC is a forum for landowners and others to “communicate about the ecology of land use in the Gualala River watershed” for “engagement of the community” and “stakeholders” and “landowners.”
GRWC’s mission statement precludes environmental advocacy and favors flexibility of landowner land use options.

FoGR’s steering committee is composed of all volunteers with no financial or political conflicts of interest in timber, agriculture, or water diversion, including representation of recreational fishing, public river access, park expansion advocacy, professional conservation biology. GRWC’s chair and vice-chair are timber industry professionals, secretary / treasurer is an agriculture industry professional; board members represent timber and agriculture interests, “stakeholders.”
FoGR is a grassroots environmental organization funded by public citizen donors and grassroots environmental foundations. GRWC is funded by state grant programs aimed at landowners, and private corporate sources.
FoGR uses applied science and environmental law in the service of conserving public trust resources – fish, wildlife, streamflow, groundwater, water quality, public access to the river – all published on FoGR website, which is updated frequently. GRWC uses applied science in the service of monitoring and mitigation of land uses including logging and vineyard conversion; no data available on website; published reports available by request only. Website unchanged 2004-2011.
FoGR protects the entire watershed, regardless of ownership, to promote natural ecological recovery processes of the river, its tributaries, and forests and woodlands of the watershed. GRWC implements engineered habitat restoration and rural road improvements on lands owned by employers and clients of GRWC officers, using public funds.

Who do you support?

For Immediate Release Monday, August 29, 2011 Contact: Jack Ellwanger, 831 667 2025

Forest protection and fish restoration advocates demanding a stop to the massive clear cutting of the Battle Creek watershed received a boost this week from a respected fisheries advocacy organization.

A long hoped for salmon recovery project is at risk because of a government snafu that has allowed forest clear cutting in the Battle Creek watershed, reported a coalition of natural resource support groups. Armed with the report by California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) the group has stepped up its call to the California Secretary of Natural Resources to halt the logging and conduct a thorough study of inter-agency regulations and process that allowed the logging.

CSPA analyzed data collected by Battle Creek Alliance volunteers and found “evidence of adverse changes in water quality conditions attributable to clear-cutting activities …” CSPA staff, including a Professional Geologist and Certified Hydro-geologist and a Professional Civil Engineer prepared the report.

They are calling on the California Secretary of Natural Resources and the Regional Water Quality Control Board to undertake a comprehensive investigation to establish whether sediment discharges from Sierra Pacific Industries‚ (SPI) logging operations are causing violations of water quality standards and the extent that such violations threaten the eventual success of the restoration project.

“The $128 million recovery project,” said Jodi Frediani, a fish and forest advocate, “has been in the planning for 20 years and is California’s best chance for restoring the once-great salmon Chinook run in the Sacramento River. The recovery project involves the State of California Dept. of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, all taxpayer funded.

“The enormity of the clear cutting is staggering,” said Mauro Oliveira, co-founder of Battle Creek Alliance, “and clearly against the spirit and intent of all California and National environmental law.

“By tricky interpretation of forest policy,” he continued, “California is allowing watersheds to be re-defined so that all the tributaries to a single watershed are NOW considered watersheds themselves….which basically allows checkerboard clearcutting from one side of Battle Creek to the other, and in six years they are allowed to remove all the remaining checkers on that board at the expense of the taxpayers restoration of Salmon and all the other wildlife in the watershed.

“That‚s a complete forest gone forever,” Oliveira continued, “because SPI will replant a tree farm with only the ponderosa pine in nice neat wildlife-free, Round-Up soaked rows.‰

Representing 10 groups who asked the governor to stop the “rampant, unchecked clear cutting in Battle Creek,” Frediani said, the State is working at cross purposes by helping to fund the recovery project while allowing the clear cutting which is seriously undermining the project.”

“I can not imagine a worse location to allow large clearcutting,” said David Hankin, professor of fisheries at Humboldt State University and a member of the study team that established the salmon recovery project. “”Battle Creek offers the only potential alternative spawning location for endangered winter run Chinook.”

Pelican Network, a volunteer conservation advocacy of more than 5,000 members, commented, “Hundreds of our members wrote to the Governor to stop this absurd government mix up that allows such destruction of a wondrous watershed and endanger such a well conceived and heavily financed plan to restore Salmon habitat. The State must recognize the interrelationship of habitats.”

“Clear cutting is horrifying,‚ Frediani observed, „It destroys the forest and is harmful to the streams we are hoping will become spawning habitat for the restored watershed.

“Clear cutting denudes hill-slopes, allowing runoff to bleed sediment into streams damaging fish nesting, resting and feeding areas. Why allow such a clearly destructive practice to occur while simultaneously spending millions of taxpayer dollars to restore the very same watershed? This is a form of madness.

“Clear cutting is a logging practice no longer appropriate for our time. It muddies streams harming fish habitat and drinking water, uses harmful herbicides to kill Œweed trees‚, replaces forests with plantations destroying wildlife habitat in the process, increases fire hazard and adds to carbon releases and global warming. And it damages the aesthetic of the iconic Sierra Nevada. It is time to replace clear cutting with more eco-friendly logging methods.‰

The group has asked the California Secretary of Natural Resources and the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board to obtain whatever data SPI might have to support any claim it might have to justify clear cutting

Our campaign to stop the forest clear cutting by Sierra Pacific Industries in the Battle Creek watershed gained momentum this week.

 At Pelican Network’s request, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), analyzed collection data gathered by Battle Creek Alliance and prepared a report which found … “evidence of adverse changes in water quality conditions attributable to clear-cutting activities …” \\\

 We presented a power point demonstration at the 18th Annual Sierra Pacific Alliance conference at Lake Tahoe and garnered significant support from throughout the mountain regions of California – we will make this presentation at the Loma Prieta chapter of Sierra Club Sept 19 in Palo Alto.

 With the great prompting you all provided by submitting your comments about Battle Creek, the California Secretary of Natural Resources is assembling a stakeholder process to re-evaluate the state’s forestry policies.

 A bumper sticker is available

You can get yours at: BattleCreekHelp (we desperately need your contribution !)

CSPA has a remarkable record of protecting the quality of California waterways in court, in the legislature and agencies with technical assistance and activisupport. Three CSPA water geologists and engineers prepared the Battle Creek report for us. It has been presented to the California Water Quality Control Board, Dept. of Fish and Game and the Secretary of Natural Resources.

CSPA has joined Pelican Network, Pacific Federation of Fishermen Assoc., Sierra Club and Battle Creek Alliance to call on the Governor place a moratorium on the clear cutting.

http://www.pelicannetwork.net/

–Larry

Dear Editor:

Newspapers and other media all over the country are covering a proposal to
clear-cut redwood trees in the Gualala River watershed in Sonoma County to
plant vineyards. These include the Marin Independent Journal, the Oakland
Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee and the San Jose
Mercury News in California, and the Boston Globe, the Washington Post,
Forbes.com, the Florida Times-Union and the Huffington Post elsewhere. Many
ran an article earlier this month under the headline: ‘Redwoods vs. Red
Wine’.

The Press Democrat apparently decided that the Associated Press story titled
‘Plan to Cut Forest for Vineyards Faces Opposition’ was of no interest to
readers of the online or print editions.

Strangely, other stories concerning the winery itself (Artesa) and its
parent company (Codorniu) are regularly covered in the business section of
the Press Democrat.

One might wonder about these editorial decisions, and, possibly, reach
somewhat cynical conclusions.

The Ninth Circuit this week affirmed an earlier decision that will effectively require many timberland owners and logging companies to obtain permits for stormwater runoff from logging roads in the western U.S. The case, Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) v. Brown,[1] involved two Oregon logging roads where stormwater runoff is collected in systems of ditches, channels, and culverts, and then discharged into adjacent rivers. The Ninth Circuit initially issued its decision in August 2010. See Stormwater Discharges from Logging Roads Require Clean Water Act Permits, Ninth Circuit Holds. The defendant-appellees then petitioned for rehearing or rehearing en banc. On May 17, the court withdrew its earlier opinion and reissued a revised version.

In the reissued opinion, the Ninth Circuit reiterated that the stormwater collection systems at issue unambiguously constitute “point sources” under the Clean Water Act (CWA), and that such discharges therefore require permits under the CWA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program. In so holding, the court significantly limited a decades-old regulation that had historically been viewed as excluding logging road runoff from the NPDES program and charged EPA with developing a general permit to handle the discharges.

The court also inserted a justification for its exercise of jurisdiction over the case that may well have impacts beyond the context of logging roads in the west. Generally, challenges to EPA’s CWA regulations must be lodged in federal appellate courts within 120 days of when the regulations are issued. Based on the United States’ position in an amicus brief, however, the court held that the citizen suit plaintiffs could challenge the application of the Silvicultural Rule in this instance, despite the statutory limitations periods for challenging agency rulemaking, because the regulation was purportedly “ambiguous.” Under this standard, the court may have opened a backdoor that could allow both environmental and industry groups to challenge environmental regulations long after they have been issued on the theory that they are “ambiguous.”

Statutory and Regulatory Background

The CWA prohibits the discharge of a “pollutant” into waters of the United States from a “point source” without an NPDES permit.[2] The CWA defines a “point source” as “any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, [or] conduit … from which pollutants are or may be discharged.”[3] The CWA expressly exempts “agricultural stormwater discharges and return flows from irrigated agriculture” from the definition of “point source.” It does not define “agricultural stormwater” or “nonpoint sources.”

EPA has promulgated detailed regulations under the NPDES program, some of which clarify the types of activities that require NPDES permits. EPA’s “Silvicultural Rule,” which has essentially been intact for over thirty years, defines a limited class of activities as “silvicultural point sources,” and interprets “nonpoint source silvicultural activities” as outside the NPDES program. It limits “silvicultural point sources” to “rock crushing, gravel washing, log sorting, or log storage facilities which are operated in connection with silvicultural activities and from which pollutants are discharged into waters of the United States.”[4] Falling outside the definition are “non-point source silvicultural activities such as nursery operations, site preparation, reforestation and subsequent cultural treatment, thinning, prescribed burning, pest and fire control, harvesting operations, surface drainage,or road construction and maintenance from which there is natural runoff.”[5]

Factual and Procedural Background

At issue in NEDC v. Brown were two logging roads in Oregon’s Tillamook State Forest. The Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Board of Forestry own the roads. Various timber companies use the roads to access logging sites and to haul timber under contracts with Oregon. The timber sales contracts designate specific routes for timber hauling and require the timber companies to maintain the roads and their associated stormwater collection systems, which are ditches, culverts, and channels that collect and convey stormwater runoff from the roads to tributary streams and adjacent rivers. As is the case throughout the Pacific Northwest and other areas with high rainfall, these stormwater collection systems reduce erosion of the roads and, when properly constructed, effectively reduce the discharge of sediment to adjacent streams that would otherwise occur. An environmental group, NEDC, brought a citizen suit under the CWA, alleging that sediment discharges in stormwater from these roads negatively impact aquatic life, such as salmon and trout, and require permits under the NPDES program.

The District Court of Oregon dismissed NEDC’s lawsuit for failure to state a claim, holding that the Silvicultural Rule exempted the discharges from the NPDES program. According to the district court, “the fact that pollutants deposited on top of the roads during timber hauling end up being washed into the water bodies does not turn the road system with its associated ditches and culverts into a point source. The road/ditch/culvert system and timber hauling on it is a traditional dispersed activity from which pollution flowing into the water cannot be traced to single discrete sources.”[6]

The Ninth Circuit’s August 2010 Decision

On appeal, NEDC argued that the unpermitted stormwater discharges violate the CWA, despite the Silvicultural Rule. The Ninth Circuit also addressed a second issue that the district court elected not to, i.e., whether and to what effect the 1987 amendments to the CWA governing stormwater, and EPA’s regulations implementing those amendments, apply to stormwater runoff from logging roads.

The Ninth Circuit agreed with NEDC, holding that discharges from the logging roads require compliance with an NPDES permit. Although the court stopped short of expressly invalidating the Silvicultural Rule as a whole, the court held that the Rule does not and cannot, consistent with the CWA, exempt runoff that is collected from logging roads and discharged from a ditch or culvert to jurisdictional waters.

In addressing the Silvicultural Rule, the Ninth Circuit’s decision exhaustively reviewed the statutory definition of “point sources” under the CWA, case law interpreting the distinction between point and nonpoint sources, and the genesis and history of the Silvicultural Rule. In the Ninth Circuit, nonpoint source pollution is “the type of pollution that arises from many dispersed activities over large areas, and is not traceable to any single discrete source.”[7] Because “runoff is not inherently a nonpoint or a point source of pollution,” according to the court, the distinction between point and nonpoint source discharges turns not on the runoff itself, but on whether stormwater “is allowed to run off naturally (and is thus a nonpoint source) or is collected, channeled, and discharged through a system of ditches, culverts, channels, and similar conveyances (and is thus a point source discharge).”[8]

In the court’s view, EPA’s intent in the Silvicultural Rule was to focus on the “source of the pollutant” and not the mechanism of discharge, where “any natural runoff containing pollutants” from silvicultural activities is exempt “from the definition of point source, irrespective of whether, and the manner in which, the runoff is collected, channeled, and discharged into” jurisdictional water.[9] This approach, the court opined, directly conflicts with the statutory definition of “point source” under the CWA, and is therefore invalid.

Instead of striking down the Silvicultural Rule, the court determined that the Rule is subject to a second interpretation that is consistent with the CWA, even though it neither “reflect[s] the intent of EPA” nor exempts the discharges at issue in the case. Under the latter interpretation, the Rule “exempts natural runoff from silvicultural activities …, but only as long as the ‘natural runoff’ remains natural. That is, the exemption ceases to exist as soon as the natural runoff is channeled and controlled in some systematic way through a ‘discernible, confined and discrete conveyance’ and discharged into” jurisdictional waters.[10]

Having already held that the discharges require NPDES permits, the court also addressed an argument that was not decided by the district court: the impact of the CWA’s 1987 amendments and EPA’s regulations implementing those amendments. The 1987 amendments ushered in a tiered approach to addressing stormwater discharges, in what is now CWA § 402(p). Congress required EPA first to promulgate so-called “Phase I regulations” for five classes of significant sources of stormwater pollution, including “industrial activity.” Second, Congress required EPA to study stormwater discharges that were not covered by the Phase I regulations, and to issue “Phase II” regulations accordingly.

The court acknowledged that it is “within the discretion of EPA to promulgate Phase II regulations requiring, or not requiring, permits for” discharges from relatively de minimis sources, but stated that EPA lacks discretion with respect to the entities that fall within the Phase I regulations.[11] Because Congress expressly required EPA to promulgate Phase I regulations to address “discharges associated with industrial activity,”[12] the court held that, “if silvicultural activity is ‘industrial in nature,[’] § 402(p) requires that discharges from such activity obtain NPDES permits.”[13]

After reviewing EPA’s Phase I regulations, the court concluded that stormwater discharges from logging roads fall within the scope of Phase I as “storm waterdischarge[s] associated with industrial activity,” and therefore require compliance with the NPDES program. The court based this ruling on a provision of EPA’s regulations that specifies broad Standard Industrial Code (SIC) categories of industries considered “industrial activities,” one of which includes “logging,” defined as “establishments primarily engaged in cutting timber and in producing … primary forest or wood raw materials … in the field.”[14] The court also noted that EPA had defined “stormwater discharge associated with industrial activity” as including “immediate access roads … used or traveled by carriers of raw materials, manufactured products, waste material, or by-products used or created by the facility.”[15] The court gave no significance to the first sentence of the regulatory definition upon which its analysis rested: “Storm water discharge associated with industrial activity means the discharge from any conveyance that is used for collecting and conveying storm water and that is directly related to manufacturing, processing, or raw materials storage areas at an industrial plant.”[16]

Oregon and the timber companies advanced several arguments attempting to distinguish the typical industrial activity contemplated by the Phase I regulations from logging roads that occur in vast, often remote areas, far from a true “facility.” The court rejected these arguments, concluding that “collected runoff constitutes a point source discharge of stormwater ‘associated with industrial activity’ under the terms of § 502(14) and § 402(p).”[17] First, according to the court, and relying on EPA’s preamble to the Phase I rule, logging roads qualify as “immediate access roads,” because they are “roads which are exclusively or primarily dedicated for use by the industrial facility.”[18] Second, logging roads are “primarily dedicated” to use by the logging companies, because, although logging roads are “often used for recreation, … that is not their primary use. Logging companies not only build and maintain the roads and their drainage systems pursuant to contracts with the State. Logging is also the roads’ sine qua non: If there were no logging, there would be no logging roads.”[19] Finally, the court concluded that the Phase I rule defines “industrial activity” broadly enough to encompass other non-traditional sites that are directly related to an industrial process, including “immediate access roads.”[20]Despite EPA’s pending obligation from a prior case to determine whether the discharges should be included in EPA’s Phase II stormwater regulations, the court reiterated that logging road runoff is subject to the Phase I regulations. The court opined that EPA should be able to “effectively and relatively expeditiously” adapt the “closely analogous NPDES permitting process for stormwater runoff from other kinds of roads” to a general permit for stormwater discharges from logging roads.[21]

The Ninth Circuit’s Revised Opinion

In early October, the defendant-appellees petitioned for rehearing or rehearing en banc on multiple grounds, and various parties, including members of industry, environmental groups, local governments, and the United States submitted amicus briefs. On October 20, 2010, the court issued an order directing the plaintiff-appellants to respond to the petition, including two specific issues regarding the court’s subject matter jurisdiction over the case: (1) whether a suit challenging EPA’s interpretation of its regulations could be brought under the CWA’s citizen suit provision, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a), as the plaintiffs did here; and (2) whether a suit challenging EPA’s decision to exempt the discharge of a pollutant from the CWA’s permitting requirements must be brought under the agency review provision in 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b).

The court denied the petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc without addressing the arguments raised by the parties or amici. However, the court replaced its August 2010 decision with a version of the opinion that included a justification for its jurisdiction over the case. Although none of the parties raised the issue on appeal, the United States argued in its initial amicus brief that, because the Silvicultural Rule was unambiguous, the suit could have only been brought under § 1369(b), within the statutory timelines, and not under § 1365(a). In response to a request from “one of [the court’s] colleagues,” the court requested supplemented briefing on the two issues in its October 20 order.[22]

The court held that it properly exercised jurisdiction over the case, owing to the United States’ “concession” in its second amicus brief that the Silvicultural Rule is ambiguous. The CWA’s citizen suit provision, like those in many environmental statutes, allows any person to enforce the substantive provisions of the statute while placing guidelines on when a plaintiff can challenge EPA’s interpretation of the statute through regulations. CWA § 1365(a) allows for suits again any person alleged to be in violation of “an effluent standard or limitation” under the CWA, such as entities that discharge pollutants into jurisdictional waters without a permit. However, CWA § 1369(b) places limitations on the citizen suit provision by stating that suits against EPA regarding the promulgation of standards, prohibitions, or limitations must be brought within 120 days from the date of EPA’s determination, approval, promulgation, issuance, or denial, unless the basis for the suit arose more than 120 days after the agency action. Any action that could have been brought under 1369(b) “shall not be subject to judicial review in any civil or criminal proceeding for enforcement.”[23]

The court held that “the basis for NEDC’s challenge to the Silvicultural Rule arose more than 120 days after the promulgation of the Rule,” because the United States did not adopt the first reading of the Rule until it filed its first amicus brief in the case.[24] “Until the United States filed that brief,” according to the court, “there was no way for the public to know which reading of the Silvicultural Rule it would adopt.”[25] In contrast to its previous position, the United States’ second amicus brief adopted the view that a citizen suit under § 1365(a) is proper “where, as here, the court holds that the pertinent EPA interpretation is offered well after the regulation is promulgated.”[26] The court agreed, holding that, “because the Silvicultural Rule was subject to two readings, only one of which renders the Rule invalid, and because the government first adopted its interpretation of the Rule in its initial amicus brief in this case, this case comes within the exception in § 1369(b)(1) for suits based on grounds arising after the 120-day filing window.”[27]

This section of the opinion is in some tension with other aspects of the court’s opinion that touch on EPA’s long-standing presumptive interpretation of its own Rule. For example, the court stated that the first interpretation of the Silvicultural Rule “reflects the intent of EPA in adopting the Rule” and that, “[u]ntil now, EPA has acted on the assumption that NPDES permits are not required for discharges of pollutants from ditches, culverts, and channels that collect stormwater runoff from logging roads.”[28] That is, if EPA has always intended not to regulate this sort of discharge as a point source, and has never developed an appropriate general permit, one could query how EPA’s interpretation of its Rule remained ambiguous for decades.

Implications

Despite the court’s assurance that EPA can “expeditiously” develop a general permitting program for stormwater discharges on logging roads, the sheer number of roads that would be subject to the general permit and the varied climatic conditions and geography of the areas where they exist will require significant study and review. Until then, the private and public entities that own or operate on logging roads equipped with stormwater management systems are faced with the threat of enforcement without the option of applying for coverage under a permit that is designed for their circumstances. One option is to embark on the arduous process of applying for individual permits. Another may be to attempt to shoehorn forest roads within an existing general permit, but landowners and users will have to wrestle with the potentially poor fit of permits that are designed for active industrial facilities and roads.

For more information on stormwater permitting, please contact Meline MacCurdy or any other member of Marten Law’s Water Quality practice group.

As partners in a statewide effort to secure protections for polluted waterways, we ask for your help in letting U.S. EPA know that Californians support strong federal leadership on reducing storm water pollution and restoring the health of polluted lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries and coastal waters. In November 2010, EPA issued a memo (attached) that provided good guidance on establishing numeric effluent limits in permits, and other ways to improve storm water and TMDL programs.  But now EPA is backing away from the memo in response to pressure from industry, and is seeking comments on whether to withdraw or weaken the memo.  EPA’s call for comments is also an attempt to gauge support for a federal storm water rule, which is currently in progress.  You and your organization can help in three ways before the comment deadline this Monday, May 16:

1) Fill out and submit our action alert. Circulate it far and wide to your colleagues and link to it on your Facebook page:http://www.cacoastkeeper.org/take-action/speak-out/9.

2) Sign-on to the attached group letter to EPA, asking them not to weaken or withdraw the November 2010 Memo. Please send logos, name, title, and organization name to sara@cacoastkeeper.org by Friday, May 16 at 10am.

3) Adapt our action alert or letter and send an individual letter to EPA on your organizational letterhead. The more letters the better!

Feel free to email me with any questions.

Thank you!

Sara

To all,

Discussion – below – is a summary of the Regional Board action to Suspend NTMPs from the Categorical Waiver for Timber Operations.  This is a short summery for folks who are not understanding the situation regarding NTMPs .

There is another e-mail to follow with a summery and history of TMDLs and Implementing Programs.   If you do not understand this information – recovery of your watershed will not occur.

NTMPs are Non-Industrial timber plans, approved once, and lasting for eternity.  NTMPs continue future operations under the rules in place at the time of approval.  These are private timberlands -  the average NTMP is 500 acres in size. There are now 233,000 acres of approved NTMPs in the north coast region.

At the March 24 meeting the
Regional Board "Suspended" NTMPs from Waste Discharge
Requirement and/or Categorical Waiver compliance. 

NTMPs are no longer subject to stream protection requirements and erosion
control requirements - under the Categorical Waiver for WDRs on private
timber lands. 

There are lots of words about this issue - below - read on if you care to
understand. This issue is related to, and of paramount importance to,
maintianing and recovering water quality values and fish on impaired
north coast waterbodies.

Timber harvest is the primary land use, and thus responsible, in a large
part, for the loss of salmon habitat on our north coast rivers.
In fact there are a number of rivers where timber harvest, and associated
activity - road building, yarding, etc..  Gualala, Garcia, Albion,
Big, Ten Mile, Noyo,and the Mattole Rivers and Redwoood, Usal and Kings
Range Creeks - are primarily impacted by timber harvest.   On
the Klamath, Scott, Shasta, Trinity, Mad, and Russian Rivers timber
harvest is a particpant with other uses. 

Interested Parties concerned with impaired status of north coast rivers
and streams please note:

The Regional Board is proposing suspension of regulations now in place to
control pollutant contributions from timber harvest activity on impaired
waterbodies in the north coast region. 

Timber harvest and related activities are responsible for a great
percentage of impairment on impaired listed waterbodies. 

The Gualala, Garcia, Albion, Big, Ten Mile, Mattole, and  Van Duzen
Rivers - and -  Freshwater Creek, Elk Creek, Redwood Creek are
primarily impaired by timber harvest and timber harvest related activity
( road and skid trail construction and re-construction, landings,
yarding, etc.). 

Russian River, Navarro River Shasta River, Scott River, Klamath River,
Eel River, Mad River are all also impacted by timber harvest - with
additional agricultureal and urban issues adding to impairment issues. 

There is no argument that Timber Harvest activity under the Forest
Practice Act as administered by Cal Fire does not adequately protect the
Beneficial Uses of Water - the cold water fishery. 

To control pollutant effects from timber harvest land use the Regional
Board correctly included NTMPs under the standards set for industrial
timber harvest as Waste Discharge Requirements and Categorical Waivers.
Waste Discharge Requirement and Categorical Waiver conditions are imposed
as TMDL backstops (otherwise known as Implementing Programs) to control
pollutant (sediment, temperature, and nutrient) inputs related to timber
harvest activity.

In short, these regulations provide greater shade requirements and
Erosion control requirements for all classes of watercourses than the
Forest Practice Rules. 

Non-industrial private timberlands comprise 40% of the forested land base
of the State. NTMPs represent a minor share of that landbase. That
percentage is increasing every year as NTMPs represent a regulatory
loophole in environmental review and approval process these forever
permits to harvest. 

There is no credible evidence or argument that NTMPs represent a lessor
threat to water quality than industrial timber plans and should not be
subject to the same rules. 

And, in fact if the Regional Board, is willing to backslide on regulation
on this sector of the timber land base it is fairly clear that: 1)
recovery actions become a larger burden to those remaining subject to
this regulation, 2)recovery becomes more elusive and that much harder to
attain, 3) that the use of Waste Discharge Requirements and Categorical
Waivers as TMDL backstops to deal with impairment issues is greatly
compromised. 

Finally - this action now proposed by the Regional Board is being
considered on the basis of a large scaled outcry by NTMP owners and the
Forest Landowner's Association.  NTMP owners think that they have
given up the right to clear cut and should receive in turn the right to
not be subject to rules necessary to be in compliance with Basin Plan
requirements - i.e. erosion control for roads and erosion sources and
necessary stream protection. 

ACTION:  

CAG is prepared with documents and arguments address this issue. Due, to
previous commitments I can not be at the March 24 meeting. 

CAG is not prepared to move forward with actions to address this issue
unless there is significant commitment from other interested parties. 

Please respond -
       1)If you are willing to write a letter - you will be provided information - and -
written copy in support.

Thanks, Alan