storytemplate

HOME

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dams: A Perspective on Temporary Prosperity

Dear Friends

We hope this special map edition (large file) of the Eel River Reporter helps you better understand the complexities of water, freight trains, development and gravel issues that are currently on the table for the north coast of California. Having sat through many meetings up and down the coast, I can tell you that I’ve witnessed many times how the general public is being lied to by one interest group after another. The one on the top of the list at the moment is the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA), a state agency, and the North West Pacific company (NWPco), a private company that leases the railroad from NCRA. We the people of California get to cover repair of the railway line including damage done by slides, upgrade bridges, crossings and the line itself.

Since we own the railroad we are also the ones liable for any ongoing problems with the track; we are responsible for the loss of freight; and we would have to pay for the removal of engines and cars that are derailed into the river. NWPco only has to make money for its investors, not for the state. We pay, while business profits. (Sounds like the way Wall Street is run.) Furthermore it is the NWPco that desperately wants to develop the Island Mountain mine in the middle of the dynamic Eel River canyon. If you want to find it on Google, search for Island Mountain Mine, Eel River, Calif. and you will find it where the railroad crosses from the west side of the river to the east, entering a mile-long tunnel at the end of the bridge. The proposal is to mine 350 acres over the next 50 years, producing at least $50,000,000 per year profit.

At the same time we have development plans ongoing for the Port of Humboldt. Members of the Humboldt Bay District Board have traveled to China to develop connections there and even hired a Mr. Lacey from the Port of Oakland to develop customers as he did there. Additionally, Goldman Sachs has come on the scene negotiating with that Board to represent them in brokering development of the deep-water port and customers to lease facilities, all connecting to the NCRA. This is seen by our politicians as good development for the north coast, especially for Humboldt which has seen the demise of its once prolific salmon fishery, logging of our great Redwood forests, leaving gravel and hard rock left to export. There is a loud hue and cry from locals who want to see their rivers restored so the salmon can return, save what Redwoods are left and develop an economy that is more centered around healing our watersheds, restoring our rivers and streams and protecting a burgeoning environmental tourism. People in Marin and Sonoma want a commuter rail so badly they are willing to sacrifice our beleaguered watersheds, endangered wildlife, and a growing sustainable lifestyle. We all have to be willing to keep looking for solutions that work for the greater good. Removing cars off the road sounds good, but not if diesel continues to belch into our already polluted air, and because of funding laws actually increases the number of people already here, canceling good intentions and further damaging our good earth. Oddly this situation could also be a great learning tool to help us get to where we really want to be, living peacefully with our neighbors, in balance with the Earth, but hatred and animosity have to stop.

The general public and taxpayers are left confused but clear there is a conflict in stories being told to different audiences.
The north coast coalition of environmental groups including Friends of the Eel River (FOER), the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATS) filed an Amicus Brief in support of Novato’s legal action against the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) for clarity on the number of freight trains moving through their newly renovated downtown, and supporting the need for a full Environmental Impact Report on the entire rail project from Humboldt to Sonoma. The railroad has not run for ten years or more, and is beset with problems. Politicians are running around assuring audiences that the railroad was closed in 1998 because of slides in Marin, and not the Eel River canyon. Yet this is where FEMA did their study on what the damage was during those winter storms and what it would take to repair the railroad in a manner that would be less damaging to the watershed and the river it runs along. The Eel River is a very flashy system, filling rapidly and rising above the rail track when we have our 10 inches or more of rain a day.

The Eel River is California’s third largest river system with a watershed that is almost 4,000 square miles in size, with five major branches, the mainstem, the Middle Fork, the North Fork, the South Fork and the Van Duzen. This river runs mostly northwest starting in the Mendocino National Forest, in the mountains on the northside of Clear Lake and empties in the Pacific Ocean due west of Fortuna. Most people are familiar with the South Fork Eel River as Highway 101 follows its course and is where the famous Avenue of the Giants with its world-class Redwood trees are to be found

The Eel River once supported salmon and steelhead runs that exceeded a half million fish at the turn of the century and is still the third-largest producer of salmon in the state. The collapse of this fishery was the first domino to fall, then the Klamath and now the Sacramento making the problem much larger than usually understood because the context and focus has been on individual rivers instead of the larger more informative picture.

Inter-basin diversion of its headwaters at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project (PVP) and destructive land use practices have nearly annihilated these runs and driven them to the brink of extinction. Now the Eel’s Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, and steelhead populations are all listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The PVP operates two antiquated dams and a diversion tunnel. These have significantly altered the natural flow regime of the river and have siphoned off enormous amounts of its water into the Russian River. These dams block access to hundreds of miles of prime salmon spawning and rearing habitat. The dams and diversions cause reduced flows, which warm and slacken the water and contribute to growth of toxic algae and carry damcaused suspended silt that last over six months in both river systems. Such conditions can kill migratory fish. These fish need adequate flows of clean, cold water to survive. Reduced flows degrade and limit critical habitat, degrade water quality, impede upstream and downstream migration, and inhibit flushing of sediment from spawning gravels. The PVP main storage at Lake Pillsbury not only reduces flows but is the incubator for the Sacramento pike-minnow, a non-native species, which displaces and preys upon juvenile salmon and steelhead. The PVP has done enormous damage to the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations, to the health of the watershed as a whole and to the people who used to make a living fishing on this once magnificent system.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has written that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should study the feasibility and develop a schedule for decommissioning and removing the project. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has written that decommissioning the project and eliminating the out-of-basin diversion would have the greatest benefit, of all potential alternatives, to the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations. Friends of the Eel River believe the ongoing diversions are a rip-off of the Eel River’s water and that the PVP should be decommissioned as soon as possible. The two dams should be removed and the diversions stopped to allow the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations to survive and recover.

I hope that you find this map useful, that it increases your knowledge of what is going on in your local back yard and how what we all do is contributing to global warming. Will the SMART passenger rail really reduce cars on the road? Look to see what and where it connects riders to their jobs. Why are there problems with the different stories told by SMART and the NCRA/NWPco? Why are these two rail entities not telling the truth about the number of freight trains anticipated and when? The NCRA studies have shown that in order for the NCRA/NWPco to be successful a minimum of 40,000 cars a year need to be moved with freight. As usual one can find out a lot of answers by following the money.

If you follow the money to FOER you will find that we need you to join us as your memberships and donations are what keeps us going. Please consider us in your yearly giving plan. We love the magnificent but badly wounded Eel River and plea for your support.
For our National Wild and Scenic Eel River,
Nadananda
Executive Director