Redwood Reader

75. Gravel in the Rivers
Two articles this week dealing with gravel in the Mad and Eel Rivers. River conditions are poor due to the flood of sediment in the last seventy years, and only some of the sediment is gravel. IN one impacted stretch of Middle Creek we surveyed for various parameters of stream conditions to get a data baseline before large-scale restoration was to occur as part of the Good Roads Clean Creeks program. We measured channel cross sections, thalwag profile, large woody debris, canopy coverage, pool size and sedimentation with V*STAR, embeddedness and pebble count. Pebble counts gave an indication of gravel size in the creek bed. Embeddedness indicated how well cemented in the gravel was by fines, or small sediment, preventing transport and not helpful to spawning fish. When you look Middle Creek up on Kris Mattole these statistics jump out at you. At the Mattole, right at the junction of the two, all the rocks are river rocks, many of which are rounded smoothe. It seems like a lot of the fines have been separated and carried away. The river bottom is not packed with fines nearly as badly as the creek yards away.
We have given a lot of attention to restoring area river conditions. We have learned sediment is transported throughout watersheds when biological systems are impacted, and are now learning the extent of that damage as glomalin brings the nature of soil stability into focus. Dredging has occasionally been mentioned as one way to reduce riverine impacts. Of course, best management practices for land disturbance must be updated to include the new knowledge, but newly created impacts will be greatly diminished and we can focus on improving conditions without going backwards. Meanwhile, gravel mining is a partial substitute for dredging and has potential to restore some of the problem areas.
Watershed damage often takes decades to develop after major events. Douglas fir stumps may last ten years before they rot out. The surrounding ground has been robbed of protection for the soil glue holding it together and a small amount of erosion will occur over time. At this point the fir and the redwood are responding similarly. The redwood adventitious cell send up new growth to maintain photosynthesis, and some small amount continues to feed the fungi, which adjusts to new conditions by using more neighboring plants as hosts. In a few years a crown of green protects the fungi with shade. In the case of the Douglas fir the fungi are robbed of nutrition and the environment become much more hazardous without the host tree. Glomalin starts to break down from sun and running water in a cascading effect. Without glomalin’s glue-like ability to form particles into water holding topsoil, and keep it on the hillside, the particles liquefy and are carried away by wind or water but eventually reach a river. If the surface is steep, it will slide. It is inevitable.
Gravel mining could be a big help for restorationists. It is to be hoped regulations can be made flexible enough to move sites to where they are needed or can do the most good, and that it is recognized as a boom due to legacy impacts on our watersheds that will eventually correct itself while diminishing the resource. We also need to deepen the channels and narrow the river bars in order to reestablish riparian vegetation which cools water with shade and provides food for fish while holding soil down. The vegetation has been scoured off the banks because the river channels filled in with sediment and the banks are over run in storms. Much flooding expected in Florida after hurricanes Charley and Francis was alleviated due to their well-maintained canal systems.
Clear cuts and skidding or dragging by yarder are terribly destructive to the forest system and need to be eliminated. There will always be harvestable wood products, many in remote steep areas. Better methods of harvest must be encouraged or their will be no gaining ground on the problem.

Beating back the flood of river gravel
By My Word by Denver Nelson
Eureka Times-Standard
Wednesday, September 08, 2004 -
Thanks to the long-term work of many people and many organizations, water quantity and water quality is improving in our North Coast rivers, but our rivers are still not healthy. Years ago William Van Pelt, an old Yurok friend of mine, told me the Klamath River bed was 20 feet higher now than in his youth 90 years ago. Old-time fisherman and friend Art Dedini said the same about the Eel River bed. I doubted their "non-scientific" conclusions at the time, but I have now been on the rivers long enough to appreciate and agree with their observations. The rivers are filling up with gravel.
Both water and gravel are transported down rivers; water takes days and gravel takes years to go from source to ocean. If there is too much water for the river to transport, a flood results. The water flood may last several days. Gravel is likewise transported from its source to the ocean. If the gravel input exceeds the river's ability to transport it, the bed of the river will continue to rise (a gravel flood) just as my now-departed friends observed was occurring in the Eel and Klamath rivers. Our rivers are still experiencing a rising level of gravel flood.
We live in a geologically unstable area. Before any humans were here, gravel was being produced by natural soil erosion and was successfully transported down the rivers. When man arrived, he started disturbing the soil by building housing, trails and roads, logging, farming and ranching, resulting in much more gravel being produced and insufficient gravel transport down the rivers.
We all now realize that old land-use practices were wrong, and we are attempting to improve current practices and repair old problems. At a cost of billions of dollars these old errors are now being fixed by removing legacy roads, improving logging, farming, grazing and road building, etc. Only it isn't working. Gravel continues to build up in our rivers.
I believe current silviculture and logging practices are the source of continued excess gravel in our rivers. I also believe that we live in the best timber-producing environment on the entire planet. We should be able to grow and harvest trees forever without causing damage to the environment.
No one is doing anything illegal, but misguided efforts abound. The enviros claim to believe in sustainable forestry and healthy rivers, but have gotten bogged down trying to save "old growth" -- a silly waste of time. The majestic old growth has already been preserved in federal and state lands. Preserving "old growth" is like preserving your grandmother. You can preserve trees and people for a while, but eventually all living things die. We should be preserving timber-producing lands. Trees will always grow on good timber land.
Commercial timber companies, the California Department of Forestry and the Board of Forestry all preach the same song. Even-age tree growth and yarder clear cutting is the only economically and environmentally correct way to grow and harvest trees. Redwood trees are now cut at 40 to 50 years of age; just when they begin to produce significant growth and "old growth" characteristics. The redwood lumber for sale now is a much poorer quality than old growth, and will rot and break if used. The purchasing public is becoming aware of this poor quality and is substituting cedar, treated fir or plastic wood for redwood lumber.
Yarder logging as now practiced in our area is in reality tractor logging on very steep slopes. Logs are dragged up the hill to the yarder setting by a steel cable (high lead yarding). This produces surface erosion and produces more gravel than can be transported down stream by our rivers. The solution is yarding with a suspended cable and a motorized carriage (skyline yarding). The logs are picked up and flown out of the logging site without any soil disturbance. Uneven aged management harvesting older trees would yield a much better wood product and increased long-term profits. Timber stands could be selectively logged using permanent roads without the need for replanting, retiring and rebuilding roads and other costly environmental mitigations.
The enviros need to rethink their priorities and the commercial lumbermen need to rethink their economics. A change to skyline logging and selective forestry will make better lumber with improved profits and will allow our streams to transport the gravel flood to the ocean.
Denver Nelson is a neurosurgeon and river advocate who fishes on the Klamath River. He lives in Eureka.
Eel River gravel could get the go-ahead
By John Driscoll The Times-Standard
Thursday, September 02, 2004 -
The California Coastal Commission may clear the way for mining nearly 1 million cubic yards of gravel from the Eel River each year for the next five years.
The commission staff has recommended approving the permits of five gravel operators and Humboldt County with certain conditions, after years of handling mining on an annual basis.
Reflecting the changing nature of rivers, the commission staff would be able to review annual plans submitted by the operators to make sure they mesh with coastal law.
"The playing field is changing a little bit over time," said Bob Merrill, a planner with the coastal commission.
Channels move and vegetation grows in different areas, and the commission wants to make sure operators don't mine gravel from a wet river channel or damage streamside vegetation, Merrill said.
The hearing next Thursday at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in mid-August reversed an earlier decision that found the operations -- combined with mining on the Mad River -- would jeopardize protected salmon populations in the region.
A new opinion was issued after significant new information on both Eel River and Mad River gravel harvesting was reviewed, and after on-the-ground meetings were held with a number of gravel operators. Concerns about harming protected chinook salmon spawning beds were at the heart of the talks.
The volume of gravel removed from the Mad has been capped at a lower amount than was first proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and different techniques on how to shave gravel from the river were agreed to.
The commission does not have jurisdiction on Mad River harvesting; that's up to the Army Corps and NOAA.
Those applying for permits on the Eel are Mercer-Fraser, Eureka Ready Mix Concrete, Leland Rock and Dwelley, Mallard Pond, and Humboldt County.
On the Eel River, gravel extraction is happening largely away from chinook salmon spawning grounds, so the focus was different than on the Mad.
Chinook rear and migrate through areas where gravel mining occurs, said Irma Lagomarcino, a supervisor for NOAA Fisheries. She said there were also concerns about adult fish stranding in shallow areas. Constraints on harvesting in certain areas addressed that. Also, the amount of gravel expected to be extracted was deemed sustainable, she said.
NOAA will continue to be a part of the yearly review of mining on both rivers. Lagomarcino said she believes common ground was gained in a process that had previously been awkward trying to deal with all Humboldt County operations at once.
"We learned a lot and they did too about our perspective," Lagomarcino said.