Redwood Reader

87. A Busy Week in California
This week has really seen a lot of articles relating to our work. Rather than post each one to discuss, I will trim the discussion to be sure to include as any items as possible. I find it ironic there were three California environmental articles in LI’s Newsday on a Saturday, when readership drops off.
Calif. Salutes Global Warming Fighters
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-forest-practices,0,3848731.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines
Lawmakers this week endorsed the California Climate Registry to reward private forest land owners for sequestering CO2 in forests. It doesn’t say what rewards would be available but it is worth noting they are talking to industry, cities and government agencies are using the system to track their emissions. We note logging as the second largest source of CO2 and point out that CO2 emissions from land disturbance and glomalin destruction is not yet part of the equation. More science is needed here. The states Climate Action registry was created by law four years ago, and lawmakers approved incentives two years ago. The work goes beyond owning timberland to actively managing carbon capture and making that permanent by using conservation easements.
We are approaching the truth concerning carbon sequestration but must include fungal storage in the soils to really enumerate and appreciate the processes. We will find emissions from ground disturbance an unexpectedly large source of CO2, and that development releases CO2 that can not be put back into developed areas while CO2 released by logging is accumulated as the land regrows. Also not understood yet is the relation between glomalin conditioning the soil to absorb precipitation and store it.
California Climate Action Registry: www.climateregistry.org Pacific Forest Trust: www.pacificforest.org
Calif. Nixes Tiger Salamander Protections
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-tiger-salamander,0,7598056.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines.
Tiger salamanders are under pressure from agriculture ands development in the Bay Area and Central Coast. Once again the issue is the quality of the science and development. The Bush administration, which often ignores bad news is saying the science is poor, yet their own people shot down the high quality science brought to inform the decision makers after requesting it. State lawmakers feel there are enough populations to deny listing. Federal listing does not include habitat preservation or improvement. Panels asking for more information should act on it when it is presented to them.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: http://sacramento.fws.gov/ Center for Biological Diversity: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
California Natural Resources Group: http://www.cnrgonline.com/
Agency: Calif. Water Shift Won't Hurt Fish
http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-delta-water,0,1440972.story?coll=sns-ap-science-headlines
The US Bureau of Reclaimation approved a plan to increase water flows to Southern California after NOAA assured them they would not be harming any of five threatened or endangered salmonid runs, including Northern California and Southern Oregon coho. They plan to send 27% more water south, but it is not clear if any of this is from the Trinity-Klamath. Environmentalists charge NOAA with political considerations riding over objections but NOAA denies it. The state and feds are trying to integrate their parallel pumping and storage systems and begin signing water contracts for 25 to 40 year periods. This is where bad science can go really wrong because once the contracts are signed it will be a litigious mess or complete ecological disaster trying to undo them. Both California Senators, Nancy Pelosi and several other California lawmakers are asking for delays for more information. Meanwhile Commerce and Interior are looking at improprieties at NOAA regarding their initial draft findings.
Bureau of Reclamation: www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/index.html
4. Mushroom boom is on -- don't forget your permit
Saturday, October 23, 2004 - The Times-Standard
http://www.times- standard.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,127%257E2896%257E2487538,00.html
Tan oak, or matasuke, mushroom picking permits go on sale October 25 for National Forests. The season runs November 1 to December 15.The early onset of rain together with warm temperatures should bring a large crop this year. Japanese cooks love the mushroom despite an unpleasant fragrance as picked. The Forest Service issues four different commercial permits, and patrols areas and sets up checkpoints to assure compliance. Penalties range up to six months and $5ooo. Permits are available at Gasquet, Orleans and Willow Creek Ranger Stations.
*Two-day permit for $20. * Three-day permit for $25. * Seven-day permit for $50. * One month permit for $100. Personal permits are free.
Not mentioned in the article is the fact that BLM also offers permits for King Range. They usually have about 20-30 requests per year.
5. Comment Period for CA Rocks and Islands http://www.ca.blm.gov/pa/coastal_monument/ccnm_rmp_index.htm BLM is doing the public comment thing on its draft for the old Rocks and Islands off the California Coast, now called the California Coastal Monument. Comment period ends December 16. "People interested in the California coast provided valuable comments that we used in drafting this document," said California Coastal National Monument Manager Rick Hanks. "We hope people can continue to help us in developing the final plan and EIS by attending a meeting and providing comments." A meeting was held in Trinidad Thursday night, according to their schedule.
In addition to participating in a public meeting, people can send comments to: California Coastal National Monument, 299 Foam St, Monterey, CA 93940, send them via email to cacam@ca.blm.gov, fax to the monument office at (831) 647-4244 or comment online www.ca.blm.gov/pa/coastal_monument/comment_page.htm.
Comments must be received by Dec. 16, 2004.
The draft plan and EIS have been mailed to requesters. The documents can be viewed online at www.ca.blm.gov/pa/coastal_monument/. Printed or compact disc copies are available by contacting the monument office. The documents can also be reviewed at the monument office in Monterey and at BLM offices in Sacramento, Arcata, Ukiah, Hollister, Bakersfield, Palm Springs and Moreno Valley.
California Coastal National Monument 299 Foam Street Monterey, CA 93940

86. Wild Coho Raised in Hatcheries
Source: River gets salmon born to be wild Coho bred for their DNA freed into a tributary of the Russian Glen Martin, SF Chronicle Enviromental writer Thursday, October 21, 2004
An idea expressed earlier in this blog has become a reality in the Russian River restoration process. Glen Martin reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle about a capture and breeding hatchery program of Russian River coho. The concept of capturing wild coho from various areas, which guarantees genetic diversity, raising them in nurseries for the summer until flows returned has been bested by an even more ambitious success wherein captured fish were grown to maturity and bred for the greatest possible genetic variation. Since many young are eaten, the population of the drainage was perhaps 10 to 20 mature spawners returning for breeding. The good news is that once again, waiting for improvements only saw conditions continue to deteriorate despite more restrictions and so a newer more flexible plan has gone into effect.
This is a particularly important issue for the hatcheries as their breeding programs suffered from a similar problem of not enough genetic diversity. I have been advocating some kind of rearing facility for salmonids rescued for streams and pools that dry up in the summer. I was once told at least the raccoons are being fed, and that it was illegal to remove endangered fish from the stream for any reason.
It is also good to see time has become an issue. Not by choice, of course, but nevertheless action is being taken in a quicker manner. Many aspects of restoration are over regulated, diminishing support and interest. I have been asking for help on my creek for nearly twenty years. We have surveyed it, gathered baseline sediment data, habitat typed it, inventoried sediment delivery sites, written a plan for hillside and road sediment delivery reduction, planted thousands of trees, gotten Save the Redwoods to buy the headwaters of the stream before it was logged, been assessed biologically and by Native Americans, and we still haven’t flipped a single stone or deepened a pool, and in fact were stopped three times this year from implementing because permits or studies hadn’t been completed. In each case the work was already done and in hand yet the task of keeping the permits straight once again cost us another year.
We have seen the benefits of reduced regulation for restoration working well in the Van Duzen last year when an on the spot decision allowed bulldozers to open the mouth of the Van Duzen so Eel River fish could run up the tributary as well through the sediment choked confluence. On our own property we always had good water and fish if we scooped sediment out of pool sites in the spring. We stopped that many years ago because it is illegal. But now the creek has no pools and dries up every year. We also have far fewer springs uphill. Regulations here prevented landowners from maintaining habitat. We also lost the community swimming holes and water sources traditionally used, and of course, we haven’t seen more than one big fish in any year. There must be some as we still have steelhead and occasionally coho fry in a stream noted for coho and Chinook in 1964 by DFG now one of the most degraded according to KRIS Mattole and California Watershed Assessment.
It is an interesting point that more money is available for projects in more developed regions where the threat is highest from human activity and it is almost impossible to get help for single landowners in remote areas. Out of sight out of mind combined with ”that guy is getting all the grease” allow valuable habitat to degrade and remain that way for decades. Here we note none of this money is going to habitat, it is for rearing facility operations.

“Coho are especially susceptible to habitat degradation, said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a lobby group that represents commercial fishing.
"The Russian is a poster child for everything that can go wrong with a river," said Grader. "Dams and water diversions, logging, overgrazing, gravel mining -- you name it." “

This is where glomalin links to coho-at the point of habitat degradation, although they have completely missed development as a problem. Housing has caused large areas to lose their ability to store rainfall in the root soil zone in addition to the totally lost paved and built lands. This creates an excess of surface water and land that is easily saturated and prone to sliding. Restoration has to include returning lands to absorption or the landscape will continue to dry a little worse each year and summer flows will continue to diminish. It is even hinted at when Peter LaCivita of the Army Corps of Engineers said we probably wouldn’t see volumes of fish returning to levels that existed “before the dams went in and the timber was cut.”
The quote “"It has been a long road. There isn't even (an official) recovery plan for these fish yet, so we're way ahead of the curve.” Humboldt residents also want Eel River water returned to the Eel and will be very upset if Eel River restoration becomes a threat to restored coho runs in the Russian River. A North Coast Coho Recovery Plan has been released by DFG but I am sure he means for the hatchery fish.
Anyway, the great part of this program is that they grew the coho to breeding age, and then bred them for the greatest genetic diversity possible, retaining the “wild” element along with the note about the fish swarming toward humans because of feeding imprinting. This was very evident back when we had our trout pond stocked.
IN the end they had increased 500 fish into 6100 ready to place in suitable habitat by using hatcheries differently from in the past. This is an exciting plan for landscape restorers because a source of fish may become available for areas returning to decent habitat where local populations have been extirpated or dramatically reduced. It is also a real positive use of genetics from degraded habitats that would normally not survive. It is well worth looking into for coho restoration organizations as well as hatcheries that currently are under utilized or funded.

‘"What happened at Clausen represents the difference between hatcheries as we have known them to date and hatcheries as we want to configure them in the future," said Kier, noting that hatcheries historically have reduced genetic diversity in salmon runs because relatively few fish are taken to produce an annual quota of fertilized eggs. ‘
Mill Creek was chosen as a release site because it supports some of the best fisheries habitat in the Russian River drainage. Erosion on the Mill Creek watershed is minimal. The riffles have the kind of rocky bottom salmon need for spawning, and a heavy canopy of oaks, firs and redwoods keeps water temperatures cool.’

It is obvious Humboldt has the need and the resources for this type of program. More and more habitat is recovering from past events. The knowledgeable people, the hatcheries and the habitat are all handy. This would be a great use of the Headwaters fund money as it could provide stock for the many miles of spawning habitat reopened by the culvert replacement program, for example, and would generate dollars far into the future as fishing returned to some degree.

Threat to Amphibians Rising
L.A. Times Staff Writer Marla Cone
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fg-frogs15oct15,1,4990234.story?coll=la-news-environment
Amphibian declines have been discussed for quite some time. A new report points out the extent of the problems as well as lot of areas needing more studies.
More than 500 scientists efforts were included in the first global amphibian assessment, a three-year effort by researchers with IUCN — a conservation group — the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science of Conservation International and NatureServe, published online in Science Thursday. The reports tell a sad tale of extinctions and habitat degradation and loss as well as threats from chemicals, disease, parasites, invasive predators, thinning ozone layer, and global climate change but half of the declines are from unknown causes. Amphibians disappearing are not the only problem they are facing. Repeated reports of deformed amphibians continue to appear in news stories, and many of the same players mentioned above are suspected in these cases. One big concern is environmental estrogens, often a breakdown product of agricultural chemicals. This week it was reported male largemouth bass were laying eggs in the lower Potomac, regarded as relatively pollution free. Other stories tell of frog disappearances when trout were introduced in Sierra Nevada lakes. Most of the stories represent unintended consequences, as amphibians are rarely the focus of human activity.

“The report evaluated the status of all the 5,743 known species of amphibians and concluded that 1,856, or 32%, were critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable to extinction.
Too little is known about 1,300 others among the total to determine their status, but scientists believe that most of them also are in peril. That means that as many as 55% of all known species, more than 3,000, could be on the verge of extinction, plus scores that have yet to be identified. Only 359 are considered not threatened… Similar surveys have found species at risk to be 23% for mammals and 12% for birds.
In the U.S., 21% of known species are threatened or extinct. California has more threatened amphibians than any other state, Conservation International says, with 13 of the nation's 54. Many are in the higher Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite National Park.
Nine of 34 known extinctions have occurred since 1980 — the onset of what is considered an age of accelerated, unnatural extinction driven by human activities. An additional 113 species have not been seen recently in the wild and are probably extinct, according to the report's lead author, Simon Stuart.”

The Redwoods to the Sea region contains inconsistent reports of extent amphibian species across the various groups. Pacific Tree Frog, western Toad, California Slender Salamander, Rough Skinned Newt, Pacific Giant Salamander, and the Red-Legged Frog are listed in HRSP Interpretive Association. KRIS Mattole lists tailed frogs and southern torrent salamanders as indicators of prime habitat. They also say foothill yellow legged frogs are common, red-legged frogs are less capable indicators of habitat and that Pacific Giant salamanders were amazingly adaptable. http://www.krisweb.com/aqualife/amphib.htm.
KRIS Mattole makes it clear the tailed frog and southern torrent salamander are excellent indicator of watershed health as their tolerances are finer than even anadramous fish as far as sediment, streambed gravel, temperature, pools, shade and cover are concerned. They are the first indicators of disruption and probably a good indicator of recovery. In the sense of trying to accelerate recovery their return would be a measure of success. It seems, and is, more plausible to restore frog habitat pool by pool than coordinating watershed wide or even creek side projects. All the types of habitat improvement in the DFG Salmonid Habitat Restoration handbook benefit amphibians as well as fish. BLM Arcata Field Office lists no amphibians.
Salmon Creek Flora and Fauna, our neighbors and partners on Gilham Butte have their own website, with excellent information and great photos. Their list includes species not found but should be present, including both tailed frogs and southern torrent salamanders. Several of the salamanders I recognized seeing in the past but would never have found without this local guide, especially in and around old slash piles in headwater areas.
http://www.salmoncreekflora-fauna.org/Amphibians/amphibians.html#black%20Salamander.
Southern Torrent Salamander*
Del Norte Salamander*
Pacific Giant Salamander
North Western Salamander
Arboreal Salamander*
Clouded Salamander
Black Salamander
California Slender Salamander
Ensatina
Red-bellied Newt
Rough-skinned Newt
Tailed Frog*
Northern Red-legged Frog
Foot Hill Yellow-legged Frog
Pacific Treefrog
Bull Frog (introduced)
Western Toad

I read with interest the North Coast Journal article about tree predation by black bears. Bears eating tree bark are not a new problem on the North Coast. It was a problem for us in the eighties and is again since tree planting in Middle Creek. It would appear to be a normal reaction in times of stress exacerbated by people and really exacerbated by people competing for the same trees.
When we first saw predation by bears in the early eighties, we talked with a neighbor about it. His neighbor was the county depredation officer at the time and he said they were killing about forty bears a year, mostly for timber companies. In the spring, young males are driven off the sows range to establish their own ranges. Young females take ranges next to the sow and know where to look for food, and so are far less of a problem. This would be a good point to confirm.
Anyway, little food is available in the spring. Flavor is less important to the starving. One nutritious favorite is berry shoots and cames. In Oregon, roadbuilders in the forests were required to plant berries along new forest road construction to help with the problem. Bear Creek Nursery was selling plantable bear scat so a mixture of food producing plants could be planted. Many national nurseries and seed companies sell plants for wildlife food. I am sure people don’t equate planting with “feeding” wildlife.
While timber companies have a value on every stick and an annual value multiplier that makes trees worth more as time goes by, we must remember the companies do not plan to allow these trees to become large enough to be bear resistant. By all accounts the bears are attacking young trees in the rapid growth stage resulting from the little competition left after devastation, whether intentional or accidental. We heard reports the bears only ate this type or that type of tree. In reality, they have damaged or killed redwood, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir on my property. All planted trees. They seem to take out your fastest biggest growers, the most vigorous ones. In my experience they damage only a few trees in any given year, and many years are not a problem. But some years they can make you want to scream.
Bears in the compost were a constant concern and we were careful to keep animal fat out of the compost. This also keeps odors and insects down. We really didn’t have the problems folks closer to town seemed to have with them. We had to keep bone meal and the like in lidded barrels but the plastic seemed to contain the odor.
We saw bears regularly, sometimes almost daily. We never had an aggravated incident and were never threatened enough to drive them away like people in the parks do defending their barbecues. Bears never found much food there either and it did not become a regular stop in their travels, which seemed to centered on acorn areas and rotten stumps and logs, which were full of large grubs.
Black bears do not thrive in old growth forests. They take advantage of forest openings, dead and dying trees, shoots, sprouts, sun assisted plants like berries and mahonia and salal, mushrooms and mast, the product of hardwood trees. Young fast growing replacement trees are full of the same nutrients, and are easy to work as the bark is still very thin. I have yet to see a large diameter conifer, or any hardwood, stripped by bears.
For the long term grower, bark shredding is probably a stage the trees will grow through. The bears will move from young stand to young stand as needed. Timber companies will feel more threatened, as they create better bear habitat every day they cut. Timber companies will want to harvest the trees just as they are reaching conditions beyond a simple meal for the bears, locking them into a cycle of maintaining the trees in perfect condition to feed the bears. In some states it has been found deer and bear are stripping parks because there is no depredation, and population control is becoming the problem.
Folks living and working in the wild lands have to deal with many issues, and much of the conventional wisdom is no longer sufficient. The availability of spring time bear food, here the cambium layer of fast growing forest trees, is directly linked to the health of the mycorhizzia, the production of carbohydrates by the trees, the production of glomalin by said mycorhizzia, water storage and the food web starting at the hyphae of the fungi and up through all the subsoil organisms, including hypogenous fungi that fruit below the ground. It is also to be noted that select cuts do not suffer the same level of destruction from bears as masses of fast growing new trees.

83. Kenyan Woman Wins Nobel Peace Prize for Tree Planting
A long time personal hero of mine, I am glad to see MS. Maathai get the recognition she so richly deserves. This the first time the award has gone to an environmentalist. But she is so much more. And think about the carbon sequestered. Salute!
Kenyan Environmentalist Awarded Peace Prize
The Nobel panel honors Wangari Maathai for her push to fight poverty by protecting forests.
By Robyn Dixon Times Staff Writer
October 9, 2004
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The joyful music of ululating African women rang through the offices of Kenya's Green Belt Movement on Friday after its founder, Wangari Muta Maathai, became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dancing and celebrating, the movement's administrator, Nancy Muthiani, said the award was a message to African women to never give up. "We are screaming, we are singing, we are dancing. Everybody is overwhelmed," she said.
Maathai, a 64-year-old Kenyan environmental activist, also is a member of Kenya's parliament and deputy environment minister.
Her mostly female Green Belt Movement has planted about 30 million trees to halt deforestation in parts of Africa. The campaign has created thousands of jobs while providing a sustainable source of firewood for families.
It is the first time since the prize was established in 1901 that it has been awarded for efforts to protect the environment. "Peace on Earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment," the committee said.
"I think it's a wonderful recognition," Maathai said by telephone from Nairobi. "It's a very important message to the women of Africa because it's recognition of their struggle and recognition of their resilience and perseverance despite all the difficulties that they face."
Describing the reaction of her supporters, she said, "They have been very encouraging and very proud and feeling very good and feeling that they too have been sharing this prize. They understand how important and famous this prize is." Last year's Peace Prize also was awarded to a woman — Iranian human rights activist and lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
Maathai was an outspoken critic of the corrupt Kenyan regime of Daniel Arap Moi and often was in trouble with the authorities. She campaigned on issues such as poverty, malnutrition, corruption, women's low economic status and the lack of media freedom in Kenya under the former regime. She also has criticized the negative images of Africa in the Western media and the reluctance of rich countries to relieve Africa's debt. Maathai has notched up many milestones for African women and been awarded numerous prizes. She reportedly was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate.
Selected from a record list of 194 nominees, a stunned Maathai said she had no idea she had a chance of winning the prize until journalists called her a few hours before the announcement. She was driving to her parliamentary district when she heard the news, but continued with the day's task of handing out ID cards to young people before returning to Nairobi, the capital. "What we do in the environmental movement is that in trying to protect the environment we are preventing conflict, because many of the wars that we know are over natural resources," she said. "This is a way of ensuring that if the natural resources are sustainably maintained, there will be less conflict."
The award, created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel as a bequest in his will, carries a prize of about $1.3 million.
Maathai studied in Kansas and Pittsburgh in the 1960s and founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in 1977. The movement began as a small nursery in her backyard, but grew to such strength that it was perceived as a threat by Moi's government. She was arrested several times for her environmental campaigning and once was beaten to unconsciousness by police.
She stirred up so much public opposition to a plan in the late 1980s to build a skyscraper in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, the city's main open space, that the government labeled her and the Green Belt Movement as subversive. She was attacked in parliament, with some MPs calling for her movement to be banned. But she won the fight. The Uhuru Park project eventually folded because of popular opposition. In 2002, when the Moi government was voted out, she was elected to parliament and last year was appointed assistant minister for the environment, natural resources and wildlife.
Maathai, always outspoken and often controversial, recently was quoted in Kenya's Standard newspaper as calling AIDS a biological weapon developed as part of an evil conspiracy to destroy black people. "Do not be naive. AIDS is not a curse from God to Africans or the black people. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists, but we may not know who particularly did," the Aug. 31 article by reporter Amos Kareithi quoted her as saying at a workshop in Nyeri, in her district.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee praised Maathai as "a source of inspiration for everyone in Africa fighting for sustainable development, democracy and peace. "We believe that Maathai is a strong voice speaking for the best forces in Africa to promote peace and good living conditions on that continent," the committee citation said.
Explaining her motives in the phone interview, she said, "I think what drives me is the commitment that comes from understanding the importance of the environment and the linkage between the environment and many of the problems that face us in this part of the world." She said she had grown up with a sense of spirituality that helped her connect with the world around her. "I think it's very easy for me to see the sacredness of nature and the environment and to want to do something about it. It's probably not a specific religion but it is an inspiration from nature and the environment."
Other candidates included the whistle-blowing Russian environmental campaigner, Alexander Nikitin, charged and acquitted of treason for exposing nuclear pollution by the Russian navy, and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency and its director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei. Lech Walesa, Poland's former president and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said he was surprised that the Nobel committee honored an environmentalist. "Until now it was great struggle for human rights, for liberation," Walesa said on the private TVN 24 television station. "Today, however, … there is no communism and no apartheid," Walesa added, so maybe the time had come "to fight for our Earth."
Special correspondent Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw contributed to this report.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

82. Focusing on a truly epic eco-problem
This is an important article not because of complaints against groups or individuals but because it demonstrates the gap between what we know and how things get done. There is no doubt about the road problem caused by trying to develop unstable areas after logging. It was part of the general plan at the time to limit subdivisions into a few “manageable” areas. Like logging though, nothing is manageable if you arte ignorant of the ground rules the system depends on. We, as a culture, have been ignorant of the role of fungi in forest soils. Now the roads are too important to close and the drainage too skewed to return without massive costs. And hindsight regulations have made it extremely difficult to actually accomplish much on the ground.
A good example is the Good Roads Clean Creeks Program initiated by the Mattole Restoration Council as a result of DFG insisting on collecting baseline creek data in order to determine public money effectiveness. Instead of providing machine work to put in rolling dips, restore swales, remove berms and re-contour the roads, two years data were needed to establish a baseline. Having accomplished that we proceeded to inventory sediment delivery sites with landowners receiving informative reports and larger groups drawing up work prescriptions and lining up funding. A lot of effort went into pointing out the need for this work, which in fact amounted to free road work for participating communities. Still, folks don’t want a lot of new people in their neighborhoods and that is a problem.
After wrangling through 2003 it looked like we were ready to go this year. But first there was a delay in that it wasn’t realized we had already completed the sediment delivery baselines. Later we were told permission forms weren’t signed, but they were all on file. They finally busted the camels back when work was set to begin when CDF complained archeological and botanical surveys (of roads in a devastated watershed) hadn’t been performed. These had been partly done on one side for a shaded fuel break last year and earlier this year on my side, in-stream and upslope. And so we missed another year of actual improvement and dragged out for another year the need to ask permission and access. Its enough to make you throw your hands up.
The real issue here is the complete lack of understanding causing the sediment delivery in the first place. We note that glomalin destruction causes dust in the summer as well as in-stream sedimentation, and hill-slope erosion, compounded by disruption of natural drainages leading to unraveling of the soils and delivery into stream channels. This problem is common to all environments. Simple basic facts and methods can be applied to great effect but they threaten common perception. Regulators have got to allow restoration projects to move forward. Restoration groups have to realize the difficulty of keeping communities on the same page when you have fluctuating likelihood of implementation.
The General Plan does not try to fix these problems, it tries to contain them until better understanding points out why rural development has caused as much problems as clear cutting. We have twenty years to substantiate this story before many of these plans come up for review. When we, as developers and consumer of information, really investigate glomalin and forest issues we will finally have “green development” and “sustainable forestry”. In the meantime we will have all the problems associated with destroyed glomalin from sedimentation to low flows to fire danger, pointed out in Our Shrinking Watersheds and other pieces in this blog.
82. Focusing on a truly epic eco-problem
This is an important article not because of complaints against groups or individuals but because it demonstrates the gap between what we know and how things get done. There is no doubt about the road problem caused by trying to develop unstable areas after logging. It was part of the general plan at the time to limit subdivisions into a few “manageable” areas. Like logging though, nothing is manageable if you arte ignorant of the ground rules the system depends on. We, as a culture, have been ignorant of the role of fungi in forest soils. Now the roads are too important to close and the drainage too skewed to return without massive costs. And hindsight regulations have made it extremely difficult to actually accomplish much on the ground.
A good example is the Good Roads Clean Creeks Program initiated by the Mattole Restoration Council as a result of DFG insisting on collecting baseline creek data in order to determine public money effectiveness. Instead of providing machine work to put in rolling dips, restore swales, remove berms and re-contour the roads, two years data were needed to establish a baseline. Having accomplished that we proceeded to inventory sediment delivery sites with landowners receiving informative reports and larger groups drawing up work prescriptions and lining up funding. A lot of effort went into pointing out the need for this work, which in fact amounted to free road work for participating communities. Still, folks don’t want a lot of new people in their neighborhoods and that is a problem.
After wrangling through 2003 it looked like we were ready to go this year. But first there was a delay in that it wasn’t realized we had already completed the sediment delivery baselines. Later we were told permission forms weren’t signed, but they were all on file. They finally busted the camels back when work was set to begin when CDF complained archeological and botanical surveys (of roads in a devastated watershed) hadn’t been performed. These had been partly done on one side for a shaded fuel break last year and earlier this year on my side, in-stream and upslope. And so we missed another year of actual improvement and dragged out for another year the need to ask permission and access. Its enough to make you throw your hands up.
The real issue here is the complete lack of understanding causing the sediment delivery in the first place. We note that glomalin destruction causes dust in the summer as well as in-stream sedimentation, and hill-slope erosion, compounded by disruption of natural drainages leading to unraveling of the soils and delivery into stream channels. This problem is common to all environments. Simple basic facts and methods can be applied to great effect but they threaten common perception. Regulators have got to allow restoration projects to move forward. Restoration groups have to realize the difficulty of keeping communities on the same page when you have fluctuating likelihood of implementation.
The General Plan does not try to fix these problems, it tries to contain them until better understanding points out why rural development has caused as much problems as clear cutting. We have twenty years to substantiate this story before many of these plans come up for review. When we, as developers and consumer of information, really investigate glomalin and forest issues we will finally have “green development” and “sustainable forestry”. In the meantime we will have all the problems associated with destroyed glomalin from sedimentation to low flows to fire danger, pointed out in Our Shrinking Watersheds and other pieces in this blog.


Focusing on a truly epic eco-problem
http://www.times-standard.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,127%257E2906%257E2458905,00.html

Sunday, October 10, 2004 - My Word by Stephen Lewis
Palco earns sustainable forestry certificate again for second year in a row.
EPIC wins $6 million lawsuit against Palco for alleged HCP violations.
What's wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, sustainable forestry certificates are given by professional foresters and judge's decisions are made by judges without forestry credentials. Keeping forestry issues outside professional foresters and professional forestry regulators and in the hands of the media and courtroom judges who are not trained in forestry issues is the strategy of EPIC and all environmental protest organizations seeking the demise of Palco and corporate timber operations in Humboldt County.
Anti-corporate media campaigns are substituted for environmental science information and our local media gobbles it up because conflict sells. Unfortunately, we citizens pay the price for having our lives run by those whose incomes, as well as political and personal social standing in liberal and counterculture circles, hinge on these anti-Palco media-oriented campaigns. We citizens pay for the courtroom battles. Palco workers pay with jobs lost when judges rule in favor of professional protesters at EPIC. But the very worst part is that while our newspapers and TVs are full of environmental protest news, the most serious eco-crisis in Humboldt County goes by virtually unnoticed -- that eco-crisis being the ecological damage to Humboldt County watersheds and watercourses by the environmental impact of over 8,000 rural homestead subdivision residents.
In sad irony is the fact that EPIC was begun by SoHum rural homesteaders who wanted environmental information so as to develop ecologically compatible homestead lifestyles. But back in the late 1980s, right after Maxxam bought Pacific Lumber Co., EPIC began to shift emphasis away from homestead improvement issues and on to the ecological problems of Pacific Lumber Co.'s forest practices, because that was where the donation money was given most freely as well as where activists received greater public recognition. No one paid much attention to homestead issues, but they certainly did when the old Leftist standby, anti-corporate anything, took over as the dominant political paradigm of our local environmental movement.
One has only to look at how EPIC's operating budget zoomed to its current half-million dollars per year since the sea change to anti-Palco tactics happened at EPIC. The staff isn't from the homestead community any longer, and tellingly most all EPIC staff are childless. This becomes relevant when one considers EPIC's lawsuits' financial impact on Palco workers and their families.
Because I have been involved since 1990 trying to bring the importance of the unregulated rural subdivision eco-damage issue before the public through scores of letters written through the years, I am heartened that finally, after 14 years, public agencies are getting around to beginning to deal with these problems -- as witness the General Plan's agreement on protecting our rural watersheds from over-development. But there is much more to be done and one of the first things is for us to stop letting professional protesters like EPIC divert our attention away from Humboldt County's major eco-problem, the environmental impact of thousands of homesteaders polluting watercourses and siphoning off critical late summer and fall water resources.
As long as EPIC is being paid by donations and grants and court fines to find any scrap of evidence of Palco negligence, as long as EPIC press releases are printed verbatim with no substantial questioning by media reporters, as long as media do not themselves conduct serious investigative reporting into the subdivision eco-damage issue, Humboldt County citizens are being used and abused by these eco-profiteers at EPIC. Remember, for activists, money isn't always the reason for promoting a one-sided campaign against corporate timber industry workers. But public recognition and power over peoples' lives is. Some people are very greedy for fame and power in our community and are willing to distort environmental protection issues in order to achieve it.
Tragically, distorted environmental information put out by professional environmental protest organizations like EPIC is used to fuel vigilante actions like Earth First's harassment of Palco loggers, which has cost one misinformed protester his life. Next time you read about an EPIC "victory," remember the citizens and wildlife that are paying the price.
Stephen Lewis is an artist and writer. He lives in Rio Dell.

81. Organizations seek input on memorial forest
Much planning has occurred in Humboldt the last two years or so. Some of it has to do with BLM held public lands donated by purchasers of industrial timberlands. Some of the parcels have conservation easements associated with them. In all cases BLM is looking to increase the amount of large trees while lowering fire risk and restoring late seral conditions, including some road closures, sediment reduction and in-stream work. The sad fact is that old growth Douglas fir is threatened by catastrophic wild fire that it should be at least somewhat resistant to. The good news is that these are the very practices that allow for maximum glomalin production and retention, reducing atmospheric CO2 and providing an evenly distributed tribute of cool water throughout the summer and fall. It must be remembered these are only twenty year plans and can be cancelled in time of national emergency. The conservation easements with the newly acquired lands add a layer of protection. While it is good to develop a new trail to KRNCA, a restoration period where damaged lands can recover for a planning cycle before recreational use is allowed would really allow recovery to be successful. In the soils of this region, glomalin understanding is clarifying to trail location and development.
Mill Creek has been a focus of community conservation efforts for many years. Mill Creek is the closest tributary to the ocean n the Mattole drainage and has prime salmon and steelhead spawning habitat. The low elevation Douglas fir old growth habitat is gaining critical importance as the industrial lands around the North Fork of the Mattole are harvested. Local residents have been directed to write community cooperative plans within BLM guidelines as well as any easements that may exist with the parcels. Redwood Reader will comment for the document as well as discuss it in a later article. We congratulate their vision and persistence.

Organizations seek input on memorial forest
Sunday, October 10, 2004 - The Times-Standard
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2458916,00.html#
The Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy and the Mattole Restoration Council are reaching out for comments on a new plan for a 675-acre chunk of public land near Petrolia.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management purchased the land in 1997 from Eel River Sawmills and another individual. The property includes 220 acres of old-growth fir forest and a one-mile swath along Mill Creek.
The proposed plan would protect the old-growth forest and presses for restoration of logged lands in an effort to rehabilitate the area. The BLM-funded plan outlines management goals for the next 20 years.
The original intent of the acquisition was to protect and restore habitat for salmon, amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals. The conservancy worked for 20 years to raise money to buy the forest, which it named after local ornithologist Bill Clow.
"The community plan provides a fresh opportunity to work with the BLM to further locally directed forest and fisheries restoration work in one of the most important habitat area in the lower Mattole Valley," said Chris Larson, the restoration council's executive director.
Larson said it includes directives for research, monitoring, restoration, education, fuel reduction and recreation. Projects in the future include salmon restoration, abandoning an old logging road, fuel reduction and building a trail to the King Range National Conservation Area.
The plan is available online at www.mattole.org or at the restoration council in the Mattole Valley Community Center in Petrolia. Comments will be accepted until Nov. 12. E-mail comments to cmp@mattole.org or send written comments to the Mill Creek Conservancy, P.O. Box 173, Petrolia, Ca., 95558.
For more information, call Ali Freedlund or Chris Larson at 629-3514.

Study shows trees absorb 60% more rain than pasture
This came from Rainwaterharvesting yahoogroup, reprinted from the Guardian. Several things really stand out in this relevant to our discussion about glomalin and retention of precipitation in watersheds: The farmers could SEE the difference between the forest and pasture runoff, 2.. They wanted to make sure they performed sound science 3. The unexpected jump in water absorption and all the biological benefits there from, 4.Reduced flooding likely because more water is absorbed in the watershed, 5. Water retained in the watershed is available over longer periods of time in dry times. They do not claim to know why this is, but glomalin conditioning the soil for extended periods in conjunction with erosion mollifying effects of the canopy, we find our concept being carried out. Substitution of wood chips for straw is significant as it is a byproduct of forest management rather than from cleared land. It would be good to know if the pasture was annual grass without mycorhizzia or perennial grass with fungal associates, as perennial grasses do condition the soil to absorb water. The difference between perennial grasses and forest then is a matter of time and growth rather having and not having glomalin producing fungi.

Trees hold answer to floods menace
Robin McKie, science editor Sunday September 26, 2004
The Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,2763,1313067,00.html
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=35229
Scientists have discovered that simple strips of newly planted woodland could play a crucial role in halting the floods that have devastated British towns in recent years. They found that land with trees can hold vast amounts of water that would otherwise stream down hills and surge along rivers into towns.
'The extent of water absorption was entirely unexpected,' said Dr Zoe Carroll of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Bangor. 'It also has great potential for helping us deal with floods.'
Scientists at the centre collaborated with farmers from Pontbren, a community in the North Powys hills. Several years ago farmers there decided to reduce the intensity of land use, which had seen a sixfold rise in the number of animals grazing there since the 1980s.
'The system just wasn't working. We were on a treadmill, working harder, producing more but earning less. We set about changing the way we farmed to rely more on what the land could produce,' said Roger Jukes, a farm owner.
The farmers began to stock hardier sheep which needed less tending. They cut back on grazing land, planted more trees to provide shelter for the animals, used woodchip instead of straw, and made the land more ecologically friendly. Owls, voles and shrews began to appear at the farms.
'It has been great to see so much wildlife returning to the farms,' said Jukes.
The project started with three farms. Today there are 10, covering more than 1,000 hectares of verdant Welsh hillside. But the farmers wanted more than an improved lifestyle - they wanted their efforts put on a scientific footing. They had noticed that during rainstorms their newly planted woodland seemed capable of absorbing vast quantities of water while grazed land let rain pour down hillsides. So they invited the scientists to study the land.
'We measured rain that was being absorbed by grazing land and by woodland, and found the latter was 60 times more effective at taking up water than soil on land grazed by animals,' said Carroll. 'We expected to find a difference, but not one of this magnitude.'
The team do not fully understand the reasons for this, though grazed land tends to be compacted by hooves and this could reduce its capacity to let in rain. Trees also generate roots that break up soil, creating pathways for water to move through.
Regardless of the cause, it is clear the discovery could have great practical implications. In 2002 flooding triggered by rainwater pouring from hillsides caused millions of pounds of damage to Shrewsbury, while Kidlington in Oxfordshire, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire and Leamington Spa in Warwickshire were all badly flooded in 1998. Scientists say that flooding is destined to get worse as global warming increases climate instability.
But the Pontbren research suggests a way to counter this problem. 'By planting trees on strategic plots we could create areas to soak up rain, allowing it to move into the soil rather than flowing over the land,' said Carroll.
'Water will always move down a hill, either over the surface or through the soil, but this way we could stop it all arriving at the same time. Major surges would merely become heavy flows.'
A £6m research programme is now investigating Britain's flood problem and will focus on Pontbren.
Hydrologist Professor Howard Wheater of Imperial College London said: 'Pontbren and the work done there is going to be very important in working out ways to halt major floods. We still have a lot of research to do, but tree-planting looks like having a significant role to play.'