The Precautionary Principle is a guiding framework for decision- making that anticipates how actions will affect the environment and the health of future generations. The newly adopted policy... includes the value of public input, transparency, full-cost and benefit accounting, and guidance towards alternatives with the least potential impact on human health and the environment.

New issue of the Eel River Reporter. Articles include:

• Economic Localization
• Pikeminnow Story
• Avalanches and Railways
• April 2006 River Trip
• Mendocino Water Notes
• Sonoma County Progress & Problems
• The Right to Water is the Right to Life
  and much more...

"These roadless areas are some of the most valuable wild salmon and steelhead habitat in the United States. This area has already begun to regenerate, logging would devastate old growth forests, damage water quality and key wildlife habitat..."

The Forest Service is under a lot of pressure from the motorized recreation lobby to retain logging roads, even when the roads dump sediment into salmon streams and cut up needed habitat for critters. They need to hear from non-motorized recreationists who value unroaded public lands and habitat restoration for every reason. Comments due June 13.

For more than a decade, Brian Gorman has been the government's voice on salmon in Seattle... [Now] Bush administration officials have directed that all questions about salmon policy in Washington state be handled by political appointees, often as far away as Washington, D.C.

In preparing for clean-up plans for the Lost River and Klamath Straits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been studying the impact of refuge wetlands on quality. It found that permanent marshes on Lower Klamath refuge significantly clean the water they receive.

The federal government determined Tuesday that the California spotted owl does not need protection under the Endangered Species Act, a move that ruffled the feathers of environmental groups that are vowing to go to court on behalf of the bird.

The Little Doe / Low Gulch Timber Sale in the Six Rivers National Forest targets 923 acres between Ruth Lake and the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, including key habitat for imperiled species. Public scoping period extended to June 16, 2006.

The Yurok tribe's allocation of fall chinook salmon is below what it considers its subsistence level. Commercial fishermen along 700 miles of coast will not have a salmon season. The ocean sport fishing season is crimped up and down the coast.

In this issue, the Eel River Salmon Restoration Project, Restoration Leadership Project, and Sanctuary Forest explore techniques, results, and lessons learned over three decades of on-the-ground watershed recovery projects. Their work illustrates the power of grassroots efforts and a collective ability to bring human communities into harmony with wild landscapes.

The Supreme Court sided with the environment over electric power Monday, ruling that state regulators may require a steady flow of water over power dams to benefit fish and kayakers. The unanimous decision holds that states may protect the health of their rivers.

In a long-overdue decision, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted Watershed-Wide Waste Discharge Requirements for the Pacific Lumber Company in the Elk River and Freshwater Creek watersheds of Humboldt County.

The health of West Coast fish populations and of West Coast fishing communities is suffering under the current management regime.

Salmon River Spring Chinook are the top candidate for a brood stock to restore salmon to the Upper Klamath River Basin if and when the PacifiCorp dams are decommissioned or provided with fish ladders.

Public workshops and CEQA scoping meetings with be held in Eureka (May 3), Yreka (May 4), and Santa Rosa (May 8). See the Regional Water Board's website for inforrmation on the proposed amendment.

Fisheries biologist begins publishing reports of annual spawning and snorkeling surveys of threatened steelhead on the Gualala River, which, like so many of California's coastal river ecosystems, is highly imperiled.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed protecting green sturgeon in the Sacramento basin, but not in the Eel, Klamath & Trinity basins.

Dim bulbs in the non-Indian fishing community want to blame Indians for taking their fair share of the fish, when they should face the fact that a dying river is the real issue... It could not be more clear that flows, disease and water quality issues are at the root of the problems in the Klamath.

Maxxam's Pacific Lumber (PL) Company is quietly trying to sell off as much as a third of its forest lands in Humboldt County to cope with financial woes. The revelation that PL is taking offers caught even employees and bondholders by surprise - and came from the firm's long-time foe, the Humboldt Watershed Council. Also: EPIC Inquiry on Disclosure Sent to Realtors in Maxxam Lands Liquidation

Christmas will come in July for hydrologists like Robert Franklin, since that's when the high waters recede and they are gifted with seeing old river bars and pools in new places... "Slowly but surely, we are unshackling the river. We're grossly under-qualified to play God, but we do," Franklin said, letting out a hopeful sigh.

In a backroom deal, California Departments of Forestry and Fish and Game approve removal of protections for the Scott Bar Salamandery. The Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and Center for Biological Diversity have filed suit against those Departments for approving logging of crucial habitat for the newly discovered Scott Bar salamander.

Please mark April 24th & 25th on your calendar and plan to come voice your support for this ground breaking approach to watershed protection! These hearings had previously been scheduled for September of 2005, when Maxxam/Pacific Lumber filed a desperate, last-hour lawsuit that yielded an unlikely temporary restraining order, short-circuiting the already six year old process aimed at curtailing pollution of Elk River & Freshwater Creek caused by over-logging at an unsustainable rate.

The Bush Administration has proposed to sell off more than 800,000 acres of federally owned lands. Even a scaled-back sale of national forest lands could cost the Klamath-Siskiyou region and northern California dearly, because the weight of the proposal falls disproportionately on this region. Also, NEC: Public Forests For Sale

Good news may be coming for the river's beleaguered salmon for three reasons: The 50-year license for the river's six fish-blocking dams is due to expire, a "Klamath Congress" may resolve upriver-downriver hostilities and new regional water rules may curtail pollution from sediment.

Salmon and steelhead once only had to survive landslides, drought, predators, floods, disease and other natural calamities - but now they have to navigate through Congress and the courts.

A comprehensive treatise on the applicable state and federal legislation that regulates timber harvesting on private lands in California. The authors, attorneys Sharon Duggan and Tara Mueller, have worked with EPIC on numerous forestry cases.

Two northcoast citizens groups filed suit in federal court today against Evergreen Pulp, Inc. for significant and on-going violations of its pulp mill's federal air quality permit.

- Complaint on CATs website - 100k pdf
- EPIC Press Release

What both bills really add up to is an attempt to give the timber industry the power to dominate our national forests by taking areas out of habitat protection and putting them into timber production. Action needed by January 15.

North Coast Water Network
News Archives:

• 2006, July - December
• 2006, January - June   (this page)
• 2005, July - December
• 2005, January - June
• 2004, July - December