top
North Coast
North Coast
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Humboldt Watershed Council Petitions State Water Board

by Mark Lovelace
State Water Board allows Pacific Lumber to continue harm to Freshwater and Elk River.
The Humboldt Watershed Council has filed a petition with the State Water Resources Control Board, calling for an immediate emergency stay to a recent action by the Regional Water Board to allow Pacific Lumber Company to log in Freshwater and Elk River in advance of required proper permit approval. The Regional Board’s action directly harms the health, safety, and property of the residents of these watersheds, who have suffered for years from greatly increased flooding due to PL’s aggressive logging. A special hearing on the stay has been scheduled for Wednesday, January 19, 2005, 1:30 pm in the Cal/EPA Building in Sacramento.

On December 24th, the Regional Water Board provided permits called General Waste Discharge Requirements (GWDRs) for 3 Pacific Lumber Company THPs in Freshwater and 1 in Elk River. The Regional Board had been in the process of drafting Watershed-Wide Waste Discharge Requirements (WWWDRs), which would address the cumulative effect of all past and ongoing operations in these watersheds, but PL’s intentional lack of cooperation and compliance with orders for information had made it impossible for the Regional Board to approve these permits in time for PL to begin operations on January 1st. This point is clearly stated in a November 29th report by the Regional Board:

“Due to PALCO’s failure to submit a complete report of waste discharge, staff did not have the information necessary to prepare draft watershed-wide waste discharge requirements (WWWDRs) for timber operations in the Elk River and Freshwater Creek watersheds.” “PALCO has therefore placed itself in the position of not having permit coverage to conduct THP operations in Elk and Freshwater beginning January 1, 2005.”

Despite the fact that PL’s lack of permit coverage was a problem of their own making, the Executive Officer of the Board gave PL these permits “as an accommodation to PALCO’s operational needs…” (letter from RWB to PL, December 24th, 2004.) The Regional Board has offered no scientific or regulatory basis for allowing these permits, because no such basis exists.

The Executive Officer’s action is arbitrary, and in direct violation of the terms of the General Waste Discharge Requirements, which disallows its use in watersheds where cumulative impacts are present due to past land use activities. This is the case with Freshwater and Elk River. Both of these watersheds have long been recognized as having suffered cumulative effects due to sediment from timber harvesting. The GWDR cannot be used in these watersheds because it is incapable of addressing these cumulative impacts, and thus cannot prevent additional impacts and their associated harm to downstream residents.

The Executive Officer’s action directly harms the health, safety, and property of the residents of these watersheds. The Humboldt Watershed Council and watershed residents have consistently appealed to the Regional Water Board over many years for relief from the serious and life-threatening impacts of PL’s violations, yet have received none. For the RWB to instead grant economic relief to PL for a problem of their own making is not only unjustified and unconscionable, but is discriminatory, and violates the State of California’s definition of Environmental Justice.

The Humboldt Watershed Council is also petitioning the State Water Board to fully investigate the repeated unfair economic favoritism that the Regional Board has bestowed upon PL by not taking required and necessary action against this recalcitrant violator, and to investigate the institutionalized environmental discrimination that the Board has shown against the residents of these watersheds. The RWB has had a tacit policy to grant PL immunity from punitive action, despite hundreds of violations. This policy is discriminatory and displays economic favoritism towards PL, in that punitive actions have often been taken against other landowners in the region for far less prevalent or egregious violations.

This is a very strong case, and one which could be strategically very helpful to our future efforts, if we can win it. To do so will be costly and time consuming, and the Watershed Council will likely need contributions to be able to follow the process through to any result. Please help us to ensure accountability from our public agencies by donating to this effort.

Thank you for your support.

Mark Lovelace

Humboldt Watershed Council PO Box 1301 Eureka, CA 95502
Add Your Comments
Listed below are the latest comments about this post.
These comments are submitted anonymously by website visitors.
TITLE
AUTHOR
DATE
Hey Mr. Lovelace
Thu, Jan 13, 2005 4:10PM
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network