WATER QUALITY: Heads
up! The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will hold their regular meeting
here in on July 25 at 8:30 a.m. at the Yreka Community Center Main Room on north Oregon.
The public who wish to make any comment on items not on the day’s agenda may do so at
that time – (limit three minutes, fill out speaker card.) Agenda items include waste
discharges of the Montague Irrigation District; waste discharges of the Iron Gate
Hatchery; and a Scott and Shasta TMDL implementation informational update by staff.
The agenda will also include a proposed region-wide amendment to
control excess sediment. This amendment would create sweeping new regulatory authorities
over land use for the Water Quality Control Board. The proposal would prohibit the
discharge of sediment into waters from human-caused activities that are harmful to “beneficial
uses” of the water or cause a nuisance. The amendment would require an $875 permit
for anyone who’s activities (including farming and grading) would threaten to
discharge sediment into the water. The permit would require the permit applicant to: (1)
Inventory sediment sources; (2) prioritize efforts to control discharge; (3) implement
practices to prevent, minimize and control discharges; and (4) Monitor and adapt
strategies accordingly.
MINING: Recently, I had a
refresher course in the “art” of creating state legislation. As Bismark once
said: ” To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the
making.”
A.B. 1032 (Wolk) is a bill that presumes that suction dredge mining
is harmful to fish, wildlife and amphibians in all the wild and heritage trout streams
located in most of western California. It would close all of these rivers to suction
dredge mining. (Dredging is done by a small vacuum unit, usually with a nozzle 6 inches or
less.) If a miner wants to work his claim, he must prove to the CA Fish and Game
Commission at his own expense, that his activity will not have a “deleterious”
(harmful) effect on various species. The Commission will decide whether a site specific
permit may be issued. The bill exempts gold panning.
There have been several unsuccessful lawsuits by the Karuk tribe and
others to halt suction dredge mining in the Klamath River and its tributaries. In the
latest of these suits, the judge ordered the CA Department of Fish and Game to do a
complete CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) study on the impacts of any new
regulations that would prohibit dredge mining. This is what the miner’s have asked
for. However, the state legislature has failed to budget any funding for the study.
Instead, AB 1032 was introduced to change the law legislatively and shift the burden of
environmental impact analysis onto the backs of individual miners.
The Board of Supervisors formally authorized me to present testimony
to the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee on the economic impact of the
potential loss of suction dredge mining to Siskiyou County and the Klamath River corridor.
Official testimony was written and submitted. I attended the hearing in Sacramento. Two
speakers were permitted from those in favor and two speakers from those opposed. The Karuk
tribe and the County were also allowed to speak. We were limited to 2 minutes. (I was
permitted to deliver 4 paragraphs of our official County testimony.) Attorney James Buchal
and Jerry Hobbs from Public Lands for the People were speakers against the bill. Anyone
else was only permitted to state their name, affiliation and whether they were for or
against the bill.
The Senate voted to approve the bill along strict party lines –
5 ayes and 3 noes. The bill now goes to the
Senate Appropriations Committee. Because there were amendments on panning, it will then
return to the Assembly. The process reminded me how important it is for small rural
interests to have a lobbyist or other presence at the state capitol. It is also important
for interest groups to go down and visit with legislators and explain your position on a
bill. It was apparent that individual positions by the legislators had pretty much been
formed by the time the bill came up for a public hearing.
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