The year 2005 saw an unprecedented
culmination of attacks against traditional resource use in Western Siskiyou County. The
year started with a suit filed by the Karuk tribe against the Klamath National Forest in
an unsuccessful attempt to halt suction dredge mining. It is ending with the Karuk tribe
filing yet another suit against the California Department of Fish and Game, seeking
regulation by settlement agreement in Alameda County court to virtually eliminate suction
dredge mining in the Klamath River system without one iota of local open public process.
This year, many Siskiyou County farmers and ranchers indicated their
interest in pursuing a conditional programmatic “incidental take” permit (ITP)
for California threatened coho to allow them to continue to conduct their normal
agricultural activities, while taking precautions to protect fish and mitigate for
impacts. This was coupled with a watershed-based 1602 permit to protect fish habitat from
the effects of irrigation diversion and sediment from farming. Hundreds and hundreds of
hours of negotiation have gone into limiting mitigation measures to compensation for
reasonable and scientifically demonstrable impacts of agriculture on the listed fish, and
to restrain tendencies to add recovery measures identified in the voluntary recovery
process as an additional “pile-on” to the permits.
At this time, it appears that money has been found to conduct the
required California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process on the incidental take
permit, that the process will more forward and that there may be a light at the end of the
tunnel in 2006. It remains to be seen, however, if antagonists to agriculture in Siskiyou County
will rattle their sabers during the process for more requirements to be piled on farming
and ranching. The various tribes and environmental groups continue to voice demands for a
moratorium on groundwater use in Scott Valley and a forced reduction on irrigation.
2005 saw the establishment of the Scott River TMDLs (Total Maximum
Daily Loads) for sediment and temperature. Local tribes, again, called for a moratorium on
groundwater use in Scott Valley. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
(NCRWQCB) recognized the County’s jurisdiction over the resource and requested that
the County proceed with studies on the relationship of groundwater to stream surface water
temperatures. The NCRWQCB also requested that the County proceed with some form of a
grading ordinance. At this time, it appears that NCRWQCB will be willing to incorporate
some of its individual TMDL requirements into the coho ITP. Hopefully, the end permit will
not resemble some beast of burden upon which every special interest is hitchhiking.
Meanwhile, the TMDL for the Shasta and Klamath mainstem are still in process.
In what appears to be a perennial event in the State budget process,
the California Department of Water Resources attempted, once again, to expand local rates
for watermaster services through the stratosphere. (Some irrigators saw proposed rates
approaching nearly six-ten times their current rate.) Although the bullet was dodged in
2005-06, it is likely that irrigators will continue to be faced with the problem again
next year. Farm Bureau is expected to take the lead in finding an alternative, more stable
source of service.
The Bureau of Reclamation - Klamath Project announced its
Conservation Implementation Program (CIP) for regional “basinwide” resource
planning throughout the Klamath system. The CIP is part of the mitigation requirements for
the impact of the Klamath Project on federally endangered coho. We have been repeatedly
told that the final CIP proposal is “expected to be released in the next several
weeks.”
As an offshoot of the CIP, meetings were conducted throughout the
Klamath using the Chadwick process of consensus-building. Expectations are that some sort
of basinwide stakeholders “Congress” will be held in early spring to come to
agreement on resource projects throughout the Klamath basin or system for federal and
State funding. It is uncertain whether local government will have any role in either the
CIP or Chadwick process.
The timber industry in Siskiyou County continues to feel the pressure
of both State and federal regulations. On the National Forests, former battles over old
growth timber sales have now been reduced to battles over the taking of even small
diameter trees in order to reduce fuels and the risk of catastrophic fire in growth-choked
forests. Costs of preparing a private Timber Harvest Plan (THP) have sky-rocketed and
State agencies look to adding more regulation for impacts on salmon and water quality.
It looks like 2006 will see closure to some of these regional
resource struggles. |
