Decision could lead to unprecedented state regulations Amid concerns of costly and unregulated use of California’s groundwater, a Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled groundwater pumping that impairs waterways violates the public’s right to use those waterways, which one group states could set the stage for making counties responsible for implementing regulations. “What we have … Read more
The demand for bulk-water sales has been growing fast over the last several years. When the GSD started their bulk sales program in 2010 they sold just 628,240 gallons, but it grew to 1.68 million gallons sold in 2011 and 2.23 million gallons in 2012. The city of Fortuna’s bulk water sales program has seen … Read more
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, owners of the Pottery Valley Project have requested and been granted permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reduce flows to the main stem Eel River at Cape Horn Dam, from Lake Pillsbury at Scott Dam, and into the East Branch of the Russian River. This is a … Read more
November 2103 Dear Friends of the Eel River, We’ve come around again to the end of the year. It’s a good time to take stock and look forward. I offer a few thoughts about what lies ahead, in faith you’ll support our work. The Eel River is poised on a tipping point. The sinuous skein … Read more
Thanks to the drug’s illegal status, marijuana farms are not regulated – with serious costs to water and wildlife. A tax on excessive electricity use may seem like an indirect way of curbing household cannabis cultivation, but the city had to back away from its more direct approach—a zoning ordinance—when the federal government threatened to … Read more
…what often occurs is that as one pool is drained, the intake and sometimes the pump is moved to another pool—repeatedly sucking away entire fish habitats. As the water disappears, predators move in. Egrets, blue herons and raccoons will eat every single fish. Sometimes the person pumping doesn’t adequately screen the intake valve and small creatures … Read more
…The environmental damage may not be as extensive as that caused by the 19th-century diking of the Humboldt estuary here, or 20th-century clear-cut logging, but the romantic outlaw drug has become a destructive juggernaut, experts agree. Read the full article published in the New York Times By: Felicity Barringer Published: Thursday, June 20 2013
Summer is coming. Coho salmon that spawn in the South Fork of the Eel River—a population that may still number only several thousand fish in a good year—are the critical anchor, state and federal experts say, for the survival and recovery of the species in streams south of the Oregon border. No other watershed in … Read more