11/17/13
State water quality officials announced Saturday their intent to reduce the rate of sediment pollution in the Elk River by 97 percent over the next 20 years by limiting it in timberland areas for both residents and logging companies.
“There’s been a loss of property uses in terms of being able to get to and from homes, to and from work, damage to structures, damage to water systems,” North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board engineer Adona White said. “This watershed’s been managed for timber for 150 years. There’s been a lot of hard impacts to the river.” White said the board is in the preliminary steps of establishing a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Elk River watershed, with a goal of late 2014. The TMDL would establish a limit for on how much sediment could come from the property owners in the area.
In June, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to organize a public forum after Elk River residents complained of decreasing water quality, increased flooding, property damage and loss of habitat for coho salmon.
Kristi Wrigley, who spoke at the board meeting and served on a panel at Saturday’s forum, said her family has owned and operated an apple farm on the river since 1903, and she is the first downstream resident below industrial logging on the north fork of the Elk River.
“I welcome the TMDL as the first solution that I have seen come from an agency that I believe will help us recover,” she said, adding that she thought other programs put in place throughout the past decade have been inadequate.
White said the limit is based on how much sediment can be in the river before it is no longer up to state water quality standards, called a loading capacity.
She said the calculated loading capacity for the Elk River is 82 cubic yards of sediment per square mile per year, with natural erosion contributing 68 cubic yards. This means property owners would need to get discharge permits through the Environmental Protection Agency to work their property, and may not exceed an annual 14-cubic-yards limit.
According to White’s numbers, the amount of sediment entering the Elk River annually hasn’t dropped below 360 cubic yards per square mile in 58 years. Between 2004 and 2011, that figure was 485.
Humboldt Redwood Co. watershed analysis manager Michael Miles said the company spends “a couple million bucks” monitoring sediment run-off from its properties near Elk River and Freshwater Creek.
“I’m leery about the assumption that if we do more up on the hill slope, there’s going to be some big benefit out of it,” he said.
California Trout North Coast Regional Manager Darren Mierau also introduced three pilot restoration projects involve catching and removing sediment that comes from the upper tributaries, the removal of 4,000 cubic yards of deposited sediment in the flood plains and vegetation thinning to monitor the effects on water velocity.
Elk River residents expressed concern that a small change upriver could mean disastrous changes down river.
First District Supervisor Rex Bohn said the issue needs to be addressed now.
“There are some people who stayed away from this forum because they don’t agree with the process that it’s taking,” he said. “But the whole idea is, at the end of the day, we have to do something and get it done.”
