[F]ine-sediment deposition, even at low concentrations, can decrease growth and survival of juvenile salmonids. We find no threshold below which fine-sediment addition is harmless. These results suggest that any augmentation of fine-sediment deposition in steelhead bearing rivers in this region will further impair this potentially population- limiting life stage, while land management practices that decrease fine-sediment loading or storage in channels may benefit salmonid populations.

Federal officials overrode their own scientists this fall when they decided that diverting more water to farmers and residents of parched Southern California would not harm fish populations in Northern California rivers.

Biologists consider the northwest forests one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere, supporting a vast array of temperate woodland species. Heavily logged in the 1970s and 1980s, the forests have been slowly healing. But new sales such as the Meteor, say environmentalists, are threatening that recovery.

Also: New sales reignite timber battles (KFA)

Three environmental nonprofit groups, Northern California River Watch, the Town Hall Coalition and the Community Clean Water Institute have banded together in a new home, the Redwood Empire Environmental Center in Gravenstein Station at the east entrance to Sebastopol.

James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

In an echo of nugget-chasers past, a new gold rush is under way on some Northern California rivers - one that's generating a wealth of controversy. Wildlife proponents say the mining endangers salmon in the rivers, prompting a lawsuit by a local tribe of Native Americans and questions about whether the waterways can support both fish and miners.

Double trouble is coming from the Bush administration to salmon and the people who depend upon them in the Columbia and Klamath river watersheds.

Environmental groups won a precedent-setting court battle last month when U.S. District Judge Frank C. Darnell Jr. found that Klamath National Forest had failed to provide adequate analysis and justification for the Beaver Creek timber sale in Siskiyou County.

What looked like a possibly wet winter has turned into dry weather and exceptionally low flows - and thus low numbers of fall-run Chinook salmon - on the Klamath and regional rivers.

The Redwood Chapter has filed a Motion to Intervene in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proceedings over the relicensing of PacifiCorp's Klamath Hydroelectric Project involving six dams on the middle Klamath River.

Also:
Klamath Basin Tribal Water Quality Work Group

The Bush Administration is proposing to reduce the designated critical habitat for endangered Pacific salmonids by 80%. Critical habitat is vital to the recovery of these species.

Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics was awarded the Sempervirens Award by the Environmental Protection Information Center at its annual meeting at the Mateel Community Center in Redway.

Also: Eureka Anti-Toxics Campaigner Honored (CATs)

Our forestlands are being targeted for clear-cutting to make way for extensive new vineyard projects. The Sierra Club is asking a judge to require the Department of Forestry to enforce California's environmental laws.

Fall chinook salmon returns to the Klamath River are running about two-thirds below last year, reflecting the loss of thousands of juveniles to low water in 2000 and 2001 and perhaps signaling a downturn in food available in the ocean.

Maxxam wants to remove every stick from the forest, now targeting small, baby trees in addition to giant ancient redwoods. This 'cut and run' style of logging is largely what caused the massive environmental and social problems we're experiencing on the North Coast today..."

Removing the dams on the upper Eel not only benefits fish and fisheries in the Eel River ecosystem, but also benefits the Mendocino and Lake County economies through the jobs created by deconstruction and through an increase in nature-based tourism.

The rich estuarine habitat benefits not only the estuary but the whole wildlife nursery and the Eel River system.

Activists call attention to conversions of coastal redwood forests to vineyards by some "bad actors" in the wine industry. A wine bottle bearing the label "Pinot Egregio: Chainsaw Wine" wielding a chainsaw threatened redwood trees in its quest to convert the fragile forest ecosystem to the highly cherished grape varietals.

In one of the heaviest awards in a case of its kind, Pacific Lumber Co. and the state were ordered by a judge to pay $6 million to attorneys of organizations that filed a major environmental suit targeting core documents in the Headwaters Forest agreement.

With juvenile salmon dying and Klamath River flows dropping toward a record low, river defenders traveled to Scotland seeking environmental justice and relief from fish-killing dams.

Also: Scottish Power makes Commitment to Tribes, FOR & PCFFA (FOR)

As the map shows, most of the old growth coniferous forest in the Mattole River watershed was cut between 1947 and 1988.

North Coast Water Network
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