2012 was very significant for EPIC in that we have confirmed the existence of an exuberant, dedicated, and growing membership and donor base that is willing to invest in innovative legal advocacy for the Northwest California environment.  Since the founding of the organization 35 years ago, EPIC has been a power packed organization with broad community support that gets results disproportionate to our size and resources.

Click here to download the 2012 Annual Report

Conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging a California Department of Transportation highway-widening project that threatens ancient redwoods, endangered salmon runs and public safety along the wild and scenic Smith River Canyon in remote Del Norte County. Caltrans approved a project to widen existing narrow sections of highways 197 and 199 to provide access for oversized trucks, without adequate environmental review of the impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“For more than five years our organization has been identifying water quality and safety issues with this ill conceived project,” said Don Gillespie of the local conservation organization Friends of Del Norte, “but our comments have fallen on deaf ears. It is really a sign of Caltrans intransigence that public interest organizations have to resort to the courts to protect motorist safety and our treasured Smith River.”

Friends of Del Norte, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) filed suit in state court challenging the $26 million “197/199 Safe STAA Access Project.” The project would increase unsafe heavy and oversized truck use on narrow roadways along the designated “wild and scenic” Smith River Canyon, increasing the likelihood of deadly accidents and toxic spills, especially in dangerous winter conditions. The project would harm old-growth trees and habitat for protected salmon runs and hurt tourism and local residents.

“The North Coast has been under assault by massive Caltrans projects that the agency refuses to examine for their cumulative impacts on local communities and sensitive environments,” said Gary Graham Hughes, executive director of EPIC. “For Caltrans to barge ahead with this huge project on the precious Smith River after the explosion of controversy around the Willits Bypass project in Mendocino County shows that the agency is completely oblivious to concerns of North Coast residents.”

“Another bad idea by Caltrans, trying to jam an unnecessarily wide highway into a narrow canyon despite the impacts,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Public distrust of Caltrans is at an all-time high with revelations of Caltrans quality-control issues on the new Bay Bridge, conflict over the massive Willits Bypass project, the need for court and federal intervention to resolve Caltrans problems with the Niles Canyon project, and the agency’s proposal to needlessly vandalize the ancient redwoods of Richardson Grove State Park.”

Caltrans seeks to widen highways 197 and 199 at seven different locations, including major realignment and reconstruction of a bridge at one of the most sensitive sites along the pristine Smith River. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, all the environmental impacts of a project must be publicly disclosed and evaluated, reasonable alternatives with less damaging impacts must be considered, and mitigation measures must be developed to minimize environmental harm.

Caltrans has failed to take into account threats to salmon habitat and water quality along the Smith River, as well as increased safety hazards, and avoided looking at the cumulative impacts of numerous associated Caltrans highway-widening projects in Northern California for oversized truck access. Caltrans refused to consider alternatives besides highway widening, adopted unsubstantiated findings about impacts and mitigation measures, and failed to develop a monitoring program to ensure mitigation measures are actually followed.

Background

Route 199 is a scenic byway along the Smith River canyon, through the Six Rivers National Forest and the Smith River National Recreation Area. It provides access to Redwood National and State Parks, one of only two UNESCO World Heritage sites in California. Route 197 is a country road that parallels the lower Smith River, the only undammed river in California, with the longest stretch of designated “wild and scenic” river in the lower 48.

The project was first announced to the public in 2008. Conservation groups have been fighting misguided Caltrans attempts to widen Highway 101 through ancient redwoods in Richardson Grove State Park for oversized trucks. A lawsuit challenging that project resulted in a federal court sending Caltrans back to the drawing board for basing its project design on “faulty data.” Despite efforts by Caltrans to keep the Smith River project out of public scrutiny, hundreds of letters outlining concerns about impacts of the project on rare ecological resources and highway safety have been submitted.

A Caltrans internal report prepared in 1989 acknowledged the physical constraints of the narrow, steep and rocky Smith River Canyon and concluded that environmental concerns make Highway 199 “a poor candidate for extensive upgrading.” There will be significant threats to motorist and bicyclist safety if oversized trucks are routed to these roadways during winter, when Interstate 5 can be closed by snow and ice. These roadways already have a history of truck accidents. Caltrans is not even proposing operational modifications at the sites of two major recent truck accidents on Highway 199, revealing the inadequacy of the project for addressing motorist safety concerns.

The conservation groups are represented in this legal action by private attorneys Stuart Gross and Sharon Duggan, and the nationally recognized firm of Cotchett, Pitre, and McCarthy.

For more information contact:  Gary Graham Hughes, EPIC, (707) 822-7711

Click Here for Official Press Release: Suit Filed Against Destructive Caltrans Highway-widening Project in Remote Del Norte County

Click here to view the Petition for Writ of Mandate and Injunctive Relief

To learn more visit our webpage:  Wild and Scenic Smith River, the 197/199 Project

First, EPIC recently sent a letter to the California Wildlife Conservation Board in support of a grant for the Humboldt State University Forest/Arcata Jacoby Creek Forest Expansion. This project proposes to transfer 10 parcels totaling 978 acres from Sierra Pacific Industries, Inc. to the City of Arcata and Humboldt State University. The tremendous success of the City of Arcata’s community forests and parks in offering recreational opportunities and leading the way in restoration forestry methods is well recognized. This exciting new public forest will be contiguous to existing public lands managed by the City of Arcata and will further solidify protections for the headwaters of Jacoby Creek, a critical watershed for Coho Salmon, Pacific Fisher and Northern Spotted Owl.

Second, EPIC recently attended a meeting with a large number of community members to express support for the creation of a new community forest outside of Eureka, CA in an area locally known as the McKay Tract. The County of Humboldt is beginning a public process that will hopefully result in a strong community supported management plan. The County is maintaining a webpage for posting public documents and is encouraging input from community members. EPIC will be engaged in this process to ensure that the lands to be acquired will be managed in a respectful way, moving the industrial timberlands to a more structurally complex and older forest over time, while providing critical open space for nearby residents.

Unlike other land managers in the Elk River watershed, Green Diamond continues to propose intensive clearcutting, road construction, and potentially the use of toxic chemical herbicides.  Clearcut logging as proposed will result in decreased canopy interception and transevaporation, resulting in increased water production and sediment transport to a watershed already suffering from intensive sediment impairment.  Please refer to our December 18^th blog post for greater detail about the plight of Elk River and the destructive details of Green Diamond’s new McCloud Creek Timber Harvest Plan.

The recommended approval of the “McCloud Creek East #5” THP comes as a result of the near complete capitulation of the Regional Water Quality Control Board to Green Diamond’s contentions that the Company’s Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) and property-wide waste discharge requirement waiver agreement will ensure that no adverse impacts occur as a result of the proposed logging.  The Regional Board’s staff had requested that Green Diamond provide quantitative data to address how the harvest plan will avoid contributing to the ongoing significant adverse and cumulative watershed effects in the Elk River watershed.  Green Diamond failed to provide any data, and instead simply provided a narrative argument describing how its HCP and WDR order would avoid significant impacts to beneficial uses of water and water quality.

The recommended approval also comes in light of the impending release of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) document by the Regional Water Board.  A TMDL is required by the federal Clean Water Act when water quality and beneficial uses of water are impaired due to some anthropogenic cause.  In the Elk River, excessive sediment generated as part of intensive timber harvest and other timber management activities has resulted in significant impairment and has lead to substantial increases in nuisance flooding of downstream residents’ property.

Once again, the State of California and its regulators are found to be complicit to the likelihood that the “McCloud Creek East #5” THP will add to the already impaired conditions of Elk River, and will likely continue to impede the slow recovery of the system.

EPIC will continue to challenge this damaging THP and others like it, and will continue to advocate for restoration and recovery in the Elk River watershed.

EPIC and Humboldt Baykeeper Comment Letter

Take Action: 

The Trinity Summit Range Assessment includes an amendment to the Six Rivers forest plan that adds 225 acres to the grazing allotments at Water Dog Lakes within the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area.  In fact, over two-thirds of the allotments are within the wilderness.  The remaining portion is within Late Successional Reserves, which must be managed to maintain and restore old-growth forests and species that depend on older forests for survival.  

Monitoring by the U.S. Forest Service shows a long history of unsatisfactory and degraded conditions in the Trinity Summit Allotments.  In order to facilitate the continuation of damaging livestock grazing, the U.S. Forest Service is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement, an admission that the proposed reauthorization is expected to have significant impacts on this critical area. 

Science illustrates grazing has a long list of deleterious impacts on the landscape:

• Competition with native species such as elk and deer for forage
• Degradation of aquatic ecosystems negatively affecting water quality and harming salmon, frogs and salamanders
• Damage and elimination of native plants and grasses
• Soil erosion and compaction
• Spread of E. coli bacteria
• Spread of invasive and noxious weeds
• Harm to rare bird species, such as Willow Flycatcher, that nest in riparian willow stands
• Negative affects to recreational and wilderness values.

The Six Rivers National Forest contains over 250,000 acres that are available for grazing, which is no small amount of our public lands.  It is clear that stricter management as well as limiting and retiring some of these allotments, would benefit a multitude of public resources, such as clean water necessary for recovering salmon populations and wilderness values cherished by many recreationists in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. 

Please act now to protect the Trinity Alps Wilderness.

Click here to submit comments to protect salmon and the Trinity Alps Wilderness.

Help convince the Obama administration to not prematurely delist the gray wolf across the U.S.!

The recovery of gray wolves is an American success story, from their reintroduction in the northern Rocky Mountains to their comeback in the western Great Lakes states. But there are few, if any, gray wolves in the vast majority of their former range. If the Fish and Wildlife Service removes federal protections, wolves in the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains, and the Northeast will face even more difficult odds than they do already.

In 2011, Congress stripped federal protections for gray wolves in most of the northern Rockies. The brutal assault on wolves that commenced in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho highlights the increasingly hostile anti-wolf policies of states now charged with ensuring the survival of gray wolf populations.

• Idaho, Wyoming and Montana Total Reported Killed This Season: 622
• Idaho, Wyoming and Montana Total Reported Killed Since Delisting: 1,170

Maintaining federal protections for wolves across the lower-48 states is important for preserving already limited opportunities for wolves to recover in additional parts of the United States.

Take action now to press for continued federal protections for wolves across the lower-48 states.

CALIFORNIA UPDATE:

California’s famous lone wolf, OR-7—also known as “Journey,” has spent the past six weeks traveling in Oregon before doubling back and returning briefly to California, where he flirted with Interstate 5 near Yreka, California for the first time.

Each time he enters California OR-7 reclaims his stature as the only known gray wolf since 1924.
Without federal protections, and no certainty of state protections, Journey may have a target on his back! In 2012, EPIC joined with several conservation allies in petitioning to add the gray wolf to the list of protected species under the California Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Game Commission voted to move forward with a full status review for the Gray Wolf under CESA, to determine whether to protect the species.

MAY 1 in the Kate Buchanan Room at Humboldt State University:
EPIC and the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB-HSU) host renowned forest ecologist and conservation scientist Dominick DellaSala to lead a discussion with the audience about climate change. Reception from 4:30-5:00, followed by a 30-minute presentation from Dr. DellaSala with a question and answer period and then the film at 5:30pm. Suggested donation: $3-5.

MAY 2 at the Arcata Theatre Lounge:
EPIC, Surfrider Foundation, Ocean Conservancy and Humboldt Baykeeper present Chasing Ice in conjunction with Ocean Night at the Arcata Theatre Lounge, 7pm. Suggested donation: $3-5.

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Chasing Ice SYNOPSIS:

In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.
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Dr. Dominick DellaSala: a brief profile

President and Chief Scientist of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon and President of the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section.

Dominick is an internationally renowned author of over 150 technical papers, including the award winning “Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World” (www.islandpress.org/dellasala). Dominick has given plenary and keynote talks ranging from academic conferences to the United Nations (Earth Summit II) and at HSU’s Biodiversity Conference 2012.

He has appeared in National Geographic, Science Digest, Science Magazine, Time Magazine, Audubon Magazine, National Wildlife Magazine, High Country News, Terrain Magazine, NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Jim Lehrer News Hour, CNN, MSNBC, “Living on Earth (NPR),” and several PBS wildlife documentaries.

He has testified in congressional hearings in defense of the Endangered Species Act, roadless area conservation, national monument designations, forest protections, and climate change among others.

For his efforts to help foster national roadless area conservation and support designation of new national monuments, he received conservation leadership awards from the World Wildlife Fund in 2000 and 2004, the Wilburforce Foundation in 2006, and was twice nominated for conservation awards for his work as a whistleblower while on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spotted owl recovery team.

His rainforest book received an academic excellence award in 2012 from Choice magazine, one of the nation’s premier book review journals.

Dominick co-founded the Geos Institute in July 2006. He is motivated by leaving a living planet for his daughter and all those to follow.

In response to receipt of an application from the Mendocino Redwood Company, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are considering the proposed action of issuing an 80-year incidental take permit for nine federally listed species and two currently unlisted species. The proposed permit would authorize “take” (harm and harassment) of individual members of species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. The permit is needed because “take” of species could occur during timber harvest, forest management, and related activities within 213,244 acres in western Mendocino County, CA.

Click here to take action now.

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013, EPIC argued on behalf of the Northern Spotted Owl before the California Fish and Game Commission.  Despite the fact that the species has been threatened with extinction since the 1980’s, and listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1990, the Commission has not protected the species under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA).  This significant oversight, and the failure of existing federal and state regulations to promote recovery of the owl, spurred EPIC to file a petition to list the Northern Spotted Owl under CESA in September 2012. 

Unfortunately, the Commission delayed action for 90 days on whether to conduct a status review under CESA.  The statute clearly obligates the Commission to make decisions in a specific timeframe, and while this delay may be allowed under the law, it makes very little sense.  The primary reason given by the Commission for this delay was to further deliberate on the information provided at the last minute by the timber industry.  Curiously enough, the purpose of the status review under CESA is for the Department of Fish and Wildlife (and the Commission) to analyze the available information received through an open public process.  Clearly, the Commission should have voted to conduct a status review based on the overwhelming evidence before it, and for the very reason given for the delay. 

It is well past time for the State of California to recognize its duties under CESA, and to act swiftly to protect the Northern Spotted Owl.  Without CESA protections, and a more holistic view of species recovery and landscape-scale conservation that includes private and state owned lands, the spotted owl is likely to go extinct in the foreseeable future.  While the current delay is unfounded and frustrating, EPIC will continue to push for accountability and justice for the Northern Spotted Owl. Stay tuned for more updates about this important EPIC Endangered Species and Biodiversity Defense Program initiative.

The Listing Process under the California Endangered Species Act—A Primer for Endangered Species Advocacy

The State of California enacted the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) in order to address and prevent the extinction of native biological diversity.  The purpose of CESA is to “conserve, protect, restore, and enhance any endangered species or any threatened species and its habitat….”  Fish & Game Code § 2052.  The first step under CESA is to identify and list species as “threatened” and “endangered.”  A “threatened species” refers to a native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant that, although not presently threatened with extinction, is likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future in the absence of special protection and management efforts. Fish & Game Code § 2067.  An “endangered species” refers to a native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant which is in serious danger of becoming extinct throughout all, or a significant portion, of its range due to one or more causes, including loss of habitat, change in habitat, overexploitation, predation, competition, or disease. Fish & Game Code § 2062.

The California Fish and Game Commission (Commission) is the administrative body that makes all final decisions regarding the listing of species under CESA.  The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (Department) is the expert agency that makes recommendations to the Commission regarding species listings.  The listing process may be set in motion in two ways: “any person” may petition the Commission to list a species, or the Department may on its own initiative put forward a species for consideration.  “Petitions shall include information regarding the population trend, range, distribution, abundance, and life history of a species, the factors affecting the ability of the population to survive and reproduce, the degree and immediacy of the threat, the impact of existing management efforts, suggestions for future management, and the availability and sources of information.  The petition shall also include information regarding the kind of habitat necessary for species survival, a detailed distribution map, and any other factors that the petitioner deems relevant.” Fish & Game Code § 2072.3.  In the case of a citizen proposal, CESA sets forth a process for listing that contains several discrete steps.

Upon receipt of a petition to list a species, a 90-day review period ensues during which the Commission refers the petition to the Department, as the relevant expert agency, to prepare a detailed report. The Department’s report must determine whether the petition, along with other relevant information possessed or received by the Department, contains sufficient information indicating that listing may be warranted.  Fish & Game Code § 2073.5.

During this period interested persons are notified of the petition and public comments are accepted by the Commission. Fish & Game Code § 2073.3.  After receipt of the Department’s report, the Commission considers the petition at a public hearing. Fish & Game Code § 2074.  At this time the Commission is charged with its first substantive decision: determining whether the Petition, together with the Department’s written report, and comments and testimony received, present sufficient information to indicate that listing of the species “may be warranted.” Fish & Game Code § 2074.2.  This standard has been interpreted as the amount of information sufficient to “lead a reasonable person to conclude there is a substantial possibility the requested listing could occur.” Natural Resources Defense Council v. California Fish and Game Comm. 28 Cal.App.4th at 1125, 1129.

If the petition, together with the Department’s report and comments received, indicates that listing “may be warranted,” then the Commission must accept the petition and designate the species as a “candidate species.” Fish & Game Code § 2074.2.  “Candidate species” means a “native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant that the commission has formally noticed as being under review by the department for addition to either the list of endangered species or the list of threatened species, or a species for which the commission has published a notice of proposed regulation to add the species to either list.”  Fish & Game Code § 2068.

Once the petition is accepted by the Commission, then a more exacting level of review commences. The Department has twelve months from the date of the petition’s acceptance to complete a full status review of the species and recommend whether such listing “is warranted.” Following receipt of the Departments status review, the Commission holds an additional public hearing and determines whether listing of the species “is warranted.” If the Commission finds that the species is faced with extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, it must list the species as endangered. Fish & Game Code § 2062. If the Commission finds that the species is likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future, it must list the species as threatened. Fish & Game Code § 2067.

One of many bovine trashed springs on the Big Meadows Grazing Allotment in the Marble Mountains Wilderness

The EPIC Public Lands Program is a core program focus of our public interest conservation advocacy. Monitoring industrial activities and tracking conservation planning on the National Forests in our bioregion is a cornerstone of our landscape scale methodology to promote biodiversity protection and appropriate natural resource management in Northwest California. The following is an overview and an update on the Livestock Grazing Reform Project of EPIC’s Public Lands Program. Thanks to Felice Pace for his labors on this project, and for making this report possible.

For the past 3 years EPIC and our allies have been working to reform livestock grazing on Northwest California’s public lands. Our goal is to reduce, control and eliminate significant negative impacts resulting from private livestock grazing on public land, including grazing allotments located within our region’s wilderness and roadless lands.

We do this by documenting on-the-ground impacts livestock grazing is having on biodiversity, including water quality, riparian areas, wetlands, native vegetation and native species. Staff, interns and volunteers use that documentation to inform EPIC’s participation in environmental analysis and decision making for specific livestock grazing allotments. Where negative impacts cannot be eliminated or reduced to insignificance through active management, we work to eliminate the livestock grazing altogether.

EPIC members and activists have long been disgusted and outraged when they encounter the degradation that is common on Northern California national forests and wilderness areas as a consequence of poorly managed and inappropriate livestock grazing.   When EPIC member and longtime forest activist Felice Pace came to us with a plan for reform, we eagerly embraced that plan. Inspired by documented violations of water quality standards in streams below grazing allotments in the Scott River Basin by the Quartz Valley Tribe, Felice – along with EPIC staff, volunteers and interns – began monitoring and documenting the degradation occurring on areas grazed by livestock within the Marble Mountain, Trinity Alps and Russian Wilderness Areas.

Bovine trashed stream: Upper Bear Lake Valley, Elk Creek Key Watershed, Marble Mountain Wilderness

Staff, interns and volunteers take our documentation to the responsible Forest Service managers as well as to state water quality managers. We ask them to require that livestock grazing permit holders ride the range at least weekly to move cattle away from sensitive areas and wetlands. When herding and other active management is ineffective – and where grazing permit holders are not willing to put in the necessary time and effort – we ask that grazing permits be canceled or moved to less sensitive lands.

Currently, EPIC is focusing special effort on two grazing allotments within the Marble Mountain Wilderness. Last year the Forest Service attempted to reauthorize these two allotments and others throughout the West without adequate environmental review. EPIC and its partners challenged that decision and won in federal court. This year we will participate in formal assessment by the Forest Service of the environmental impacts of livestock grazing in these two allotments. That assessment will lead to Forest Service decisions on whether or not to reauthorize grazing for another 10 years.

Intern Victor Reuther examines a bovine trashed trail in the Trinity Alps Wilderness

As in much of the Klamath Mountains Bioregion, most available livestock forage in the Marble Mountain Wilderness is found within wet meadows, riparian areas and other wetlands. On-the-ground monitoring has convinced us that many of these areas cannot be grazed without causing unacceptable impacts to water quality and biodiversity in violation of the Clean Water Act, National Forest Management Act and other laws. Where that is the case, we will continue to use on-the-ground monitoring, advocacy, administrative and legal challenges to eliminate livestock grazing.

EPIC and its partners are making progress. This year Forest Service managers on the Klamath National Forest are bringing in the BLM’s national riparian team to work with grazing permit holders and all interests to reform grazing management. We have a long way to go, however, in our quest to eliminate the sacred cows from places in Northern California where they just do not belong.

If you are interested in helping as a volunteer or intern with EPIC to reform grazing practices and eliminate grazing in Klamath Mountains wilderness areas, we want to talk to you. Please contact Public Land Advocate, Kimberly Baker kimberly@wildcalifornia.org or call the EPiC office at 707-822-7711.  Working together in a sustained manner with our partners throughout the West, we can and will reform public land grazing.