EcoNews June/July 2011

ECONEWS Arcata, California

Vol. 41, No. 3

June/July 2011

Informing The North Coast On Environmental Issues Since 1971

A New Dawn for the

NEC New Staff, New Direction

Salmon Update | Nuclear Crisis | Rights of Mother Earth | Too Much Water?

Cover photo: Š Sam Camp

Northcoast Environmental Center

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID Arcata, CA PERMIT NO. 3

791 Eighth St., P.O. Box 4259 Arcata, CA 95521

From Out of the Flames Heat generated by burning dead bodies could be used to warm up live bodies using a swimming pool.

That’s the plan in Hampshire, England, where the Rushmoor Borough Council says heat from the crematorium’s furnaces would cut the pool’s costs as it tries to deal with a four-million-dollar reduction in its government grant. The crematorium and pool are both in the same park complex.

Councilman Eric Neal said, “I’d like to think in these strange times, we consider every option.”

That’s the way our thoughts go, too, at the NEC. Though we don’t have a crematorium, we also think about having a double purpose for every expenditure. Investing in wind and ocean energy, for example, both will reduce global warming and cut down reliance on foreign oil.

The NEC has been accomplishing a lot for cost of very little for 40 years. So please keep giving us a little (OK, we won’t argue if you want to give us a lot).

The next 40 years will see the NEC still in the vanguard — unless you think all the environmental problems confronting our bioregion are solved. Your entire family can sign up as eco-warriors for a mere $50 — and they can burn, though only with intensity.

Thank you.

Mark Your Calendar!

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The NEC’s 27th Annual

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ECONEWS

The Newsletter of the Northcoast Environmental Center

A New Dawn Lights On Region’s Oldest Environmental Organization

It’s a new beginning here at the Northcoast Environmental Center! At long-last, the NEC has new leadership and new staff to guide the organization into the future.

In May, the NEC Board of Directors welcomed Rain Ananael as Executive Director.

In recent months the NEC also brought Morgan Corviday onboard as the new Editor and Graphic Designer for EcoNews, and Ruthie Schafer as the new Office Manager/Program Coordinator.

The NEC’s new EcoNews editor has a B.S. degree from HSU in Natural Resources Planning and Interpretation, with emphases in ecology, wildlife and digital graphics. Morgan is a talented graphic and web designer, writer, and editor, with an understanding of science, policy and management. She is excited to have the opportunity to share environmental news in an inspiring and accessible way, and has a lot of great ideas for the NEC website and EcoNews.

Ruthie, the new office manager/program coordinator, brings a strong background in grants management and natural resources. She has worked on many projects with the Resource Conservation District involving education and outreach for the building of sustainable rural communities that honor both the environment and the state’s rich culture of farming. She cares deeply about social justice issues and currently organizes humanitarian programs in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Rain, the new Executive Director, brings a diverse background in ecological field work, including work with listed and endangered species and ecological collaborations with native cultures. Her career and education include: land-use analysis for conservation planning and

policy, population and community ecology, global conservation strategies, watershed biology, as well as social theory, eco-feminism and postcolonial theory.

She is a published writer, poet and essayist. She is devoted to advocacy for ecological systems, which, she says, “must include humans as there are no ecosystems which exist outside of human impacts, or humans that can exist outside of ecosystems or their life sustaining services.”

After restructuring its operations and downsizing the organization during the economic recession of 2008, the NEC has been operating without an executive director. During that time, the NEC supported basic operations with a single staff person and a part time editor. This period allowed the NEC Board of Directors time to stabilize the organization, after the devastating loss of Tim McKay and the barrage of economic hardships it has endured, and move toward a new strategic plan, which included seeking new leadership in an effort to guide the NEC’s conservation policy, programs and projects toward citizen action, community involvement, mentoring and outreach.

The Board found Rain’s advocacy, passion and unique educational and professional background to be a perfect fit for the NEC. As Pete Nichols, NEC Board President and Western Regional Representative of Waterkeeper Alliance, recalls—“when I heard her speak about ‘the root causes of ecological degradation and the collapse of communities’, I knew we had the right candidate. We are so excited about the quality and humanity of the people we have brought on board.”

Board member Larry Glass realized they had their new leader when she spoke about wanting to remove the barrier between those who have access to scientific knowledge and those who are not encouraged or given permission to engage in the discourse of science. “We have been trying to achieve that at the NEC for a long time,” said Glass.

Jennifer Kalt, botanist, Board Secretary and pioneer of the Healthy Humboldt Coalition said, “I knew she was a great candidate when she said, ‘if you want to know what’s on my wishlist, right at the top it says please remove all tamarisk [salt cedar—a particularly nasty invasive] from the West.’ ” Rain’s ideas and agenda for the future direction of the NEC’s programs and projects are centered Ruthie Schafer (Office Manager), Rain Ananael (Executive Director), and Morgan in the principles of egalitarianism, Corviday (Editor/Layout of EcoNews) of the NEC. Photo: Terrence McNally of Arcata participation, inclusion and a blending Photo Studios. Above photos, left to right: Thistle and bee, Snowy egret, California buckeye, and the Smith River. Photos: Martin Swett. Above far right: California Poppy. of ecological and social issues. She Photo: Evan Leeson (Flickr Creative Commons).

Inside This Issue

State of North Coast Salmon...................2

What To Do With Too Much Water........5

Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Continues.....3

Eco-Mania................................................13

Hope and despair in local salmon recovery.

World’s biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Water Board identifies possible solutions.

A Monthly Melange of Salient Sillies.

Advocating for Water at the UN..............3 Creature Feature.....................................16 Perspectives from the Indigenous Peoples.

Declaring the Rights of Mother Earth....4 Bolivia is first country to legislate Nature’s rights.

Hemaris diffinis, the Bumblebee moth.

For Kids....................................................17 An Interview with author Joan Dunning.

states that the biggest challenge facing the NEC and the community is in “asking a public, already overwhelmed and over burdened by information and economic hard times, to believe that they can act to create change. Ecologists, activists and resource professionals also experience a kind of paralysis or ecological despair, though we’re never supposed to admit it.”

Rain said that when she becomes overwhelmed by the immensity of social and ecological problems she remembers that “the word ecos, means house—and that reminds me that it is our house and we have a collective responsibility to care for this house, which includes all species, ecosystems, and people. It isn’t someone else’s house or someone else’s job to protect the house—it’s our responsibility, collectively. And we do have the power as citizens to choose how we want our world and our community to be, to grow and to evolve.”

As a conservation biologist—who worked with fisheries ecology, watershed level conservation strategies as well as with the State Department of Conservation, mapping land use changes and loss of farmland—Rain is decidedly clear in her support of what she terms “subsistence level social services” like sustainable farming, sustainable fisheries, small business, and the building of self reliant communities. However, Rain also states that “there is nothing as tragic as the loss of a species; it is a blight on our humanity and our history.”

“We endured the illusion of an environmental movement that was poised against the working class and now we hear echoes of that same backlash in an environmental movement politically poised against small business and native cultures. Neither have born themselves out as truth,” she has said. “American Indian tribes in our bioregion are well informed, political and engaged in traditional resources; they are tied to the resources that define their culture. There are few things that encourage stewardship as well as the inclination to sustain your tradition.

There is no place in ecology and conservation for dichotomies of man vs. nature or jobs vs. the environment. We have lived long enough to see that after funding was cut for the environment, funding cuts for social programs soon followed and all the while, the greatest price was paid by species, ecosystems and those who work hardest for low and middle incomes.”

Rain states the primary focus of the NEC’s new leadership will be “to recreate our tremendous potential to inspire new generations of activists for environmental and social advocacy in service to the community.”

To begin with, the NEC will build upon its already extant programs, projects and collaborations with members, and member groups, which encourage community driven land use planning, species level and landscape scale ecosystem conservation, education and outreach.

The NEC intends to sharpen its focus on this rich and unique bioregion, the globally significant species endemism, forest ecosystem services, and ecological and cultural biodiversity, which in turn support and sustain our public health and which must be held in trust for the public, both present and future.

The new staff of the NEC is excited about expanding its outreach to the community by -Continued on Page 9

ECONEWS 791 Eighth Street Arcata, CA 95521 707- 822-6918 Fax 707-822-6980

EcoNews is the official bi-monthly publication of the Northcoast Environmental Center, a non-profit organization. Third class postage paid in Arcata. ISSN No. 0885-7237. ECONEWS is mailed free to our members and distributed free throughout the Northern California/ Southern Oregon bioregion. The subscription rate is $35 per year.

Editor/Layout: Morgan Corviday, morgan@yournec.org Advertising: NEC Staff, ads@yournec.org Proofreaders: Karen Schatz, Midge Brown Writers: Abe Walston, Beth Werner, Sid Dominitz, Morgan Corviday, Kerul Dyer, Ken Burton, Pete Nichols, Allison Toomey, Sarah O’Leary, Ani Kame’enui, Dan Ehresman, Tia Oros Peters, Scott Greacen, Clary Greacen.

Artists: Terry Torgerson Cover: Photo: © Sam Camp

NEC Mission

To promote understanding of the relations between people and the biosphere and to conserve, protect and celebrate terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems of northern California and southern Oregon.

NEC Staff

Executive Director: Rain Ananael, rain@yournec.org Office Manager: Ruthie Schafer, ruthie@yournec.org

NEC Board Of Directors Humboldt Baykeeper Pete Nichols (President) pete@humboldtbaykeeper.org At-Large, Bob Morris (Vice-President, Trinity County Representive) bob.morris@wildblue.net California Native Plant Society Jen Kalt (Secretary) jkalt@asis.com At-Large, Martin Swett (Treasurer) mswett@pacific.net Safe Alternatives For Our Forest Environment Larry Glass larryglass71@gmail.com Redwood Region Audubon Society Ken Burton shrikethree@gmail.com Sierra Club North Group, Redwood Chapter Diane Fairchild Beck dfbeck@northcoast.com

NEC Affiliate Groups

Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), North Group/Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club, Redwood Region Audubon Society, North Coast Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, Humboldt Baykeeper, Safe Alternatives for Our Forest Environment, and Friends of Del Norte.

Volunteer submissions are welcome! Full articles of 500-700 words or fewer may be submitted, preferably by email. Longer articles should be pitched to the editor. Include your phone number and email with all submissions, to editor@yournec.org The ideas and views expressed in EcoNews are not necessarily those of the NEC.

Every issue of ECONEWS is printed on recycled paper with soy-based inks. Please Recycle.

News From the Center

The new staff of the NEC is excited and committed to rebuilding the vitality and prominence of the NEC. We believe that the NEC has a unique and vital role in the bioregion through education, outreach and information dissemination that encourages and promotes citizen based action on behalf of the public trust and the shared cultures and ecosystem services that enrich and sustain our lives in this bio-diverse community.

We believe that the NEC has a responsibility and an ability to build a stronger community, a community that honors and preserves the integrity of ecosystems which in turn sustain cultures and communities, small business and agriculture through the principles of conservation. We believe that not only can we build this real sense of community between NEC staff and the NEC members but also with other organizations, tribes,

About the Cover Photo..

Sam Camp’s gorgeous photo on the cover is actually a sunset in the Mattole Valley, not a sunrise. But with glowing colors and light like that, who could resist? Many thanks to Sam for use of his photos over the years!

local businesses, farmers, resource professionals, political leaders and educators.

We welcome ideas and suggestions from our members with regard to issues affecting them and their communities. The new direction of the NEC will include a focus on social ecology and social issues as it is now impossible to ignore the connection between ecological poverty and social poverty.

We realize that many of our community members have also been enduring difficult economic times, and, perhaps more importantly, many community members have a great deal to offer in terms of expertise and skill.

The NEC recognizes that one of the greatest social problems we face today, which directly affects our ability to conserve and protect ecological systems, is the squandering of human potential and the extraordinary power that the average citizen possesses when they are united and working toward a common good. We would like to honor you, our community members, through the principles of inclusion, participation and the sharing of ecological and bioregional stories and issues.

Introducing Our New Executive Director, Rain Ananael

Rain Ananael joins the NEC with a richly diverse background in conservation advocacy. She holds a B.S. in Ecology with an emphasis in community ecology, and an M.A. in English with a focus in writing, ecofeminism, and ethics, with additional graduate work from the University of Pennsylvania and CSU Sacramento in Environmental Studies and Conservation Biology.

Rain has worked on conservation issues for over Rain Ananael on the Arcata Plaza. Photo: Morgan Corviday.

13 years with specializations in plant-animal interactions, based methods of protecting and watershed ecology, bat ecology, restoring imperiled ecosystems, herpetology, environmental ethics, and addressing social and biological tropical ecology and landscape level issues facing endangered species, planning and GIS. She has also by working with agencies, nonworked as an activist and ecologist profits and indigenous groups in on watershed restoration North, Central and South America. and fisheries issues in Napa She has worked extensively with and elsewhere, and with bat landscape level mapping projects, conservation issues, population including the Department of modeling, and ecology in California, Conservation’s Division of Land Texas, Nevada and Mexico.

Resource Protection.

Rain has been involved Rain is a practicing ecofeminist with scientific and community writer and theorist. She is editor of

Arts!Arcata at the NEC

Join us Friday, July 8 for our Arts!Arcata Celebration!

Our artist of the month is Annie Bush, born and raised in Humboldt county on the outskirts of Hydesville.

“No matter what materials I decide to use, the human form tends to be my primary subject. My focus on the human form started as a child when I became mesmerized by my grandmother’s hands. Studying the body connects us to the Earth and it’s environment, the body’s construction reflects the structure of rivers, fault lines, trees, and plants. If we could only understand how much we resemble nature, rather than being separated or superior to it, there would be a greater respect and care for the lands that we all share”.

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Recognizing that the NEC is its members and member organizations working together for ecological and environmental protection, the new staff of the NEC would like to thank its longdevoted and newly-joined members alike. We simply could not have accomplished what we have during this difficult economic time without your support and help.

In that light, the NEC would like to invite members to become involved in upcoming volunteer opportunities! Celebrate with us in the office during Arts! Arcata, and participate in our upcoming community events such as Coastal Cleanup and the All Species Ball!

We are actively seeking volunteers to help us with our Solstice mailer and other office duties, Coastal Cleanup, and our fabulous All Species Ball. If you are interested in volunteering please call 707-822-6918 or email rain@yournec.org.

Please help us stay in touch and informed by contacting us with your current address, phone and email. We are currently in the process of updating our database and improving our outreach to you, our members.

www.yournec.org

Convergence: an online journal of poetry and art.

Her current writing engages in a long-standing philosophical discourse on existential ethics and how we make ourselves and our world meaningful.

Bouquets • Dan Ehresman The GOLDEN PAINTBRUSH AWARD: For valorous work, patience and devotion, and above all joy in the line of duty. We honor you for never having to be asked to help and always offering your service, for your attention to detail, and your watchful eye. Your hard work helped us transform the NEC. We thank you for all your works on behalf of the NEC and the community, which go well beyond the call of duty.

• Andy Alm The OZZ AWARD: For Longstanding Devotion to the NEC. It is impossible to approach words that can say what you have done through the years for the NEC. So we will make due with this small effort to thank you for excellent service to the NEC. When we were desperate and confounded by strange computational retrogrades, you provided us with technical, database and all around wizardry help.

You have come to our aid on too many occasions to count, for which we thank you and regard you as family.

• Simeon Tauber The KEYSTONE AWARD: Like a keystone, Simeon is the piece without which the whole would crumble.

Not only has he devoted years of service and support to the NEC but few have done so much so pricelessly, and with so much joy and curiosity. For your character and genius, and your availability as an Apple Guru, we appreciate your steady company and all you have done for the NEC to keep our computers ticking, and us sane!

• Bill Chino The BRICK HOUSE AWARD: For providing the NEC with a home, after enduring fire and loss and all our housing troubles, we feel we have found a safe shelter, one that has withstood our difficult times and can endure and carry us into a new dawn ahead.We thank you for all of your support with our events, with Arts!Arcata and especially for your friendship and humor.

June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Restoration Improves Conditions for Salmon Survival, More Efforts Needed Scott Graecen Though alarms had been ringing over the decline of the North Coast’s salmon runs since at least the middle of the twentieth century, it was not until the 1970s that groups and agencies on the North Coast began to make significant collective efforts to prevent salmon and steelhead extinction and restore critical fish habitat and flows.

For some fish, in some places, the news is better than it has been in many generations. Wild fall-run chinook, in the Smith River especially but also in the Eel, had a spectacular year. It’s not hard to be optimistic about their prospects, if we stay on track with restoration efforts.

For other fish, in other places, times are grim indeed. It isn’t as easy to be optimistic about the future of coho salmon in California, with runs in rivers as distinct as the Shasta, Scott, Mattole, and Russian on the brink of extinction.

For fisherman looking for chinook and steelhead in the Smith River, this has been “the best season in living memory,” said Zack Larson, a Crescent City fisheries consultant and guide who has been deeply engaged with restoration and fishing in the region for decades. Larson’s current project on the Smith showcases a potentially revolutionary tool for monitoring fish migration. He said a lot of restoration has been invested in the Smith, including work on riparian and instream habitats, as well as removal of “huge numbers” of barriers to fish passage.

Today, there’s lots of spawning habitat available in the Smith. Larson said it “begins in tidewater, and extends into the upper reaches of the watershed. I’m not sure how big the run

could be if all that habitat were fully seeded (by spawning salmon).” It’s possible the Smith could approach its full productive capacity for chinook.

It seems watershed restoration can be successful in promoting salmonid recovery if we do enough of all the right things.

The Eel River, historically the third largest salmon producer in the state after the Sacramento and Klamath, saw its runs diminish over the course of the 20th century from the half-million salmon caught by canneries in 1877 to a few thousand—a 99% reduction. The fall of 2010 saw tens of thousands of chinook return to the Eel. Fisheries biologist Pat Higgins suggests key factors in this return included recovery of spawning habitat in the mainstem Eel, high spring flows that helped juvenile chinook, productive ocean conditions, reduced fishing pressure, and, thanks to higher flows, a decline in the invasive pikeminnow. If the story of the Smith suggests that restoration can work, the Eel’s bottom line appears to be that more work is called for. The transfer of Eel water to the Russian River through the Potter Valley Project at the top of the Eel watershed is still reducing critical spring and fall flows important to salmon recovery.

The Klamath-Trinity river system has been the focus of much salmon-related concern. A debate continues over whether the proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) would ensure recovery of wild salmon in the watershed. A draft of the proposed Secretarial Determination for the KBRA will be issued this summer to outline dam removal planning.

Mike Belchik, senior biologist with Yurok Tribal Fisheries, notes causes for hope and concern in the basin.

Belchik touted the tribe’s voluntary adoption of rules protecting spring chinook Top: Coho salmon swimming upstream in Cedar Creek, Clackamas County, Oregon. Photo: and green sturgeon. These Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. Bottom: Chinook salmon in Eagle Creek, Clackamas “proactive management” County, Oregon. Photo: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. measures include a three day a The Smith River isn’t the only North Coast week closure and a ban on commercial sales, as watershed enjoying surprising chinook returns. well as its continuing work to restore the lower -Continued on Page 9

It’s Not Too Early to Start Thinking Coastal Cleanup!

Help keep our North Coast clean and beautiful!

Ruthie Schafer and Morgan Corviday Come join your friends at the Northcoast Environmental Center for the 27th Annual Coastal Cleanup, Saturday, September 17th.

Coastal Cleanup is a longstanding tradition of the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC), not to mention a fun event and a great way to come together to cleanup our local beaches and streams.

Trash and other non-natural debris is more than just an eyesore on our beaches. In addition to being potential health and safety hazards for beachgoers and fishermen, plastics and other non-biodegradeable items make their way out to sea, where they can wreck havock on a variety of wildlife species. Studies have documented 276 species negatively affected by marine debris worldwide.

Albatrosses and other seabirds ingest small plastic items, mistaking them for food, and then feed it to their young. Plastic bags are eaten by sea turtles and other creatures that mistake the thin, drifting plastic for one of their favorite foods, jellyfish.

Even large whales can become tangled in fishing line and rope, which can restrict breathing and movement with potentially fatal results.

While much of the garbage contaminating the sea originated from cargo ships, cruise liners, and military

ECONEWS June/July 2011

COASTAL CLEANUP DAY The third Saturday of September

Join The More Than 80,000 Californians That Come Together Annually To Take Back Our Beaches and Inland Waterways www.yournec.org

vessels disposing of waste overboard, an estimated 60-80 percent of beach garbage originates on land.

Coastal Cleanup, originally a local project of the NEC, was adopted by the Coastal Commission and became a statewide program in 1985.

The program continues to grow here and afar. Last year a reported 82,500 volunteers cleaned more than 2,600 miles of beaches and streams, totaling 1,200,000 pounds of trash and recycling collected. In Humboldt County alone 1000 volunteers cleaned 70 miles of beach, hauling away more than 8 tons of trash and 1 ton of recyclables. This year we hope to sign up 1,200 volunteers!

We should all take great pride in our collective and continued success with this event. You can help the NEC reach this goal and keep our beaches and waterways pollution-free by signing up to help clean a beach, river, slough, or any other waterway near you. You can also organize a team with your friends, family, students or club!

Business owners are encouraged to participate by forming a team and/or becoming a sponsor of Coastal Cleanup Day. The NEC is also seeking in-kind donations of advertising space.

Even if you can’t make the date, you can still help our efforts by making a monetary donation to the NEC! Coastal Cleanup Day wouldn’t be such a success without YOUR help. To volunteer, call the NEC at 707-822-6918.

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Fukushima Daiichi: Worst Nuclear Crisis Since Chernobyl Morgan Corviday

out the diesel back-up generators intended to keep the coolant systems operational in Three months have passed since the event of a power failure. Unfortunately, a massive earthquake and tsunami shook in an apparent lack of foresight, the Japan and ravaged the country’s eastern plant’s tsunami safety structures had only coast, causing debilitating damage to been designed to withstand up to a six the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power meter tsunami.

As a result, the plant suffered a plant. Japan continues to struggle with complete failure of the water-cooling controlling the ongoing disaster. system due to the loss of electrical power.

Amidst continuing radiation leaks It is also now suspected that damage to and discoveries of contamination, the the reactor vessels may have initially been three month anniversary was marked caused by the earthquake itself, not just by with anti-nuclear protests across Japan, the failure of the coolant system. as concerns over nuclear safety and Recent events have revealed that frustration with the handling of the many of the nuclear plants in the U.S. crisis continues. could be susceptible to similar natural In the days and weeks since the 9.0 events. Recent heavy storm activity, such magnitude earthquake and subsequent as tornadoes, caused temporary power 15-meter tsunami knocked out power outtages at six U.S. nuclear power plants, to the plant, public anxiety and fears of and one in Nebraska is currently under radioactive fallout in the U.S. have calmed Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 4, side view showing one of two 8 x 8 meter holes blown a level 4 threat status due to massive down considerably. Kelp and iodine pills out by a hydrogen explosion. Photo: Daisuke Tsuda (Flickr Creative Commons). flooding in the area. In addition, there are no longer flying off the shelves. National media radioactivity initially released into the atmosphere are 35 nuclear power plants located on or near coverage has become virtually non-existent. during the first week of the crisis (770 terabecquerels, seismic fault lines—eight on the west coast, and However, the situation at the stricken from the original 370 terabecquerels).

27 near the New Madrid fault line in the midwest. plant is far from under control. A June 6th The report also indicated that the fuel Even with power restored, Fukushima announcement by officials from Japan’s Nuclear cores of 1, 2 and 3 melted completely within workers face the challenge of continually injecting Emergency Response Headquarters confirmed the first four days of the crisis, although earlier water—an estimated 500 tons per day—into the what many had long suspected: three of the six statements denied that possibility. The molten reactors and spent fuel pools, in an effort to keep Daiichi reactors (Reactors 1, 2 and 3) are in a fuel burned through the thick steel inner the disaster from spiraling further out of control. state of complete meltdown. Worse still, a report containment pressure vessels, and is pooling in The plant’s cooling system remains damaged presented to the International Atomic Energy the outer containment vessels—also suspected to and unfunctional.

Storage of the now-contaminated cooling Agency described the situation as a “melt- be damaged as indicated by continued radiation water has become another looming problem. through”, “far worse than a core meltdown” and leaks and low internal pressure. “the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.”

This situation presents a potentially It is estimated that there are already over Early statements from the Tokyo Electric catastrophic scenario: if the molten fuel also burns 115,000 tons of radioactive water currently Power Company (Tepco, the owner of the through the outer vessels there is potential for onsite, cumulated from the tsunami, leaks, plant) and the Japanese government seemed to unprecedented contamination of groundwater, and fuel cooling efforts. This water, which understate the severity of the situation. The fact soil, seawater and air. Experts say this scenario is has filled basement structures of the plant, that adequate data wasn’t forthcoming caused still a very real possibility and could result contain an estimated 720,000 terabecquerels of concern and criticism from many experts and in a massive release of radioactivity into the contamination (mostly cesium-137). Storage tanks and a decontamination system are under officials around the world, including the U.S. environment, with far-reaching consequences. but there are concerns that current Japanese officials have since acknowledged that When the 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck construction, storage could soon overflow. certain information was initially withheld in order on March 11, the event triggered automatic safety More than 11000 tons of contaminated to avoid public panic. measures that shut down the reactors’ fission water were intentionally released into the Pacific In the June report to the IAEA, the processes, but also knocked out power to the Ocean in May, and more releases may be expected. government doubled the estimated amount of plant. The 15-meter tsunami that followed wiped Continued on Page 16

Perspective: Indigenous Peoples Advocate for Water at the United Nations

Tia Oros Peters, Seventh Generation Fund

During the recent UN Forum session in May, a half-day discussion was devoted to the The UN Permanent Forum on protection of water. The Seventh Generation Fund Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), a subsidiary body for Indian Development (SGF), a national nonof the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), profit philanthropic organization based in Arcata, provides an opportunity for Indigenous Peoples has worked for seven years to advance the issue from nations and communities throughout the of water protection as critical for IP’s physical, world to come together to build momentum and Water is Sacred cultural and spiritual survival. collective power on a global scale.

Water is life. The Klamath River, for example, Over the years we have called for The UNPFII, now in its tenth year, is one is a sacred waterway here in northern California. It the recognition of Water as essential to of three core mechanisms within the United is home to salmon and other sources of life that help Life, emphasizing that it is crucial for bioNations that brings forth the issues of the world’s to sustain and nurture families, communities, and cultural diversity and for sustaining all aspects nearly 400 Indigenous Peoples (IP’s). For two nations, and holds the cultural and spiritual energy of Indigenous Peoples’ survival and wellweeks each year, this unique international venue of the traditional Peoples of this region. being—assuring our physical health, nurturing provides a place for IP’s to join the us spiritually and central for the global community—with governments, continued vitality of our cultures and Indigenous nations, UN agencies, traditional livelihoods. non-governmental organizations, We have advocated and worked and academia—in discussions and hard, in close collaboration with other explorations of critical issues and concerns Indigenous nations, communities of the world’s nearly 400 million IP’s. and organizations, and sister/ally Together, we discuss, negotiate organizations, for the human right and design collaborative strategies for to water; also, to honor and advance advancing the sovereignty of indigenous the right of water itself to live its nations, securing their human rights, life unencumbered, unpolluted, protecting sacred ecosystems, and and un-privatized. affirming the birthright of unborn As different strategies are created generations to lives of honor, beauty, to respond to the loss, contamination, and cultural vitality. or diversion of Water resources, Many far ranging environmental Indigenous Peoples of the world issues have been brought forward to firmly retain their right to free, prior, the UNPFII over the last ten years, and informed consent before any including mining of ores and minerals, development takes place on their the nuclear stream, oil development, territories. IP’s maintain that they and more recently, the devastation of Tia Oros Peters of the Seventh Generation Fund (left), speaking with delegates from South America at the have a right to say “no” to halt any UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2006. Photo: Courtesy of the Seventh Generation Fund. hydrolic fracturing, or fracking.

Continued on Page 16

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To Indigenous Peoples, all environmental issues are multi-faceted and intersect with other critical concerns—such as sacred sites, sacred species protection, and issues of pollutants and toxic contamination—regarding the continuity of ecosystem and cultural health.

www.yournec.org

June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Too Much Water: District Identifies Potential Solutions More Public Input Invited

Sarah O’Leary It’s an unusual problem—and one that many communities would celebrate—but, as reported in December 2009 EcoNews, Humboldt County faces a dilemma of what to do with millions of gallons of excess water flows from the Mad River.

Now the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) has released a draft implementation plan to pursue a trio of water-use options for the Mad River. Its primary goals are protection of water rights and fiscal and environmental sustainability.

Fears of skyrocketing water rates and the possibility of a state takeover of local water flows, along with concerns about aging water treatment infrastructure, prompted the District Ruth Lake, Tinity County. Photo: Robert Ciavarro (Flickr Creative Commons). to engage the community in a two-year process to address the future of the Mad River’s for a delivery system that corrals water at Ruth water flows.

Lake and delivers it 70 miles to seven different The District solicited public input agencies and municipalities for the benefit of through a series of meetings and workshops 80,000 Humboldt County customers. and the development of a Citizen Advisory Total municipal use of the water has Committee. During this time, community remained constant for decades, at only about 25 members and agencies brainstormed water-use percent of the total amount generated—leaving a options and narrowed the suggestions down to large surplus now that both pulp mills have closed. ten possibilities.

California has a “use it or lose it” policy, “Our public process told us loud and putting pressure on the board to put permitted clear that the most important thing was local water to beneficial use or risk losing it—and the control—people don’t want to see the District much-needed revenue it could generate. lose control of these rights. I think that’s our Additionally, funds are needed to Board’s top priority as well,” said Kaitlin Sopoci- upgrade and maintain the 50-year-old water Belknap, President of the Board of Directors. treatment facility at Ruth Lake. “Ratepayer Guided by an August 2010 report implications will be exacerbated if additional submitted by the Advisory Committee, revenues are not secured to help fund the costly the District has identified three top-tier infrastructure projects which are on the horizon,” options to immediately pursue: The sale and the District wrote in an April 14 letter to the transport of water to another municipality, Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. attracting new water-intensive industry to the area, and enhancing in-stream flows for GET INVOLVED! environmental restoration.

For now, other options have been Attend one of the public hearings on July 14, scrapped or placed on hold, including creating a at noon or at 6 p.m. HBMWD Offices, 828 7th lake in Blue Lake, creating a pipeline to transfer Street, Eureka. the water to Mendocino or Sonoma, and Go to www.hbmwd.com to submit a comment expanding the current district boundary. online.

California authorizes use of 80 million gallons a day to HBMWD through a permit that View the draft “Implementation Plan to Evaluate expires in 2029. Until recently three-quarters of and Advance Water Use Options” or the report that water went to industrial customers—two submitted by the Advisory Committee at www. pulp mills—that are no longer in business. hbmwd.com, or call HBMWD at 707-443-5018 to The pulp mills contributed the lion’s receive a copy of either document. share of the operation and maintenance costs

New Arcata Marsh Bird Guide

Common Birds of the Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary—a full-color, 54-page book—has been published by Friends of the Arcata Marsh (FOAM). Ken Burton conceived of the book after answering questions from Marsh visitors and training FOAM docents about birds. It serves, as Ken writes in the introduction, as “an aid for the novice to identify the most numerous and conspicuous species; we hope the text and photos will be of interest to the more-seasoned birder as well.”

The 50 birds selected for inclusion represent those most often reported from the Marsh to eBird, an online resource hosted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as of early 2011. Each species has a page displaying its common and scientific name, size, frequency of eBird reports by month, microhabitat(s) at the Marsh, and photos. The book is printed on highquality paper and spiral bound for durability. It may be purchased for $14.95 at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center, and may soon be available at local bookstores.

ECONEWS June/July 2011

The next public hearings are scheduled for July 14, one at noon and one at 6 p.m.

Both will take place at the HBMWD offices at 828 7th Street in Eureka and will be devoted to comment on the three top options.

Option 1 is selling the water to local commercial, industrial or agricultural interests or any other local water use option, such as aquaculture. Immediate actions toward this end will include contacting retail water agencies within the county and outreach to regional and state economic development agencies.

Option 2 involves transferring the water to another public agency outside of the district for a beneficial use as defined by state law and under a contract that protects the district’s underlying water right.

Methods of transfer are currently undecided.

Option 3 is to dedicate some portion of the water stored at Ruth Lake to enhance in-stream flows of the Mad River, which is permissible under the California Water Code if an environmental benefit can be defined. At present this water remains in storage at Ruth Lake during the summer and fall months.

“The in-stream flow option has had wide and passionate support, judging from public input during the planning process,” said Sherri Woo, HBMWD board member and member of the advisory committee. “But the option has to be balanced by the public’s support for keeping water rates as low as possible.”

Option 3 will require studies to substantiate environmental benefit and address adverse effects, if any, especially in the estuary. The scientific and financial burden of environmental studies would be shared among ratepayers, resource agencies, and other interested parties.

After the hearing, the board expects to approve the implementation plan at their regular meeting on August 11.

“This [the summer public hearing] is the opportunity for everyone—newcomers and past participants—to share their impressions and concerns of the plan the board has crafted to protect what many think is our county’s greatest resource,” said Carol Rische, general manager of HBMWD.

Upcoming Events at the Arcata Marsh Oyster Activities on June 18 Friends of the Arcata Marsh (FOAM) will offer free educational activities between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Marsh Interpretive Center in conjunction with Arcata Mainstreet’s Oyster Festival on Saturday, June 18. Kids’ craft activities related to oysters–including distribution of “Omar the Oyster” temporary tattoos and “I Love Oysters” lapel pins–as well as displays by local oyster growers, videos, lectures, and a native oyster interpretive walk are planned. Watch local media for a final schedule of events.

Wetland/Restoration Bike Tour on June 25 Join FOAM, Green Wheels, and the City of Arcata on a bicycle tour of the City’s McDaniel Slough/ Janes Creek restoration projects on Saturday, June 25 starting at 2 p.m. Environmental Programs Manager Julie Neander leads this 8 mile, relatively flat tour to learn about Arcata’s watershed approach to protecting and improving in-stream and riparian habitat, while also improving flood routing and community beautification. Meet at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center parking lot

www.yournec.org

on South G Street. Bring your bike, helmet, and water. This is intended as a fun, guided group ride suitable for all ages, although children must be accompanied by parents or responsible adult. For more information, contact Julie at 707-822-8184.

Marsh Work Day on July 16 FOAM, the City of Arcata, and the Northcoast Environmental Center are co-sponsoring a cleanup day on Saturday, July 16. Tools, snacks, and drinks will be provided; please bring gloves and dress to get dirty. Contact Dennis at 707825-2163 for information on meeting place and time. FOAM is also forming a Marsh Work Day “On-Call Brigade.” We hope to schedule one day a month devoted to removing invasive plants, picking up garbage, or other clean-up tasks that need to be done at the Marsh. One possibility is to work with a crew of high school students on certain Thursdays between 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.; another suggested time would be Sunday afternoons. Of course, you do not have to participate every time, or for the full work day (2 to 4 hours). If you have any interest in participating, contact George at 707-826-9240 or geoz@humboldt1.com.

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Opinion: Success of Klamath Agreements is Uncertain and resources, and abundant information.

The determinations are not yet complete, but the suggested results of the “proposed action” of dam removal and implementation of the KBRA on coho, steelhead, and chinook are not overwhelmingly positive.

Improvements to the Klamath system are likely to be modest, and will require perfect implementation (and therefore full funding) for effective progress to be made.

When summarizing the coho and steelhead report, the Panel identified several obstacles to their ability to draw absolute conclusions between the two alternatives. This included “insufficient specificity of the KBRA” among others. The panel commented in a similar nature in the draft chinook report, regarding KBRA Feasibility:

Ani Kame’enui, Oregon Wild While it appears to be a good water year in the Klamath Basin, this respite is likely just temporary in this over-allocated water system.

The Klamath hasn’t been making headlines in recent months — PacifiCorp’s dams remain in place and their Clean Water Act proceedings in abeyance; Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) legislation appears stalled by political opposition and an economic recession; and the Secretarial Determination process of the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA) inches forward. But now expert panels reveal that the KBRA-KHSA package may not be a sure thing.

Cleaning Up the Water Act

Dam removal is necessary to restore the Klamath, but the current settlement deal allows for a substantial delay of almost 10 years before dam removal could begin. In addition, under the express direction of the KHSA, PacifiCorp has been allowed to withdraw and resubmit their application for water quality certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act five times.

The Section 401 process is a crucial on the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. step in relicensing dams. Certification from Drought Photo: Brett Cole, courtesy of Oregon Wild. state water regulators signing off on the health of discharged water is required for dam operation. bipartisanship, or flexible checkbooks.

The political and economic will for the As signatories to the KHSA, the states involved (California and Oregon) have agreed to withhold highly controversial KBRA is limited. With processing of the Section 401 application and wait some House Representatives expressing hostility for provisions in the KHSA to ensure restoration toward the deals and to dam removal in general, there is little likelihood of passing KBRA-KHSA of water quality.

In May, Oregon Wild and its allies asked legislation in the nation’s capital. Although the California State Water Resources Control rumors stir of legislation within the month, a look Board to assert their regulatory power to enforce at the record and reality reveals that prospects are dim. the Section 401 process.

The mid-May deadline for the Water Board to grant PacifiCorp yet another abeyance, Experts Say… As part of the KHSA’s Secretarial the chance to withdraw and resubmit their 401 Determination process, the Secretary of Interior is application in California, has come and gone. As obligated to evaluate two management scenarios the Water Board considers this issue during the for the Klamath: “Conditions with Dams” and allowable 90-day period, it has an opportunity “Conditions without Dams and with KBRA.” to enforce clean water standards before waiting In order to provide the Secretary with a decade for dam removal. Instead of continuing information for each alternative, the U.S. Fish to hand PacifiCorp a free pass, we’re hopeful the and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Water Board will encourage the company to prove Fisheries Service recognize that scientific it is committed to cleaning up the Klamath. information about the river and its native fish should be considered under expert and peer Legislation Looming? review. As such, Fish and Wildlife assembled four Since the KBRA and KHSA were native fish expert panels “to review, evaluate, and signed in February 2010, many settlement synthesize influential information.” These panels parties have suggested that federal legislation, include impact reviews of lamprey, resident fish, intended to implement the agreements, is coho, chinook, and steelhead. imminent. However, the culture of today’s It is a challenge to make scientific Congress is certainly not one of evenhanded determinations with tight deadlines, limited time

“The documentation and analyses… are insufficient to determine if KBRA can adequately address the listed conditions.

Based on the Panel’s past experiences with large rehabilitation projects in other systems, the stream rehabilitation literature, and increased uncertainty of KBRA funding, the Panel has strong reservations that KBRA will be implemented with sufficient effectiveness to achieve its stated goals.”

It could be argued that a doctrine promoted as a comprehensive “restoration agreement” should have accounted for these uncertainties. However, while we wait for the Secretary’s determination and pending legislation, it’s clear that many remain skeptical of the KBRA’s ability to deliver cleaner water, fisheries recovery, and in-stream and basin restoration to the Klamath Basin.

Ani Kame’enui is the D.C. Legislative Coordinator for Oregon Wild.

Klamath Basin dam removal demonstration, 2006.

Photo: Patrick McCully (Flickr Creative Commons).

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June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Get the Facts About Coastal Dune Restoration Carol Vander Meer, Friends of the Dunes Recently, management of our coastal dunes has received increased attention from some community members and the local media. This April, the Humboldt Dunes Cooperative (Dunes Coop), a group working to facilitate coordinated ecosystem management of coastal dune environments, hosted a public forum focused on the intersection of restoration, coastal geologic processes and human communities. This wellattended forum prompted a feature article in the North Coast Journal and several subsequent letters to the editor.

Friends of the Dunes (FOD) is just one of several land management and conservation organizations Manila dunes with native vegetation. Photo: Emily Walters. working to protect our coast. As a longtime member of the conservation and the beach layia, have the added benefit of community, and a member of the Dunes Coop, providing greatly increased habitat value and FOD would like to help clarify information ecological function in the restored areas. about restoration of coastal dune habitats and •Restoration practices are planned foster a dialog based on facts that increase and carried out in ways that pose no threat our understanding of coastal dune systems. to homes and roads. Moving sand sheets are For example: older features of the dune landscape, and are •European beachgrass is not the locally most active in the vicinity of Lanphere answer to the combined goal of stability and and Ma-le’l Dunes where they pose no threat ecological health of our coastal ecosystems. to infrastructure. In the Manila area, European In fact, the opposite is true. While European beachgrass and human development halted the beachgrass may have served its purpose of movement of large moving sand sheets. These keeping sand from moving over roads and rail dune areas have become stabilized and pose when originally planted in the 20th century, no threat to communities if, as planned and we now have a better understanding of how conducted, restoration in these transitional areas this non-indigenous, invasive grass negatively focuses on conversion to forest or other dune impacts biodiversity and ecosystem function. stabilizing native plants. Restoration in these European beachgrass grows in dense thickets, areas is a well-planned, thoughtful and measured which limits habitat for native plants, pushes out action to restore ecosystem function while rare and threatened plant species, and diminishes providing needed protection to human resources. the coastal protection that dunes provide in •Restoring foredune areas does not increase tsunami hazard to coastal areas. their natural state.

Where dune stability is needed, such According to the California Geological Survey, the as near communities like Manila, that stability large dunes located several thousand feet inland is easily maintained and controlled through from the coastline (for example, the dunes west restoration that employs the use of native plant of the community of Manila) provide protection species. Native plants, including endangered from tsunamis. Removing beachgrass from the species such as the Humboldt Bay wallflower foredune allows native plants to return and some

sand movement for several hundred feet inland from the beach. Over time, this creates broader, undulating, volumetrically larger nearshore dunes which will continue to provide a better protective barrier to wave energy and tsunamis.

•Removing European beachgrass is not the cause of recent declines in Western Snowy Plover populations.

In fact, removing beachgrass actually increases nesting habitat for plovers.

Removal of European beachgrass during restoration efforts, while not specifically for plover recovery, increases natural ecological diversity and restores some natural dune processes. Although there have been anecdotal sightings of plovers using beachgrass as cover in unrestored areas, there is no evidence that beachgrass removal negatively impacts plovers. The three major factors that negatively impact snowy plover populations are predatation by crows and ravens, human related disturbance and limited nesting habitat.

To help facilitate a fact-based community conversation about the merits of restoration, Friends of the Dunes is part of a subcommittee of the Humboldt Dunes Cooperative involved in compiling a white paper referencing the expert research and evidence guiding today’s restoration practices and the relationship between geomorphology and human communities. This paper, due to be available by summer 2011, will provide further details about the four facts above as well as others, and will be a useful tool in guiding adaptive management strategies along the North Spit.

As we move toward a more constructive exchange of ideas and information about dune restoration in our community, we thank you for taking the time to be informed and encourage you to contact Friends of the Dunes if you have any questions. Visit our website at www.friendsofthedunes.org, or attend a guided walk or restoration program to see the results of effective restoration first hand.

Carol Vander Meer is Executive Director of Friends of the Dunes.

Roads, Diversions and Development: Impacts to Watershed Health Dan Ehresman, Healthy Humboldt Coalition

water diversions. Each of these can negatively impact watershed health in a variety of ways.

The majestic rivers of our North Coast The conservation and restoration were once known and revered for their mighty community has worked hard over the years to runs of salmon and steelhead. Salmon have bring these issues to the forefront. Now, some played a central role in the lives of indigenous 20 years since coho salmon were listed as peoples and in the health of coastal ecosystems. threatened in Northern California, these issues are Over the past 150 years being considered as part however, industrial-scale of Humboldt County’s fishing and abusive land General Plan Update (GPU). management practices have In the coming decimated salmon populations months, the Planning throughout the region.

Commission will deliberate Despite decades on the GPU’s Water of restoration work and Resources section. Up for the hopeful returns of this consideration are policies season’s chinook salmon and relating to watershed-based steelhead on the Klamath and planning, restoration of Eel rivers, salmon populations river flows in the Eel, in rivers such as the Mattole Klamath and Trinity are still in jeopardy—and Rivers, requirements for coho salmon are perilously water storage to eliminate close to disappearing from summer withdrawals from most of our local watersheds. flow-impaired watersheds, Many of the impacts and Best Management from historic resource Practices for road and extraction activities still building construction. threaten the survival of the Through this public salmon today. In addition, process we, as a salmon face pressures from community, have an contemporary land use opportunity to call for practices such as poorly better land-use decisions runoff drains into Humboldt Bay, Eureka. planned development, Water and more sustainable Photo: Humboldthead Tony (Flickr Creative extensive road networks, and Commons). human habitat development

ECONEWS June/July 2011

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as a means to restore degraded watersheds and to bring the salmon back into abundance on the North Coast.

Dams, Roads and Water Diversions —Threats to Salmonid Recovery One substantial section of the Humboldt County General Plan Update (GPU) addresses the issues of dams and water diversions. Throughout the North Coast, diversions of surface water and ground water for human use have drastically reduced the supply of cool, clean water which salmon require to thrive.

In many watersheds, groundwater aquifers provide a much-needed source of water to keep streams and rivers flowing year round, even during the driest of months. To our north in the Smith River, flows are declining due to the prolific pumping of groundwater for agricultural use.

To our south, millions of gallons of surface water are diverted annually from the Eel River to support sprawling vineyards and a quickly growing human population in Sonoma County.

Dams on the Klamath and Trinity are responsible for blocking fish passage and reducing river flows during critical spawning periods.

In smaller watersheds such as the Mattole, surface water diversions for agricultural and residential uses have taken a significant toll on river flows during times when fish need them the most.

Continued on Page 17

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Kin to the Earth

THE GOLDMAN PRIZE

Awarding Grassroots Environmentalists Since 1990 Allison Toomey

Kelley continued to spearhead a campaign starting in 2006 to stop 20,000 The Goldman Environmental Prize tons of toxic PCBs from Mexico from being has been awarded every year since 1990 disposed of at the Veolia Corporation’s to grassroots environmentalists around Port Arthur plant. the world. Created by public leaders and Initiating compromise and philanthropists Richard N. Goldman and communication between big businesses his wife, Rhonda H. Goldman, this prize and small town circles, Kelley works awards $150,000 to recipients who have from the heart to hold corporations shown particular tenacity in their efforts accountable. He now serves on the EPA’s to protect and nurture both human and National Environmental Justice Advisory natural communities. Recipients from Council, and pursues further restrictions Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands, North throughout the Texas Gulf Coast. His America and South & Central America are determination has shown that one man chosen based on their accomplishments can make a positive difference in the in the face of some of the most challenging prosperity of communities over-shadowed environmental problems. by industrial polluters.

Winners also receive a bronze For 21 years, the Goldman Prize has sculpture called the Ouroboros, in addition recognized environmentalists around the to their monetary prize and international world who have done especially noteworthy recognition. This symbol depicts a snake North American Goldman Prize winner Hilton Kelley. Photo: www.goldmanprize.org acts of environmental stewardship. This biting its own tail, known commonly award has shown a growing appreciation among international cultures to represent the is currently living under police protection and has for those individuals who have committed to the power of nature to regenerate. vowed to pursue environmental justice in spite of conservation of the world’s environmental and The chosen winners’ outstanding efforts the great personal risk. His adamancy is much humanitarian value. to defend and save areas suffering from political revered in a world where grassroots activists Allison Toomey studies Environmental Science at strife and conservation neglect have been often go unappreciated.

Humboldt State University, and is a work-study employee recognized by a jury of international environmental The North American recipient, Hilton at the NEC. organizations and individuals. The winners inspire Kelley, hails from the West Side of Port Arthur, awe for their achievements, particularly because Texas, USA, a town that has long been surrounded they work against the odds to save what precious by some of the most toxic industries in the state.

Goldman Prize Recipients 2011 resources remain around the world, as well as No less than eight petrochemical and hazardous Africa—Raoul Du Toit , Zimbabwe, is honored for his preserving the integrity of human inhabitants. waste sites exist within close proximity to this conservation efforts to maintain and develop the largest For example, the winner from El Salvador African-American community, resulting in some was under threat of assassination for his work to of the highest cancer and asthma rates in the state. remaining Black Rhino population. protect one of the 3% of remaining pristine water Kelley grew up along the fence line of Continent of Asia—Dmitry Lisitsyn, Russia, defended sources in the country from a mining project that the Motiva refinery. After he left for college Sakhalin Island’s critically endangered ecosystems as could have endangered clean water sources for 4 and pursued an acting career in California, he well as stood up for safety measures to one of the world’s million people. A farmer and anti-mining activist returned 21 years later to find Port Arthur on largest petroleum development projects. with a degree in sustainable agriculture, Francisco the edge of financial insecurity, crime-ridden and Europe—Ursula Slade, Germany, created the first coPineda became the founder and president of the suffering greatly from industrial pollution. Without operatively owned nuclear power plant in the country.

Environmental Committee of Cabanas. any community organization training, he began Islands—Prigi Arisandi, Indonesia, is awarded for Engaging in door-to-door education, he to rebuild the town he used to call home. initiating a local movement to eradicate pollution into a worked at great personal risk to halt the Cabanas He began by establishing the Community river that supplies 3 million people. mining project. As his resistance movement In-power Development Association (CIDA), South & Central America—Francisco Pineda, El Salvador, developed, horrific acts of violence—suspected working with local residents to teach them how stopped the construction of a gold mine that would have to be the work of Pacific Rim, the company to monitor air quality. He then established a destroyed dwindling water resources of the region. advocating for construction of the mine—increased, “good neighbor” policy with Motiva that covered North America—Hilton Kelley, USA, is awarded for including the murders of two colleagues. citizens of Port Arthur with health insurance for his work with communities affected by neighboring Pineda’s accomplishments created a civic three years, and provided funding in the amount of polluting industries as well as continual protection of outcry that prevented Pacific Rim from obtaining $3.5 million towards new business development Texas’ Gulf Coast. the permit necessary for the mining to begin. He within the community.

America’s Ten Most Endangered Rivers America’s Most Endangered Rivers 1 - Susquehanna River - Natural gas extraction 2 - Bristol Bay Rivers - Massive mine 3 - Roanoke River - Uranium mining 4 - Chicago River - Sewage pollution 5 - Yuba River - Hydropower dams 6 - Green River - Mining 7 - Hoback River - Natural gas extraction 8 - Black Warrior River - Strip mining for coal 9 - St. Croix River - Costly highway bridge 10 - Ozark National Scenic RiverwaysOveruse and poor planning Special Mention: Mississippi River For more information, visit http://www.americanrivers.org.

Morgan Corviday For 26 years, American Rivers, a leading conservation organization supporting the health and restoration of rivers nationwide, has published its annual report on America’s Most Endangered Rivers.

Sixty-five percent of our nation’s drinking water comes from rivers and streams. Spotlighting threats to clean water for communities across the country, ten rivers are selected annually based on nominations by community members.

Different rivers are selected each year, each at a crossroads. Looming threats from legislation, regulations or development will likely determine the fate of these rivers for years—and potentially generations—to come.

This year’s list features rivers primarily threatened from energy extraction. For the second year in a row, the number one most endangered river is a victim of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, which is a particularly destructive form of natural gas extraction.

Other threats include coal mining, dams, flooding, and pollution; putting salmon and steelhead runs, clean drinking water, public health, and wildlife habitat at risk.

This year’s list also included a special mention of the Mississippi River, due to extensive flooding across ten states.

Most Endangered 2011: the Susquehanna River, Clinton County.

Photo: Nicholas_T (Flickr Creative Commons.)

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June/July 2011 ECONEWS

New Dawn,

Continued from Page 1

launching web-based citizen action campaigns, creating a web-based library for the EcoNews Report, and ultimately creating an electronic historical archive of EcoNews.

The new direction of EcoNews will include more timely presentation of conservation issues based on member and citizen involvement, as well as greater scientific rigor that will inform, inspire and lead future conservation policy issues in the bioregion. The NEC will strive to create an EcoNews that is more inclusive by engaging readers in science, conservation policy, social issues and ecological studies.

“I would like to see the NEC restored. We need to have an ecological library, and a place where citizens and students can come and get involved, do research, have an opportunity for mentorships, get connected with direct service projects, and become inspired and engaged in ecology and citizen action campaigns. And, we need to honor the history of the NEC, because we owe the members past and present a great deal—much of the ecological awareness and many conservation policies that are in place

today are the result of tireless hours of work by our elders and members,” said Rain.

“We want to hear from our members and to value citizens as the backbone of the community,” said the new staff. As such, the new direction of the NEC will strive to include issues in human ecology and to honor the citizen heroes who provide the community with labor, agriculture, services and a sense of family.

The new staff of the NEC is dedicated to enhancing the vitality of the NEC as the regions ecological voice. More than ever there is a very real need for education about ecological issues and programs, across cultures.

“We all need to engage in open discussion and active learning. We need to start talking again,” said the new director, “and if we can do that we can make change happen and honor the memory and work of Tim McKay and all the members who helped him create and forge the rich history of the NEC.” For forty years the NEC has been a voice for the environment, because the environment has no voice of its own. Now, as Rain states,

“we find that we must also speak for the common citizen and for our community which increasingly finds itself in the same position, of being voiceless and unrepresented. I hope that never again in our history will we see the diligence of the working class pitted against the environment by political, economic and global policies that distort the issues facing ecosystems, species and citizens.”

The NEC recognizes that many of these issues are complex and difficult. Ecosystems do not live outside of human consideration or concerns. The issues, which exist where human activities most severely impact ecological systems, represent the crux of a new discussion, a new direction and new questions that will require in-depth discourse, research, community participation and a painstaking search for new solutions.

The new staff of the NEC encourages you to get educated, get involved, and connect more than ever with your community, your planet, and your NEC!

Continued from Page 3 Klamath through restoration projects, retiring down, fine sediment in gravel goes up. Bedload roads, and acquiring land. But while there are mobility that kills eggs is frequent.” some important restoration efforts underway On the other hand, fisheries biologist in the key Klamath tributaries that should help Bill Kier, who works closely with Higgins, points chinook, “coho salmon in the Shasta and Scott are to Freshwater as one of the Humboldt Bay in big, big trouble. Shasta River coho may have streams where important restoration efforts gone functionally extinct,” said Belchik.

For Andrew Orahoske, Conservation Director at EPIC, the central question on the Klamath is whether northwest California’s last wild stocks of spring-run chinook will be protected.

“We are now at a point where wild spring Chinook, this marvel of evolution, may be lost forever in the Klamath and Trinity river systems,” Orahoske said. “It is imperative that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) list Klamath spring chinook without delay.”

EPIC, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Oregon Wild filed a petition with NMFS in January 2011 seeking protection under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) for Klamath spring chinook. A status review was announced Coho salmon in Eagle Creek, a tributary of the Columbia River, fall of 2009.

April 12; NMFS is accepting scientific data Photo: Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. on the status of chinook in the KlamathTrinity system through June 13. have focused on “low-gradient estuarine salmon In part because they spend the first third habitat that is particularly needed for coho of their lives in freshwater, coho have proven the salmon conservation.” most vulnerable of the three species of salmonids Another bay tributary where estuarine surviving on the North Coast. A 1994 review found restoration is well underway is Salmon Creek, California populations of coho had fallen below which flows into Humboldt Bay Wildlife Refuge.

5 percent of historic levels; only seven streams There, longtime North Coast restorationist Mitch still had adult returning in the hundreds. By Farro has helped lead an effort to restore functional 2002, the Department of Fish & Game concluded habitat to areas that were drained and diked for that “California coho salmon populations have pasture land a century ago. A key development been individually and cumulatively depleted here, said Kier, is the installation of new tide or extirpated and the natural linkages between gates, which allow both up- and downstream them ... fragmented or severed.” According to migrant fish free passage, while keeping saltwater the National Park Service, 2007 saw a further flows back.

73% decline in coho spawners across northern “The Humboldt Bay area is clearly the California and southern Oregon. leader of the pack where it comes to caring, Against this backdrop, it’s essential to and doing something, about salmon habitat protect remaining refugia—healthy, functioning restoration. But you need these real-life solutions coho streams. Humboldt Bay presents a range of like the vertical slot tide gate being demonstrated contrasting situations within its subwatersheds. here to spread the interest and the technology Freshwater Creek, for example, was one of the elsewhere,” Kier wrote. seven watersheds that still had hundreds of One of the few bright spots for coho south returning coho in 1994. Today, due to heavy of Humboldt Bay is the South Fork Eel, where logging in the watershed, Pat Higgins points Hollow Tree Creek appears to still maintain to Freshwater as “a textbook case of how a viable numbers of coho. The persistence of this watershed unravels and fish diversity declines. population offers the hope that it can spread Pools diminish in frequency and depth, bugs go downstream into the Eel tributaries on the west

side of the basin between Piercy and Leggett, where the Redwood Forest Foundation is working to create a restoration-oriented community forest in the Usal Forest.

The Mattole was one of the seven streams that still had hundreds of spawning coho in the mid 1990s. No longer. For the little river at the heart of North Coast salmonid restoration culture, the last two years have been the worst since the fight to save the Mattole’s salmon began. In the 2010-11 season, only five coho redds (nests) were observed—the lowest in 30 years, except for last year, when just one was found.

Coho salmon stocks from Mendocino County south are listed together as Central Coast coho by NMFS, which identified Russian River coho as essential to maintaining populations in other coastal streams, including refugia in the Noyo River and Lagunitas Creek. But by 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service confirmed that coho in the Russian River had entered an “extinction vortex.” Remaining fish are so few that it’s becoming steadily more likely they won’t find mates.

Commercial fishing for salmon has been largely barred for the last several years in response, first, to a sharp decline in Klamath returns, and then to a collapse in Sacramento River runs. The irony here is that those commercial fisheries depend on hatchery production, which masks the decline of wild salmon while contributing to their decline.

Now, Sacramento River salmon are getting drawn into the long-running fight over diversions of the Sacramento delta’s water to Southern California. In mid-May, the Center for Biological Diversity publicized a Bureau of Reclamation report showing Delta pumps have killed more than ten thousand juvenile spring-run chinook this year—a species listed under the federal ESA. Any more diversion from the Delta would, the Center suggested, likely lead to the extinction of Central valley steelhead and chinook.

These stories suggest we have not yet done enough to protect and restore salmonids and their habitat across the North Coast, but that hardwon experience, exciting new technologies, and the determination of restorationists and salmon advocates may yet suffice to truly recover at least some of our totem salmon.

Salmon,

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ECONEWS June/July 2011

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Scott Greacen is North Coast Director of Friends of the Eel.

Something got your goat?

If there’s a story you would like to see covered in EcoNews, contact us and let us know!

9

Domestic Oil Drilling: Is It Worth It? Beth Werner President Obama addressed the public on Saturday, May 14th to announce his plan for increased domestic oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The President justified his plan based on the rise of gasoline prices and the financial toll it is taking on the American public.

This announcement followed an approval by the House to expedite oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia.

The President’s plan opens federal waters near Southern California, Alaska and the Atlantic Ocean as well as the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (located west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge).

Although President Obama stated his support for increased domestic oil drilling based on the price at the pump, experts at the U.S. Energy Information Administration say that adding a few million barrels of oil a day to the global market will not significantly impact the price. Studies by the USGS in the NPRA indicate that the oil reserves in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve are roughly 10 percent of what they were originally estimated to be. This difference makes the assumed size of oil reserves in the Pacific ocean near Southern California and the Atlantic ocean uncertain. Studies by experts indicate that the U.S. does not have enough oil reserves to support the amount of oil it consumes, so it will need to continue importing

National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Courtesy of American Geological Institute 2002.

oil regardless of domestic production. And, importing oil in a globally competitive market will result in continued high prices at the pump.

The announcement to expand drilling efforts followed a meeting between U.S. Senators and oil executives from the top five oil companies; Chevron, Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. At the meeting, the oil executives were asked to justify the billions of dollars they have received in industry tax breaks. The meeting ended with no change in the current policy.

The millions of dollars in tax subsidies the American public gives to the above listed

Clean Coal? A Dirty Lie!

In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.

A new film released on June 3rd, The Last Mountain, shines a light on America’s energy needs and how those needs are being supplied. It is a fight for our future that affects us all.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns.

Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.

Directed and produced by Bill Haney and featuring Waterkeeper Alliance founder and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Last Mountain highlights the greed and destructive practices of the coal industry and the impacts these operations have on local communities, public health and the environment.

In 2009, the Waterkeeper Alliance launched its “Dirty Lie” campaign to expose the real story about the coal industry and the destruction associated with it, for example:

Coal Facts

*Almost half of the electricity produced in the U.S. comes from the burning of coal. *Sixteen pounds of coal is burned each day for every man, woman and child in the US. *Thirty percent of that coal comes from the mountains of Appalachia. *Burning coal is the number one source of greenhouse gases worldwide.

The Destruction:

*Mountain top removal has destroyed 500 Appalachian mountains, decimated 1 million acres of forest, and buried 2000 miles of streams.

The Company:

* Massey Energy is responsible for more mountaintop removal mining than any other company in the U.S. [Massey agreed to be purchased by Alpha Natural Resources in mid-2011.] *Massey Energy is America’s 3rd largest coal company by revenue, and it controls all of the coal mining in Coal River Valley. *Between 2000 and 2006 Massey committed more than 60,000 environmental violations, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Waste:

*There are 312 coal sludge impoundments in Appalachia. *Massey’s 28 impoundments have spilled 24 times in the last decade, contaminating rivers with more than 300 million gallons of sludge — twice as much contamination as released in BP’s Gulf oil disaster.

Attorney at Law 707-826-9072

} On the Smith River }

707 458 3586 www.smithriveralliance.org

10

Beth Werner is the Coastal Advocate & Outreach Coordinator for Humboldt Baykeeper.

Margaret Draper

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oil companies can be used for alternative energy production on a national stage. The President included language broadly supporting alternative energy in his speech, but momentum in this arena is frozen until the U.S. commits to a new energy regime. This is not the first time Americans have entered into an energy crisis without concrete alternatives to oil.

Missing from President Obama’s speech and the oil executives’ meeting were the consequences of oil drilling. Roughly one year ago, the world witnessed the largest oil disaster on record when a Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion killed 11 people and sent a continual feed of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. After the blowout in BP’s Macondo well, about 18,500 feet below the ocean surface, the public was exposed to the truth about deep water drilling: the U.S. government and oil companies are unprepared to clean up after major disasters.

Reports of 200 safety and environmental violations on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico surfaced as the public watched oil pump into the ocean, killing thousands of turtles, birds, mammals and other sea life. The impacts of the oil disaster hit Louisiana and other Southern states by compromising the local shrimp fisheries and closing local businesses that would otherwise have income from tourists and local patrons. The cumulative impacts from the oil disaster are still unknown because not enough time has passed since the well was closed.

President Obama is a leader in many respects, but it is the responsibility of the people to keep the government on track and focused on responsible economic development while conserving our limited wild places on this planet.

Increased oil drilling on land and in the depths of the ocean is at best a short term solution, and Humboldt Baykeeper is working with groups across the nation to support sustainable energy research in order to keep our environment clean and avoid the disasters of the past.

For more information on the President’s domestic oil expansion plan or how you can get involved, please visit www.humboldtbaykeeper.org.

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“Helping families make decisions” Estate planning, wills, trusts and power of attorney for life transitions PO Box 176, Bayside, CA 95524 maggi@humboldt1.com

June/July 2011 ECONEWS

S

The

andpiper

JUNE/JULY 2011

Redwood Region Audubon Society Every Saturday: Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary. These are our famous rain-or-shine, docent-led field trips at the marsh; take your binocular(s) and have a great morning birding!

Meet in the parking lot at the south end of I Street in Arcata at 8:30 a.m.

Horse Mountain

© Gary Bloomfield

Saturday, June 18: Horse Mountain. We will bird high-elevation Humboldt County from Horse Mtn. to Grouse Mtn. on Forest Service Route 1.

Target species will include Townsend's Solitaire, Mountain Quail, Dusky Flycatcher, White-headed Woodpecker, and Northern Pygmy-Owl. Maybe we’ll even luck into a Northern Goshawk! Meet at 7:00 a.m. near Espresso 101 off Giuntoli Lane. Rob Fowler will lead (707) 839-3493; migratoriusfwlr@gmail.com for more information.

Bring a lunch to enjoy after the trip.

Sunday, June 19: Southern Humboldt Community Park. Robert Sutherland (707-9861112) and/or John Gaffin lead this monthly walk.

All ages and experience levels are encouraged to participate and revel in the beauty of the park and its avian inhabitants on this easy 2- to 3-hour walk. Binoculars are not provided, and dogs are not allowed; field guides are usually available, but please provide your own if possible. Steady rain cancels. Meet at 8:00 a.m. in the parking lot on Kimtu Road in Garberville.

www.rras.org

FIELD TRIPS

Cedarville or meet en route and camp at Stough Reservoir Campground (fee) near Cedar Pass (Modoc County birds). There are grocery stores in Alturas and a motel in Cedarville. We can either continue east on Hwy 299 into Nevada, where we will see wild horse herds and pronghorn antelope, or go north along Goose Lake, stopping to check for nesting birds. On the previous trip, we saw bighorn sheep. After we get onto Hwy 140, we will continue to Fields, Oregon, for lunch and a visit to the oasis (huge milkshakes and delicious hamburgers). We will check the Steens Mtn. desert overlooks (high-clearance vehicle required), stopping near the top to check snowfields for the rosy-finch. We will camp at Page Springs Campground (fee) for 2 nights and will make a strong effort to see the rosy-finches. Thereafter, we will bird the refuge, and the group will decide on options for birding in the area. For most of this area, food and services are unavailable. Check Malheur NWR website, and contact Chet Ogan (707) 442-9353 for further details. We may flex the dates. Please commit by July 1.

Sunday, July 10: Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This is a wonderful 2- to 3-hour trip for people wanting to learn the birds of the Humboldt Bay area. It takes a leisurely pace with emphasis on enjoying the birds! Beginners are more than welcome. Meet at the Refuge Visitor Center at 9:00 a.m. Call David Fix (707) 825-1195 for more information.

Saturday, July 16: eBird Site Survey—Shay Park. This monthly trip sounds more formal than it is. Join Rob Fowler (707-839-3493; migratoriusfwlr@gmail.com) as we survey the extent of Shay Park in Arcata for 1 to 3 hours and count every species present. Rob does the counting, and you do the enjoying of some of the over 130 + species that have been recorded here at this small but bird-rich urban location! For more info on the eBird site survey, visit this link at ebird.org: http:// ebird.org/content/ebird/about/eBird_Site_Survey.

Meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Shay Park parking lot that is located at the eastern end of Foster Avenue.

Sunday, July 17: Southern Humboldt Community Park.

See June 19 for details.

REMINDER: Our monthly programs are on hiatus until September 9.

Attendees from RRAS and Wintu Audubon at Lassen, June 2010. © Tom Leskiw

NO. CALIFORNIA AUDUBON CHAPTERS’

Annual Joint Field Trip Friday, July 22-Sunday, July 24 Lassen Volcanic National Park For the 3rd year, Wintu Audubon Society (AS) (Shasta County) will host this trip in search of montane species such as Black-backed Woodpecker, Clark’s Nutcracker, Mountain Bluebird, and Townsend’s Solitaire amid spectacular scenery.

Redbud AS (Lake County) will also share the group campsite, while Altacal AS (Chico) will occupy the adjoining site, providing an excellent opportunity for northern California Audubon interaction. Meet Friday afternoon at Site 6 in Lost Creek Group Camp, about 4 miles inside the park’s west entrance ($10/vehicle entry fee). We will spend late afternoon/ evening and the following day (trip to Manzanita Lake, starting at campground at 8:30 a.m. Saturday) birding the park with our hosts, who know it well.

Snow conditions will determine whether the road will be open to Hat Lake. The trip will end around noon on Sunday; there may be an optional detour to McCumber Reservoir on the way back. Tent camping space for up to 25 is provided Friday and Saturday nights by Wintu (water and pit toilets); there is extremely limited space for pickup campers but no 5th wheels or large motor homes. Bring food and insect repellent. Please inform both Bill Oliver of Wintu (530-941-7741; wwoliver9@gmail.com) and local RRAS coordinator Tom Leskiw (4425444; tomleskiw@suddenlink.net) that you will be attending.

Picnic with the Sierra Club Steens Mountain photo courtesy Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives

Friday-Monday, July 8-11: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (NWR)/Steens Mountain. We will target the Steens Mtn. area specialties: Black Rosy-Finch, Chukar, and Sage Grouse. Malheur Refuge has nesting Franklin’s Gull, Eastern Kingbird, and Bobolink. Plan to carpool from Arcata to the Cedar Pass area between Alturas and

© Sue Leskiw

September 2007 North Group picnic at Patricks Point.

RRAS members are cordially invited to attend a picnic organized by the local Sierra Club entity, North Group. The event will be held on Saturday, August 27, at Patricks Point State Park in Trinidad.

It will kick off at 10 a.m. with a bird walk led by Tom Leskiw, followed by a potluck picnic at noon.

Bring a dish to share; North Group will provide place settings and drinks. The site rental includes 25 day-use entries to the park, so please rideshare to the event. Call Sue Leskiw at 707-442-5444 to obtain the information needed to get in at no charge. Sierra Club looks forward to networking with Audubon.

CHAPTER LEADERS OFFICERS President— Jim Clark …..........................… 445-8311 Vice President — Chet Ogan …................… 442-9353 Immediate Past-President— Kerry Ross......496-0764 Secretary—Adam Brown................abrown@prbo.org Treasurer—Susan Calla..................................465-6191 DIRECTORS AT LARGE Jan Andersen...................................................616-3888 Rob Fowler ………………..............……….. 839-3493 Lew & Judie Norton.......................................445-1791 Syn-dee Noel …...............................................442-8862 Chet Ogan ………………..............………… 442-9353 C.J. Ralph .......................................................822-2015 Josée Rousseau................................................839-5763 OTHER CHAPTER LEADERS Conservation — Chet Ogan ...........................442-9353 Education — Syn-dee Noel …........................442-8862 eBird Liaison — Rob Fowler …………..….. 839-3493 Field Notes — Daryl Coldren..................916-384-8089 Field Trips— Rob Fowler ………......…..….. 839-3493 Historian — John Hewston ............................822-5288 Membership — Lew & Judie Norton.............445-1791 NEC Representative — C.J. Ralph.................822-2015 Nominating – Kerry Ross................................496-0764 Programs — C.J. Ralph...................................822-2015 Publications --- Vacant Publicity — Sue Leskiw....................................442-5444 Sandpiper (editorial) — Tom & Sue Leskiw......442-5444 —Jan Andersen ………616-3888 Sandpiper (layout) — Gary Bloomfield..........822-0210 Volunteer Coordinator — Josée Rousseau.....839-5763 Website Gatekeeper — Sue Leskiw ...............442-5444 Lake Earl Branch — Sue Calla.......................465-6191 RRAS Web Page......................................www.rras.org Arcata Bird Alert .....................822-LOON (822-5666) The Sandpiper is published six times each year by Redwood Region Audubon Society P.O. Box 1054, Eureka, CA 95502.

Thinking of Joining the National Audubon Society?

If so, please use the coupon below. By sending in your membership on this form, rather than replying to solicitations from National Audubon, $20 is sent directly to RRAS. This is how NAS rewards local chapters for recruiting national members. (Otherwise, the RRAS dues share per new member is only a couple of dollars.) Thank you.

Chapter Membership Application

Yes, I’d like to join.

Please enroll me as a member of the National Audubon Society and of my local chapter. Please send AUDUBON magazine and my membership card to the address below.

My check for $20 is enclosed. (Introductory offer)

NAME_______________________________ ADDRESS___________________________ CITY ______________________________ STATE____________ZIP______________ email ______________________________ Local Chapter Code: C1ZC240Z Please make checks to the National Audubon Society.

Send this application and your check to:

National Audubon Society P.O. Box 422250 Palm Coast, FL 32142-2250

President’s Column

by Jim Clark

Audubon: So Much More Than a Birding Club The National Audubon Society (NAS) and our chapter (RRAS) are broadly based conservation organizations with an emphasis on birds. This was illustrated even before NAS was formed. There were several artists in the 18th and early 19th century who made subscription portfolios of very good illustrations of birds. John James Audubon, however, was the first to include some of the plants and habitat associated with each bird illustration in his “Birds of America” series. Likewise, although NAS and RRAS emphasize birds, we recognize that habitat is not only the key to finding them, but conserving it is essential for their existence.

At the Audubon California assembly in San Diego, I learned what Audubon California and California chapters are doing to conserve bird habitat: * San Diego Audubon has collaborated with the local California Native Plant Society chapter and local nurseries in publishing a guide to restoring native plants to residential yards. The guide is specific to coastal scrub habitat and lists varieties of species suitable for planting in yards. * Los Angeles Audubon teamed up with a middle school to create a native plant garden from a disused play yard.

The first bloom attracted butterflies and birds that helped to enhance the natural science program. * Audubon California replaced an area of non-native grasses at Bobcat Ranch with native bunch grass that supports ground-nesting birds such as Grasshopper Sparrow. * A Yolo County high school group (SLEWS) helped to re-contour and replant a channelized creek, preventing flooding of the adjacent rice fields and saving the cooperating farmer thousands of dollars * RRAS just partnered with the Northcoast Regional Land Trust to obtain a grant to restore oak woodlands.

Go to http://ca.audubon.org/habitat.php either directly or from our recently updated website www.rras. org for more information on bird habitat improvement.

As the title of this month’s column says, Audubon is so much more than birding. The examples above involve community organization, publicity, print and electronic publication, a range of applied natural science and agricultural techniques, grant writing, education, and of course, birding, to verify the benefits of the projects.

So, like an Audubon print, with birding we include the “habitat” that supports it. We invite you to help support the diverse organizational and natural habitat that supports birding by donating your time, expertise, or other resources that you can. By working together as a team of diverse individuals, we can continue to conserve birds and a diverse natural habitat that benefits all.

Changes at RRAS

David Schumaker has stepped down as The Sandpiper editor. Starting with this issue, Sue and Tom Leskiw and Jan Andersen have agreed to serve as tri-editors. Ken Burton has resigned as RRAS’s NEC representative, with alternate C.J. Ralph taking his place. Sean McAllister is no longer webmaster; that function will be met by a combination of Sue Leskiw as website gatekeeper and Marika Benko as the programmer. RRAS thanks all those who are leaving and welcomes those taking on new responsibilities.

--------------LOCAL CHAPTER-------------

REDWOOD REGION AUDUBON SOCIETY P.O. BOX 1054 EUREKA, CA 95502

New Members

Redwood Region Audubon Society welcomes the following new members and subscribers: Arcata – Sheryl Esparza, Erin Fowler, Tracy Naveira, Ursula Osborne, Meaghan Sullivan Bridgeville – Gloria Barnwell Crescent City – Max Blair, Scott Lalla Eureka – Chris Byfield, Jean Hawthorne, Tom Keating, Carol Toler, Bonnie Wilson Fortuna – Meryl Cates McKinleyville – Claudia Brugaletta, Kaye Humphry Rio Dell – Beverly Contreras Smith River – Carol Blount Trinidad – Edna McDonald Willow Creek – Susan Abbott Zenia – Cathy Ordway

We look forward to seeing you on field trips and at our monthly programs.

Photo by Sue Leskiw

New Display Unveiled at Godwit Days

Publicity Chair Sue Leskiw has created a colorful new display that lets people know at a glance what RRAS is working on. Each photo or text block is interchangeable, as they Velcro to the trifold panels. This permits the display to be easily updated or tailored for its audience.

The categories of the photos parallel those of the new website: Field Trips & Lectures; Education; Research & Data Collection; Publications; Conservation Action; and Special Events.

New Website Launched “Hooray!!”… “It looks wonderful! It is just what was needed”… “Fabulous; so professional and user friendly”… “Looks great”… “Very lovely; thanks”… ”Loved all the links throughout”...”Wow, what a nice birthday present!”

These are some of the initial comments received in response to our e-mailed announcement of the redesigned website launch on May 8. Thanks to the programming and design talents of Marika Benko and the writing, review, and archive transfer work of RRAS publicity chair Sue Leskiw, we have an up-todate, colorful website that informs you about what your chapter has been doing and what is scheduled for the future.

The site includes pdf’s of The Sandpiper back to July 2006 as well as searchable archives of columns such as Field Notes, Bird of the Month, President’s Columns, and more, back to 1996. A new feature everyone should find useful is a monthly calendar of upcoming events (field trips, lectures, meetings). The Contacts list is completely current, if you want to e-mail or call a chapter leader.

Over time, we will be adding more features, but wanted to launch as soon as the basic site was ready to go. The URL remains the same: www.rras.org. Take a few minutes to check it out and let us know what you think. Send any comments to our website gatekeeper Sue Leskiw at sueleskiw@suddenlink.net.

Writers, Photographers Sought

If you have an idea for an article, or have taken photographs during a RRAS-sponsored event, please contact one of the editors. For example, if you especially enjoyed a field trip, why not share a few paragraphs about your experience?

All submissions are subject to editing and space limitations.

Receive Electronic Messages from RRAS Pending the addition of social networking to the RRAS website, we currently offer 2 opportunities for members to interact via e-mail.

The first is our Yahoo Group website. This is an unmoderated group list serve to which any group member may post a message. One does not have to be a RRAS member to join. This site is intended to share information about RRAS field trips and programs as well as upcoming meetings, public hearings, and symposia of interest to RRAS members and other concerned nature lovers. Members must ask to subscribe in 1 of 2 ways: through a Web page link at http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/rras or by e-mail to rras-subscribe@yahoogroups. com. This listserv is not for posting bird sightings, The second is a list serve made up of all our members who provided their e-mail when joining National Audubon Society or when becoming a local RRAS member. Its members are automatically added but may opt out by sending an e-mail reply to that effect to the moderator. This list serve does not allow individual members to contact others; all e-mails originate from the moderator and are sent out as BCCs. This list is used sporadically to contact the nearly 200 members for whom we have e-mails. Members may join by providing their e-mail to membership chairs Lew and Judie Norton (norton@humboldt1.com).

There are many benefits to joining these list serves. For example, the approximately 200 people on the membership listserv received the announcement of our website launch the beginning of May! Between the 2 sites, they can provide timely reminders of upcoming events of interest, inform people of happenings that arise between bi-monthly Sandpiper issues, distribute important announcements, let members communicate with each other, and allow the chapter to reduce special mailings (with their financial and ecological costs). So we urge you to join our 2 list serves.

RRAS Seeks Publications Committee Volunteers With the recent launch of our updated website (www. rras.org) and a revised Sandpiper publication schedule on the horizon, now is a great time to join the Publications Committee and help forge the next generation of RRAS publications. Effective print and electronic media communication to our members and the public is essential to promoting our mission.

Positions open include: Committee Chair — coordinates the committee and acts as liaison to board of directors.

Website Advisory Subcommittee – interfaces with website gatekeeper to evaluate/suggest additional functions that could be incorporated on the RRAS site.

Electronic Media Specialist — works with webmaster to develop the website, including social networking, blogs, and interactive features. This is a semitechnical position.

Special Publications — could be an individual or a subcommittee that helps with items such as bird checklists, guides, special communications to our members, and other as-needed publications.

The above positions would coordinate with our Sandpiper editorial staff Tom and Sue Leskiw and Jan Andersen, website gatekeeper Sue Leskiw, and/or Sandpiper layout specialist and artist Gary Bloomfield.

They will also work with several other committees to develop specialized multimedia publications for conservation, education, and event promotion and publicity.

We hope to establish a core committee of folks with at least a 1- to 2-year commitment and others to work on specific projects on a one-time basis. Please contact president Jim Clark at dancebirds@sbcglobal.net; (707) 445-8311, or Josée Rousseau, volunteer coordinator, at jsr@klamathbird.org for more information.

Photo by Sue Leskiw

Godwit Café Celebrates 11th Year RRAS volunteers continued to provide hot and cold food and drink to Godwit Days attendees. Three of the helpers – Chet Ogan, Larry Womack, and Ben Vernasco – are shown in the photo. RRAS would like to thank them and all the other volunteers for their service: Sandy Andersen, Samantha Barton, Ken Burton, Jim and Donna Clark, Debbie Marshall, John Mason, Kate McClain, Ron and Rinda McClure, Syn-dee Noel, Carol Wilson, and George Ziminsky.

The Same River, Twice “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.”

-- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher 500 B.C. These words remain one of my favorite sayings. The reason? Relative to bird migration, the statement is totally accurate… and yet wrong.

Namely, bird migration, especially that undertaken by neotropical migrants, has a predictable phenology. The discovery and documentation of the timing, intensity, and geographical scope of this migration can be credited to a plethora of sources: everything from the casual “feeder birdwatcher,” to ornithological research that includes analysis of Gulf Coast radar imagery, to birders combing vagrant “hot-spots” during the spring and fall.

Heraclitus was correct in stating that anyone stepping twice into the same river—bird migration or otherwise—won’t have the exact same experience.

Locally, I’ve seen a small freshwater pool that hosted a Solitary Sandpiper on April 24 morph into a muddy depression by May 9—a boon for nest-building Barn and Cliff Swallows. Another example would be Gray Flycatcher (GRFL), which is not known to breed in Humboldt County. Rather, its preference for ponderosa pine and various shrub species—where it does nest—is most prevalent on the east side of the Cascades and Sierras. From 1974-93, GRFL occurred 39 times in Humboldt County (Dr. Stan Harris, personal communication). These numbers translate to an average of about 2 birds per year, with all records except one occurring in spring.

Since 1993, there has been a significant “uptick” in the average number of GRFLs seen in Humboldt County. Because it’s unlikely that the species has made wholesale changes to its migration route beginning in 1994, I strongly suspect that the reason is due to more thorough observer coverage during the migration window for GRFL in inland areas of Humboldt County. Through trial and error, we’ve learned that this peak window is approximately April 22-May 12; this river can be waded each and every year. Granted, no one would presume to guarantee a Humboldt County GRFL during this time frame. And as Daryl Coldren and I learned this spring, one might have to travel a bit further afield, say, Ullathorne River access, 2 miles this side of Orleans, in order to proclaim “mission accomplished.”

It’s worth noting that David Fix’s recordsetting Humboldt County 1996 Big Year did not include GRFL. Granted, it takes a bit of effort to get inland during a biologist’s busy field season, but if we knew as much then as we know now of GRFL’s migration window, I suspect that the species would have made its way into David’s “found” column. (More info on GRFL migration can be found in my April 1996 Sandpiper column, archived at www.rras.org).

It’s interesting to speculate on which other species could graduate from “migration status hazy” to “This is their 2-week migration window in Humboldt.”

On April 25, 1998, I was birding Lewiston Lake with John Hunter. A bird got away from him that he felt could have been a Brewer’s Sparrow. GRFL and Brewer’s Sparrows have similar breeding and winter ranges.

Since that day with John, I’ve often asked myself, “Why couldn’t Brewer’s Sparrow be the ‘new GRFL’: a species that, with intensive coverage at the appropriate time, graduates from being considered a long-shot to one that’s predictable?” On May 5th of this year, while birding with Gary Lester on Davison Road, I uttered this theory aloud. Fifteen minutes later, we came upon a sparrow flock of 2 that consisted of a White-crowned… and a Brewer’s Sparrow.

Other than during Godwit Days, Willow Creek and Orleans receive scant coverage from April through May. The finding of 3 different Vesper Sparrows this spring (Willow Creek April 17, Orleans May 4, and Aikens Creek May 14) suggests that greater inland coverage during this time frame would likewise produce additional records for this species.

Brewer’s Sparrow ©Tony Kurz Orick, Humboldt County

I’m writing these words during the Memorial Day weekend—the annual kick-off for searching desert oases and coastal headlands for vagrant birds.

Heraclitus’s words—“You cannot step twice into the same river”—hang in the air like a subtle challenge, a motivational tool. Of course, owing to the vagaries of weather, observer coverage, and chance, no one can predict the exact suite of species to be detected.

However, an educated guess, based on past “wadings of the migrational river,” suggests that, statewide, Ovenbird, Northern Parula, and Hooded and Kentucky Warblers are likely. The migration window for Whiterumped Sandpiper is still open, as it is for Bobolink, Lark Bunting, and Broad-winged Hawk. And maybe, just maybe, lightning will strike twice—as it did on this date in 1999 for Keith Slauson and Andrea Kudrez— and the song of a Golden-winged Warbler will fill the air of the Blue Lake cottonwoods.

Tom Leskiw May 29, 2011

Tip #3 A New eBird Data Entry System

By Rob Fowler Help test the new eBird data entry system. Go to http://demo.ebird.org/ebird/submit to try out this new data entry system…especially if you haven’t tried eBird yet!

So what’s better about this new system? * Faster data entry: the data entry process is cut down from 4 steps to 3. * Customize the data entry to your needs: show or hide subspecies, age/sex, and breeding codes. * Enter species comments from the species checklist. * Record highest-level breeding codes. This will allow us to conduct a year-round atlas of breeding bird activity around the globe. The older checklist entry program didn’t have breeding codes, so this is an important new development. * Easier to add a species to a checklist. * Easier to confirm species when you get rare species flags (i.e., the beloved message “Common Crane is an excellent observation!…”). Providing supportive comments in such cases is important, so we have made it easier to do this. * More customizable data entry for specific projects

(like the Yellow-billed Magpie Survey or other research projects). * Expanded list of options for quick data entry after a submission. * New frequency sort functionality uses existing eBird data to reorder the list according to the mostlikely species at the location within the current 3-week window. This works best for locations with lots of data, but can quickly limit the list to the likely species if you submit regularly from your yard or local patch.

Most of this article is taken from the eBird homepage at http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/new-ebirddata-entry.

The Sandpiper eBird tip is a new column that hopes to inspire increased eBird use in northwestern California. If you have suggestions for an eBird tip or any other eBird-related questions, contact RRAS eBird liaison Rob Fowler at migratoriusfwlr@gmail. com. Rob reviews eBird records for Humboldt, Trinity, and Siskiyou counties and openly admits to his eBird addiction.

Photo © Hope Woodward.

RRAS Participates in Orleans

International Migratory Bird Day Tom Leskiw and Daryl Coldren served as field trip leaders for a morning bird walk with 22 adults and 2 children on Saturday, April 30, as part of “Tony Hacking Memorial Bigfoot Birding Day.” A total of 46 species were spotted at 2 locations. The preceding evening, community members gathered to hear a potpourri of speakers and enjoy viewing all 63 entries from local children in the Eighth Annual Student Bird Art Contest, cosponsored by RRAS. Six of the entries had won prizes announced at Godwit Days.

Field Notes

By Daryl Coldren

S U M M A RY O F N O R T H W E S T E R N C A L I F O R N I A B I R D R E P O R T S

1 April-31 May 2011 Field Notes is a compilation of bird sighting reports for Del Norte, Humboldt, northern Mendocino, Trinity, and western Siskiyou counties. Sources include the RRAS bird alert (707-822-LOON), the online northwestern California birding and information exchange (nwcalbird@yahoogroups.com), the Mendocino County birders’ list serve (mendobirds@yahoogroups.com), eBird (http://ebird.org/content/klamath-siskiyou), and reports submitted directly to the compiler. Future reports may be submitted to any of the sources mentioned above or to Daryl Coldren: 916-384-8089; QuiAvisPetit@aol. com.

AB = Arcata Bottoms; AD = Alexandre Dairy; AM = Arcata Marsh; AP = Alderpoint; BL = Blue Lake; BRR = Bear River Ridge; FB = Ferndale Bottoms; FBP = Fort Bragg pelagic trip; FL = Field’s Landing; FOS = first of season; HBBO = Humboldt Bay Bird Observatory; HBNWR = Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge; HC = high count; HO = holdover from previous period; LB = Loleta Bottoms; LR = last report; LT = Lake Tolowa; MOb = many observers; NC, ND = not confirmed, not documented; NJ = North Jetty, Humboldt Bay; NWR = National Wildlife Refuge; SJ = South Jetty, Humboldt Bay; SP = State Park; SRB = Smith River Bottoms; VSL = V Street loop.

Greater White-fronted Goose: 2, LB, 13 Apr (DC, RH, TK); 38, LB, 16 Apr (KR); 2, AB, 17 Apr (TK) • Ross’s Goose: 1, LB, 13 Apr (DC, RH, TK) • Aleutian Goose: 13, Bald Hill, 7 Apr (DT); 18, FB, 24 May (DC, MW); 1, Fay Slough, 30 May (RF) • Eurasian Wigeon: 1, FB, 1 Apr-1 May (MW, DC, TL, MOb); 1, HBNWR, 10-15 Apr (DF, JP, MOb); 1, LB, 22 Apr (MW, DP); 1, Eureka, 9 Apr (KR, RS) • Blue-winged Teal: 1 (FOS), AB, 11 Apr (TK) • Green-winged Teal: 1 (intergrade), AM, 11 Apr (SH) • Harlequin Duck: 3, NJ, 10 Apr (DC, DS); 1, Humboldt Bay Entrance, 1 May (DC, GL, MOb); 2, NJ, 12 May (OH); 1, Hilfiker Lane, 17 Apr (SC, MOb); 2, Virgin Creek, 29 Apr (BB); 2, Glass Beach, 1-16 Apr (DT) • Black Scoter: 1, Crab Park, 13 Apr (DC, RH, TK); 1, Crescent City Harbor, 6 May (KB) • Long-tailed Duck: 1, King Salmon, 12 Apr–8 May (TK); 1, FL, 8 Apr24 May (MW); 1, Van Damme SP, 10-14 Apr (CK, DT) • Hooded Merganser: 1, AM, 12 Apr (RH); 8, Fortuna Waterfront, 4 Apr (KB); 2, BL, 17 Apr (TK, MOb); 1, BRR, 14 Apr (TK, MOb); 2, AB, 16 Apr (KR, RS); 1, Bayside, 18 Apr (CA) • Ruddy Duck: 1, HBNWR, 8 May (DF, MOb); 1, AM, 28 May (DC, TK) • Yellow-billed Loon: 1, Table Bluff, 4 May (BS) • Red-necked Grebe: 1, SJ, 1 May (DC, MOb); • Laysan Albatross: 1, offshore Humboldt, 12 May (RM, et al.) • Short-tailed Albatross: 1, FBP, 15 May (JW, RLV, RF, KH) • Murphy’s Petrel: 1, 35+ mi offshore Humboldt, 12 May (TH, MWo, et al.); 1, offshore Humboldt, 15 May (BSh) • Pink-footed Shearwater: 12, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL, MOb) • Flesh-footed Shearwater: 1, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL, MOb) • Short-tailed Shearwater: 1, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL, MOb); 1, HSU pelagic, 12 May (TH, MWo, et al.) • Manx Shearwater: 1, FBP, 15 May (RF, RLV, KH, MOb) • Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel: 1, offshore Humbolt, 1 May (TK, DC, MOb); 7, offshore Humboldt, 22 Apr (RM, et al.); 1, offshore Humbolt, 12 May (TH, MWo, et al.) • Leach’s Storm-Petrel: 147, offshore Humboldt, 15 May (BSh); 1, FBP, 15 May (RLV, RF, KH) • Green Heron: 2, AM, 2 Apr (JP); 1, AM, 29 Apr (GZ); 1, AM, 4 May (GZ); 1, AP, 7 May (RH, JS, TK, DC); 1, AM, 11 May (RF); 1, BL, 17 May (SC); 1, AM, 13 Apr (GC); 1, Boyes Prairie, 18 Apr, 11 May (KR); 1, Ten Mile Creek, 22 Apr (DA) • White-faced Ibis: 1, Moxon Dairy, 9 May (RF, DC, MOb); 1, AD, 28 May

Common Crane, © Alan Barron, Lake Earl, Del Norte County

(AB) • Northern Goshawk: 1, Horse Mt, 5 May (RH, DC) • Golden Eagle: 2, BRR, 14 Apr (TK) • Merlin: 1, AM, 12 Apr (RH); 1, AM, 13 Apr (WL); 1 (Richardsonii), LB, 14 April (KB) • Crested Caracara (HO): 1, SRB, 31 May (AB, MOb) • Sandhill Crane: 2 (flyovers), HSU, 10 May (LP, AF) • COMMON CRANE!: 1, Lake Earl, 5-8 May (AB, MOb) • Pacific Golden-Plover: 10, LB, 22 Apr (MW, DP); 2, AB, 16 Apr (KR); 14, LB, 13 Apr (DC, RH, TK); 8, LB, 15 Apr (DS, MOb) • Black-necked Stilt: 1, HBNWR, 8 May (DF, MOb); 1, HBNWR, 10 May (DC, RH); 1, HBNWR, 18 May (RB); • Solitary Sandpiper: 1, SRB, 28 Apr (LB); 1-2, AB, 1-9 May (RF, CM, DC, GC, MOb): 5, SRB, 1 May (LB); several reports of 1-2, FB, 1-13 May (TL); 1, HBNWR, 10 May (DC, DS); 1, Eel River, 6 May (RH); 1, Mill Creek acquisition, 3 May (JS, TK) • Lesser Yellowlegs: 48!, Lake Earl, 21 Apr (LB) • Ruddy Turnstone: many reports of 1-4 birds, LT, AM, NJ, FL, 4 Apr-29 May (DF, OH, RB, LB, MOb); 11 (HC), AM, 3 May (KB) • Red Knot: 1-14, AM, 5 Apr-12 May (DF); 1, LT, 21 May (LB); 1 May (LB); 1, AB, 20 Apr (TK) • Rock Sandpiper: 1-4, NJ, 12-24 Apr (MW, OH, DS, MM, MOb) • Red-necked Phalarope: many reports of 1-40, HBNWR, AM, FB, 1-28 May (MOb); 40, HBNWR, 10 May (DC, DS); 30, AM, 3 May (NL); 150, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL,TK, MOb); 900, FBP, 15 May (RL, RF, MOb) • Red Phalarope: 75, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL,TK, MOb); 1,100, FBP, 15 May (RF, RL, MOb) • Glaucous Gull: 1, Stone Lagoon, 12 May (TK); 2, Pudding Creek Lagoon, 24 Apr (DT); 1, Pudding Creek Lagoon, 28 Apr (DT) • Sabine’s Gull: 12, HSU pelagic, 1 May (DC, GL, MOb); 360, FBP, 15 May (RL, RF, KH) • Black Tern: 1, FBP, 15 May (RL, RF, KH) • Tufted Puffin: 12, Castle Rock, 16 Apr (RF, MOb); 2, Big Lagoon, 5 May (MH); 4, Castle Rock, 5 May (JS, TK) • White-winged Dove: 1 (NC, ND), Trinidad, 6 May (MH) • Long-eared Owl: 1, Humboldt Redwoods SP, 24 May (TK, JS) • Short-eared Owl: 2, Mad River Slough, 9 Apr (WM); 2, VSL, 14 Apr (RB); 2, VSL, 17 Apr (SC, MOb); 1, Mad River Slough, 24 Apr (WM); • Common Poorwill: 1, Mill Creek acquisition, 21 Apr (TK, JS) • Black Swift: 657+!, McKinleyville, 31 May (KR, RS, RF, CW), 100+, Moonstone Beach, 31 May (DC, RH, DS); 3, Crescent City, 31 May (AB) • White-throated Swift: 2, Honeydew Bridge, 9 May (TK, MOb); 1-3, BL, 1 Apr-8 May (KI, RH, MOb); 5, Benbow Bridge, 20 May (KR); 4, Garberville, 10 Apr (KB)

Loggerhead Shrike, © Greg Chapman, Arcata, Humboldt County

TL, DC, RH, MOb) • Vesper Sparrow: 1, Big Rock, 1718 Apr (TL, LN, MOb); 1, Orleans, 4 May (DC, TK, RH, KB); 1, Aikens Creek, 14 May (KB,,TL, MOb) • Lark Sparrow: 1, Humboldt Hill, 3 May (DC); 1, Shay Park, 28 May (JO); 1, BRR, 14 Apr (TK); 1, SRB, 1 May (AB); many, AP, 7-8 May (DC, RH, TK) • Black-throated Sparrow: 1, Orleans, 14 May (TK, RH, DC, TL, MOb); 2, Orleans, 15 May (TK, RH, DC, KB, TL, RB) • Lark Bunting: 1, SRB, 29 May (PS) • Grasshopper Sparrow: 1, SRB, 16 May (LB); 3, Dyerville Loop, 7-8 May (DC, RH, TK) • Swamp Sparrow: 1, HBNWR, 13 May (TK); 1, AB, 16 Apr (KR) • White-throated Sparrow: 1, BL, 19 Apr (KI); 1, BL, 5 May (DC, RH); 1, SRB, 15 May (LB); 1, HBNWR, 8-10 May (DC, TK, DS); 1, Ft Bragg, 1-18 Apr (DT) • Slate-colored Junco: 1, AM, 8 Apr (RH) • Indigo Bunting: 1, Arcata, 17-19 May (CW, MOb); 1, AM, 28-30 May (GZ, PB, RF, TK, KI, MOb); • Tricolored Blackbird: 1, FB, 30 May (OH) • Yellowheaded Blackbird: 1, Ocean Meadows, 13 May (KH); 1, Lake Earl, 5-6 May (AB, TK, KB); 1, Moxon Dairy, 12 May (KJ) • Great-tailed Grackle: 1, Hilficker, early May (DD); 1, Cooks Valley, 23 May (JD) • Hooded Oriole: 1, Ft Humboldt, 14 Apr (DJ); 1, Ft Humboldt, 18 May (DJ);1, Arcata, 22 May (TK, DS, WL); 1, Arcata, 23 May (DS); 3, Arcata, 24 May (KI); 1, Sawyer’s Bar, Sis Co, 25 May (SCo); 1, Humboldt Hill, 28 May (DC, TK) • Lawrence’s Goldfinch: 1, BL, 24 May (PL) • Evening Grosbeak: 30 (HC), BL, 24 Apr (DS, CO); many reports of 1-20 at feeders throughout the area.

Calliope Hummingbird, ©Tony Kurz Orleans, Humboldt County

• Calliope Hummingbird: 1, McKinleyville, 28 Apr (GL, LL, MOb); 1, Orleans, 15 May (KB, TK) • Willow Flycatcher: 1 (FOS), Big Bar, 14 May (TL, DC, MOb) • Hammond’s Flycatcher: 2 (FOS), BL, 21 Apr (RF) • Gray Flycatcher: 1, Orleans, 29 Apr (TL, DC); 2, Orleans, 30 Apr (TL, DC, BC); 1, Orleans, 14 May (DC, TL, et al.); 1, Orleans, 15 May (DC, TK, TL, et al.) • Eastern Phoebe: 1, Klamath Glen, 14 May (LB) • Brown Shrike: 1, McKinleyville, 21 Nov-18 May (GL, LL, MOb) • Loggerhead Shrike: 1, Moxon Dairy, 9-11 May (DC, MOb) • Bank Swallow: 70, Smith River, 1 May (AB), “many,” McKinleyville, 21 May (GL, MOb) • Oak Titmouse: 2, AP, 7-8 May (DC, RH, TK); 1(LR), Crescent City, 27 Apr (SL) • White-breasted Nuthatch: 1, AP, 8 May (DC, RH, TK) • Rock Wren: 1, Big Lagoon, 16 May (TK); 1, Aikens Creek, 14 May (TL, MOb); 1, Arcata, 14 May (DF); 1, Mill Creek acquisition, 31 May (TK, RS, JS) • Canyon Wren: 1, Bluff Creek, Orleans, 30 Apr-15 May (JG, MOb) • House Wren: 1, BL, 17 May (RH) • Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: 1, BL, 29 May (RH) • Northern Mockingbird: 1, Eureka, 6 May (TK); 1, Arcata, 13 Apr (GO); 1, HBBO, 13 May (DS) • Sage Thrasher: 1, SRB, 21 Apr (LB) • Tennessee Warbler: 1, Trinidad, 4 May (MH) • Palm Warbler: 1, AM, 9 Apr-5 May (DF, JO, GZ, MOb); 1, Fortuna, 24 Apr (TL); 1, AB, 21 Apr (JO) • Black-and-white Warbler: 1, BL, 19 May (KI) • Green-tailed Towhee: 1, Orleans, 4 May (TK, KB, DC, RH) • Rufous-crowned Sparrow: 3, AP, 7-8 May (DC, RH, TK) • Clay-colored Sparrow: 1, SRB, 16 May (LB) • Brewer’s Sparrow: 1, Orick, 5 May (GL,

Black-throated Sparrow, © Daryl Coldren Orleans, Humboldt County

Thanks to all who have submitted sightings!

Dan Airola, Colin Anderson, Alan Barron, Pat Bitton, Jeff Black, Gary Bloomfield, Becky Bowen, Lucas Brug, Ralph Bucher, Ken Burton, Greg Chapman, Bob Claypole, Scott Carey, Daryl Coldren, Sara Colvig (SCo), John Dimmick, Laura Dodd, Doyle Doss, Erica Fielder, Allison Fuller, David Fix, Rob Fowler, Justin Garwood, Melody Hamilton, Stan Harris, Holly Harvey, Todd Hass, Karen Havlena, Owen Head, Rob Hewitt, Ken Irwin, Kristin Jesenko, Dave Juliano, Jeff Jacobsen, Carolyn Kinet, Tony Kurz, Will Lawton, Nikki Leskinen, Tom Leskiw, Gary Lester, Lauren Lester, Ron LeValley, Sky Lloyd, Paul Lohse, Mark Magneson, Ryan Merrill, Whitney Michaelis, Cindy Moyer, Alisa Muniz, Lew Norton, Chet Ogan, Grace Oliver, John Oliver, Diane Petty, Larry Pitts, Jude Power, Kerry Ross, Jesse Sargent, Barry Sauppe, Paul Senyszyn, Bill Shelmerdine (BSh), Rachel Smith, Dave Spangenburg, Dorothy “Toby” Tobkin, Amber Transou, Matt Wachs, Jerry White, Carol Wilson, Michael Woodruff, George Ziminsky.

Community Wheel A publication of greenwheels

Humboldt’s Advocate for Transportation Choices

Wetland & Stream Restoration Bike Tour

This month Green Wheels teams up with the City of Arcata and the Friends of the Arcata Marsh to sponsor a bicycle tour of one of the things Arcata does best: wetland and stream restoration projects.

On Saturday June 25, 2011, at 2 p.m., Green Wheels will lead an 8-mile bike tour of the City’s restored wetlands at McDaniel’s Slough and Janes Creek. Julie Neander, from the City’s Environmental Services Department, will be on hand (and on bike) to tell you everything you want to know about the City’s watershed approach to protecting and improving in-stream and riparian habitat, controlling flood routes, and beautifying our community.

You’ll also see first-hand the invasive reed canary grass, which is one Seeing the picturesque Arcata Marsh by bike. Photo: E. Sinkhorn. of this watershed’s current challenges.

Learn how to identify the invasive reed we of Janes Creek (near Janes Creek Meadow love to hate! subdivision).

Meet at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center This will be a fun, guided group ride with parking lot (South G Street) to pedal off at 2 p.m. little elevation gain (read: no hills!) and suitable The bike tour’s first stop is the McDaniel Slough for all biking levels. Families are welcome. Bring Project at the Marsh. Then we ride into the City your helmet and some water to safely enjoy the to look at restored wetlands along Janes Creek, route. E-mail emily@green-wheels.org for more from the Greenview neighborhood (11th St., Q information or if you are interested in being a St., Zehndner) to the confluence of the south fork ride volunteer.

Really! We’re not just about bicycling!

Green Wheels works for a healthier community, economy, and environment, advocating for balanced and sustainable transportation for the North Coast.

Summer “BikeSmart” Training for Youth

For the 18th consecutive year, the Humboldt Bay Bicycle Commuters Association is offering free BikeSmart training to youth in the Humboldt Bay region. The training is conducted in Eureka and is given throughout the summer. Free helmets are provided to those who need them.

The training is two hours long and involves helmet fitting, learning the rules of the road and one hour of on-street training. The intent is to teach young cyclists how to ride safely, effectively and defensively.

Classes are on weekends and are arranged to meet the participants’ schedules. Each class is limited to five children. Parents may accompany their children if they wish. For an application, please call Rick Knapp at 707-445-1097 or visit the HBBCA website http://www.humbike.org for information.

Kidical Masses in Humboldt, too!

Did you know that you’re missing Humboldt Kidical Mass rides? Huh? Kidical Mass exists in cities throughout the U.S., and last year got started here by a few local yokels. Kidical Mass is a legal, safe and FUN bike ride for kids, kids at heart, and their families.

Why do we ride? All types of bikes—trailers, traila-bikes, tandems, folders—are welcome!

Summer rides are the second Saturday of the month starting at 2 p.m., and last about an hour.

Rides leave from the Northcoast Children’s Center, 1266 9th Street, Arcata. Rides go at a childfriendly pace, and each month has a fun theme.

July’s theme is ice scream(!). Bikeable costumes are encouraged.

Strap on your helmets, load up the kids, and come pedal with us! http://www. humboldtkidicalmass.org.

Green Wheels at the Finish Line of the Tour of the Unknown Coast Green Wheels helped record race times at the finish line of another successful Tour of the Unknown Coast bicycle race on May 7th down in Ferndale. The TUC is organized by Team Bigfoot and is considered by many to be California’s toughest century ride. Green Wheels cheered in over 800 participants of the 100 mile, 100 km, 50 mile, 20 mile and 10 mile races. Good weather helped propel all the riders on a successful tour.

Accomplished TUC finishers are greeted and recorded by Green Wheels volunteers. Photo: Photos: C. Bligh.

ECONEWS June/July 2011

www.yournec.org

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ep c

The Environmental Protection Information Center 145 G Street, Suite A, Arcata, CA 95521

www. wildcalifornia.org

(707) 822-7711

Logging Practices Change Local Watershed Rob DiPerna Green Diamond Resource Company (aka Simpson Timber) owns approximately 400,000 acres of highly valuable and productive redwood forest on the North Coast. Despite the greenwashing of the company name, the intensive and damaging logging practices of the old regime have not changed. Large scale, intensive industrial forestland management that relies heavily on clearcuts, roads, and herbicides still dominates the landscape across Green Diamond/Simpson’s ownership. The Maple Creek watershed serves as a stark and grizzly example of intensive and systematic liquidation of forest resources as practiced by Green Diamond/Simpson.

Maple Creek is a perennial fish-bearing stream that drains to Big Lagoon, and then the Pacific Ocean. Maple Creek supports threatened populations of Coho and Chinook salmon, as well as anadromous Steelhead trout, and resident Cutthroat trout. Portions of Maple Creek also support sensitive amphibian species such as Southern Torrent Salamander and Tailed frogs.

Little is known about the condition of fish, forests, and wildlife in Maple Creek since nearly the entirety of the watershed is privately owned

by Green Diamond/Simpson, and the company conducts little to no surveys or monitoring.

What monitoring Green Diamond/Simpson has done in Maple Creek headwaters suggests that sediment inputs from roads continue to impair the watershed.

Maple Creek has been subjected to a high and very intense rate of harvest over the last 13 years. The Maple Creek watershed area totals 16,841 acres. According to Cal Fire’s GIS database of logging plans, between 1997 and 2009, approximately 59 percent of the watershed

has been logged. Based on the best available data, we have estimated that in the next 10 years, (including THPs proposed for 2010 and 2011) Green Diamond/ Simpson will harvest and additional 3,839 acres within the Maple Creek Planning Watershed.

This brings the amount of past, current, and projected harvest within the Maple Creek Watershed to 82 percent of the watershed in approximately 23 years. We estimate about 75 percent of this harvesting will be done by clearcutting.

The intensive and systematic liquidation of forest resources in Green Diamond has logged 60% of the Maple Creek watershed-in ten years they intend to log 82%.

Maple Creek has left the watershed devoid of a such as the Department of Forestry (Cal Fire) and variety of forest ages and types, and has resulted the Department of Fish and Game have failed to in the loss of habitat structure and complexity uphold the law and applicable forest practices necessary to support the variety of wildlife that regulations in the context of the high rate and once inhabited the watershed. In particular, the intensity of logging in the Maple Creek watershed. rate of clearcutting in Maple Creek has lead to These agencies have failed to enforce meaningful large-scale conversion of recovering forests to limits on logging rate and intensity in Maple moonscapes and plantations.

Creek, resulting in the accumulation of impacts The Maple Creek watershed is just one to fish, wildlife, streams, and forests. Here the of many examples of Green Diamond/Simpson’s California Forest Practice Rules as implemented overall management goals– intensive evenaged by Cal Fire fail to acknowledge, assess, or address management that relies heavily on clearcuts and the accumulation of clearcutting, road building, herbicides, roads, short forest stand rotations, herbicide applications, and impacts to fish, and ultimately, forest liquidation. Public agencies forests, streams and wildlife.

Beneficial Fires Restore Vibrant Forests

Andrew Orahoske

Welcome to summer! Breathe deeply. Do you smell wood smoke? Chances are that we may very well have an active fire season despite the heavy rainfall. Regardless of how California’s fire season turns out, there are several key issues that will play out over the coming months.

Score one for the Forest Service as blazers in Arizona and New Mexico receive softball coverage from the media. Even though much of the burned lands were of low intensity, even “beneficial,” the federal government poured millions of dollars into stopping the fires, only to be eventually quelled by the monsoon rains.

It should be noted that throughout our nation’s history, the tendency toward sensational, outlandish journalism may have contributed more to hysteria than was perhaps warranted. To read any article about wildfire, it is almost impossible to miss the words “catastrophic, torched, blackened, destroyed, devastated, or wasteland.”

Any local can tell you that fires are a regular thing, some are worse than others, and the most important rule is to stay out of the way. The irony is that we’re burning up important reserves in fighting these fires than if we just let them go, both economically and ecologically. Certainly there are places where we must fight fires, but they may be fewer than you may think.

When natural elements like lightning and wind create a firestorm, there are places that should be allowed to burn. This natural course of events, in a unique way, secures our public safety and protects our natural heritage. “Beneficial fire” is something we are only beginning to understand. This is why it is important to ask questions about wildfires in our region.

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not all of the fires around these redwood forests before the dawn of the California Gold Rush, having a significant impact on the landscape.

The loss of anthropogenic fires in our region is of critical concern.

Green Diamond has logged 60% of the Maple Creek watershed-in ten years they intend to log 82%. Photo courtesy of EPIC.

What is the Best Available Science?

The latest studies on fire suppression indicate that the lack of anthropogenic fire is problematic for the ecosystem, even endangering some habitat types, such as oak woodland and grassland.

A recent study from southwestern Oregon shows that fire intervals suffer more from the lack of precise ignition of fires by people, than from active suppression of wildfire. As a perfect juxtaposition to our current management of fire, those that lived here before us not only embraced fire, but wielded it with great skill and appreciation of its value.

Interestingly enough, even coast redwood is somehow fire adapted, despite the species’ fondness of fog and the scarcity of lightning in their range. UC Berkeley forestry students analyzed the fire scars on historic redwood stumps in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They were able to determine the mean fire interval for the general area at roughly 12 years, with a range from 6 to 26 years, from the early 1600s to around the 1850s. Natural fire ignitions within the range of the coast redwood are infrequent. Native people started most, if

www.yournec.org

What have we been doing recently?

For almost the entire 20th century, the dominant theme was intense suppression activities from the beginning, only gaining strength as we shoveled more public resources into developing air tankers, fire retardants and public relations campaigns. Only just after the Yellowstone fires of 1988 has the public come around to the idea of letting a wildfire just burn free, without lifting a hand. In addition to the double-sided war on fire and fire starters, a lot of logging, mining, grazing, road building and general development also proceeded without delay.

What did people do before?

While I cannot say for sure, I think we can all acknowledge that native people set fires in our region for many reasons, and regularly. The studies mentioned above that attempted to reconstruct pre-colonial fire regimes are groundbreaking but also rudimentary, only cracking the surface on what knowledge is out on the landscape. In any event, things were done very differently before the 1850s.

Where will our fires be?

Squaring the historical record and our current treatment of wildfire is difficult to understand, as they are so different. Because people are now waking up from fire hysteria, it will be interesting to observe the public’s reaction when more of our resources are wasted on fighting fires that would have helped us in the end. Will there be approval? Or will there be revolt?

June/July 2011 ECONEWS

CNPS HAPPENINGS

News and Events from the North Coast Chapter of the California Native Plant Society Beginners and experts, non-members and members are all welcome at our programs and on our outings.

Almost all of our events are free. All of our events are made possible by volunteer effort.

including sun. Bring plenty of lunch and water.

Some of us will camp in the area Saturday night and explore more on Sunday. Lodging is available in Orleans. Meet at the Orleans Ranger Station at 10 a.m., about 2 hours from Eureka. Call to tell us you are coming: Carol 822-2015, Dave 707-444-2756.

EVENING PROGRAMS Second Wednesday evening, September through May. Refreshments at 7 p.m.; program at 7:30 p.m.

Programs are held at the Six Rivers Masonic Lodge, 251 Bayside Road, near 7th and Union, Arcata.

Wednesday, September14, 7:30 p.m.

Dr. Jim Smith will give a presentation updating the Nightshade Family. Details will be available later this summer.

FIELD TRIPS AND PLANT WALKS Outings are open to everyone, not just members. All levels of expertise, from beginners to experienced botanizers, are welcome. Address questions about physical ability requirements to the leader.

Saturday, June 18, 8:30 a.m.-noon.

Horse Mountain Outing An Introduction to Horse Mountain Botanical Area. Harsh, serpentine soils and their special flora are part of the treat offered by this easily accessed, montane part of Six Rivers National Forest. This short walk (less than 2 miles) will introduce interesting shrubs, conifers, and delicate, spring flowers found among the grand vistas. Dress for walking on gravel roads and uneven terrain in mountain weather (much colder than the coast).

Bring food and water, including your lunch if you don’t have to rush off. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at Pacific

Horse Mountain Vista. Photo: Sylvia White

Union School (3001 Janes Road, Arcata), or at 9 a.m. at the beginning of Titlow Hill Road off Highway 299, or 9:30 a.m. at the parking area on Titlow Hill Road at the turn-off to Horse Mountain summit. Call Carol to say where you will meet us: 707-822-2015.

Saturday, June 25, (and Sunday, June 26).

“Looking for Lewisia”.

A Rare Plant Treasure Hunt. Lewisia kelloggii, a relative of bitterroot, was thought to live only in the Sierra Nevada, until it was discovered last year northwest of Orleans! The purpose of this trip is to look for more. First we will drive a short distance up Forest Road 12N12 (Cedar Camp Rd.) and hike a short distance to see the known plant and explore the interesting serpentine flora. Then we’ll spread out to search for more Lewisia and other serpentine goodies. Hiking will be cross-country or old mining roads with some steep slopes. Wear good hiking boots. Be prepared for any weather,

Friday-Sunday, July 22-24.

Cook and Green Pass day hikes and overnights.

Descriptions of this area north of Seiad on the Klamath River, close to Oregon in the Klamath National Forest, are full of superlatives, e.g. “the largest single aggregation of native plant species known to occur in one limited area in California.”

We won’t be able to see them all, but we’ll enjoy what we do! Brewer spruce, Sadler oak, false bugbane, phantom orchid, queen’s cup, spotted coralroot, iris, bear grass, pussy ears, etc. Trails head in three directions, including into the Cook and Green Pass Geologic and Botanic Area.

Where we camp Friday and Saturday nights will depend on the size of the group. Lodging is available along the Klamath (Route 96). Call to tell Carol if you are considering or certainly coming: 707-822-2015.

Saturday-Sunday, August 13-14.

Save the date for a day hike, possible overnight.

Please watch for later additions on our Web site (www.northcoastcnps.org) or sign up for e-mail announcements Northcoast_CNPS-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com). Everyone is welcome. No botanical knowledge required. We are out there to share and enjoy.

NORTH GROUP NEWS

A List of Events & Conservation Updates From the North Group Redwood Chapter Sierra Club Slot to Open on ExCom One of our valuable members, Jennifer Wood, is leaving the area this summer. We are looking for a member to step up and try to fill her shoes.

With over a thousand Sierra Club members in the geographic area of North Group, there must be someone to help us out. The Executive Committee meets the second Tuesday of each month in Eureka from 7-9 p.m. Why not attend the June 14 meeting and see what we’re all about?

Info: Gregg at greggjgold@netscape.net or Sue at sueleskiw@suddenlink.net.

Picnic Set for August Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 27, to attend a picnic at Patrick’s Point State Park in Trinidad, hosting Redwood Region Audubon Society members. Bring a dish to share; we will supply drinks, place settings, and a grill. Bird walk at 10 a.m.; lunch at noon. Info: Sue 707-442-5444.

Seeking Rep for CalTrans Advisory Group North Group seeks a conservation-minded transportation advocate for a seat on the CalTrans DEAL Committee. This group meets quarterly in Eureka for approximately 90 minutes (mornings). Here’s your chance to sit on a committee with Humboldt and Del Norte County supervisors, field staff from the State Assembly and Senate, and representatives from the Harbor District, CHP, Teamsters, building trades industry, and more. You’ll advise CalTrans about safety and impacts of local projects and report back to NG. To apply, send at least one paragraph about your qualifications to Jennifer at northgroupclimate@sbcglobal.net.

Grazing Intern Supported North Group voted to allocate $800 to support a summer intern to monitor selected grazing allotments in three Klamath Mountain National Wilderness Areas: Marble Mountain, Russian and Trinity Alps Wilderness Areas. The intern will document and help publicize negative impacts of unmanaged/poorly managed grazing on

ECONEWS June/July 2011

water quality, wilderness values, and recreation.

This project to reform grazing management and practices is a collaboration between the Klamath Forest Alliance and the Environmental Protection Information Center. ExCom member Felice Pace leads the project and is responsible for mentoring, accompanying, and supervising the interns.

Hikes and Meetings Saturday, May 18. Six Rivers National Forest, Horse Mountain Loop Hike.

Enjoy panoramic views at 4000 feet as you hike 5 miles within this nearby region that’s being considered for trails development. Expect rough, stony sections. Bring lunch, liquids, sunscreen; wear layers and boots. No dogs. Meet at noon at SW corner of Valley West Shopping Center parking lot to carpool. Leader: Melinda 707-6684275 or mgroomster@gmail.com.

Sunday, June 26. Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Fern Canyon Hike.

This 10-mile hike follows James Irvine trail through forest to Fern Canyon, then upstream through steep-walled canyon before return.

Bring water, lunch, and shoes that can get wet. No dogs. Carpools meet 9:30 a.m. at McKinleyville Safeway parking lot or 10:30 a.m. outside Elk Prairie Visitors Center. Leader: Bill 707-839-5971.

lot, where one might see Roosevelt Elk. Great beginning hike for kids, but not stroller-friendly.

Bring water, lunch, and good walking shoes.

Carpools meet 9:30 a.m. at Arcata Safeway parking lot or 10:30 a.m. at trailhead off Davison Road. Leader: Allison 707-268-8767. Rain cancels.

Tuesday, July 12. Executive Committee Meeting.

Discuss local conservation issues from 8-9 p.m. or come for NG business meeting starting at 7 p.m. at the Adorni Center, on the Eureka Waterfront. Info: Gregg 707-826-3740.

Wednesday, July 13. Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Friendship Ridge Loop Hike.

Experience wildflowers, ferns, old-growth, ocean glimpses, and waterfalls on this 8-mile loop hike.

From Fern Canyon Trailhead, to Friendship Ridge Trail and West Ridge Trail, along Butler Creek to Coastal Trail. Some sections steep. Bring lunch, water, and rugged footwear. No dogs. Carpools meet 9 a.m. at SW corner of Valley West Shopping Center parking lot or 10 a.m. at Elk Meadows Day Use Area off Davison Road. Leader: Melinda 707-668-4275 or mgroomster@gmail.com.

Sunday, July 3. Redwood National Park, Tall Trees Grove Hike.

Hike along Redwood Creek from Orick to some of the tallest trees in the world! Route is long (18 miles) but fairly flat. Bring water, lunch and good walking shoes.

No dogs. Preregistration required. Leader: Bill 707-839-5971.

Sunday, July 10. Redwood National Park, Trillium Falls Trail Parent & Child Hike.

Stroll this 2.5-mile loop trail past a waterfall and through old-growth redwood. Trailhead starts at Elk Meadow Day Use Area parking

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Attendees enjoy the North Group picnic in 2007 at Patricks Point State Park. Photo: Sue Leskiw.

13

And Now for Some Good News..

Rights of Nature Laws Give Ecosystems a Fighting Chance Sarah O’Leary What if tomorrow’s headlines read, BP pleads guilty to 25 counts of environmental destruction, $85 billion fine to be used to restore gulf ecosystem.

Okay, it’s a fantasy now, but such a thing could happen if the U.S. were to ever adopt “Rights of Nature” laws, perhaps writing them into its constitution as Ecuador did in September of 2008.

Bolivia is now poised to be the first country to pass a law that grants Mother Nature equal rights to those of humans.

Rights of Nature is a burgeoning movement to amend legal systems so they support a balanced relationship between humans and the environment. The movement, led by indigenous peoples from around the globe, seeks to transform the prevalent mindset of human dominance over nature.

Last April, just two days before Earth Day, The Bolivian delegation to the United Nations urged the UN to adopt the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was presented to the UN by international environmental activists, Cormac Cullinan and Vandana Shiva during the UN Dialogue on Harmony with Nature.

“What I love about the Rights of Mother Earth is we’re overcoming the separation between humans and nature that was built into the Cartesian thinking that nature is out there and we are out here,” said Shiva during an Earth Day Broadcast on Democracy Now. “Most civilizations of the world, for most of human history, have seen the world in terms of relatedness and connection. And if there’s one thing the rights of Mother Earth are waking us to, it is that we are all connected.”

Bolivia is following in the footsteps of neighboring Ecuador, the first country to recognize the Rights of Nature in its constitution. Ecuador’s rewritten constitution was ratified in September 2008. It includes articles that acknowledge that nature in all its life forms has the “right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.” Individuals have the legal authority to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the defendant.

GET INVOLVED! Rights of Nature Youth Project is promoting a grass roots letter writing campaign to Presidents, Prime Ministers and other world leaders to encourage recognition of nature’s rights. Copies of letters sent to world leaders will be presented to the UN General Assembly at the Earth Summit 2012/Rio+20 in Rio next year. See http://www.RightsofMotherEarth.com.

Bolivia’s new law has identified 11 new legal rights of nature, including: the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to be free of pollution; the right for the integrity of cellular structures; and the right to resist development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.

The law necessitates a fundamental reorientation of Bolivia’s economy, requiring existing and future laws to accept the ecological limits set by nature. Rather than emphasizing the production of more goods, public policy must be guided by the concept of living in harmony with nature.

This means, among other things, a transition to renewable energy, the regulation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the investment of resources in energy efficiency and organic agriculture, and a requirement that corporations and individuals be held accountable for negative environmental impacts.

Although the law is expected to pass with little opposition, many fear that it will not be enough to effect real change in environmental industrial practices because of the country’s economic dependence on extractive industries.

Last year more than two-thirds of Bolivia’s exports were in oil, gas or minerals.

But Bolivia’s social movements are gaining power, and their members are passionate

about making the transition to a more earthcentered economy. The Rights of Nature laws are an important step in that direction.

Nature Gains Legal Rights in U.S.

Legal changes to protect the rights of Mother Earth are gaining ground here in the Northern Hemisphere too.

Pittsburgh is the first city in the U.S. to recognize legally binding rights of nature, and last November the city council passed a law banning the destructive oil extraction process of hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking.”

About two dozen communities throughout the U.S. heartland have joined Pittsburgh in passing local ordinances in recognition of nature’s rights. Several California communities are developing similar laws.

Many of these municipalities are working with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), an organization that recognizes that environmental protection cannot be attained under a structure of law that treats natural communities and ecosystems as property.

“This work is about expanding the body of legal rights to include nature,” said Mari Margil, Associate Director of CELDF. “Today, legal systems treat nature as property, with no legal rights of its own.

Thus people in communities are unable to defend the rights of ecosystems where they live, because there are no rights to defend.”

Our existing structure of law can only slow—but not halt—the rate of environmental destruction, she added.

Corporate ‘rights’ are often wielded to destroy ecosystems. It’s time that Mother Nature was afforded equal rights. Our very survival could depend on it.

Sarah O’Leary is an Arcata-based freelance writer and a former editor of EcoNews.

Image: Pictographic representation of Pachamama “Mother Earth” in Inca mythology. Source: Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org.

Learn More:

Read about the growing Rights of Nature movement, and view a video of Interactive Panel Debate on sustainable development hosted by the United Nations this past April at the web site of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. http://therightsofnature.org.

Learn about the movement to shift U.S. laws, and the history of the Rights of Nature movement from the Community Environmental Defense Legal Fund, http://celdf. org/rights-of-nature.

David Tyndall

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June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Eco-Mania Salient sillies..

ARISE PRINCE WILLY: To mark the royal wedding, British brewers have created the world’s first beer laced with Viagra.

Downing just three bottles of Royal Virility Performance is equivalent to taking one of the blue pills, according to makers BrewDog. The 7.5 per cent India Pale Ale also contains extra aphrodisiacs, including Horny Goat Weed and even chocolate. All proceeds go to charity.

MIND OVER MATTER: Robotic limbs controlled solely by the mind could be available to paralyzed people within a year.

Monkeys are being trained to control what might be the world’s most sophisticated and human-like robot arm. But they never touch the prosthetic limb or fiddle with a remote control: they guide it with their thoughts alone. If trials are successful, in a few months from now people with spinal cord injuries could learn to do the same.

BUT CAN HE RUN? A Dutch football club has taken youth scouting to the extreme by signing an 18-month-old after seeing a clip of him kicking balls into his toy box.

The toddler showed off his skills on YouTube, and VVV Venlo signed him to a ten-year “token” contract. His grandad played for the same team, and a club spokesman said: “We can speak of a right-footed player with a very good kicking technique, perseverance and, importantly, football genes via his grandfather.”

FORGOT SOMETHING? A Swedish robber who hid in a bank vault for a three-day weekend was caught because he left behind bottles of his urine — and therefore his DNA. While inside the vault, located in Copenhagen, the man and his accomplice emptied 140 safety deposit boxes of about $425,000 in cash and jewelry. They managed to surprise bank staff and escape when the vault was reopened.

The evidence helped prosecutors win a 21-month prison sentence for the Swede. His accomplice, who didn’t leave his urine behind, is still at large and the loot hasn’t been recovered

DEROGATORY TERM: People should stop calling their animals “pets” because it’s insulting, leading academics claim.

They should instead be called “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human care,” they say. The call came from the Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication. In its first editorial, the journal also condemns the use of terms such as “critters, beasts and even wildlife” because it suggests “uncivilized.”

DIGITAL SOUL: More than a quarter of a million Facebook users will die this year alone.

But thanks to cheap storage and easy copying, their “digital souls” have the potential to be truly immortal. What do you want to leave behind?

ONE OR THE UDDER: A Chinese cow gave birth to a two-headed calf, each head pointing in the opposite direction and each with its own eyes, nose and mouth.

The cow had been a mother many times previously and her calves had all been healthy and normal. This time the calf came out, heads first.

THIS PROPOSAL SUCKS: Harmful suction dredge gold mining would be allowed throughout California rivers, extremely damaging to frogs, salmon, trout—and overall water quality, according to a California Department of Fish and Game proposal. Write Mark Stopher at California Department of Fish & Game, 601 Locust St, Redding, CA 96001, or by email at dfgsuctiondredge@dfg.ca.gov, and tell him what you think.

TASTE TESTS: One in ten children have taste disorders, which can be caused by Bell’s palsy, renal failure, diabetes and chronic middle-ear infections.

What’s more, this may also partly explain the rise of childhood obesity since children with taste disorders are heavier than those without. While loss of taste sensations and childhood obesity is “a reasonable link,” says Beverly Mühlhäusler at the University of Adelaide, it is also possible that obese children are predisposed to getting ear infections since they have a thicker fat pad around their ears.

REPRIEVE: The world’s largest freshwater fish, the Mekong giant catfish, was spared — temporarily — because a decision to build a giant dam on the Mekong river was deferred.

Officials from the four countries on the lower Mekong failed to agree on whether to approve the Xayaburi dam. Laos wants to build the dam on its stretch of the river and sell the electricity it generates, but Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam all have reservations. The matter could be settled at a meeting of a council of ministers in October.

FLAG-GELATION: An Indian businessman has the flags of more than 300 countries, plus maps of l85 of them, tattooed on his body—which he says will promote world peace.

Har Prakash also wants to get his name in the record books for having the longest will in the world and for delivering a pizza from New Delhi to San Francisco.

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Nuclear Crisis

Sacred Water

Continued from page 4

Continued from page 4 development on their territories, because what some may consider “sustainable solutions” can, in fact, displace people, subvert Indigenous cultures, and oppress the accessibility and health of water systems and homelands.

Aquacide

As Indigenous Peoples, we recognize that Water is the most vulnerable element of all forms of Life in light of climate change and its impacts.

Aquacide is a term meaning the killing of the waters of the world: death caused by dams, diversions, deprivations, extractive industrial and mega-agricultural developments, toxins and pollution, and other ways that inhibit or preclude Water’s ability to nurture and support Life.

I had the honor of coining and advancing this term on behalf of the Seventh Generation Fund to the United Nations a couple of years ago during an intervention I offered, with the support of over 20 different co-signatories from Indigenous nations, communities and advocacy organizations.

A Declaration

We have made an array of recommendations to the UNPFII, including that any initiatives related to Water must observe and recognize all articles of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly in 2007, including treaty rights.

Recognizing and implementing the Declaration is critical not only to issues of water, but also to respect and honor the sovereignty and human rights of Indigenous Peoples the world over. The Declaration is essentially a human rights document, establishing minimum standards for recognizing Indigenous Peoples as peoples, declaring their rights to their languages, cultures, education systems, lands, territories, traditional governance systems, and resources. Water, of course, figures prominently in such discussions.

In 2008, we urged the UNPFII to recommend to the UN ECOSOC, in coordination with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a call for the coordination of an official UN Experts Meeting on Water that specifically initiates a close review and assessment of Water allocation, regulation, and access policies that affect the rights of Indigenous Nations, the health

of our Peoples and ecosystems, and that of future generations. This high level Experts Meeting could explore and establish indicators of Water health for Indigenous Nations and the world community, particularly in light of increasing negative water impacts due to climate change.

We have also requested that the Permanent Forum call for the immediate appointment of a Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Water and Water Catchment Areas, to gather testimony directly from world Indigenous Nations targeted for, or impacted by, water injustices, including: privatization and commodification; diversion and dams; pollution and toxic contamination; and mining, fracking and other non-sustainable energy development. This was first recommended by the Permanent Forum to the ECOSOC in 2005, and again this year to assure action. We do not yet know whether the UNPFII’s 10th session decided to promote this recommendation through it’s final report to ECOSOC. Time is of the essence. Action must be taken now. We urgently reiterate the critical significance of protecting Water sources and Indigenous Peoples’ full, unencumbered access to clean Water on our territories for physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance.

Tia Oros Peters, Executive Director of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, recently returned from participating in the 10th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Following the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in 1979, all contaminated materials were intentionally released into the environment in a planned and regulated way. Fears are that a similar proceedure might be followed in Fukushima.

Continued high radiation readings near the reactors also indicate that the fuel is still at risk of criticality, and some suspect that there may be ongoing self-sustaining fission occurring in at least one of the reactors. The highest radiation readings since the beginning of the crisis have been recorded in recent days—4000 millisieverts per hour at Reactor 1 on June 4. The maximum exposure amount for emergency workers in Japan is 250 millisieverts per hour.

Unlike the Chernobyl disaster, which launched large amounts of radiation high into the atmosphere in a massive explosion, Fukushima will likely be a slowly released, long-term, stealthy threat. Experts project that the site will still be releasing high radiation for a year or more, and while the reported estimates of initial releases are only a fraction of the amount released by Chernobyl, the cumulative total could well exceed it.

In addition, there is an estimated 4200 tons of radioactive fuel onsite at Fukushima (the vast majority of which rests in the spent fuel pools), 24 times the amount of fuel present at Chernobyl when it exploded in 1986. Were the Continued on page 19

New California Climate Change Website Launched

A new website launched in early June gives the public access to climate change data and predictions across California.

The site, Cal-Adapt.org, was created by UC Berkeley’s Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF) to offer a view of how climate change might affect California at the local level. Now anyone with an internet connection can view interactive maps of anywhere in California (powered by Google) of historic and predicted temperatures, precipitation, snow pack , sea level rise and wildfire risk.

Background information on, and explanations of, various climate change scenarios are also available, as well as access to the original data used and additional resources.

Visit the site at: http://www.cal-adapt.org.

Map of predicted sea level rise for Humboldt Bay, © Google 2011.

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June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Another Oil spill: Tristan da Cunha

Ken Burton On Ma rch 16, the MS Oliva, a Malteseregistered cargo ship carrying 66,000 tons of soybeans and 1,650 tons of crude oil from Brazil to Singapore, ran aground on Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the South Atlantic. Rough seas subsequently broke the ship up, creating a devastating oil spill. Within 48 hours of the wreck, oil completely encircled the island, coating wildlife and threatening the island’s lobster fishery, the mainstay of the islands’ economy.

Tristan da Cunha, a British territory with fewer than 300 human inhabitants, is one of the most remote island groups on Earth and a globally-significant wildlife sanctuary. It is home to millions of seabirds, including about half the world’s population of an endangered subspecies of Rockhopper Penguin. Six days after the wreck, an estimated 10% of the islands’ penguins were oiled. The spill occurred right at the end of the penguins’ molt cycle, during which they fast, so they already were weak from hunger. Fortunately, most had already left the island for the winter.

After bureaucratic and weather-related delays, rescue teams were dispatched from South Africa to assist local efforts to save the penguins.

Local fishermen kept oiled birds alive until the teams arrived with frozen fish and cleaning supplies. Cleaned birds have been housed in the community’s swimming pool for recuperation.

Islanders corralled healthy birds to keep them out of the water. These birds were transported out of the area in the hope that the oil would be gone or greatly diminished by the time they found their way back. Despite these valiant efforts, thousands of penguins have died.

Another concern is the possibility that rats on the ship might have reached the island, which is one of only two in the archipelago without any. The ship’s owners contend that the ship was rat-free, but as a precautionary measure, a barrage of traps has been placed near the wreck.

Rats have a history of devastating island seabird colonies worldwide.

This environmental catastrophe has received almost no media coverage in the United States. This virtual information blackout is due to several factors: the spill happened in a remote place that few Americans even know exist,; and at the time it occurred, the world’s attention was riveted on events in Japan and Libya. It serves as an excellent illustration of how much we miss by relying on the mainstream media for information, particularly on environmental affairs. The event itself provides a hard reminder that the cost of our dependence on fossil fuels is simply too high.

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GPU Water Update

Water-Wise Development for a Fish-Friendly Future —Take Action!

Several policies being debated for inclusion in our new General Plan aim to address these issues.

Another threat to watershed health is the prevalence of impervious surfaces—which do not absorb water or allow water to pass through— such as asphalt and cement. A 2003 report by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the EPA determined that, “Limiting impervious surface is one of the most effective means of preventing storm water runoff since it reduces the volume of runoff created in the first place.”

An important policy decision confronting the Planning Commission is whether to adopt “Low Impact Development” standards for new development. Such standards aim to reduce the amount of stormwater runoff from a given project, and allow the water to percolate into the landscape, thereby replenishing groundwater supplies. These techniques are crucial, especially in already impaired watersheds.

Related to impervious surfaces is the issue of how roads are constructed and maintained.

In Humboldt County, it is necessary to obtain a permit for new road construction. However, there is no oversight for how private roads are maintained (with the exception of roads associated with timber operations). Impacts associated with new private road maintenance are not currently addressed in the GPU. The National Research Council (2003) ranked roads second only to large dams as the most significant impediment to salmon recovery.

The Council noted a shift from catastrophic habitat disturbances due to intensive logging to a more subtle but insidious threat from extensive road networks. Roads, even when designed and maintained well, can significantly alter hydrology, increase peak water flows, and contribute vast amounts of sediment to already impacted streams.

As our population continues to grow, we need better policies to address the potential impacts associated with that growth. New residential development and road construction must be done in ways that prevent damage to already impaired watersheds. It is also imperative that the county take a more proactive role in outreach and education—in collaboration with other agencies and organizations—to address existing threats to watershed health and to provide the public with guidance concerning water conservation, construction, and road maintenance Best Management Practices.

The County General Plan Update is an opportunity to reconsider many of the land use practices that have left our rivers and fish runs mere shadows of their former selves. Will we continue to treat them as if they are indestructible, unlimited resources? Or will we incorporate what we’ve learned from the mistakes of the last century into better planning for the future?

Dan Ehresman is regenerative design consultant and serves as a policy analyst for Healthy Humboldt.

The Planning Commission will soon be discussing the future of Humboldt County’s water resources as part of the General Plan Update. We need policies to guide future development to protect our streams and rivers for fish, farmers, and future generations. Voice your support for a General Plan that promotes water-wise development, watershed restoration and the recovery of salmon on the North Coast.

Continued from page 9

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• Adopt a watershed-based approach for planning to address issues of dangerously low river flows, water supply shortages and salmon habitat restoration.

• Promote water-wise development strategies in urban and rural watersheds.

• Promote coordination between local watershed groups, community members and County and State agencies to protect water resources.

RESTORATION OF WATER FLOWS • Restore river flows to support abundant salmon populations, reduce toxic algae blooms, and maintain a stable water supply for local residents and agriculture.

• Support installation of water storage tanks, rainwater catchment and wet-weather water harvest to reduce water withdrawals from impacted watersheds during low-flow conditions.

• Encourage “Low Impact Development” techniques that conserve natural drainage patterns and allow for the renewal of groundwater supplies.

WATER-WISE, FISH-FRIENDLY DEVELOPMENT • Promote practices such as the use of rainwater gardens, swales, and permeable pavement to reduce stormwater runoff, pollution, and sediment discharge.

• Support water conservation and reuse efforts such as low-flow fixtures, native plant landscaping, and greywater system installation and water reuse.

• Promote the design and maintenance of roadways to minimize erosion and sediment delivery into streams and rivers.

• Encourage cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated areas to reduce water pollution.

PRESERVATION OF FORESTS AND FARMS TO KEEP OUR RIVERS CLEAN, COOL AND HEALTHY • Promote riparian buffer zones to protect water quality.

• Focus most new development in areas already served by existing infrastructure to reduce impacts on forests and farmland.

SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS via email to mspencer@co.humboldt.ca.us OR by U.S. mail to: Humboldt County Community Development Services, 3015 H Street, Eureka, CA 95501 ATTEND A HEARING in July (exact date to be determined) at the County Courthouse, 825 Fifth Street, Eureka (corner of 5th and I Streets).

For meeting updates or to find out more, visit http://www. healthyhumboldt.org, or find us on Facebook.

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Creature Feature BUMBLEBEE MOTH Hemaris diffinis

Abe Walston

or more heavily armed. H. diffinis employs the latter technique, specifically called Batesian mimicry, trading on the venomous reputation of the bumblebee (Bombus). An H. diffinis I observed recently feeding on rosemary, was doing a credible rendition of Bombus vosnesenkyi, the western yellow faced bumblee.

Bumblebee moths exhibit a number of distinct variations on the Bombus theme, presumably to closer resemble locally abundant

scientific evidence, and declares: “It’s evolution.�

A creationist treatment of H. diffinis, might be presented as follows: “On the sixth day, about 4:30 or so, God said ‘Let there be a member of the hawk-moth family which acts like a hummingbird and looks like a bumblebee. Sweet.’�

I caught up with a Bumblebee moth recently, who reluctantly agreed to slow down for a brief interview:

With all due respect to Darwin’s finches, platypi, and any number of dinosaur species, my nod for evolutionary mascot goes to Hemaris diffinis, the Bumblebee moth. A member of the Hawk moth family (Sphingidae), it measures 1.5 to 2 inches in length, and is also known as the Snowberry clearwing. This name refers to the wings, which unlike those of other moths, are AW: Thanks for your time, I know you like translucent. Bumblebee moths are widely to keep moving. distributed throughout North America, and can found on a variety of wildflower BBM: Try hovering under your own and garden species. Hemaris are one of power next time you’re enjoying a meal. the only moths that forage actively during the day. Like other moths, Hemaris have AW: Which brings me to the first long, slender tongues (sometimes longer question. Why the hummingbird act? than the rest of the moth) which are rolled up when not in use, which allow BBM: Admittedly, the energy investment them to forage deeper into flowers than is large, but you can’t beat the handling other insects. Four species of Hemaris and acceleration. And while everyone can be found in North America, including else is looking for a place to park, we just the hummingbird clearwing, H. thysbe, zip right in and hover wherever we want. which occurs locally.

And if trouble shows up, well, the motor’s Discovery of the bumblebee moth still running, if you know what I mean. caused early biologists to reconsider the trusted adage: “if it walks like a duck and AW: And the bumblebee disguise? quacks like a duck, well...� The bumble bee moth presents two evolutionary BBM: While many humans think nature tricks to enhance its survival: convergent is pretty, those of us who live there know evolution and mimicry. what a warzone it can be. Imagine being Convergent Evolution, more hunted every minute of the day! Lots of obtusely referred to as homoplasy, moths go the camouflage route, but to me occurs when species that are unrelated that seems so.. uninteresting. We don’t develop similar traits. A well-known mind looking conspicuous to predators example is the ability to fly shared by Hemaris diffinis, the Bumblebee moth. Photo: Dorothy Pugh, http://www.dpughphoto.com because (laughs) we look like a stinging bats, birds and insects. These did not arise from species. According to evolutionary theory, bumblebee! And not a small one either. It’s like a single flying ancestor; rather, environmental mimicry can only evolve to a certain level, robbing the bank by making a gun with your conditions provided a niche for flying things, and beyond which mimics become so plentiful that fingers in your pocket. representatives from different groups filled in. sampling isn’t effectively discouraged.

Evolutionary changes resulting in the ability to Moths are not born as flying insects, but AW: Unlike many moths, you are most active fly took millions of years, naturally. develop in various stages, generally: egg, larvae, during the day. Why is that?

The act of “humming�, loosely described coccoon, pupae, adult. ,Bumblebee moth larvae as rapid sustained wing beats, presents an efficient are small green caterpillars of the “hornworm� BBM: Why go to all the trouble of impersonating feeding technique which allows Hemaris (and type, which feed on snowberry, honeysuckle, two radically different life forms at once if it’s too hummingbirds) to hover while feeding, allowing and dogbane, among others. Cocoons are formed dark for anyone to notice? Besides, those night for quicker escape from predators. Most other on the ground from leaf litter. moths, they’re too edgy, have you seen the way pollinators land on flowers they are visiting, while One of the more pointless public debates they freak out over light bulbs?

Bumblebee moths move swiftly between flowers. that has resurfaced in recent years is that of There are two species of Hemaris in our area, creationism vs. evolution. The creationist looks AW: Once again, thank you, and best wishes for a but only H. diffinis poses as a bumblebee. out upon the world, scratches his head, ponders good year.

Mimicry is when species take on the all he sees, and declares: “God hath made it appearance of another, usually one less tasty so.� The evolutionist looks, scratches, ponders BBM: It’s the only one I got. Peace out.

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June/July 2011 ECONEWS

Nuclear Crisis

Continued from page 16

situation to turn from bad to worse (even though it is already described as a worst case scenario), the devastation could well be unimaginable.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gunderson, of Fairewinds Associates, has long stated the Fukushima disaster has the potential to become “Chernobyl on steroids”, and warns that in catastrophes such as these, officials have “consistently underestimated the magnitude of the problem.”

In addition, the long term effects of radiation exposure continue to be hotly debated.

An official 2005 report stated that 4000 people died as a result of radioactive exposure from Chernobyl. Others, however, including several prominent nuclear experts and the environmental group Greenpeace, insist that the actual numbers of deaths from radiation-related cancers will total close to one million.

With an issue as complex and misunderstood as radiation, it’s difficult for the public to assess their actual risk. Contamination of groundwater and seawater near Fukushima has been confirmed, and the list of contaminated food items and banned exports in Japan grows, including items from green tea and rice, to seaweed and whale meat. Multiple radioactive isotopes have been detected in countries as far away as North America and Europe, in the air, rainwater, drinking water, milk, and a variety of crops.

In the U.S., initial monitoring by the EPA discovered contamination in 15 states, but then in May reverted back to its regular tri-monthly monitoring schedule. New results will not be expected again until August. Though the reduction is very disconcerting to some, particularly on the west coast, officials insist that the levels previously detected were far below any level of concern for human health. Such assessments do not account, however, for the fact that even a single particle of some radioactive isotopes, if inhaled or ingested, can result in cancer. There is simply no safe level of radioactive exposure, and bio-accumulation effects are still unknown.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster will undoubtedly have an effect on the global political climate towards nuclear energy. Already, Germany, Italy and Switzerland have recently announced abandonment of previous policies and announced they will pursue a nuclearfree future. It remains to be seen how many nations will follow suit.

For Kids Joan Dunning’s Seabird in the Forest

Clary Greacen

Seabird in the Forest, written and illustrated by Humboldt County resident Joan Dunning, is a book about the life cycle of the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird.

In this book for people of all ages, Joan tells about the interesting life and death of, and threats to, this remarkable seabird.

Joan based the book around a young marbled murrelet.

“I felt that children would be interested in a little animal that lived all alone in one of the tallest trees on earth and had to simply stay almost completely still, all alone, for a whole month,” Joan said.

She has seen murrelets many times in Redwood Creek and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

“My favorite place, where I go every summer, is Redwood Creek. I backpack far upriver and camp on the river bar and each morning the faint sound of the murrelets passing over wakes me from the soundest sleep.

I lie in my sleeping bag and watch and listen.”

Joan has written several books, including the 1998 From the Redwood Forest: Ancient Trees and the Bottom Line: A Headwaters Journey with photographer Doug Thron. That was how she “first learned about and saw marbled murrelets about fifteen years ago … Like many people, I was fascinated by the idea of a seabird nesting in the ancient forest. I also thought it was amazing that, until 1976, no one knew where murrelets nested. I have actually met people who were wildlife majors at HSU who were taught that no one had yet found a single nest of these mysterious birds.”

Joan told me that writing Seabird in the Forest helped her deal with what she learned in the earlier book.

“Writing From the Redwood Forest was very painful for me. I learned too much, saw too much and for years I couldn’t talk about my book without fighting tears. The destruction of Pacific Lumber Company and the amazing forests it stewarded was a crime of tremendous proportions. Creating Seabird in the Forest has been a healing process for me as I have spent over a year painting the peace and quiet of the canopy.”

The paintings are vibrant and beautiful. Dunning provides a series of notes on her illustrations that explain why the murrelet is interesting, important, and worth protecting.

She warns “they may, in another generation, be completely gone from our forests in California. Because the anchovies and sardines on the ocean have been over-fished, the marbled murrelet may soon be extinct in the lower 48 states. They are eating smaller and smaller prey called krill and they need the anchovies and sardines to feed their young.”

“The marbled murrelet is an indicator species.” Dunning wrote. “That is, it is, in a sense, a tool for conveying to ourselves that

we are losing too much of any one ecosystem.

If you look at a map of the loss of old growth across North America, you will see that we have, definitely, lost too much of our wild forests.”

I asked Joan whether there are any ways for people to help these endangered seabirds.

“Yes,” she replied, “Jays and ravens eat food that is left out on picnic tables in campgrounds and dropped along trails. It is very important not to feed these birds because they prey on the marbled murrelet chicks. The more they are fed, the faster they reproduce.

Also, it is good to get a chart of ‘safe’ fish to eat from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Many murrelets have been lost in fishing nets. And, we all need to drive as little as possible to reduce our use of oil. Murrelets are lost at sea in oil spills. Finally, I believe that we need to do everything we can to help preserve the well-being of our wonderful state parks in California, because these are where the ancient forest is protected that the marbled murrelet depends on.”

Clary Greacen is in the fourth grade at Jacoby Creek Elementary. She received a little editorial assistance from her dad.

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ECONEWS June/July 2011

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