Letter to the Editor Expresses Concern About the Southern Humboldt Community Park Board’s Environmental Decisions
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Dear Southern Humboldt Community Park Board and whom it my concern,
Since the Park Board did not disclose or make public the following letters to the State Water Board, related to the Park Board requesting a new metered water connection from the Garberville Sanitary District, either on their facebook page, website or in a press rerelease to the local media, I felt it only fair to allow the general public to come to their own conclusions to what the Park Board claims having the Support of its community.
The one statement that caught my attention was the following from their “Closing Statement”:
“We respect the environment mightily, which is one reason the community worked so diligently to keep this beautiful parcel out of the hands of developers. Our Vision to collaborate with community partners to create diverse opportunities for recreation, education, cultivation and conservation, and with the belief that our community deserves a scenic and natural place to nurture happiness, mental, physical, and spiritual health. Fulfilling our Mission and Vision will be all the more attainable with access to safe, clean drinking water.”
If the above statement was true, then why does the Park Board continue to lease more than 80 acres of the Parks property to Randall Sand & Gravel for instream gravel extraction and processing on the South Fork Eel River, above and below the Sprowel Creek Road bridge? Where does that “Vision” come to pass, “that our community deserves a scenic and natural place to nurture happiness, mental, physical, and spiritual health”?
How can the Park Board claim what Randall Sand & Gravel leases from the Park river bar property equal “nurture happiness, mental, physical, and spiritual health”?
And, if the Park Board does “respect the environment mightily”, why did you pave the Kimtu parking lot with asphalt and build a skate ramp, both within a flood plain and protected fresh water wetland area?
Thank you for your time,
Ed VoiceFormer resident and home owner 1961-2015
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So, you let the cat out of the bag. It’s Randall’s that you don’t like.
What do they do with the money they get from Randall?
You are correct. I was the planning commissioner for this district back in the 90s and Voice and his family attempted to block the renewal of Randall’s surface mining permit. This was long before the community park existed. An engineer testified at the hearing that the gravel bar that Randall was sourcing its operation was being renewed every winter by the continuing load of gravel moving down stream. Ed has been grinding this axe for a long time.
Dear Ex Planning Commissioner Dave,
I guess you missed the point of my Letter to the Editor here. If what the Park Board states is true:
“that our community deserves a scenic and natural place to nurture happiness, mental, physical, and spiritual health.”
So which category of that statement does Randall Sand & Gravel fall into? My views and opinions about Randall Sand & Gravel are very well known and this LttE does not get into those axe grinding facts.
Unlike the flat earther movement, I stick to the documented facts, how Instream surface mining and processing operations demonstrably effects wildlife habitat and aquatic species! Maybe ask the Garberville Sanitary District if Randall’s gravel extraction process, right above the GSD intake gallery is effecting Garberville’s water quality and they will say yes!
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/stormwater/docs/indcomments/edvoice.pdf
The gravel is choking the river. There should be 20 more gravel operations on the river. The sediment fills, most of the water is under the gravel,the gravel chokes out the riparian vegetation, the temperature rises, the algae bloom goes off. There was a wise old man who told me thirty years ago as we were getting gravel, “See the top of that rock in the river, it used to be 30 feet tall, now you can only see the top 3 feet. The gravel is killing this river.” He was so right!
Yup. Word
I have been saying that since 1964. I saw, and lived in the river before the 1955 flood. If they remove the gravel the fines will wash into the ocean and the great spawning beds will return. They are getting better already, but they have a long way to go.
But, what do I know, I’ve only seen it with my own eyes. Please don’t quote any “expert opinion” for me. I already seen the harm the they have caused.
Ed old friend I love your perspective from a true been here my whole life point of view. Most people who pay attention know something needs to be done about the gravel.
The flood was almost sixty years ago and there hasn’t been one since, yet every year the gravel and silt get deeper and wider in the riverbed, and the water gets shallower and warmer. It gets worse every year.
The thing that has been going on continuously since the ’80s is gravel extraction. And the park board went to the county to increase the allowable gravel extraction as soon as they got the park property.
Gravel mining causes more gravel in the river upstream and downstream of the operation.
And, no, I am not Ed.
You are 100% correct. There are a few published papers available online indicating that the South Fork basin was filled with up to 25’ of sediment after the 1964 flood. Ultimately creating all of the environmental imbalance we’re experiencing currently. Any argument outside of that fact is purely political. It’s a monumental project that would require the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the entire system but it is the only semi – immediate solution. The alternative is to wait another 100+ or so years for the annual flood water to continue flushing the gravel and debris into the ocean one winter at a time. It’s absolutely appalling how misinformed the general population is on most subject issues that require complex discussion to truly reveal the root cause of a problem and draw a logical answer towards a solution. Thank you for being one of those rare individuals. Hopefully your post can collectively shift the conversation of blame and solution in the political realm now.
I remember many years ago, like maybe four decades, there was a man who proposed doing a million dollars worth of heavy equipment work at the mouth of the river. He proposed, that by doing this work, that when the river rose during subsequent high water, the gravel would experience a kind of sustained collapse, from the mouth, upriver, and with the high water, it would all wash into the sea.
I’ve seen this sort of sustained sediment collapse which moves upriver, with the disturbed sediment all being carried downstream.
His proposal was denied.
That gravel is very valuable to some very influential people.
I’m all for putting it on trains and or ships in order to transport it to a ready market.
Agreed I have been saying this for years
What that wise old man also told you is that as kids they used to dive off that 30′ tall rock into a 25′ deep pool. According to geologists, the Eel and neighboring Mattole experienced 10,000 years worth of sediment generation from the ’55 and ’64 floods. That is going to take many lifetimes to work its way out to the ocean. What Randall takes, by the way, is not from the wet channel where the fish and other aquatics inhabit, but from upslope gravel bars making their way to the ocean. Much better to put it back on the roads in the hills where it came from.
Like I suggested above, check with the Garberville Sanitary District concerning Randall’s instream gravel extraction practices and how it effects GSD’s water quality (see link below). And by the way, Randall’s gravel extraction area is located instream, well below the ordinary high water mark. So you are right and wrong, Randall is only allowed to extract gravel during low flows, when the river recedes well below its ordinary winter flow…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o-P3XIw_P3Qo8fMw9BdBkwYf4tbtlxq3/view?usp=sharing
“how it effects GSD’s water quality “
Didn’t SWQCB intervene in favor of the water district
to provide safe drinking water?
Good question Dan, but the answer is no. The SWRCB does not have regulatory authority concerning land use or conditional use permits, since Humboldt County is the lead agency and issued the 15 year permit. So it makes you wonder, since GSD submitted this agency comment letter, nothing has changed…
Here is a photo of ordinary high water in the South Fork Eel at Randall’s location. Please note their gravel extraction area on the river bar is under the “instream” flow!
Of course it is. How do you think the bar gets renewed?. Its the high water periods that replace the mined gravel that’s carried from upstream.
Need to get up to speed Dave, my reply was to Mark, who did not know how the evolution of instream gravel extraction works or how it harms the life cycle of salmon nesting area’s called redd’s. Maybe you should educate us about CHERT and what roll they play in instream gravel extraction in Humboldt County?
For example, was CHERT formed to protect the environment and aquatic habitat or protect the best interests of the instream gravel mining industry in Humboldt County?
https://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/86406/CHERT-2019-Post-Extraction-Report_May-7-2020-draft-PDF
So to see the river in its current state, during historic low flow caused by drought, I guess you can say the “gravel is choking the river. Is the glass half empty or half full?
Ed Voice,
That’s a pretty good analogy.
I want to say thanks for your article from around September 14th. I had been monitoring the South Fork of the Eel River at the confluence of the Main Stem Eel River for the last couple of late summers
After how low it got last year, and considering that this years drought was much worse, I had anticipated the river drying up there.
Your article inspired me to post on the conditions there.
The gravel build up in that area definitely contributed to the conditions that caused the river to run sub surface.
There was a slight “hump” in the gravel which caused the water to flow beneath it. Beyond the impacted area, where the full flow returned, I measured the flow at 1.12 CFS.
Not very much.
The most discouraging part, though, Ed, was that all I saw as far as juvenile fish, were just a bunch of baby squawfish.
Lots of them.
That was, I think, the worst sign.
But, seeing the riverbed completely dry for the first time, even though I had anticipated it, came as quite a shock as well.
Take care, Ed.
Sincerely,
“AKA Ed. “🙂
I notice that any take of anything from nature is not in line with respecting it as it is. I think that is unquestionable. Humans are very silly to think that moving or taking things in the world does not have other effects. Everything creates a ripple. We don’t really know, what moving huge dump loads of gravel, will do to the river in the long run.
My concern at the SHCP is the skate park ramp (freshly painted, with what looks like paint and scraps still underneath) and that asphalt pad that smelled like vehicle fluids as I walked across it today.
How on Earth did the park get clearance to pave that area, so close to the river? Does anyone know the legal process there? Seems to me more toxic vehicle spillage will flow towards the river, that used to just permeate the gravel in the lot.
Also, what is the legality of spray painting a structure of that size so close to the river? Is no one else concerned about how those chemicals affect the Parklands or the River, so near by?
Not to mention that the whole Park ethos has changed with that skate ramp. I’m glad skaters have a place to do tricks now ‘in a park setting’ where they can make ridiculous amounts of noise and ride wheels speakers all over the place. That seems completely antithetical to connecting with nature, to me. That parking lot used to be a Haven for me, a place to park and be at peace, a place to take walks from. Now I avoid the Scene that has taken over and miss the ramp and pavement-free park.
Wait until you see what the Park Board is doing inside the Big Barn. They have added a new electrical service, wiring, overhead lights, outlets with two new rooms being constructed in at the north end across the back, with no permits. Its like they are turning it into some kind of an event venue. That barn is over 125 years old, its an historical barn, built pre-1890 out of solid Redwood and is or was a habitat for a colony of bats in the lower floor and nesting owls in the upper floor hay loft, which I could not find any signs of last Sunday. But I did get allot of pictures of what they are doing. Here is one: