Letter Writer Unhappy With Local News Media, GSD, and You
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Dear Garberville Sanitary District (GSD) Ratepayers and Customers,
Since none of you are attending GSD Board meetings on a regular basis, if at all, (and that goes for local news media as well!) I wanted to fill you in on a couple of ideas the current GSD Board has contemplated and put forward after April 2021.
Since Linda Brodersen’s resignation from the GSD Board on May 7, 2021, she was replaced by acting Board Member Doug Bryan as GSD Board Chair. GSD Board Chair Bryan has put forward some pretty amazing and interesting proposals; 1) looking into the idea of making Garberville an incorporated township. 2) Looking into changing GSD from a Special District to a Community Services District. In either case 1 or 2, after finding out the cost and length of time needed to move forward with either item, both were tabled for any further discussion by the GSD Board.
Now for the latest item up for discussion by the GSD Board; Board Chair Bryan is advocating and requesting GSD staff analyze re-installing the Dam at Benbow State Park. He is asking GSD Staff to contact Congressman Jared Huffman and other State Assembly Representatives and find out if there is support for re-installing the Dam or any state or federal funding for building another Dam at Benbow. In this GSD Board meeting agenda for December 21, 2021, there is no information included by Board Chair Bryan on who, what, why, when and where, just some literature on the pro’s and con’s of dams, agenda item B.7 “Process of Building a Dam on Scenic River” pg. 61-67:
https://www.garbervillesd.org/
files/22ba2de7a/BOD+Meeting+ Agenda+Packet+December+21%2C+ 2021–JS.pdf Now, it would seem to me, given all the water GSD is leaking from its aging old infrastructure, inherited when GSD purchased the Garberville Water Company in 2004, and currently leaking over 17 Million Gallons a year (2020), you would think the GSD Board would have more to do than discuss these pipe dreams (no pun intended) and wasting GSD ratepayer funds on staff time analyzing these boondoggle ideas, none of which benefit its ratepayers and customers and sure as hell do not benefit its water source, the South Fork Eel River.
Just to remind all of you, here are some reasons the Benbow Dam was demolished and removed in the first place:
https://kymkemp.com/2016/08/
27/update-on-the-benbow-dam- removal-project/ So next time you see GSD Board Members or Staff out and about and on the street, ask them why? Or better yet, go to a GSD Board meeting and ask. Because it would seem lately, no one is holding GSD accountable, either by attending meetings, asking questions or reporting in the news what they are doing!
Current GSD Board; Doug Bryan, Rio Anderson, Julie Lyon, Dan Thomas and one open seat.
GSD Staff; Ralph Emerson, Mary Nieto, Bran Millan, Dan Arreguin
Thank you for your time, Happy Holidays
Ed Voice, past Garberville/Redway resident and home owner 1961-2015
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Glad I looked at the article.
Thought he was unhappy with a German Shepard Dog.
He would be unhappy with a German Shepard Dog if it had anything to do with SoHum.
Merry Christmas as well Ernie. Awesome presumption on your part. If you changed “SoHum” to Wild & Scenic Rivers in Humboldt County, then you would be accurate sir. It just seems there are more people in “SoHum” that degrade the South Fork Eel for their own benefit on a regular basis, not for the benefit of the river or wildlife habitat.
Ed, I agree with you on many things. However, in the middle of a drought it is only practical to look for ways to collect water. It doesn’t mean that any dams will be built. There may be a way to collect water and not harm the river. A smart guy like you may be able to offer a solution instead of constant criticism.
Well Ernie, as I stated in my letter to the editor, if GSD was to stop leaking, losing, wasting over 17 million gallons of water a year, that would be a great start. Plus how can the public offer “solutions” to a public agency that does not want to hear about your “solutions” or share information with the public! To offer “solutions”, you need to ask questions and get answers. To provide answers to your questions is something GSD does not do!
“Ed, I agree with you on many things”.
Ok, please start naming all those “many things” Ernie?
Normal weather patter in Humboldt is deluge in winter and drought in summer. Storing water in rainy part of year is necessary for an agricultural county to thrive in drought part of year.
Me too!
Ed, I’ve read your letters for many years. While I have no doubt there is issues with GSD as there is with almost all small town government entities, I feel your approach is not working. This letter reads far more negative and grumpy than necessary. Maybe it’s just the current environment of covid and Christmas, but to me you’re way off the mark.
I can sympathize with the passion I detect as I too have wanted to see change, with my on issues of importance, to a level greater than I could singularly achieve. Ultimately it left me bitter and only further from motivating my fellow citizens. To be honest, I had to walk away, find a new passion and realize that I couldn’t fix something, despite my best efforts.
There’s no doubt other issues, perhaps closer to you now (I see you don’t live in redway/Garberville anymore) that you could devote energy to. Please take this as friendly advice and not just a rebuke of your efforts. Merry Christmas
Well Hayforker, if that was true; “While I have no doubt there is issues with GSD as there is with almost all small town government entities, I feel your approach is not working.”. GSD is not a government entity, their Board is appointed by the Board of Supervisors, The most they can do as a public agency is create local ordinances only within their service boundary.
However, what GSD does not abide by is the Brown Act or Public Records Act requests. Nor do they feel they need to abide by the State Waterboard and the reason they were fined $40,000 by not abiding by a Cease & Desist Order, by continuing to sell bulk water outside their license and permitted Place of Use. So as far as I am concerned, it does seem my “approach” is working just fine, Thank you.
For example, at the December 21, 2021 Board meeting with GSD, one of the agenda items was to add fines to customers during drought and water restrictions. And I quote:
“Customers who disregard the drought phases will be in violation and subject to fines which begin at $100 per occurrence/day beginning with (phase 2-4) and can result in water disconnection with a $1,000 reconnection fee for continued violations over 5 days.”
The only problem with that, GSD does not have the authority to fine anyone for anything, its all idle threats and fearmongering. You want someone like that controlling what they consider is their water?
In fact, when I emailed the GSD GM Emerson about that, he stated back in an email:
“GSD does not currently have an approved ordinance which issues fines for drought use violations.
Our current water ordinance sec 14.5 states that non-compliance “MAY” result in water disconnection and $100 reconnection fee.”
We need more development and at least 2 dams on the south fork. The romans figured this out thousands of years ago
As the population increases and the need for water drastically increases we’re demolishing dams? This is not logical…
Large scale dams do more harm than good. What we need in this region is more property scale hydrological management. Look up Key Line Design to see a wonderful system developed for the drylands of Australia that holds tremendous potential for this region.
Problem is, it’s not built on massive keystone infrastructure projects, but on hundreds and thousands of private land owners taking a different approach to managing water that falls on, and flows across, their properties
Sounds interesting and promising and way more doable.
It is if the dams are doing more harm than good, like destroying native anadromous fisheries the get rid of them.The real issue facing the planet is too many people. I have no humane answer except legal and freely available family planning.
Where is the evidence the United States is over populated? Most of the country is empty land. This is even true in California. Some foreign cities (Mexico city, Dehli, etc) seem over populated, but other parts vastly empty.
I’ve heard stories of Japanese and maybe other Asian fishing boats sitting off the coast over fishing decades ago. I’ve also heard stories of how the early dams, without fish ladders, destroyed upper spawning runs. It’s also my understanding that sediment from unregulated logging (they would use the dry creek beds as log flumes) ruined spawning grounds.
Could it be that it’s the methods of people and not the number of people? Seems humans keep working to improve things. As for voluntary “family planning” well that’s just gonna limit the number of kids from smarter parents and thus more irresponsible parents outbreeding them. If anyone out there is a decent person I implore you to have more kids – they are the future.
The evidence for too many people is the degradation and lack of water. It is not just here that it is a problem. There are other species on this planet who have a right to life and don’t ruin everything like we do.
As far as humans go, the earth has exceeded carrying capacity.
You make good points. I would argue that correctly pointing out massive abuses of wildlife mismanagement doesn’t change anything on current events. All the things you mentioned are exacerbated by excessive human population.
States like Wyoming are thinly populated due to aridity, mountains and harsh weather. Does not encourage settlement. Look at a big map of mountains. People always preempt the green, flat valleys with better soil and more water, less snow, etc. These are exactly the valleys needed by wildlife in much of their life cycle. So, it looks good and empty but the animals suffer with loss of prime habitat.
I still think the planet has exceeded carrying capacity for human beings by several billion people. Like ever-increasing rats in a finite box.
True, too many folk. Why the virus has done so well. The future might be role playing. That’s adults playing baby, toddler, child, tween, and teen for couples who want still more children.
While removing the old Benbow dam benefited the fish, it eliminated a wonderful place for swimming and water play activities. The fish and health of the river are for sure the priority for this impacted river. Perhaps both fish and recreational activities could accommodated by recreating the lake by building a series of pools using natural materials providing both deep water pools for fish and the opportunity for swimming. With good engineering it’s possible. I viewed a video where a fish blocking structure was removed and replaced with a natural rock series of cascading pools making it fish friendly and keeping the lake.
Do you happen to have a link to that video? I would like to take a look, sounds interesting.
Was that video you saw taken on a state of federal listed Wild & Scenic River? Benbow Dam was built before the Wild & Scenic River Act was made into law, so it was grandfathered. So if you want to build another one, you are SOL!
Just to open up another aspect of this subject — local incorporation (making Garberville, or any part of SoHum a city): This proposal, and similar ones, have been brought up and gained some traction several times in the past several decades. Local government = local control = local revenues staying local. Sounds great! Unfortunately, local government = local people having to actually work at government, make hard decisions, do tedious things like budget management. When a group of people tried to organize an incorporation movement about 10 years ago, they got plenty of vocal support and some fine idealistic input about what we could do as a city (generate our own energy with solar and hydro, for example) but when it came down to actually doing any work or raising money for the studies needed, nooooo…. This is the same problem facing State of Jefferson proponents. Who’s actually going to do the work of governing this new city or state? Who’s going to take responsibility? Who’s going to take the flak?
What I don’t understand, why is it GSD’s responsibility to look into something as encompassing as becoming an incorporated City? There district only has 470 water connections and a population of maybe 1000.
As far as the Dam goes, here is the recorded transcript from that December 21, 2021 GSD meeting, were Board Chair Doug Bryan try’s to justify building another Dam at Benbow:
“So, one of the facts they have in here, and this is the Public Policy Institute of California, and this is on page 66, “California’s highly managed water system flow-releases from dams are essential to meet the needs of fish and wildlife.” So, from my perspective, an ability to fight fire has been severely reduced by not having a consistent water source to pull from. Right, so fighting fires, one element. Second element, is for the existence of our town. When we go into water ration and water restriction, that reduces commerce. And it reduces people’s desire to live in this area, which then is a vicious, downward cycle for the existence of this town. Third and equally as important, is fish and wildlife. When we’ve got low flows, the fish don’t want to come upstream.”
“They’ve proven this up on the Klamath where they’re releasing water down the Trinity and they’re not having massive die-offs at the mouth of the river anymore because of getting this flush of nice, cold water right when the fish are stacking up and wanting to come upstream. And so we saw that in this year as an example. The waters came up and then they went right back down. And it got way down until this last rain event, I mean, I was looking at it. It was like 70cfs, 50cfs, something like that, and we had just had feet or inches, and many acre feet could have been, you know, retained, and then that dam could have been slowly releasing that water out, possibly at a good enough rate to where the fish would want to go ahead and push up. They could have been spawning. They could have been doing their thing in between the rain events because you then get another giant rain event and the eggs can get washed out, the young spawn, the little salmon might not be strong enough to survive and they might get flushed out of the system. And so, by controlling the flood waters, you can help wildlife.”
“So you’ve got like three different things that could be accomplished by having a consistent water source. And so, not having a dam, and this has been in our data, ever since that dam got removed, we’ve gone into this mode of needing to, like, conserve water in this freak-out way. We’re going down to 10cfs and it’s not good for wildlife. And fire is not good for wildlife if we can’t put fires out, the force is done.”
He makes several good points.
But are they realistic? He talks about “our data”, I would love to see his “data”. The problem with his points, the Benbow Dam was a seasonal summer dam, only used from June until September and was not designed to release water while in place. So how would what he is suggesting work, and how would you get water from Benbow Lake to the GSD treatment plant? To me its just fearmongering on his part.