Friends of the Eel River Sues Humboldt County to Regulate Groundwater Pumping
Press release from the Friends of the Eel River:
Friends of the Eel River (FOER) has filed suit in Humboldt County Superior Court to secure protection for the public trust values at risk when groundwater pumping depletes surface flows in the Lower Eel River. First, FOER is asking the court to declare that the County has a duty to protect public trust values in the lower Eel River from the impacts of groundwater pumping. Then, FOER seeks an order requiring the County to create a program to regulate groundwater pumping in the lower Eel River as necessary to protect public trust values. Finally, FOER asks the court to require the County to stop issuing permits for new and expanded well-drilling in the lower Eel until such a program is in place.Lower Mainstem Eel Disconnected August 2014 [Photo by David Sopjes]
Under California law, the Public Trust doctrine establishes that the waters and wildlife of the state belong to the people, and that the state and its subdivisions, including counties, serve as trustees of those resources for the people. Where public trust values may be affected, especially in the planning and allocation of water resources, the State and the County have an affirmative duty to consider those effects, and to avoid or minimize harm to public trust uses wherever feasible.
The Eel River provides habitat for fish and wildlife protected under the public trust, including salmon and steelhead as well as many other important species. Other values included in the public trust include recreation and cultural uses. When Humboldt County allows unlimited groundwater pumping even during extended dry times, exacerbating already low flows and leading to surface flows disconnecting, it fails in its duty to protect the Public Trust.
“As guardians of the public trust, our County leadership has the authority and the responsibility to enact an ordinance to curtail groundwater pumping in the Lower Eel when necessary,” said Alicia Hamann, Friends of the Eel River’s executive director. “Unfortunately what we’ve seen instead, under the guise of a grudging effort to comply with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, has been continued denial by the County that groundwater use in the Lower Eel ever affects river flows, including efforts to obscure the County’s own data revealing the impacts of pumping on surface flows during dry periods.”
According to data collected for the County’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan, extraction from the lower Eel groundwater basin actually results in a loss of about 14 cfs to surface flows during late summer. This may not sound like much, but it can be nearly everything the river has during critically dry times. The Lower Eel River has repeatedly disconnected below Fortuna in late summer and early fall during the series of recent years that have been drier and hotter than historic averages. (We are avoiding using the word drought here because it implies reversion to a wetter “normal,” which seems increasingly unlikely.)
Absent a program to control groundwater pumping, the County is unable to address the impacts of pumping during dry times.
![Lower Mainstem Eel Disconnected August 2014 [Photo by David Sopjes]](https://kymkemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Lower-Mainstem-Eel-Disconnected-August-2014-by-David-Sopjes-235x300.jpg)
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What about all the water consumed by growers throughout the Eel and Van Duzen watersheds? Certainly that affects flow at Fortuna so why not include their water use too?
They’re water use is among the most heavily scrutinized and regulated water use in the country.
Not looking too good for the industry.
Two substantial lawsuits and a cataclysmic initiative.
Growing dope in the hills of Humboldt only made sense when it was illegal and it rained all the time. Growing dope in the hills after legalization makes as much sense as growing cotton or corn and for the same reasons. Diminishing availability of water and no easily farmed (level) land. As Humboldt becomes dryer these problems are exacerbated. All those hoop houses around Honeydew and Petrolia have turned what was once a most beautiful area into something resembling East L.A. Sad to say but many have hitched their wagons to a dying horse….
?
South Fork Eel River, dry, at The Forks, last year, in mid September, 2021…
Some sediment needs to be removed from the Eel River channel…
Lots of it.
Dredge the river ? You mean like restore the Eel’s 14′ depth in the lower reaches ?
Steamer “Argo” in Eel River heading towards Port Kenyon
Yep.
And the earth is flat? The Lower Eel River gravel extraction operations are under-regulated by CHERT (County of Humboldt Extraction Review Team). If not self-regulated, since the operators pay CHERT directly to regulate themselves! These gravel extraction operators are not helping the river or the ESA aquatic species and their habitat, only lining their own pockets from profiting from natural resources, and convincing the Humboldt County powers to be, they are the greater good that support a healthy river system and water quality. I’m sure the Eel River Gravel Extraction operators apricate your comments as they hand out more blue pills for the public to take…
https://humboldtgov.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/1529
Gravel extraction can be detrimental to the entities you mention, but done with a goal in mind can work wonders for a river. I’ve seen what cooperation between gravel miners and river oriented people can accomplish, and it made me proud.
Took a little arm twisting at first, but once the drill was set, some really neat stuff happened.
Not all back room deals are bad.
Can you give an example of your claim and “Not all back room deals are bad”?
Did you not even look at the picture in this article that clearly shows the river channel brimming with sediment?
How can you possibly deduce that it would not be helpful to remove a great deal of it?
I’m not talking about removing the spawning gravel and leaving the silt, I’m talking about clearing the channel, by removing it unsegregated.
It’s antiquated to think that a clogged channel benefits the fish.
It makes them easy pickings.
And it elevates water temperatures to unsurvivable levels for anadromous species.
And removing sediment from the lower Eel, is ecologically much different than removing it from the upper Eel from a spawning perspective.
So what you mean is; Instream gravel extraction from within or near a stream bed has a direct impact on the stream’s physical habitat parameters such as channel geometry, bed elevation, substrate composition and stability, instream roughness elements (large woody debris, boulders, etc.), depth, velocity, turbidity, sediment transport, stream discharge, and temperature?
Please read the following, bottom left corner, cover page. it was a study paid for by the Humboldt County Gravel Operators, but no conflict of interest, right?
https://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/103568/2021-Stillwater-Sciences–County-gravel-report
Then you have this guy, under the watchful eye of CHERT:
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2018/jun/14/van-duzen-gravel-miner-charged-polluting-altering/
Can we see the names of the people that claim to be friends of this river? These other peasants pumping well water to survive, need to cease, we need this river to flow to the ocean. Otherwise the ocean level won’t rise .
I think you’ll find that the Friends of the Eel River are a group of enviro’s that are running out of funding and start suing to support the cause. EPIC slaps a suit on every issue hoping that something sticks and then the lawyers get their payday while their lackeys’ look like idiots.
Oh, God! What the “Friends” of the Dunes have done for twenty years has destroyed our ability to function as wetlands, destroyed wildlife, and introduced uncontrollable erosion. Friends? Not at all. I hoped the “Friends” of the Eel were better.
Ground water and aquifers need to be much better managed for the common good, no doubt. Good application for smart meters. Rather than judicial edicts, I prefer a more systematic, comprehensive legislative based solution that considers all the competing stakeholders in subterranean water.
It is imperative that we research, engineer, and build infrastructure that recharges aquifers and other subsurface water during rainy season. Building surface water storage (reservoirs) to collect water during rainy season can be a lifesaver during drought season.
Interesting article from the US Geological Survey (USGS): “Groundwater Decline and Depletion”.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/groundwater-decline-and-depletion#overview
1st)
10k sq ft needs 100,000 gallons of water per year.
2nd) the fish farm discharges 3.5 million gallons per day according to the appeal heard at the BoS.
3rd) each day the fish farm will discharge the same water used by 35 farms in a year.
So cannabis is not an issue.
Finally a constructed pond changes everything. I am two miles above the Eel river and twenty five miles to the ocean. You have 3 hrs and all the rain runoff from my hill is already in the ocean
Stop the well drilling that allows water depletion year round.
The fish farm is never going to happen. The Mad River flows are much diminished from the days of supplying the pulp mill with how many million gallons per day??? Don’t think it will support a fish farm and supply the water needs of Arcata and Eureka anymore?
Fish farm uses Mad River not Eel
I have indicated “Mad River” in the article.
Suing the wrong folks , they should be suing the state for pumping 80 percent of the eel river basin to the desert not suing to stop those that live and work in the eel river basin from utilizing the water that is around them . What is the value those that reside in the eel river basin receive for being Stewart’s ? For having sections of their property they can not use as they wish for having restrictions placed upon them and their property that prohibits them from fully realizing the value of their investments ?
So after pretty much all of the 10000000 or whatever dope farms are all gone the river is still dry ? hmmmm wtf are you Going to blame it on up here now? Look south up or stfu
Everyone wants and needs the Eel River water. Including the fish.
I thought I read a few years ago about there being an excess of water in the system that supplies Eureka. There was even talk of building a pipeline south so towns in SoHum could get some of that, but it wasn’t feasible due to unstable hills or something like that.
Well Fortuna isn’t that far from Eureka, why don’t they build a pipeline to them? Just a thought
the most amount of water pumped in that area is for pastures and hay. like 80%. The water board required the county to come up with this plan about 5 years ago.
Garth and his club should start being real friends to the eel and get the state to stop diverting it to the south from the actual headwaters