I made this video (less than 3 minutes) because I believe we need a re-think about what "The River" means to us. Would love to start a dialog...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNxutf8qOlY&feature=youtu.be
Thank you, Purplehazel for bringing this issue up, along with everybody else who commented.
I reached out to Brenda Adelman of the Russian River Watershed Protection Committee regarding the issue of breaching the mouth of the river and she was kind enough to send the detailed reply below:
Thank you for contacting me about “The Russian River needs a hug” video. (lovely video, but short of information)
In response to your email, RRWPC has seldom addressed the general concept of breaching the mouth although we continually say that “Mother Nature should be in charge!” What we have addressed at great length in our mailer letters and Gazette Articles (see website at www.rrwpc.org (https://www.rrwpc.org/) ) has been the Estuary Management Project as required by the Biological Opinion (put forth by National Marine Fisheries Service or NMFS), released in September, 2008.
That document requires that Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) manage the estuary between May 15th and October 15th of every year so that when the mouth closes, a channel must be constructed in a way that on August 19th this month,
SCWA will release their EIR
on the Fish Flow (low flow) project
which will make permanent the
requirement that flows
be lowered PERMANENTLY!maintains a fresh water ‘lagoon’ by allowing small amounts of fresh water to be released, while blocking ocean water from getting in. In order to do this, the Biological Opinion, which was never reviewed by the public, or agencies other than those directly affected by it (SCWA, Army Corps of Engineers and State Fish and Wildlife), requires that minimum flows be lowered from 125 cfs in a normal rain year, to as low as 60 cfs in the lower river, for the simple purpose of maximizing the amount of time that the established ‘lagoon’ remains viable. The purpose, as mentioned by a commenter on your website, was to provide rich habitat for juvenile steelhead before they begin their sojourn in the ocean.
For the last six years, SCWA has appealed to the State Water Board for Temporary Urgency Change Orders, which allowed limitation of flows in the lower river. By referring to this as an emergency, environmental review was not required and the Board granted the Order every one of those years. (While some people submitted comments some of those years and were told they would be responded to, that never happened in a meaningful way and the Orders were quickly granted.) This was in spite of the fact that they were provided a great deal of evidence that the lowering of flows was exacerbating excessive algae, some of it potentially toxic (blue green algae). Toxic algae proliferates in conditions where there is warm water (Guerneville water temperatures average 25 degrees centigrade all summer, a temperature that would be lethal to salmonids if they inhabited the river at that time.) By the way, over the last six years of attempting the project on numerous occasions, it only succeeded once. (Here is link to SCWA site where there is a great deal of information on this: https://www.scwa.ca.gov/russian-river-estuary/ ) The whole Russian River is listed as impaired for excessive temperatures by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Another factor that encourages the growth of toxic algae are excessive levels of the nutrient phosphorus. Part of the requirements of the Biological Opinion is for SCWA to conduct extensive monitoring for numerous perimeters in the lower river. Every one of the tests has come up as too high on Phosphorus. In the meantime, on August 19th this month, SCWA will release their EIR on the Fish Flow (low flow) project which will make permanent the requirement that flows be lowered PERMANENTLY! There will be a 60 day comment period to Oct. 17th, 2016, and a hearing in Board of Supervisors Chambers at 3 pm on Sept. 13th. That will be an extremely important meeting. There will also be a workshop where people can get information on project at the Monte Rio Community Center on August 24th from 4 to 8 pm (not a regular meeting- just a way to get information). Also, I have written an article on this issue for the August Gazette coming out around August 4th. We believe that permanently lowering flows will assure that water quality will suffer and toxic algae may proliferate.
The Biological Opinion seems to convey the idea that the mouth closes frequently in the summer. Actually we have examined SCWA’s breaching data for the last 20 years and have found that in that time, SCWA data shows there have been only 5 breachings in the month of July during those 20 years, and 2 breaches in the The Russian River is a managed river.
The problem is that it is managed
much more for the provision of
water supplies and not so much
for the environmentmonth of August in same time period, a fact that implies few closings. And in fact, those two months, when both recreation and algal blooms are at their highest levels, have the lowest number of breachings over the 20 years. We believe, and SCWA has indicated this at meetings, that the ocean pushes sand up when it is very active and causes the mouth to close. October and November have the highest numbers of breachings at 30 and 36 respectively. This is not true of all estuaries along the coast, but it seems to be true of the larger ones. Nevertheless, it appears that the County believes the required lowering of flows is a done deal. (They virtually said so in the 2015 Urban Water Management Plan when they discussed water availability for their contractors. See Gazette Article.)
The Russian River is a managed river. The problem is that it is managed much more for the provision of water supplies and not so much for the environment. We need a lot of people to protest this action. People can contact me at email address below. We hope they will get informed and weigh in on the EIR process. If they want to get on my email list, they can drop me a note. I will try to keep everyone up to date. Also, a good contact person at SCWA is Ann Dubay at
[email protected] There’s much more to this story; we have been tracking it for about 15 years or more, but I now have to close.
Brenda
PS: The recreational dams now have a greatly diminished time period during which they can operate now. Most of the time they are up, the salmonid fish species are not in the water. (not sure about Chinook, but NMFS doesn’t seem as concerned about that species) Also, there are only harbor seals at mouth, not sea lions (There was one sea lion around several years back who badly harassed the harbor seals, but he finally went away and has not been seen for quite a while.)
--
Brenda Adelman
Russian River Watershed Protection Committee
P.O. Box 501, Guerneville, CA 95446
Email:
[email protected]
RRWPC Website: www.rrwpc.org (https://www.rrwpc.org/)