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    Gravel Mining in the Gualala River

    Sonoma County Board of Supervisors hearing:
    postponed indefinitely.

    Update, April 2008:
    The Army Corps of Engineers has denied (without prejudice) the permit application for gravel mining in the Gualala River on procedural and administrative grounds.

    Sonoma County has postponed consideration of a permit while the applicant re-starts the process with the Regional Water Quality Control Board, Army Corps of Engineers and National Marine Fisheries Service.

    Update, January 2008:
    At the hearing in October, 2007, the proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND), which would grant a County permit for gravel mining in the Gualala River, was neither approved nor denied. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors accepted the Planning and Resource Management Department staff recommendation for further deliberation (see "Gravel mining decision delayed" - Santa Rosa Press Democrat, October 24, 2007).

    The applicant subsequently requested a further delay to allow the National Marine Fisheries staff time to complete their Biological Opinion, and allow adequate time for review of their Opinion prior to the Board hearing.

    Friends of the Gualala River is not opposed to gravel mining in the Gualala River. However, we believe that the current MND is inadequate, and that the County must prepare a rigorous Environmental Impact Report, with state-of-the-science mitigation and monitoring, to regulate gravel mining to protect the river and its recovery (see our Letter to the Editor, November, 2007).


    Summary

    Gravel mining in the Wheatfield and South Forks of the Gualala River proceeded in 2006 and 2005 without County or federal Corps of Engineers permits during a "grace period" offered by Sonoma County.

    During this unauthorized "grace period," riparian forest and scrub were cleared along the haul road of the Wheatfield Fork, and gravel bars were mined out without significant natural gravel recharge. The mined bar at Valley Crossing degraded so much that the main channel breached the lowered head and top of the bar in late 2006. The river here abandoned its former stable, shaded channel position along riparian forest that supported steelhead until 2006. It is now a dry, shallow sun-baked bed in the middle of the remaining flats of the former bar.

    Henry Alden of Gualala Redwoods, Inc., the landowner of mined river reaches, is proposing to "revise" mining standards for the Gualala after two years of unauthorized mining and impacts that are now treated as part of the CEQA "baseline" conditions.

    The Gualala River is experiencing rapid regeneration of riparian woodland along its banks and bars except near mined reaches. Riparian woodland is stabilizing and trapping gravel, allowing channels to cut deeper into gravel alluvium and express surface flows all summer.

    Stream and riparian habitats of the Gualala River support biologically significant populations of federally listed steelhead, the endemic Gualala roach (a minnow subspecies unique to the watershed), western pond turtles, foothill yellow-legged frogs, California and red-bellied newts, green herons, wood ducks, red-breasted mergansers, and many other wildlife species.

    The County has to date been delinquent in its obligations to comply with CEQA and require permits for all gravel mining and associated activities, including coordination with state and federal permit agencies. The Gualala is the only river on the north coast with a recent history of unpermitted gravel mining and impacts.

    State and federal agencies have determined that the project description and environmental data are incomplete and inadequate. The US Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA Fisheries (National Marine Fisheries Service), and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board have not yet accepted applications as complete. All of those agencies must issue permits in coordination with Sonoma County before gravel mining may legally resume.

    Hydrologist Dennis Jackson concluded that:

    "The Mitigated Negative Declaration for the proposed instream gravel mining on the South Fork of the Gualala River and the Wheatfield Fork of the Gualala River is seriously flawed.

    • The MND does not identify all unavoidable adverse impacts.
    • The MND does not recognize that the proposed project contributes to cumulative adverse impacts.
    • The MND does not identify foreseeable future projects that will contribute to significant unavoidable impacts.
    • The MND does not does not mitigate the impacts from all potential extraction methodologies used by the proposed project.
    • Several of the proposed mitigation measures conflict with each other.
    • Not all potential impacts of the project have been adequately mitigated.
    • The current condition of the river has not been established. The O'Connor report (2003) was based on cross section data collected between 1996 and 2002. No analysis of data collected between 2003 and 2007 has been presented in the MND.

    An EIR should be required for the proposed project."

    Read Dennis Jackson's full report


    Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration:

    Additional information:


    NEW: October, 2007
    Aerial Photo Tour of the Gualala River
    Over 1,100 aerial photos, with
    photo documentation of gravel mining impacts.
    Valley Crossing gravel plant, Gualala River watershed, October 2007

    Public comments:

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