Friends of Gualala River Protecting the Gualala River watershed and the species living within it

For information on more recent events, see: Fireworks over the Gualala River estuary? Update: June 25, 2008 Today, the 1st District Court of Appeals rejected the appeal by the Gualala Festivals Committee. The Coastal Commission’s order stands: no fireworks over the Gualala River estuary without a permit. Update: June 19, 2008 The Gualala Festivals Committee canceled their controversial plans to …

Sonoma County Regional Parks, in partnership with California Native Plant Society – Dorothy King Young and Milo Baker Chapters, and Friends of the Gualala River, is embarking on a wild land weed control project at Gualala Point’s coastal bluff and sand spit. The target is bush lupine, one of the most troublesome wildland weeds of the North Coast’s dunes, bluffs, and sandy …

Thursday, May 15, 2008, 7:00 p.m. Gualala Community Center 47950 Center St., Gualala Friends of the Gualala River presents a public program featuring Matthew Deitch, Ph.D. from the Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration. “If the steelhead and coho that were once abundant in coastal California are to have any chance of recovering in the 21st Century, agencies and stakeholders …

Advice puts Eel River diversion plan on shelf by Glenda Anderson The Press Democrat March 12, 2008 [excerpt:] A recently revived proposal to divert water from a protected portion of the Eel River near Dos Rios has been quietly shelved following a negative legal opinion. “For now, we’ve put the whole Dos Rios thing on hold,” Mendocino County Water Agency …

Gualala River Alchemy! Saturday, August 24 1:00 p.m. Annapolis Winery Be there at the first, fun kick-off event in a public campaign to convince the third largest corporate winery in the world to spare 154 acres of Gualala River’s redwood forest from the chainsaw.   Read more → Stop Clearcutting California Thursday, March 21 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Gualala Arts Center Clearcuts behind …

Annapolis (Sonoma County, California) Friends of the Gualala River presented a natural history digital slide show of the Gualala River and its watershed, wildlife, and vegetation, to the kindergarten through fourth grade classes of Horicon School in Annapolis, on Friday, February 8, 2008. The slide show followed the path of a helicopter “field trip” of the lower Gualala River, featuring …

by Peter Baye This letter was published in the Independent Coast Observer on January 25, 2008. Editor: What’s in a name? Will something called a “soil retention system” rather than a “retaining wall” conserve the natural, mature coastal bluff vegetation along the river bank? In a word, no. Regardless of whether the scenic coastal bluffs along the Gualala River bank …

by Britt Bailey, Director Environmental Commons This Open Space article was published in the Independent Coast Observer on January 25, 2008. There are a myriad of opinions with respect to Mr. John Bower’s proposal to build a retaining wall or retaining structure on the bluff in Gualala. Speaking for Environmental Commons, I’d like to clarify our reasons for opposing and …

Friends of the Gualala River protects the Gualala River watershed in Northern California and the species living within it.

by Peter Baye This letter was published in the Independent Coast Observer on February 22, 2008. Editor: The ICO’s editorial on “The Surf project” (February 15, 2008) is right about the benefits of a new downtown building layout that opens up coastal views. But it misses the point entirely about the nature and problems of “piecemealing” the bluff project ahead …

by Karl Anderson This letter was published in the Independent Coast Observer on January 25, 2008. Editor: With his new proposal John Bower would seem to acknowledge that a large concrete wall in the Gualala River estuary would be an eyesore. But his “soil retention wall” ignores the fact that the bluff is stable and does not need to be …

Friends of the Gualala River protects the Gualala River watershed in Northern California and the species living within it.

Friends of the Gualala River protects the Gualala River watershed in Northern California and the species living within it.

Friends of the Gualala River protects the Gualala River watershed in Northern California and the species living within it.

Letter to the editor published in the Independent Coast Observer November 2, 2007 Editor: Early in September, Friends of the Gualala River asked hydrologist Dennis Jackson to analyze the impacts of in-stream gravel mining in the Gualala River and to comment on the Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for the Gualala Redwoods gravel mining permit renewal that is being considered by …

Supervisors give planners more time to weigh hydrologist’s report on Gualala River by Bleys Rose, The Press Democrat, October 24, 2007 [excerpt:] Build-up of gravel in the Gualala River is reigniting familiar debate in Sonoma County over whether riverbed mining helps or hinders the health of waterways. For more than a decade, county supervisors have been discouraging mining of gravel …

Report: California taxpayers may be getting fleeced by unreliable system to appraise sales price for park and open space land by Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News, October 23, 2007 [excerpt:] California voters have approved spending billions of dollars to buy new parks, wildlife refuges and open space preserves in recent years. Yet taxpayers may be getting fleeced because state …

For information on more recent events, see: Fireworks over the Gualala River estuary? Update: October, 2007 The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released a preliminary joint report on seabird and marine mammal monitoring conducted under its direction at Gualala Point Island, which is part of the California Coastal National Monument: Seabird and Marine Mammal Monitoring on Offshore Rock Islands …

THP 1-07-067 MEN Table of Contents THP Overview map THP documents (annotated index) THP Quotes re: Development Gualala Town Plan & Zoning THP Approval by CDF  –  9/28/07 Official Response to Public Comments 0.3 MB pdf Information sources THP Documents – CDF website Gualala Town Plan – County website Mendocino Coastal Zoning Code – County website Letters Friends of the …

Friends of the Gualala River protects the Gualala River watershed in Northern California and the species living within it.