The Good Fight: Protecting the Gualala

Board of Directors Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Friends of Gualala River, from left to right, are Charlie Ivor, Jeanne Jackson, Nathan Ramser, and Lynn Walton. This photo was taken in the “Magical Forest” along the Gualala River floodplain, part of the Dogwood Timber Harvest Plan that FoGR is litigating because of its potentially harmful impact to salmonids and other species within the watershed. The Gualala is one of the storied steelhead rivers of California’s North Coast.

My father taught me how to use a fly rod as a kid, and I have been addicted to the tug as a drug ever since. As president of the Friends of Gualala River, I am fortunate to work with a group of people who realize that the habitat for coho salmon and Northern California steelhead has been hammered for over a hundred years, and we feel we must draw the line and take action, including litigation, so our grandchildren have the chance to experience a watershed that retains these precious fish.

Charles Ivor, president,
Friends of Gualala River

The Friends of Gualala River (FoGR), a North Coast grassroots watershed protection non-profit, continues its hard work defending the Gualala River from the threat of f loodplain logging. On May 20, 2021, FoGR filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt logging of the Gualala Redwood Timber (GRT) Company’s Dogwood timber harvest plan (THP), which had been stayed while FoGR’s state lawsuit went through the appeal process. Now that the state suit has ended, FoGR’s current federal lawsuit (filed in September 2020 in partnership with the Center for Biological Diversity) can continue.

The federal suit alleges the Dogwood THP will violate the Endangered Species Act because it will result in the taking of four listed species found in the watershed: Central California Coast coho salmon, Northern California steelhead, California red-legged frogs, and northern spotted owls. According to FoGR, the Dogwood THP will harm these and a host of other species and their habitat not only through the removal of large redwoods, but through the associated process of logging, including log hauling, road building, and road maintenance in the Gualala River floodplain. FoGR has released data showing that eDNA (environmental DNA) of coho, steelhead, and the red-legged frog was present in the Gualala River in December 2020. This is important because it proves that three of the four species listed in the lawsuit are present.

The Dogwood area begins near the Gualala Point Regional Park Campground, adjacent to the Gualala River, in an area known by locals as the “Magical Forest” because of its beautiful stands of healthy redwoods, ferns, sorrel, and a host of rare plants. It then stretches upriver to Switchville and extends for miles down the South Fork, which flows parallel to The Sea Ranch. FoGR has successfully blocked implementation of the Dogwood THP since it was originally approved in 2015 by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection over the objections of hundreds of residents, scientists, and other agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Of the hundreds of timber harvest plans filed by the GRT and others in the last few decades, FoGR has opposed only a handful, specifically, those that most directly threaten irreparable harm to the Gualala River and its floodplain. The Dogwood THP f its this category and “would remove many of the last, largest remaining trees in the watershed — and those monumental 100-year-old trees are located in the floodplain,” says Lynn Walton, FoGR’s vice president.

The GRT owns 29,000 acres of the 191,000-acre Gualala River watershed, though they aren’t the only entity that logs in it. FoGR has been able to work cooperatively with other landowners, such as The Conservation Fund, who practice sustainable forest management. “One of our major focuses is on protecting the f loodplains,” Lynn adds. “FoGR is not against all logging, but we want it to be done in a way that does not harm the endangered and threatened species that live in and around the floodplain and river, which we believe the Dogwood THP would do if we sat back and let it happen.”


Litigation is not the only tool in FoGR’s toolbox. Its volunteers regularly engage in education, outreach, and advocacy about the Gualala river floodplain and its inhabitants. Among FoGR’s current efforts is building a 3-D topographic model of the river’s 300square-mile watershed to be housed at the Gualala Point Regional Park visitor’s center and used to teach schoolchildren and visitors about the watershed.

In addition, FoGR hosts expert-led educational events and workshops, which recently included a free Earth Day virtual workshop on salmonids with a senior scientist from California Trout. Local Mendonoma Sightings author Jeanne Jackson, FoGR’s treasurer, conducts in-school educational workshops, sharing with students knowledge about the various creatures that live in and alongside the river. Her mission is to help our community’s young people understand why and how to be good stewards of the floodplain. Jeanne says that when she shows them a picture of a steelhead fry or a newborn western toad the size of a tiny pebble and explains that the floodplain is their home, they start to understand the harm done by driving over the gravel bar.

On the advocacy front, FoGR is working to convince the State Water Quality Control Board to follow its mandate to protect water quality in the Gualala River. In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed the Gualala River as “impaired” under the Clean Water Act due to extensive sediment and high temperatures — death sentences for spawning salmon. The EPA also set limits to the amount of pollution (in this case, sediment), called “total maximum daily load” (TMDL), that could enter the river and its tributaries without exceeding water-quality standards.

However, the river remains listed as impaired, and according to FoGR, the state and regional water boards have not helped to address or control sources of sediment. FoGR hired a professional hydrologist to conduct a sediment analysis and has petitioned the state water board to, among other actions, “1) adopt the Gualala River’s TMDL into the North Coast Basin Plan; and, 2) develop and adopt an Action Plan to achieve the TMDL and improve water quality as required by the EPA Clean Water Act.”

FoGR continues to raise funds from the community to support the current lawsuit, as well as its advocacy and educational efforts. For more information or to make a contribution to ensure the health of our watershed, visit FoGR’s website at https://gualalariver.org.

This article is reprinted with the permission of the author and The Sea Ranch Soundings.

Add a comment

Leave a Reply