Plus CDFW Budgets, Water Plans, and More
Legalized Marijuana Could Harm Rivers and Fish
With recreational marijuana now legal in California, will an expanding number of outdoor pot farms have a big effect on rivers? No one knows for sure, but a growing number of local and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), are trying to figure that out and how to minimize any impact.
Some of the best data on the size of marijuana growing operations and its regulation can be seen in a recent report by The Nature Conservancy. “Experts estimate that there are currently 50,000 grow sites in California and an additional 5,000 abandoned growth sites on public lands that are in need of restoration,” the report says. “California produces a staggering 60 to 70 percent of all marijuana cultivated in the U.S.,” with an annual “cash value . . . estimated to be $16 billion, more than the top two agricultural crops combined, yet the industry remains largely unregulated.” “Sites pop up frequently in hard-to-access, remote locations,” the report notes, adding that “the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has only enough resources currently to inspect less than one percent of those sites.” When Proposition 64 passed in 2016, legalizing recreational use of marijuana in California, it devoted 20 percent “of the estimated $1 billion in tax revenue . . . to clean, restore, and remediate environmental damage caused by cultivation of cannabis. Funds would also be used to discourage the illegal cultivation of cannabis which could harm the environment,” the report recalls.
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) have been studying and reporting on the impact of pot cultivation, focusing on the Eel River watershed, which is recovering from damages from a half-century of logging and soil erosion. “All of these wonderful native fishes are on the brink of coming back,” said Mary Power, a UCB professor of integrated biology. “It is very frustrating that their recovery — which has taken 50 years and is actually a fairly encouraging recovery for the fish and for the older Eel habitat — is being derailed by the marijuana ‘green rush.’ ”
Using a combination of data from Google Earth and on-the-ground busts of illegal marijuana growing sites, UCB study coauthor Scott Bauer, a senior environmental scientist at the CDFW, calculated that marijuana can suck up 3 billion liters of water per square kilometer in one season — nearly twice as much as might be used to grow wine grapes.
“We’re only starting to get a handle on these numbers,” said Sally Thompson, UCB assistant professor of environmental engineering. “This is criminal activity, so it’s dangerous to monitor the impact. But even if the numbers are off, we are still talking about significant quantities of water. It is clear that as a society, we cannot embark upon these conversations of marijuana legalization without considering how the plant will be produced.”
The CDFW has also been studying the environmental impact of pot, with the department’s work dependent on convincing growers to sign up for the agency’s regulatory program — a challenge, because many have been making millions of dollars operating under the radar. Also, many of the growers live in a culture that doesn’t exactly trust government. This is particularly true in Humboldt County, home of some of the state’s most pristine rivers and streams and where pot replaced logging as a major contributor to the local economy.
Humboldt County environmental scientist Dr. Mourad Gabriel said satellite imagery shows that there are about fifteen thousand cultivation sites in the county. “Of these grow sites, about twenty-three hundred have taken steps to come into compliance with the new regulations,” said Gabriel, referring to his county’s rules for cultivation. “That leaves about 85 percent of Humboldt’s cannabis farmers who are choosing not to operate in accordance with state regulations or county ordinances.”
A number of these grow sites continue to damage rivers and streams, as they have for years. “Once-rushing rivers and the streams that feed them are running dry as more marijuana growers divert water to irrigate their cash crop,” said Gabriel. “The fish that live in these waterways become trapped in stagnant pools where they starve, fail to spawn, and die.” The Humboldt Growers Association estimates that a typical marijuana plant requires six gallons of water a day from June through October. Gabriel added: “Most egregiously, dangerous pesticides and rodenticides are deployed around grow sites to keep mammalian predators from chewing on cannabis roots and stalks.”
Work by state agencies dealing with the impact of pot ramped up after November 2016, when 56 percent of California’s voters decided that marijuana could be shared, traded, grown at home, and smoked without a medical reason. Use of marijuana has been legal under California law for medical purposes since 1996. Before legalization, marijuana had been grown illegally by clandestine entrepreneurs, mostly in heavily forested areas and along streams and rivers in the Sierra Nevada foothills and Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties on the North Coast in an area that has became known as the “Emerald Triangle.”
Marijuana growers have been estimated to produce 20 million pounds of pot per year, according to the Emerald Growers Association. Regulating water use by growers by the CDFW and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) has been a challenge, mostly because of limited staff for enforcement, even though agencies have new tools to use. In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law expanding the CDFW Marijuana Enforcement Team’s power to levy fines for violations of the Fish and Game Code dealing with “controlled substance cultivation” on private property. But now, these agencies are making headway in getting growers to comply with water laws and some land-use laws. Regional water officials have also focused on regulating pot growers’ practice of cutting down old-growth trees to clear their land. In addition to implementing current regulations, state and local officials are working to restore grow sites. As of November 20, 2017, the CDFW had awarded $1.3 million in grants for cannabis restoration projects. To apply for a grant, go to https:/servation/Watersheds/Cannabis-Restoration-Grant.
When pot growers flee as game wardens and other law enforcement officers discover them, the CDFW is left with the task of donning white hazardous-material suits in order to clean up the toxic mess. After raids of these sites, the CDFW has found scarred landscapes, poorly constructed roads and ponds, erosion-prone hillsides, trash-loaded campsites, and properties littered with barrels of chemicals that leach into streams and kill salmon, trout, and other aquatic life. Many of the streams are home to coho salmon and steelhead populations that have already been stressed by low water flows caused by the drought.
Three years ago, the California State Senate Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture devoted an extensive public hearing to the topic of the effects of marijuana farming, and its chair, Senator Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, concluded that pot farmers in the state have disregarded environmental laws in favor of profit. “Marijuana is literally sucking rivers dry,” McGuire said at the time. DeWayne Little, a warden with the CDFW’s Watershed Enforcement Team, told the hearing, “We have grows that are larger than ever. Streams are being diverted at an alarming rate.” As reported in a Scientific American article, “Little cited a recent example of portions of a stream his team encountered near Fish Lake in Humboldt County in which pot farmers were using PVC pipe, Dixie cups, funnels, and even two-liter Pepsi bottles to divert water for 5,000 plants.” He told the hearing participants: “There literally wasn’t a drop of water left after that diversion.”
State Budget Has $50.6 Million for Department of Fish and Wildlife
State fish-and-wildlife protection efforts could soon be in for big bucks, if lawmakers give their blessing. The funding could provide millions to support the financially beleaguered California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Governor Brown allocated $50.6 million in his proposed 2018–19 state budget to the CDFW — half of the funding shortfall that CDFW identified in its six-year-old strategic plan. The amount is contingent on the legislature approving the budget by June 30, 2018.
The governor’s budget priorities for the CDFW include providing funding for programs for salmon protection, habitat restoration, law enforcement, future droughts, and more. “Drought response efforts will include a voluntary drought initiative,” according to the governor’s budget message, “which encourages landowners to keep as much water as possible in high-priority spawning streams. The department also has expedited installation of storage tanks for landowners who would otherwise divert from streams.”
The CDFW’s proposed budget is just over $586 million, which includes $1.5 million for the state Fish and Game Commission. CDFW revenue took a hit 10 years ago, Stafford Lehr, the department’s Fisheries Branch chief, said during a panel at January’s International Sportsmen’s Exposition in Sacramento. “Through the last seven years, we have been able to rebuild.”
In addition, the governor’s budget adds $385 million for various resource agencies to support projects that meet the state’s commitment under the Klamath Agreements ($150 million), the Central Valley Improvement Act ($90 million), and the San Joaquin River Settlements ($45 million). It also adds $17.7 million for the CDFW to continue fish rescue and stressor monitoring, water efficiency projects on department lands, and law enforcement activities and to provide infrastructure to protect salmon. It provides $3.6 million to the Delta Stewardship Council to support science and ecosystem restoration in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and $6.3 million to CDFW for additional science to determine the status of threatened and endangered species and identify areas to protect and restore. It allocates $6.2 million to the CDFW for salmon and steelhead conservation management and $8.6 million to the CDFW for law enforcement and authorization to hire 16 new wardens to protect wildlife and combat illegal wildlife trafficking. It also provides $20 million to the CDFW to promote healthy fish and wildlife in an effort to get more people outdoors.
Department officials also have been working to identify a broad range of other funding sources. To focus that revenue-raising effort, CDFW has embarked on what it calls its “R3 Program,” which will “recruit” new potential outdoor enthusiasts to boost license revenue, “retain” existing ones, and “reactivate” those whose licenses have expired. The CDFW is developing strategies for implementing the R3 Program that have worked successfully in other states, such as Georgia, which brought back nearly ten thousand lapsed anglers in an effort that raised $220,000 in revenue.
Buy a Stamp to Help a California Game Warden
It could be the best five bucks you will ever spend. That is the cost of a CDFW Warden Stamp, which raises funds for the department’s law enforcement division. According to the CDFW, purchase of the $5 stamp will “procure vital equipment, protective gear and training for wildlife officers and enhance the department’s K-9 Program.” Information on how to make a donation is available at https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/warden-stamp
Voters Could Give Millions to CDFW Projects
To support its work, the CDFW would receive millions of dollars if voters on June 5, 2018, approve Proposition 68, a $34 billion bond with a something-for-everybody title: the “California Drought, Water, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018.” The proposition got on the ballot when the legislature approved Senate Bill 5, which the governor signed into law on October 15, 2017. If approved by voters, this act would provide $60 million to protect, restore, and improve upper watershed lands in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, $60 million for the Natural Resources Agency to make grants for environmental projects to local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and Indian tribes, and $30 million for the CDFW to improve conditions for fish and wildlife in streams, rivers, wildlife refuges, wetland habitat areas, and estuaries. It also would provide $30 million to the CDFW to restore Southern California steelhead habitat, $25 million for the CDFW to reconnect rivers with flood plains and riparian and side-channel habitat, $25 million for the CDFW to “restore rivers and habitat that support fisheries and wildlife,” and $5 million to restore habitat in the Klamath-Trinity watershed to benefit salmon and steelhead.
The act says that funds “may not be used to pay for costs of the design, construction, operation, mitigation, or maintenance of Delta conveyance facilities,” which refers to the proposed twin-tunnel project to divert Sacramento River water around the Delta to the facility that pumps water to Southern California. “Those costs shall be the responsibility of water agencies that benefit.”
Water Officials Float Single Delta Tunnel Plan
Have you heard the saying that “half a loaf is better than none”? Well, advocates of plans to divert Sacramento River water around the Delta may think so. With the blessing of the governor, the Department of Water Resources has floated a proposal to build one, rather than two massive tunnels to send Sacramento River water to Southern California. Specifically, the state is considering building one tunnel now with the funds that are available, then another at a later, undetermined date.
The governor has proposed building two 35-mile-long tunnels at once, but the plan has drawn heated opposition from environmental groups, and some of the agencies involved balked at committing funds to pay for the $16.3 billion project, which is officially known as “California WaterFix.” DWR director Karla Neweth said that the first tunnel would cost $10.7 billion. So far, south-of-Delta water agencies have pledged $6 billion for the project. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has pledged $4 billion and has indicated that it might be willing to pledge more.
On hearing the new funding plan, Delta landowners and conservation groups opposed to the project said even the single tunnel would damage the Delta’s fragile environment, threatening Sacramento River winter-run and fall-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon, and other species that are bordering on extinction. Also threatened would be the salmon and steelhead populations in the Trinity and Klamath Rivers.
Jay Sorenson Inducted into Hall of Fame
Jay Sorenson of Stockton, a well-known conservationist, was inducted into the California Outdoor Hall of Fame at the 2018 International Sportsmen’s Exposition in Sacramento. Sorenson, who has spent more than ten thousand days in the San Joaquin Delta, is the founder of the California Striped Bass Association. At the show, an induction ceremony was held by San Francisco Chronicle outdoor writer Tom Stienstra, a long-time champion of the award. Outdoor writers and others recommend candidates and vote each year on inductees to the Hall of Fame.
Humboldt Man Gets 20 Years for Shooting at Warden
A Humboldt County man who attempted to shoot a CDFW wildlife officer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Shawn Eugene Hof, Jr., 25, was convicted in Humboldt County Superior Court of assault with a firearm upon a peace officer with an enhancement of personally using a firearm, being a felon in possession of a firearm, using threats and violence upon an executive officer, negligently discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle, and one misdemeanor violation of “spotlighting” (using artificial light to poach wildlife). Humboldt County Superior Court Judge John T. Feeney issued the 20-year sentence. By law, Hof must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence because of the serious nature of the offenses.
Top Court Lets Stand Fish-Saving River Mining Regs
Mining advocates were dealt a blow recently after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a bid to repeal California’s ban on an in-river gold mining practice, according to The Times-Standard newspaper in Eureka. Craig Tucker, the natural resources policy advocate for the Karuk Tribe, said that the tribe has been fighting mining on the Klamath River since 1850 — including suing the state in 2005 — and called the decision a “huge victory.” The newspaper reported that Tucker said the tribe also is pleased the state is working to create new regulations to protect fish and water quality from mining impacts, but he said that mining should be banned in waters that are home to threatened species or have existing water quality problems. “The idea that we’re going to let recreational gold mining further destroy fish habitat when our fisheries are in such dire straits seems absurd to me,” Tucker said. State regulators are working on rules that would allow mining to recommence as soon as this year or potentially in 2019 — 10 years after the ban took effect.
