New lawsuit brings up age old problem
A recent lawsuit filed by Oakland-based Earthjustice, along with the Sierra Club, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and other conversation groups, contends that California water quality officials are not doing doing enough to clean up and restore California’s North Coast rivers. The lawsuit which deals specifically with 15 North Coast rivers is targeted to help improve water conditions for endangered North Coast salmonids.
Quoting the Santa Rosa Press Democrat article by Robert Digitale, “Catherine Kuhlman, executive officer of the North Coast Water Board in Santa Rosa, said she was dismayed that the lawsuit seems to focus on completing paperwork rather than on the actual results her staff has accomplished to reduce sediment and other pollutants from the region’s rivers. Kuhlmans also said her current staff of about 78 is nearly half the size it was in 2000.”
An attorney representing Earthjustice responded to Kuhlman’s claims by stating “A lack of funding isn’t a good excuse for not complying with the law.”
On a day where state legislators will once again meet at the capital to help resolve the long over-due budget, and on a day where many state workers are experiencing their first of many furloughs, it is a tough sell to convince the public that more money should be spent on salmon and river restoration.
This lawsuit, not untypical of many environmental based lawsuits filed in California, hearkens back to a long-standing hiccup in the state’s fish protection and restoration politics. Unlike many species, where life-cycles are short and population improvements can be seen in a relatively short period of time (a decade or so), salmon and steelhead’s 3-5 year life cycle’s often require multiple decades for watershed improvements to result in increased salmonid populations.
Although the state often passes aggressive regulation to help restore threatened and endangered salmonids, the organizations charged with enacting the new laws and programs are often dealt a severe funding blow somewhere down the road. It is a reality of California’s budgetary processes and a reality that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for awhile.
As is the case with the Earthjustice filing, the lawsuits are often aimed at keeping the state agencies accountable to pre-existing laws. As is the case, with the North Coast Water Board in Santa Rosa, state agencies are often asked to perform long-term comprehensive restoration programs with erratic staffs and budgets. As is the case with the state legislators, long-term restoration programs are often an expendable line of the budget.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat Article
