"The practice of timber harvesting on state and private lands in California is, in most cases, failing to adequately protect water quality and endangered and threatened species. California forestry practices have been criticized in a number of state and federal government and scientific and academic reports as insufficient to protect public trust resources such as fisheries and water quality. These documented concerns are the subject of this paper." -- Report on Timber Harvesting and Water Quality by the California Senate Office of Research (Adobe PDF)
Photographs of logging-damaged streams, roads, and hills.
What Is Going On Behind the Sea Ranch? -- Click to find out.
(See also: Damage on the Gualala -- Letter & Photos)
“Anyone can identify destructive forest practices. You don’t have to be a professional forester to recognize bad forestry any more than you need to be a doctor to recognize ill health. If logging looks bad, it is bad.” -- Gordon Robinson, The Forest and the Trees: a Guide to Excellent Forestry
G-P logging near Ft. Bragg, Mendocino
Co. (Photo: MEC)
[RRRAUL at Sonoma State University,
April 1999]
(Photographs by RRRAUL)
Restoration Work at Willow Creek
Willow Creek "Area A" gulley,
PRE-logging
Willow Creek "Area A" gulley,
PRE-logging, II
(Photos: Ron Brinkerhoff)
Willow Creek "Area A"
gulley, POST-logging
Willow Creek "Area A" gulley,
POST-logging, II
(Photos: RRRAUL)
Tractor
in Stream (Photos: M. Winslow) 
RRRAUL received the following from Canada: "I've been a logger in British Columbia for the past 28 years. I am also an old resident of Gualala. I was raised there in the 50's and 60's and remember the river dumping all its silt during the rains of December when it overflowed the bar. And that's what the salmon and the steelies had to swim up into! But never would I believe that in this day and age would machinery be allowed to yard logs over a stream bed. That is a photo of a totally mindless and obscene act. I would hope anyone over 5 years old could understand that you just don't treat rivers and streams in such a manner. Apparently not though, eh?" -- John Sawyer , British Columbia
Austin Creek
[Aerials of proposed Austin Creek logging]
 |
 |
 |
 |
Above photographs by RRRAUL
Burn damage on the Gualala
Above photographs by Gualala River Improvement Network (GRIN).
Other Gualala River Logging:
Photograph by Del Potter, Matrix for Change (Matrix is compiling a video of recent Gualala logging activities. For more information, phone Del Potter at 707-785-3514)
Above photographs by Gualala River Improvement Network. Airplane piloted by Greg Zuckert, RRRAUL.
More Gualala Clearcut Photographs
Still More Gualala Clearcut Photographs
"The damage done [to the Wheatfield fork of the Gualala] by logging was huge and it will take decades more to approach the pre-harvest conditions we would like to see. The stream canopy on the Wheatfield is generally poor... " From a CDF Pre-harvest Inspection
In April RRRAUL flew over the Sea Ranch and the Gualala River to inspect the results of clearcutting and (in some cases) broadcast burning. From the air, we could plainly inspect the environmental disturbances of recent logging and the turbid condition of the Gualala River in that area.
Forest Practice Rule 917.3(d), prohibits broadcast burning in Watercourse and Lake Protection Zones for Class I and II watercourses, and for Class IIIs where this is necessary to protect downstream and beneficial uses of water. In some recent cases, such protections have not been provided; witness the recent burns reported by the Gualala River Improvement Network . The cumulative impacts upon the Gualala of such burns, in particular, and, in general, of so much clearcutting in proximity to this watershed, has been large in the past decade. The "checkerboard" patterning of the THPs has been insufficient to prevent serious erosional harms to the River and its fish habitat, nor can the region’s wildlife have fared well. Even those animals escaping the burnings will have been negatively affected, as many will have been unable to successfully relocate, while a burned habitat cannot provide forage and shelter for many years.
For an update, see: Is Gualala Burning? Water Quality Board Chides Practices
Aerial photographs of Austin Creek and Guerneville
(Warning: these are LARGE images and will take some time to download)
Austin Creek Aerial,
1961
Austin Creek Aerial, 1971
Austin Creek Aerial, 1980
Austin Creek Aerial, 1992
Austin Creek Aerial, 1980 w/Topo
overlay
Guerneville, 1992
Aerial photographs by W.A.C. via Sonoma County Assessor's Office
RRRAUL Home | Search RRRAUL | News | Logging | Fishery | Watershed | Photographs | Contacts | Organization | Calendar | External Links |