Environmental lawsuit challenges river oversight

<p>A coalition of conservation and fishing groups Wednesday filed a lawsuit contending that California water quality officials have failed to do enough to clean up streams and rivers along the North Coast.</p><p>The lawsuit claims that the North Coast Water Quality Control Board and state water board have taken too long to implement action plans to clean up more than 15 waterways from southern Sonoma County to the Oregon border. The rivers include the Russian, Navarro, Albion, Eel and Mattole.</p><p>“We’re hoping to both restore the health of these rivers and to provide the cool clean water for these salmon populations to be restored,” said George Torgun, an attorney with the Oakland-based environmental legal group Earthjustice.</p><p>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.</p><p>Kuhlmans also said her current staff of about 78 is nearly half the size it was in 2000.</p><p>“The bottom line is we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got,” Kuhlman said.</p><p>Many North Coast rivers suffer from two much sediment and nutrients and occasionally high temperatures. Conservationists contend that the pollution comes from logging, grazing, farming, mining and from the runoff off dirt roads.</p><p>In 1995, some of the same conservation groups took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to court and won a settlement in which the federal agency agreed to set pollutions limits for the region’s rivers. With the exception of the Klamath River watershed, that work has been completed.</p><p>The suit contends that except for three rivers, the state has failed to complete specific action plans for reducing pollution on each waterway.</p><p>Among the organizations that joined in the lawsuit are the Sierra Club, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and conservation groups for three river watersheds.</p><p>Asked if the state should be moving faster on cleaning up the region’s rivers, Kuhlman replied, “That’s a decision for the legislature and the governor to make. I take what they give me.”</p><p>Torgun said the action plans are required under the state’s water quality act. “A lack of funding isn’t a good excuse for not complying with the law,” he said.</p>