New cleanup order issued to Felta Creek logger, landowner

North Coast water quality officials have issued new cleanup orders to the owner of a troubled logging site in the Felta Creek watershed near Healdsburg who has been hit with repeated environmental violations over the past year.

Eureka attorney and licensed timber operator Ken Bareilles faces potential fines of up to $10,000 a day if he fails to follow through on the orders, which require long-term restoration and monitoring of the disrupted landscape.

The new Cleanup and Abatement Order is still in draft form and won’t be finalized until at least July 23. Bareilles first has 30 days to submit written comments that could contribute to refinement of the final order.

But the record of post-fire salvage logging on the 106 acres at issue suggests Bareilles has little room to fight the strict demands that he stabilize hillsides, roads and trails and otherwise take action to prevent future rainfall from washing sediment into Felta Creek.

The creek is a last refuge for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout.

State regulatory agencies have documented multiple violations on the property over the past year related to poor erosion control, sediment flow during wet conditions, soil deposited in Felta Creek and even an unpermitted bridge Bareilles started to have built across the creek in order to haul logs until he was ordered to stop.

At one point, a tractor of some kind was driven into the dry creek bed in connection with the bridge, as well, officials said.

Bareilles, who had another licensed timber operator contracted to do the work until April, has mostly blamed others for problems at the site, arguing he was ill-advised or just let down by folks he hired to do work on his behalf.

That person, Nicolas “Matt” Kreck, resigned from the job, saying in a letter to Cal Fire that Bareilles’ “rogue” conduct was putting the other man’s license at risk.

Bareilles was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday, but has shown little regard for state regulators in previous cases, suggesting their actions are largely misguided or intended to pacify whiny neighbors.

Cal Fire filed six notices of violation over a 12-month period; The California Department of Fish and Wildlife filed two.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, meanwhile, filed a November memo identifying multiple violations on the site, many resulting from record rainfall Oct. 24 and 25 that resulted in saturated soils and channelized flows that brought huge volumes of sediments downhill from the steep logging site.

In January, the water quality board issued its first Cleanup and Abatement Order to Bareilles, addressing violations observed between July and November 2021. The order required an Interim Cleanup and Stabilization Plan be submitted to the agency within 15 days of the order’s issuance.

It took him 38 days. The plan arrived a day after the agency filed a notice of violation for failure to submit it, when logging had resumed again on the property.

It is superseded by the new order which allows for restoration that was not or could not be conducted when earth was saturated.

Much of it would be accomplished by performing the regular site cleanup work required after any logging operation, according to Jim Burke, senior engineering geologist with the water quality control board’s forestry unit.

Bareilles said earlier this month he expected to finish the job by late June or early July.

The logging site is part of a 160-acre timber harvest plan called Fox Meadows that Bareilles proposed in 2017, two years after he purchased the property.

Neighbors in the idyllic canyon fought the plan, however, eventually suing Cal Fire for approving it despite the risk to Felta Creek. Bareilles submitted a revised version, but when Cal Fire asked for additional time to consider it, refused to grant an extension on the review period, so it was rejected.

Weeks later, the August 2020 Walbridge fire swept through the region, damaging redwood and Douglas fir trees on the hill and allowing Bareilles to file an emergency waiver authorizing him to salvage log without the usual extensive review and public input required for a normal timber harvest plan.

Inspections yielded problems within a few months.

The new order requires a fully detailed restoration and monitoring plan be submitted within 30 days of the final order’s issuance. Once the long-term cleanup is completed, a documented completion report is due.

The site also must be monitored from October through May of next year to assess whether wet weather exposes any need for additional work, with a final monitoring report due May 30, 2023.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.