Thumbs down: A silt-clogged river runs through it

It was the year of “freedom fries,” California's gubernatorial recall election and the creation of the Do Not Call List, one of many failed attempts to put robocallers out of business. We're talking about 2003, which also was the last time that the Petaluma River was dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mud and silt in the channel are now so thick that boats have gotten stuck at low tide. Many boat owners simply avoid the river, the once busy downtown Petaluma turning basin mostly sits empty, and the city is losing a staple of its tourism economy, and the river keeps getting left off the list for dredging.

Rep. Jared Huffman, whose North Bay district includes Petaluma and the river, spoke up for communities that “play by the rules and still lose” during a hearing last week in Washington on the Water Resources Development Act: “Perhaps in the next WRDA we should just end the charade and create a new category for ports the Army Corps has simply forgotten about or left behind.” We'd like to think someone at the Corps was listening, but years of disappointment suggest otherwise. Thumbs down.

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