ER - Supervisors ask state for second look at bay contamination listing

Supervisors ask state for second look at bay contamination listing
by Nathan Rushton, 12/5/2006

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to the state’s top water resources agency asking it to suspend its recent action listing of Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin.

The State Water Resources Control Board voted in late October to list Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin contamination under section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act.

The action was a result of information provided by the bay advocacy group Humboldt Baykeeper, which submitted a petition and testing information earlier this year urging the board to recognize the dioxin problem in the bay.

Citing a faulty public input process that surprised the agencies most involved with bay issues, the supervisors, backed by department staff and numerous environmental scientists, said they want an in-depth analysis of all the available data.

Fifth District Supervisor Jill Geist said the State Water Board appeared to have sidestepped its usual rigorous, transparent and objective process in making its decision.

David Hull, chief executive officer for the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, said the district received no indication of the State Water Board’s pending action.

“This seems to be a very faulty public process the State Board used,” Hull said. “That’s not to say that there aren’t some water quality issues in the bay — there are.”

Arcata City Councilmember Mark Wheetley, who echoed Hull’s concerns, said the Arcata council would be considering a similar letter at its meeting tonight.

“We support a much more rigorous review of the scientific information that’s been made available,” Wheetley said. “In this case, I don’t think it was applied to that standard.”

Fred Evenson, an Ecological Rights Foundation lawyer and Humboldt Baykeeper volunteer, told the supervisors that if they send anything to the State Water Board, it should be a “thank you” letter.

Evenson said the dioxin poses a serious public health risk and the listing by the state is an indication it was “stepping up to the plate” and was taking the problem seriously.

Along with the listing comes financial help to begin the process of assessing the scope of the problem, which Evenson said has been known for some time, but hasn’t been adequately addressed.

Sediment samples taken at sites in the central and north bay show levels of dioxin comparable to or substantially higher than levels in San Francisco Bay, which Evenson said is also listed as impaired for dioxin.

Also weighing in was Andrea Tuttle, the former director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection who has considerable familiarity with the state’s Total Maximum Daily Load process for dealing with impaired waters.

Instead of using the TMDL process under the listing, which she said was the wrong “tool” for the problem, Tuttle said site specific cleanup of where lumber mills were located would be more effective.

“The listing paints the entire bay as contaminated, when in fact the contamination can be traced to certain legacy sites and that is where the money should be put,” Tuttle said.

However, area surgeon Denver Nelson told the board he contacted a State Water Board official who told him the listings cannot be reversed until its status is reviewed in two years.

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