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State Water Board Will Meet October 8th to Address Smith River Contamination · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: On October 8, the California North Coast Regional Water Board will have a special meeting in Crescent City to hear testimony from a growing coalition of residents, scientists and conservation organizations that are seeking to eliminate toxic pesticide use on lands that surround the Smith river estuary. The concerns surrounding pesticides in the lower Smith river have been an ongoing issue for the past couple decades. The pesticides are used in growing Easter lilies in the Smith river estuary and have been contaminating the waterways and river. Cayman News spoke with Greg King, executive director of the Siskiyou Land Conservancy, for more information.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: The pesticides off the Easter lily fields have been contaminating the river probably since at least the 1960s. The first significant detections were in the early 1980s when residents started complaining about their water making them sick. And it was found that they were contaminated with the Easter Lily Fumigant called 1,2 dichloropropane, 1,2D for short. And it was found in a couple dozen wells, domestic wells, people, you know, showering in it, drinking it, and it's very toxic carcinogen. And some of the findings in wells of the Smith river were among the highest detections in the country. Of 1,2D is a pernicious groundwater contaminant, so that after about 10 years was phased out and replaced with a chemical called 1,3D. 13 dichloropropine. And that one is highly controversial in California right now. It's banned in the European Union and 36 other countries. And it's controversial because it's sickening people, it's widespread use, and it's, you know, shouldn't be used at all. But anyway, that's the biggest pesticide amounts used in smith river is 1 3d, more than £100,000 a year. Metham sodium, another really toxic carcinogen that's, you know, used there, and a dozen others that are really damaging to not only humans, but in particular aquatic ecosystems. And that's. That's where we're coming from here. You know, we have done a lot with the population there to protect them. But right now we're focused with this upcoming water board on the fishery that is being possibly destroyed in the Smith river, even the Smith River. Right. One of the healthiest fisheries left in California by these pesticides and just these pesticides, nothing else.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: The pesticides not only affect the environment of the river, but also the town of Smith river, where testing has shown that contamination has reached both the air and water for individuals. KMAN News spoke with Josefina Barrantes. 30x30 Coordinator for the Environmental Protection Information Center, EPIC for more about how these pesticides affect people.
• 2:28
  Speaker C: So the chemicals affect both the air and the water. Residents have been complaining of rashes on their bodies from showering and also in the air. They are complaining of coughing, wheezing, asthma, even sores developing on this skin from the pesticides flowing through the air. These lily bulb fields are sited on the Smith river plain that are, it's right in the community of Smith river near churches, elementary schools, neighborhoods. People are directly affected by this because, you know, they have to go home, they have to go to school, this is where they live and they have to breathe the air and drink the water where they live. And this is what they're subject to. Because of the lily bulb farming. 90% of the world's lily bulbs are grown in a smell Smith river estuary. And it is sad that we see the continuation of this practice in the community of Smith River, a very vulnerable community that is just being subject to this contamination. Multiple people have died of cancer and it is believed to be linked to the lily bulbs, the pesticides used on the farms. So it is unfortunate. And we are demanding a ban of the use of all pesticides on the seasonal wetlands that around the Smith river estuary because of course it rains so much up here, just as much in Humboldt county as it does in Del Norte County. And the small barriers that are put around the lily bulb fields that are just pieces of land, just little bluffs to try to drain out the pesticides between the fields and the estuary, the rivers and the tributaries to the Smith river and to the community. It's not enough to filter out the hundreds of thousands of pounds of pesticides that are being dumped on these plains, especially with how much it rains. Nothing could filter out that amount of pesticides.
• 4:15
  Speaker A: Currently under the federal Clean Water act, the water board is creating an agricultural permit which would require lily farmers to lower pesticides to a safe level. Groups like the Siskiyou Land Conservancy and EPIC are pushing for the board to require zero discharge of all pesticides, stating that any pesticide contamination is not safe. King elaborates more on the effects of this contamination.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: The reason that zero discharge is so important is because even small amounts of pesticide inundation can impact not only the food chain, as previously mentioned, right? That food goes away, but also the salmonid sense of smell, which is crucial for allowing the fish to find their natal streams. Right? They go out to the ocean, they live for three or four years, they come back to their natal stream. But if they are reared in the estuary and their sense of smell is destroyed, they're pretty much doomed, right? So there's that, there's. There's many, many reasons to get the pesticides out of this estuary. And it's not just, you know, salmon. If you look at the tidewater goby, it's a very small indicator species fish that exists only in California and it's going extinct from south to north. Right now, the most important habitat of this fully protected, listed as endangered aquatic species, the tidewater goby, is in Tillis Slough, which is part of the Smith river estuary and is highly impacted by pesticides. We could see gobies go away. Even their potentially best remaining habitat. There's also sturgeon, there's lamprey, there's usual on smelt. I don't know if I've ever pronounced that correctly. That are all protected allegedly by state and federal environmental laws. So for this type of excessive pesticide inundation to be allowed to occur at any threshold level is really sort of appalling, right. That the state, especially in the face of federal action now to weaken environmental laws and restraints across the board. You know, the state really needs to step up, at the very least for its most pristine, possibly most important watershed in terms of recolonizing other rivers up and down the California, Oregon coast.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: The water board has been facing backlash over contamination for decades and has been accused of failing to enforce the Clean water Act. The clean water act is a federal law in the United States that governs water pollution and establishes the basic structure of maintaining clean waters. As far back as 2018, concern has been raised about the Endangered species Act by the national Marine Fisheries Service over the pesticide runoff hurting the coho salmon population in the area. Here's King with more.
• 6:39
  Speaker B: The water board is failing to enforce the Clean water Act, which requires that, you know, Clean water act does allow for discharges. That's what they're developing, these thresholds. You can't go above this. Right. But also if there is demonstrable impacts to the habitat, which we have seen now with the destruction of the food chain, then those discharges are not allowed. The clean water water act also requires timely, you know, addressing of these issues, which the water board has failed to do. This has been going on for decades. And the water board has simply, you know, walked away, started processes and walked away from them. What's also important is that the water board has the authority to enforce Endangered Species act, state and federal, and the state Port of Cologne Clean Water act. And these are being violated There is already a letter as far back as 2018 by the National Marine Fisheries Service to lily growers stating that they are in danger of violating the Endangered Species act for illegal take of coho salmon. Unfortunately, nymphs did not act on that at all. You know, I know that they tried here in the ARCADA office to get the justice department in D.C. to take action against the lily growers, which is significant. Justice would not do it even during the Biden administration. So that was unfortunate. And now, of course, we'll get no federal action, except perhaps negative action. So, you know, really, the state has the authority to enforce these laws. The state has the authority to require zero discharges, does not have the authority to disallow pesticide use, which is unfortunate. But it does have the authority to put in this order that if there are detections found, if there is damage to the food chain, then pesticide use on those watersheds has to stop. And they could do that. And that's what we're asking for.
• 8:21
  Speaker A: On October 8th at 6pm the Water Board will be having a meeting to hear testimony from the public. It will be held at the Del Norte County Board of Superv Advisors chambers in Crescent City, and the public may attend in person or online@tinyurl.com SmithRiverTownhall Borrantes explains more about how to join.
• 8:39
  Speaker C: I would say they can show up to the meeting, and there's also a way to show up virtually. If you go to tinyurlurl.com smithrivertownhall it'll take you to a waterboard website where you can fill out a virtual speaker card the day before the event.
• 8:56
  Speaker B: So.
• 8:56
  Speaker C: So if you don't want to drive all the way to Christian City, totally understandable. You can submit a request to speak online the day prior and, you know, say your piece, talk about the ecological impacts, you know, the people that this harms, the proximity to elementary schools and neighborhoods and churches, the fact that the chemicals and pesticides being used on these farms are banned in the European Union. There's so much that somebody can take an issue with with this. So I definitely encourage the community to show up either in person or online for this issue.
• 9:29
  Speaker A: For more information, the websites are wildcalifornia.org or siskuland.org this is Nat Kardos reporting for KMUD News.