by Chris Larson
May 31, 2002

For me, spring is the best time of year – fewer days in front of the woodstove, and more days out in the vegetable garden. Now if only the gophers would go the way of frozen nights and power outages! Spring is also a bit of grace time – time to get things in order before the hot and dry summer. When you are thinking of things to do around the place, it is easy to focus on the immediate needs – getting the water line working in time for the tomatoes, or taming all that fast growing grass in the back yard. While these are important, it is equally important to spend time on those things that take a bit longer to manifest themselves, but can lead to a whole bunch of trouble – like the wisteria vines slowly strangling that large maple tree.

When someone focuses only on the small and quick fixes, and loses sight of the bigger picture, people say they “can’t see the forest for the trees” – they are too busy looking at all the individual trees that they can’t see the larger forest. It’s a funny expression, but an apt one to describe the dangerous build-up of forest fuels around our homes and neighborhoods.

Over the past six months, a modest grant from the US Forest Service has allowed lower Mattole Valley residents to take a look at emergency preparedness and fuels reduction projects. In each neighborhood, local residents envisioned various emergency scenarios, determined priorities for fuels reduction and fire safety, and selected a neighborhood representative to the Mattole Fire Safe Council. The Fire Safe Council is a venue for enacting the neighborhood recommendations, whether they be to install a system of emergency water storage tanks, reduce fire danger around the Mattole Elementary School or create a shaded fuel break between a neighborhood and the surrounding BLM lands. As an organized, locally-representative body, the Fire Safe Council will get the attention of the BLM, Calif. Dept. of Forestry and State Parks to take action on our local needs.

I enjoyed the fire planning process for a couple of reasons. It brought people together to address something we all have in common – it doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe when the fire races up the hills. The plan focuses on what we can do to improve our own safety and community. I believe that Mattole residents are best positioned to make sensible decisions regarding the health of the watershed and the safety of our communities – the Fire Safe Council will be able to do just that.

Another phrase I’ve been thinking about recently is “winning the battle, but losing the war.” It makes me think about how no matter how many small successes one may have, larger forces can easily undo them by working at a larger scale. This reminds me a lot of the Mattole restoration effort, and the lack of summer-time stream flows in the upper mainstem Mattole.

In recent years, wet or dry, the Mattole River above Whitethorn has dried out into a series of disconnected pools. While this would be bad for salmon habitat anywhere, this stretch of the Mattole is among the most productive for coho, chinook and steelhead of any in all of California! A large percentage of Mattole salmonids spend the critical summer months in this vicinity, so this de-watering might mean disproportionate impacts on the fish.

Because this phenomenon has been occurring with increasing regularity, it is suspected to have something to do with increasing human use of the water. With the smallest streams and highest population density in the Mattole, it is not surprising that this is happening in the upper river first.

An easy way to start thinking about water usage is to identify the largest uses of water, and work to increase water use efficiency in those places. For many of us, the large use of water is in irrigation. Consider the use of drip hoses and night-time watering. For others, a large use is household plumbing fixures. Low flow showerheads and toilets can make a big difference in total water usage. To spur on these conversions, the MRC will be offering incentives to invest in water conservation.

In the coming years, the Mattole Restoration Council and the Mattole Salmon Group will work to raise awareness of this long-term problem, and will offer simple concrete steps to conserve water. Ultimately, we believe that wise conservation of water can restore the balance between the needs of people and the needs of the river and its salmon.

As the spring turns to summer, the tender fir needles dry and harden, and the river sinks into a small channel within the gravel bars. Think about how these larger trends affect our lives in the Mattole, as surely as a small sapling turns into a tree while standing absolutely still.



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Table of Contents for Mattole Restoration Newsletter, Issue 18 - Summer/Fall 2002