In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted the California Toxics Rule, establishing water quality standards for pollutants toxic to the state’s rivers, lakes, bays, estuaries, and  wildlife. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service found several of these water quality standards to be inadequate to protect 25 endangered wildlife species, including coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and the southern sea otter.

Standards for selenium, mercury, pentachlorophenol, cadmium, and heavy metals were found to be the most problematic for listed species and their designated critical habitat. The EPA agreed to revise these standards to adequately protect endangered species. Nearly thirteen years later, EPA has failed to finalize the criteria for selenium and mercury or fully revise and implement the criteria for pentachlorophenol, cadmium, and the formulas used to calculate water quality criteria for several other dissolved metals criteria.

The EPA is long overdue to incorporate these measures fully into the California Toxics Rule.

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Thanks to all of our volunteers and the New Dimensions crew for making our Palco Marsh cleanup a success!

In just 2 hours, two dozen people removed nearly two dumpsters of debris from Palco Marsh, including hundreds of used batteries.

Special thanks to John Shelter and his crew for their guidance and hard work. Thank you also to the City of Eureka, Humboldt County Environmental Health Division, and Piersons.

Keep reading for before and after photos of one of the abandoned campsites we cleaned up.

Phase I: Shoreline Inventory, Mapping, and Vulnerability Assessment

A report to the State Coastal Conservancy by Aldaron laird, Brian Powell, and Jeff Anderson.

Click below to download the report:

Humboldt Bay Shoreline Inventory, Mapping and SLR Vulnerability Assessment (PDF, 45 MB)