Humboldt Baykeeper in the News

Baykeeper Assists Wiyot
by Nathan Rushton The Eureka Reporter
1/20/05

The Eureka Reporter/Nathan Rushton
Wiyot tribe member Richard Osterman prepares a water-sampling device used to gather data for the tribe's ongoing water-quality monitoring near Indian Island in Humboldt Bay. The device can measure numerous physical parameters, including the water's dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature and pH.
The new Humboldt Bay advocacy group, Humboldt Baykeeper, has begun collaborating with the Wiyot tribe to sample the bay's water in an effort to help coordinate a water-quality monitoring program.

The bay's new advocacy group is charged with protecting and enhancing Humboldt Bay and nearshore waters through community education, water-quality monitoring and pollution control, according to a news release.

The Humboldt Baykeeper is a member group of the national Waterkeeper Alliance, a program started by sport and commercial fisherman on the Hudson River in New York state in 1966 to monitor and combat industrial polluters, the news release stated.

“Clean water, healthy ecosystems and a viable sport and commercial fishery are at the core of the Baykeeper philosophy,” said Humboldt Baykeeper program director Pete Nichols.

The Wiyot tribe said in a written statement that the baseline data it gathered would be used for the purpose of ongoing water-quality monitoring in Humboldt Bay, which is part of the tribe's ancestral territory.

“The bay has been and continues to be culturally very important to the tribe, and investigating and protecting the bay's water quality is of great interest,” the statement said.

Nichols said in the initial phases, the Wiyot tribe's baseline sampling would collect physical data that can be used later for scientific purposes that could be shared with other agencies. Among the data are the water's temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen content, Nichols said.

The Humboldt Baykeeper group will assist the Wiyot tribe's ongoing water-quality monitoring, which includes three sites on the bay - Indian Island and two “control” sites near Mad River Slough and the bay's north entrance, Nichols said.

Richard Osterman is a member of the Wiyot tribe and has been sampling the bay's water, with the help of the Humboldt Baykeeper, about every two weeks beginning in December. He said it takes about 10 minutes at each site to collect the data.

Nichols said that later sampling would be done to categorize and characterize some of the possibly contaminated sites on the bay to better understand its condition and health.

One of the contaminants used by mills along the bay between the 1950s and 1980s was pentachlorophenol, which was used as a wood preservative, Nichols said. He said it was later banned in the 1980s after it was found that it broke down into dioxin - a chemical known to cause cancer.

Nichols said that he hopes that through the use of the Humboldt Baykeeper boat, he can assist other agencies to conduct scientific research on the bay.

The Baykeeper's Boston Whaler boat was purchased in the Bay area with money obtained via a grant from Ecological Rights Foundation, the parent organization of the national Baykeeper program. Having a boat is one of the criteria of being a member of the foundation, Nichols said.

The 25-foot-long boat has two 115-horsepower four-stroke motors, which Nichols said are the cleanest-burning gas-operated motors available. The boat also has a global positioning system and a sonar depth-measuring device, which help to accurately return to water sampling sites.

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