Newsletters

Sixth biggest flood for Russian River…February’s flood this year was at least 3’ lower than the highest ever recorded in February, 1986, yet the devastation seems as great.  Viewing Rio Nido Road from the Fire House around the time of peak flows, it appeared inundated to nearly the same level as the 1986 flood (almost 49’), about 20’ from the structure.  The river hit 45.4’ on Wednesday night (Feb. 27^th) and an estimated 2000 buildings flooded. Nearby streets were approximately 5’ to 7’ deep during the flood.   About 3500 people had been told to evacuate. More »

RRWPC hopes you have had a wonderful holiday season. We start by summarizing last year’s activities and our plans for the coming year. Here are a few highlights of 2018 and 2019:

• • Numerous meetings to address clean up and environmental impacts from the fires dominated 2018. Huge efforts were conducted by County and State agencies, local environmental groups, fishery agencies, and quasi-governmental/environmental agencies, to protect water quality. RRWPC spent our time reading documents, attending meetings, and sharing ideas where appropriate. Professional organizations taking the lead on this effort had far greater expertise about fire damage to the land, and the computer skills to map and identify areas of greatest concern. More »

RRWPC is beginning to see positive institutional changes involving the Russian River. Several projects had been in the works for quite a while, and since the fire seem to be turning in a better direction. The fire was a wakeup call forcing local agencies to deal with environmental devastation on a massive scale that taught hard lessons about the fragility and the resiliency of the natural environment. That experience seems to be informing their programs in a positive way.

Fish Flow Project EIR update…..The Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) released the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Fish Flow (‘Low Flow’) Project in August, 2016.  Comments were due More »

Endocrine Disrupting chemicals cause reproductive confusion in fish and others…..
In 1994, we were intrigued by a short two paragraph article in Science News claiming that male fish swimming downstream of wastewater treatment plants showed indications of being both male and female, as their male sexual organs had produced immature female eggs. What was going on? More »