One of the PITA aspects of them adopting the Natural Resource Policy in a resolution (instead of ordinance) is that we won’t necessarily receive much notice.

It’s been an interesting day; organized opposition is finally underway, and I’m hearing some feedback that — despite the defiant stance — some of the supervisors are starting to wonder what the heck is going on.

Update coming soon…

The November 6 meeting will feature a vote on the ordinance establishing the “advisory” committee, which will in turn use the Natural Resources Policies to define their response.

I wish I’d understood the importance of the committee better at the start; the whole setup is an underhanded way of not creating an ordinance around the Natural Resource Policies, but simply allowing the supervisors to approve them with a resolution.

Nice — especially if you don’t want a lot of public input cluttering up the process.

Getting the AG to provide an opinion is very valuable. Though it does not have the force of a court decision it usually will be taken quite seriously.

Here is how you get the AG to provide an opinion — http://www.ag.ca.gov/opinions/ . “However, this does not authorize a designated officer to request an opinion on a question posed by someone else. A request will be declined when it is apparent that the request is made on behalf of someone not authorized by Government Code section 12519.” So, DF&G, for example, would need to request the opinion for their own interests – fisheries; or the CA EPA, aware of the impact of privatizing the waters (thus avoiding the Clean Water Act); or the State Land Agency for a possible “taking” of the riverbeds of navigable streams; the list goes on of agencies who will be affected by the County’s resource grab.

Being legally in the right will be small comfort when a pissed off landowner is waving a gun at you, or — in the case of a certain Castella landowner — hitting people on the heads with rocks for fishing “his” river.

Our best hope is to beat this thing like a rug before it gets passed, or make it so politically painful for the supervisors that when it does pass, they’re basically signing their own political careers away.

Hell, even the county’s own counsel publicly stated the county had no legal basis for enforcing much of this plan.

I agree that getting the California Attorney General involved is perhaps the next step.

Can you suggest how we’d do that — or embark on that one yourself?

(PS — just posted a new article on this)

If I can be of any assistance in this battle, I am more than willing to help. I own a home in Dunsmuir so I’m a county resident. I also guide on the Upper Sac and McCloud rivers.

Thanks for keeping us informed.

What I don’t know is how all the water diversions figure into it. There have been several cases where both rivers have been essentially dewatered in recent times.

Kentucky: Thanks.

As for our legal options, I’d prefer to try and handle this one politically — the idea being it becomes too politically expensive to try and make this damaging Natural Resource Policy happen.

If that fails, I’d hope a sportsmen’s group would step up with a lawsuit, the net result of which would be a declaration that all the rivers we’ve mentioned so far would be declared navigable, and supervisor Armstrong could go eat Chicken Kiev.

More to come.

What we’re seeing here

Curly— I can only imagine the devistation dredge mining would do to our waterways….bugs, sculpin, auquatic vegitation, and of course rainbow and brown trout eggs and fry. this has been the case in years past and we still don’t see the negative effects. some people are blinded by benjamin franklin and its time they woke the #!$% up!!!! this is were the real regulation should be. how many times have you heard of a fisherman, kayaker or rafter destroying a couple generations of life in the river….its just terrible that they want us to lose out because we aren,t causing any severe ecological damage….seems a little backwards.

I’m new to your blog (been following it about a month) so I may not have the whole picture. When I have seen local zoning battles won by residents, they have usually formed some sort of formal coalition and engaged the services of a competent lawyer. I would think, at the very least, a good lawyer could keep the county tied up in court for a long time. At least on the surface, it appears that there may be legal justification to stop the county from proceeding with their plans. I would hope that there is some sympathetic legal council that might assist in laying the right groundwork at little initial cost. I suppose one might also consider that the county actions will damage the livelihood of many individuals. If they are doing so without sufficient reason or authority, then you would also expect that the county would be liable for compensation. I would think this could become really nasty for the county board – under the right circumstances. How about a little “stick” to go along with that carrot?