NOAA Approves Sierra Pacific Industries 355,000 Acre Plan Without Proper Public/Tribe Input

Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) submitted a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 2016 covering 355,000 acres of SPI land in northern California, primarily the Sacramento and Trinity River watersheds. In return, SPI received an Incidental Take Permit from NOAA IN 2021. The 50-year-long permit will allow SPI to “take” 8 species of fish including threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead throughout watersheds in northern California. The permit assures SPI that no additional future regulatory restrictions will be imposed if their practices inadvertently kill protected species. 

In return for this Safe Harbors Act agreement with NOAA, SPI agrees to improve logging roads on its lands over the 50-year agreement to reduce sedimentation into streams and NMFS will be allowed to restock certain streams upstream of Shasta Lake with anadromous fish.

SEA President David Ledger and Battle Creek Alliance Director Marily Woodhouse only heard about the plan following a presentation by a NOAA scientist at a November 2023 meeting of the Greater Battle Creek Watershed Working Group.  A SPI representative at the meeting was questioned at the meeting about the water quality monitoring requirements. He stated that SPI has water monitoring stations on streams that are recording data “24/7.” Most of these results are not available publicly, and some of their data is collected upstream of the land logged, rather than downstream where the impacts occur.

There will only be two water monitoring stations for the entire HCP of 355,000 acres. One is above Shasta Lake, and the other is on a feeder stream to Lower Antelope Creek. It was only after contacting NOAA that we discovered none of the required stream water monitoring stations were in Battle Creek, the site of a $166 million fish habitat restoration project that was begun in 1999 and is still not completed.

Ledger and Woodhouse requested a virtual meeting with NOAA and NMFS which was held in December. From that meeting, we learned that the only notice given to the public was a listing in the obscure Federal Register. No notices were sent to any media and there was only a 30-day comment period. This contrasts with years of numerous notices and public meetings over the Shasta Dam Raise, the new Delta Tunnel, the Sites Reservoir, and months of notification for the recent BLM proposed revisions to their Integrated Resource Management Plan for public lands in this area.

Only three tribes were notified none were in the HCP area. The Pit River, Redding Rancheria, and Winnemum Wintu tribes were not notified. This is especially disturbing as first it is required by law and more importantly, the Winnemum Wintu at considerable expense transplanted the genetically original salmon that were from the McCloud River from New Zealand back to the McCloud River. The NMFS has plans to plant salmon in different streams that flow into Shasta Lake, which means a wayward salmon could alter the genetic purity of the salmon the Winnemum planted in the McCloud River.

We also asked NOAA for copies of the three letters of support for the HCP. All three were from other logging companies. Not surprisingly, the NOAA and NMFS secrecy about this project prevented any of the general public or the tribes from commenting on the plan as it was basically kept hidden.

On a related note, there was a similar proposed SPI HCP and Safe Harbors Act plan in Humboldt County and the USFS had public notices and three public hearings so all parties could weigh in. That HCP is currently in court. Unfortunately for this HCP, the comment period has passed, however some of the tribes would have a legal basis to appeal as there was no notification.