Friends of Gualala River

by Roger Coryell
September 7, 2026
The Mendocino Voice

MENDOCINO CO., 9/7/26 — Logging on 926 acres in the hills west of Laytonville is stopped under two court orders at once.

…

The fight is over two timber harvest plans the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection approved on July 2 and 3. The agency’s notices list Redwood Timber Company LLC as landowner and Redwood Forest Operating Company LLC as the plan submitter. The larger plan, called Hot Tuna, covers 594 acres. The smaller one, Lincoln Logs, covers 332. Both call for selection logging rather than clearcutting. Court papers also call Hot Tuna by a second name, Lincoln Ridge. 

Friends of Dutch Charlie Creek, which litigates as Friends of Shaahnaa Lhook, sued Cal Fire on July 7, four days after it says the logging began. Its claim under the California Environmental Quality Act is that the plans never assess the sediment they will send into the creek, one of two reliable coho spawning streams left in the upper South Fork Eel, the group says. Coho on the Eel side of the county are listed as threatened under both the state and federal endangered species acts. 

. . .

Dutch Charlie Creek is the same water the state has spent more than a decade and a million dollars trying to repair.

. . .

The group’s press release says the timber harvesting plans include three miles of new road construction, including on steep slopes and near the creek. Its website says “millions” in state money went into road removal in the watershed. The grant record shows at least $1.03 million from the fisheries program. Other state funding sources were not checked. 

Roads shed fine sediment into streams, and fine sediment buries the gravel coho spawn in. The appellate court’s own briefing order in July asked the parties to address whether it is undisputed that logging would add sediment to what the court called an already impacted stream system. Cal Fire’s response to public comment says the Hot Tuna plan itself recognizes that the waters downstream are listed as impaired for sediment and temperature. 

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To read the complete article, visit The Mendocino Voice:
Judge halts logging above Dutch Charlie Creek with most of it already done

The North Coast Water Board has changed the date of the adoption hearing for the Gualala Roads Assessment Order. Previous announcements indicated that Order adoption would be proposed at the December 2026 meeting of the North Coast Water Board.

To provide North Coast Water Board ‌‌staff sufficient time to meaningfully consider the significant volume of public comments received from landowners and other interested parties, the adoption hearing is being moved to February 2027.

Additional information about the February 2027 proposed adoption hearing will be provided when available through this email subscription service, on the North Coast Water Board’s Board Meeting page (https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/
northcoast/board_info/board_meetings/2027/index.html), and on the Gualala Roads Program web page (https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/
water_issues/programs/gualala_roads/).

The Gualala River Stream Team will be heading out into the Gualala River Estuary to monitor water quality and you can join us!

When: Saturday Sept. 19th, 9AM
Where: Meet at the Kayak Launch (below Highway1)
What To Bring: Bring personal items for a 2 hour outing (water, snack, sunscreen, hat, water shoes, etc).

Training will be provided.

The data collected provides baseline information for tracking changes in water quality associated with ongoing resource management efforts including the Caltrans Gualala Streetscape Enhancement Project (Gualala Streetscape Enhancement Project-Caltrans), the Gualala River Estuary Enhancement Project (GR Estuary Enhancement Project), and the ongoing work by The Stream Team (Gualala River Stream Team).

Email: info@thestreamteam.org
Phone: 530 342-6620