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The Siskiyou County Supervisor leading the charge for the damaging Natural Resources plan I referenced above has replied with what amounts to smoke and mirrors:
Thank you, we will take your comments under advisement. Please note that the Klamath River is the only navigable river in Siskiyou County under current law.
She then cites from the California Harbors and Navigability Code, which doesn't define navigability, but simply lists the rivers and streams currently defined as navigable.
That's a huge disconnect; the fact that the Upper Sac and McCloud haven't yet been defined as navigable hardly means they're non-navigable, and by any reading of the definitions set forth by the Army Corp of Engineers, most of the rivers in Sisikiyou County are navigable.
This is the level of thought we're dealing with up here; lies and dissembling -- and this on only one of the issues surrounding the plan.
Make no mistake; this group wants to limit our rights to wade river and protect our fisheries, and they'll gladly resort to (at best) misleading statements and outright fabrications (like classifying suction dredging as "benign" to do so.
If you haven't taken a minute to send e-mails to the Supervisors identified in my first post (especially the first couple), then please do so. While the ability of the Board of Supervisors to actually enforce a "non-navigable" standard is dubious, it's clear that even an illegal declaration will cause no end of problems to fly fishermen.
Take care,
Tom Chandler
My Response to Supervisor Armstrong:
Ms. Armstrong;
Your selective use of the Harbor codes is misleading at best; that hardly qualifies your statement that only the Klamath is navigable under current law. It is the only river that's been declared navigable, but that's simply because the others haven't yet been declared so by judicial review. By any reading of the Army Corp of Engineers code pertaining to water ways (link below), many of the rivers specifically mentioned in the natural resources plan qualify:
From the Army Corp of Engineers Web page on navigability of waterways:
Section 329.4 - General definition
Navigable waters of the United States are those waters that are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide and/or are presently used, or have been used in the past, or may be susceptible for use to transport interstate or foreign commerce. A determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody, and is not extinguished by later actions or events which impede or destroy navigable capacity.
The Upper Sacramento and McCloud Rivers were both connected to the ocean (prior to the installation of the Shasta Dam), and both were used for commercial purposes.
Thus, both meet the definition "under law." For you to suggest otherwise does your constituency a disservice...
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