Protecting California’s Wild North Coast and Rivers Since 2004

Smith River report

Forty Years of State Complicity in the Pesticide Poisoning of California’s Wildest River

“It’s a toxic soup in there.”—NMFS fisheries biologist

In April 2024, Siskiyou Land Conservancy released a comprehensive report that documents forty years of complicity by the state of California in the pesticide contamination of the Smith River estuary, in the far northwestern corner of California. Pesticide use now threatens the ongoing survival of at least two federally protected Endangered Species, coho salmon and tidewater goby. Read report here.

*Farmer applies the fungicides chlorothalonil, a carcinogen, and copper hydroxide on Easter lily fields in 2001. A 30-mph wind pumps the chemicals directly into Smith River Elementary School.*

New Threats to the Smith River; SLC Launches Solar Study

Still slogging through the state’s malfeasant muck at the Smith River estuary! During the past five years the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has taken several steps backward in what was already an illusory “effort” to rid the vital Smith River estuary of agricultural pesticides. In 2011 the state finally initiated an Read more

State Finds New Evidence of Pesticide Contamination in Smith River Estuary

Despite finding 17 pesticides in estuary waters and 10 instances of contamination, Water Board has no plans to rein in chemical use In late January, 2018, the state agency charged with enforcing the federal Clean Water Act released a long-awaited report on the results of two years of water quality testing in the Smith River Estuary. The testing detected 17 pesticides in the streams, creeks and ditches that feed the estuary, and 10 instances of contamination of the aquatic food chain. The findings appear to show that Easter lily farmers are in violation of the Clean Water Act, which was passed in 1972 in large part to protect precious aquatic resources such as the West Coast’s dwindling salmon populations.

Easter Lily Pesticides in the News

Just before Easter, the national on-line news magazine TakePart has run a major story about pesticides used on the Smith River Plain to grow Easter lilies. TakePart describes itself as “the digital division of Participant Media,” the company that brought us such films as Academy Award winning Spotlight, as well as An Inconvenient Truth and CITIZENFOUR.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy Hires Local Crew for Smith River Restoration Effort

Working alongside our landowner partners, from 2017-19 Siskiyou Land Conservancy will manage a three-year, $207,000 restoration grant from the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service to restore forest health, and replace failing culverts with a bridge, on the 148-acre South Fork Smith River Property that SLC protects with a conservation easement. Although SLC does not receive Read more

SLC, Easter lilies and pesticides on Jefferson Exchange radio Friday, March 25

Siskiyou Land Conservancy Executive Director Greg King will be a guest on the popular radio show the Jefferson Exchange on Friday, March 25th at 8:30 a.m. to discuss pesticide use on the Smith River Plain. Jefferson Public Radio airs on 11 stations, from Central Oregon to the Mendocino Coast, so to find the station nearest Read more

The four circles represent locations where the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, in 2010 and 2013, found “acute (and) chronic reproductive toxicity

The four circles represent where the state Water Board found toxicity in streams feeding the Smith River estuary. The glowing circle is at the mouth of Rowdy Creek, where state scientists discovered “acute reproductive toxicity.”

The four circles represent locations where the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, in 2010 and 2013, found “acute (and) chronic reproductive toxicity” in streams feeding the Smith River estuary. The glowing circle is at the mouth of Rowdy Creek, one of the Smith River’s two most important salmon streams, where the state discovered the “acute” toxicity, meaning that invertebrates that make up the basis of the salmonid food chain not only cannot reproduce, but cannot survive in this water.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy