Siskiyou Land Conservancy

Protecting California’s Wild North Coast and Rivers Since 2004

Sun Valley Floral Farms Still Spraying Pesticides on the Arcata Bottom and the Trinity River

Company Also Seeks Permit for Major Cannabis Grow

In 2020 Lane DeVries, President and CEO of Arcata-based Sun Valley Floral Farms, made a commitment to Siskiyou Land Conservancy to abandon use of the carcinogenic herbicide glyphosate (aka Roundup), which the company uses to prepare the fields for planting. This month Siskiyou Land Conservancy learned that Sun Valley appears to have violated this agreement by spraying Roundup on a large field on Seidel Road, in the Arcata Bottom.

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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.

No Response from County or State Governments to Health Assessment that shows Pesticide Poisoning in Smith River

In late 2016 Siskiyou Land Conservancy released our Smith River Community Health Assessment, which clearly demonstrates that pesticides used in the cultivation of Easter lily bulbs in, Del Norte County, are impacting the health of people who live in the small town of Smith River.

NEWS

No Response from County or State Governments to Health Assessment that shows Pesticide Poisoning in Smith River

Sun Valley Floral Farms Still Spraying Pesticides on the Arcata Bottom and the Trinity River

In 2020 Lane Devries, President and CEO of Arcata-based Sun Valley Floral Farms, made a commitment to Siskiyou Land Conservancy to abandon use of the carcinogenic herbicide glyphosate (aka Roundup), which the company uses to prepare the fields for planting. This month Siskiyou Land Conservancy learned that Sun Valley violated this agreement by spraying Roundup on a large field on Seidel Road, in the Arcata Bottom.

State Finds New Evidence of Pesticide Contamination in Smith River Estuary

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 Protects the Mad River

Siskiyou Land Conservancy has completed one of our most exciting projects yet. In October 2016 we recorded a conservation easement to protect the natural values of a 183-acre parcel on the Mad River, above Maple Creek in Humboldt County.

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.

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.