Delivering coho salmon yearlings to Mill Creek

The kitchen of Rex and Ruth Rathbun became operational headquarters for the Mattole Valley Salmon Group.

THE MOST CASUAL VISITOR, driving down into the lower Mattole Valley from Cape Mendocino, can't help but notice the Mill Creek Forest on the far horizon. The shades of green are deeper, richer, and the trees tower above the second growth you see between the coastal prairies everywhere else in the valley. The remnant forest gives only a hint of how the valley might have appeared 150 years ago.
For Rex and Ruth Rathbun, who live on a narrow alluvial flat squeezed between the river and the steep slopes of the old growth towering above them, the forest is the source of their weather and their water. The deep shade of the trees keeps the road in front of their home frozen for a good part of the winter; the water they draw from Mill Creek at its confluence with the Mattole, on the western edge of their property, remains 15 degrees cooler than the shallow river water all summer long. The creek and the tall trees were among the reasons they moved here in the early 1970s, taking an early retirement from Rex's successful contracting business in Marin County.
In the 1980s, the Rathbuns' place became the operational headquarters of the Mattole Salmon Group, which worked for years to reestablish coho salmon populations in Mill Creek--the last habitat in the lower Mattole Valley watershed for that increasingly rare creature. The Salmon Group took on the restoration of the salmon run as a community effort when it became apparent that no one else was going to step forward to do the job. The self-reliant ethos of this remote valley had likewise drawn the Rathbuns to choose it as the place to spend the years of their maturity.
The old forest was owned by Eel River Sawmills, based in Fortuna. It didn't take a think-tank economist to figure that in the normal course of events it was only a matter of time before the trees would come down. In the mid-1970s, the Rathbuns began to talk to their neighbors about how the forest might be preserved. In 1978 Rex wrote a letter to Huey Johnson, then California's Secretary of Resources--a letter that launched so large a volume of correspondence with various state, local, and federal agencies that it now fills a four-drawer filing cabinet in the Rathbun kitchen.
Rex and his neighbors began to monitor many of the species that make the 220-acre ancient forest their home. They saw coho salmon, northern spotted owl, golden eagle, tailed frog, and torrent salamander. Through a telescope on their front porch, the Rathbuns observed an active golden eagle nest. Their kitchen served as a communications center for the valley, and the many folks who stopped by got into the habit of checking on the eagles' progress too. The fate of the forest rapidly became a community concern.
In 1985, with the help of Janet Diehl, then at the Trust for Public Land, the Rathbuns and some of their neighbors founded the Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy, a community-based land trust dedicated to the acquisition of the forest as its highest-priority goal, and began to negotiate with the timber company. The negotiations went on for twelve years. Although the process was filled with twists and turns and difficult pressures on both parties (including the threat of a timber harvest plan), the land trust somehow held together until 1997, when the land was moved into the public domain.
The dozen years of discussion demanded more than talk. Money was required--a great deal of it. In 1988, the Mill Creek Forest became a candidate for acquisition under the terms of Proposition 70, the California Wildlife, Coastal, and Park Land Act. A small cadre of land trust members traveled to Arcata and Eureka to sit for hours at card tables in front of grocery stores, collecting thousands of signatures that helped to get the initiative on the ballot.
The bond issue passed, with $500,000 allocated to the Coastal Conservancy for the acquisition. When the ballot measure was drawn up, that sum had seemed more than adequate. By the time it went into effect in January 1989, however, rising timber prices had put the property out of reach once more. As the prices continued to soar, the little land trust realized it was in for a long struggle. Friends and allies came to the rescue to cover operating expenses. Carrie Grant, a local gallery owner and photographer, mounted one of the most successful art auctions in Humboldt County's history. Hardly an artist in the region failed to donate a piece to support the effort.
Another boost came from a neighbor friendly to the land trust, who bought a logged-over parcel that connected the Mill Creek Forest to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings adjacent to the King Range National Conservation Area. His sole aim was to hold the land until he could sell it back to the Mill Creek Conservancy after the forest was acquired. Although ten years passed before he was able to do so, that parcel was a key to success.
In fact, that 160-acre parcel made it possible for the BLM to add the Mill Creek Forest as a core area of old-growth refugia to the northern end of the conservation area. The purchase of the forest and the logged-over parcel together fit in with the BLM's strategy for buying up inholdings and expanding large parcels of old-growth habitat. In the opinion of most conservation biologists, large contiguous areas offer the best hope of survival for species that depend on old growth. BLM State Director Ed Hastey elevated the acquisition of Mill Creek Forest to a top priority.
The price for the forest and the connecting parcel together had risen to $2.5 million. The Coastal Conservancy had about $450,000 to put in, the Department of Fish and Game another $50,000. The BLM came up with $2 million and, with help from the American Land Conservancy, bought the two properties.
On May 2, 1997, the land trust hosted the dedication of 550 acres--with the Mill Creek Forest as its heart--to the public trust. Speeches by state and federal officials who had helped along the way were seamlessly embedded within a community celebration that included song, dance, and poetry by young people of the valley.
Unfortunately, the final deal was not free of troubling implications for the maintenance of biodiversity in northern California. The BLM and the American Land Conservancy found it necessary to sell three "surplus" BLM parcels to raise the money to buy Mill Creek Forest. With Congress resisting the release of new conservation funds in recent years, the BLM has had no other way to pursue its management strategy than by selling smaller isolated parcels.
As is the case with many "big science" strategies, local values can be easily lost or overlooked. One of those "surplus" parcels was a 160-acre stand of old growth on the North Fork of McCoy Creek, an important salmon-bearing tributary of the Eel River. The sale could result in the last stand of ancient forest in that drainage being cut. People living in the McCoy Creek drainage have formed a new land trust, the Wild Rivers Conservancy, which is trying to buy the property back. Ironically, the new owner of McCoy Creek has been cited in the past by the California Department of Forestry for logging practices that damaged a salmon-bearing tributary of the Mattole.
The work of the Mill Creek Conservancy is not finished. What began as a tiny local effort nearly 20 years ago has grown into a regional concern as the Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy seeks alliances with other local land trusts in search of more effective strategies for the conservation of biodiversity in northern California. Meanwhile it is working to build a cooperative management agreement with the Bureau of Land Management for the newly acquired lands. The success of the grassroots land trust, equipped with little more than staying power, serves to illustrate the instrumental role that residents can play in the health and survival of their home regions.

Freeman House is a writer, a longtime resident of the Mattole Valley, and one of the original board members of the Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy. He provided critical leadership in the final stages of the acquisition.