San Rafael Dredge Committee

Frank Hall

46 Heritage Dr. San Rafael, CA 94901

415-455-9212

 

Marshall Jones, Acting Director

U. S. Fish & Wildlife, Department of the Interior

18th & C St. NW

Washington D.C., DC 20240

May 31, 2001

 

Dear Director Jones:

 

The San Rafael Dredge Committee represents hundreds of boaters, property owners and businesses along the San Rafael Creek.  Our interests are to effectively and efficiently enhance the waterway’s property values, business interests and recreational activities.  Our mission is to make the San Rafael Creek the best all-around waterway it can be. 

 

Consequently, we are concerned to learn that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has included some Marin Rod and Gun Club property as well as the Canalways property in your Refuge Mapping Zone.  We understand both the Marin Rod and Gun Club and the Canalways property owners do not want to be placed in your Refuge Map Boundary.

 

Allow us to express some reason we support their desire to remain outside your Refuge Mapping Zone.  Our organization is about 6 years old.  For our first 3-4 years we eschewed political activity as we tried to find an economical, beneficial, environmental and efficient means to dredge our Canal.  For our Canal it is best to dredge it and its portion across the flats about every 4-5 years.  In recent decades, costs and the lack of beneficial uplands disposal sites has seen that dredging cycle come closer to every ten years.  This has caused costly income losing  problems for harbor owners who have seen boaters leave because the Canal has not been dredged enough to allow their tie-ups to get in or out of the Canal for recreational boating.  The situation has become so bad that some residents are organizing with the threat of a lawsuit as their advertised goal.

 

From 1928-1980 the San Rafael Creek has been hydraulically (suction pumped) dredged with the dredge spoils being beneficially reused for landfill.  Since 1980-- 4 of 5 inner channel and across the flats dredgings have been clamshell (scoop) dredgings where the spoils have had to be dumped back into the delta or into the bay.  This dumping is more environmentally damaging and costly than placing spoils on the land.  Generally, river delta and Bay disposal  just causes the spoils to redeposit into canals.  Without landfill sites, the cheaper and less environmentally damaging suction pumped dredging will continue to slip in usage, as the more expensive and damaging clamshell dredging and Bay and Delta dumping increases. 

 

I give you this as background as it brings us back to the reason we support the Canalways parcel being excluded from your mapping.  Canalways is less than 2 miles as the bird flies -- and as an underwater suction pump line might lie -- from the San Rafael Canal.  Spoils from the San Rafael Canal could be suction pumped to Canalways to support its levee, to enhance the Shoreline Park or fill the uplands developable acreage.  These are just the beneficial uses of dredge spoils that  the Federal Government’s 1998 Long Term Management Study calls for to reflect effective and efficient spoils reuse.  In addition, suction pumping for beneficial reuse has been 70-80% cheaper for property owners, and the federal and local government, those who must pay the bill.

 

You may say that including Canalways in your Mapping Zone will not impair such possible beneficial spoils reuses.  However, our limited but growing experience in the realm of Marin politics has taught us that putting an environmental sounding overlay on anything will just embolden an already too empowered group of  environmental extremists to further deprive our community of needed services.

 

Will you please inform us as to your deliberations on the Canalways and Marin Rod and Gun Club properties?

 

Sincerely,

 

Frank Hall

Frank Hall, Dredge Committee Board Officers

Mo Witzel

Bob Smith

CC

Gale Norton, Department of Interior

Bill Pavao, Cal. Dept. Housing

Mel Martinez, U.S. Department of HUD

Marge Kolar, Project Mgr. USFWS

Mike Spear, Regional Director USF&WS

Dan Ashe, USF&WS , Regional Refuge Director

Cathy Osugi, USFWS

Novato Council

San Rafael Chamber

Congresswoman Woolsey

Senators Feinstein & Boxer

Marin & Sonoma Supervisors

Bay Planning Coalition

San Rafael Council Members

Assemblyman Joe Nation

Julie Bornstein, California Department of Housing