'Downstream' 

Editor:

I am glad the author of this article enjoyed her long walk in the Headwaters Forest ("Hiking in the Headwaters Reserve," Aug. 8). We downstream upper Elk River residents living along the North and South Forks of Elk River are forced to live without quality water from the river, without security in our homes, without road access, without our historical property uses, without any use of our property at all in places and without our sanity. No, it is not BLM; they are in their own unique way a welcome neighbor (nobody is perfect). The Headwaters Deal did sell the residents of upper Elk River down the drain or maybe it would be more appropriate to say, let the Big Timber neighbors drain and dump their pollution, sediment from logging, onto the bed and bank of the river and eventually onto our private property thereby fouling our water and destroying our property. The state, both California Department of Forestry and the Regional Water Board, have put timber company profit before health and safety and protecting residents. Flooding is severe and has gotten worse over the past 25 years. A number of us have been in this upper valley more than 50 years, some families have been here 75 to more than 100 years.

We know this river for what it was and what it should be ... just that a river with gravel, riffles, deep pools, quality water and fish. Instead, the state has decided Elk River should be an industrial waste ditch. Five to 8 feet of sediment have been deposited on the bed and banks of Elk River and on our cultivated agricultural property with much more to come. Both the lumber companies and the regulators are so impressed with all the words on paper they have concocted they cannot see the destruction of water, property and safety they have enabled. We are little citizens living in this upper watershed; our safety and our rights should come first.

Kristi Wrigley, Eureka