Cedar Creek and Elder Creek Legal Protection

Cedar Creek and Elder Creek, both tributaries feeding the South Fork Eel River in Northern California, supply something increasingly rare and valuable as the climate warms: reliable, cold summer water that coho salmon and steelhead depend on to survive the hottest months of the year. Cedar Creek alone contributes a large share of the South Fork Eel's summer flow, and its cold-water plumes host hundreds of juvenile steelhead seeking thermal refuge when the mainstem river grows too warm. But water quality this good doesn't protect itself against cumulative pressures, whether from land use, climate-driven flow reductions, or the slow accumulation of impacts over time.

CalTrout partnered with Trout Unlimited, the California Wilderness Coalition, and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board to pursue Outstanding National Resource Waters designation, a Clean Water Act mechanism that prohibits permanent degradation of existing water quality while still allowing necessary temporary impacts from restoration work, fuels reduction, road repair, and fire suppression. The effort involves preparing technical reports with scientific backing, conducting legal and policy analysis, and drafting the regulatory language needed to amend the North Coast Region's Water Quality Control Plan (Basin Plan), a process that requires both scientific peer review and North Coast Water Board approval. If successful, Cedar Creek and Elder Creek would become among the very first riverine waters in California to receive ONRW status, a designation currently held by only a handful of iconic California waters like Mono Lake and Lake Tahoe.