REDWOOD NEEDLES Presented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, The REDWOOD NEEDLES Return to Article Menu From the Chair... By Marianne deSobrino A new year. A new set of government administrators. New environmental challenges. And the old ones that are never definitively won and always need to be watched. None of us is very sure of quite what is going on with the Headwaters Forest debacle. Will they or won’t they ? If they do, we’ll have to sue. It seems that almost all of Mendocino County’s coastal river estuaries are under threat from development. The Eel and the Russian rivers are in deep trouble&emdash;more accurately,&emdash; shallow trouble. We’re taking too much water out of them to enable them to sustain a viable fish population. The forests and rivers of the north, the houses, the vineyards, the coastal motels, the ever increasing encroachment of US on the natural world provides us with endless work. However, be of better cheer. (Just because my car broke down three days into the new year and my dog is sulking, is no excuse for publicly spreading gloom.) We are actually quite optimistic at the beginning of this year.< We have a new governor who is beginning to change members of decision making entities like the Board of Forestry and the Coastal Commission in our direction. We have a legislature that is listening and beginning to write and introduce important environmental bills. We don’t need to feel quite as besieged as we have been. We are switching from holding the fort to expanding the territory. Get involved. It’s starting to get better.   Return to Article Menu Last updated on 2/01/99 Comments or suggestions? Drop us a line at heyneedles@aol.com