eel

Some of you already know that I've been working on a project about how rivers influence the communities they run through.

This summer I spent two weeks along the banks of the Eel River.

This is part of what happened.

I started out by exploring the towns that border the South Fork of Eel River which is the section that runs through Humbolt County and found out very quickly how small the towns are in that area. Most are unincorporated communities of less than 1,000 people. My original idea was to interview people by the river so I spent a lot of time in Fortuna, the largest city that borders the river, with a population of 10,500. There is a levy there where people walk along the river, so I camped out there for a couple days, interviewing people that walked by and were willing to participate.



Most of the people were into it and I got a lot of interesting people on camera but there were two major technical difficulties that I dealt with. One was getting the proper microphone. The first one I had picked up too much wind. The second one was a wired lavalier and people kept pulling on the cord and then a few dogs and a horse got all tangled up in it and pulled it off the person I was interviewing. The other problem was that in order to frame the person properly and also control the camera they had to be standing at an uncomfortably far distance from the camera and me, which was awkward and made the conversation and interview seem too impersonal.



So I came home with bits and pieces of footage from that first trip and got a wide angle adapter and wireless lavalier microphone and then went back up to the river. I wanted to get people from different cities so I decided to go to the Avenue of the Giants (HWY 254) and talk to business owners along that stretch which runs right by the river. Most of the towns along the 254 have populations between 100-200, so I figured asking the business owners or employees would be a good way to find locals since most of the people along the road are tourists camping and visiting the Redwoods.

I got a lot of good interviews here and the wireless lav and wide angle adapter worked like a charm. After talking to people during this last trip, including the director of Friends of the Eel River (like FOLAR but for the Eel), I realized the complexity of the situation with this river. When I saw the river I only saw the surface, which compared with rivers I knew, was natural and wild and free, however the river is in very bad shape right now. The water level is really low due to drought and to the rerouting 80% of water from the Eel's headwaters to form Lake Pillsbury in Mendocino County and also the rerouting of water to the Russian River which gets sent to Mendocino County and in part is used in vineyards. The people I spoke with, most of whom grew up on the river, felt like Mendo has been stealing the water and the redistribution of water has been causing serious loss of habitat in the Eel for salmonoids and steelhead. The overly heavy flow in the Russian is also tearing up habitat. Now I feel like I have a one sided story with the voices of people in Mendocino missing so I need a while to go over the footage and plan for what to do next.



Originally I didn't think of the project as being a platform for discussion of water issues and environmental concerns. I thought simply, that I was going to talk to people and find out how the river affects the community members, how they use the river, how they feel about it... I didn't realize that it was such a heated issue. Many people were very happy that I was concerned about the river and let me know how lucky I was to grow up around the undammed Sespe River. They wanted this project to educate people and make them aware of the issues that surround the Eel River so that it may be saved. A couple of women I spoke with were nearly in tears talking about the river being a dead river now and telling me to let everyone know what danger it is in.



I'm not sure where to go from here. I feel like the issues are so big to tackle. I need to reevaluate the project and what direction I should go with it.

I'm taking an Oral History Methods class this semester. It's in the History Department and will help me with how to better interview people and what the proper procedures are for collecting Oral History.