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The land that Jim Scala and his family have been ranching for three generations is parched and brown as far as he can see. The pond where his cattle used to drink is now a puddle, ringed with cracked mud.

In other years, water pumped from the Shasta River would have periodically flooded this land, keeping his pasture alive and pond full. But the state had ordered Scala and other ranchers and farmers in rural Siskiyou County to stop irrigating when the drought-plagued river dipped below a certain level.

With bills mounting from trucking in water and buying hay to replace dead pasture, and facing the prospect of selling half his herd, Scala and others made a decision to defy the state’s order.

“We said, ‘To hell with it,’” Scala said. “We’re starting the pumps.”

In a single day in mid-August, the Shasta River’s flows dropped by more than half and stayed there for a week, which could jeopardize the salmon and other fish that spawn there.

Klamath river tribes were outraged, and California water regulators sounded the alarm. The State Water Resources Control Board ordered the Shasta River Water Association, which serves roughly 110 farms and ranches in central Siskiyou County, to stop pumping. Fines would start at $500 per day but could rise to $10,000 after a 20-day waiting period or a hearing.

“The unlawful diversion sets a terrible precedent that irrigators can egregiously violate state water rights and impact listed and tribal trust species,” said Jim Simondet, Klamath branch chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division.

A week later, on Aug. 24, Scala and the other ranchers and growers turned the water pumps off.

“We accomplished what we set out to do,” said Rick Lemos, a fifth generation rancher who also is a board member of the rural water association. “We got relief for the cattle that were out of water and wading out in the mud and getting stuck.” He said one of his cows had died in the mud.

The weeklong standoff crystallized a warning from California water watchers: The state has limited power to speedily intervene in urgent conflicts over water, which are expected to flare across the state as drought squeezes water supplies for ranches, farms, tribes, cities and fish.

“This is about the Shasta and it’s about Klamath salmon and it’s about tribes in the Klamath. But this is really about: can the state protect its water supplies, or is it just going to be the Wild West? Is it going to be every cowboy for himself?” said Craig Tucker, a natural resources consultant for the Karuk Tribe.

‘Farmers open the floodgates’

Scala is the president and Lemos sits on the board of the Shasta River Water Association, a private, non-profit water distributor that operates in the heart of Siskiyou County in the shadow of Mount Shasta.

In normal years, the water association pumps from the Shasta River from April to October, sending the water through a network of canals to irrigate roughly 3,400 acres.

The county, where locals have long chafed under Sacramento’s authority, was primed for simmering tensions over water to boil over.

“The dictatorial whims of (the) State Water Board has no authority to tell the people of Siskiyou county what to do with their property they own,” U.S. Congressman Doug LaMalfa, a Republican whose district includes the county, said in an emailed statement. “This violates our constitutional guarantee against unlawful seizure. I encourage anyone to stop ‘voluntarily complying’ with government looters.”

This has been the fourth driest year to date in a region where drought has been tightening its grip for years. Even in 2020, the local agricultural commissioner reported an increase in fallowed acres and limited irrigation that reduced yields. Wildfires have burned through rangeland and timber.

But agriculture, too, has taken its toll on water in the region — warming the Shasta River and degrading its water quality, according to the Shasta Valley Resource Conservation District.

These changes impact key spawning and rearing grounds for fall-run Chinook salmon and threatened Coho salmon. Other fish culturally important to tribes in the region, such as steelhead and Pacific lamprey, rely on the river as well.

Salmon runs have been declining for decades and few adult coho return every year, NOAA’s Simondet said. “Fish,” he said, “are not doing fine.”

The Shasta River empties into the larger Klamath — a small source of its flow but an outsized producer of its fish.

“Can the state protect its water supplies, or is it just going to be the Wild West? Is it going to be every cowboy for himself?”
— Craig Tucker, Karuk Tribe Consultant

In Happy Camp along the Klamath River, about 75 miles east from the pumps that the ranchers turned on, Karuk Tribal Council Member Arron “Troy” Hockaday has been watching the river and its salmon populations change over his lifetime.

“(If) those fish are gone, our people suffer. Those fish don’t spawn, our people suffer. We live off that — it’s our culture,” said Hockaday, a fourth generation traditional fisherman.

Hockaday has been dipping handmade nets into the rapids at Somes Bar to catch salmon since he was a child, and worries that his grandson won’t be able to continue the tradition.

“There ain’t going to be no fish for him to fish. He’s never going to learn how to catch fish and be a Karuk Tribal fisherman.”

Seeing the salmon populations decline even as water continues to flow through irrigation canals “hurts. It hurts so bad to see that,” Hockaday said. “And then to put pain into my soul, into our family, into the river — the farmers open the floodgates on the Shasta River.”

From his vantage point, he said, “Nobody gets into trouble for it.”

‘Egregious and blatant disregard’ of emergency order

Last year, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted emergency regulations that allow state regulators to curtail water users in the region when summertime flows in the Shasta River drop below 50 cubic feet per second near Yreka.

The aim is to protect salmon and trout species, including steelhead, fall-run Chinook and threatened Coho salmon. But the limit is fiercely contested by area ranchers, who note that it’s higher than the average historic flows in August since 1933.

The Shasta River Water Association petitioned in early August to continue diverting water to fill stock ponds for approximately 5,000 cattle plus calves and other assorted animals, according to a copy of the petition the water board shared with CalMatters. The water board said the request was still under review.

Lemos said the ranchers couldn’t afford to wait.

“How long do they review it while the cows are dying of thirst?” Lemos said. “We didn’t just fly off the handle and say hey, we’re going to break the law and get into a big mess. We tried the other way first.”

In a letter dated Aug. 17, the water association notified state regulators that they planned to violate the curtailment that day.

“We were in a critical situation. We have cattle out of water… We have nowhere to move them. You can’t just get them in and sell them tomorrow,” Lemos said. “So that’s why we started diverting (water).”

The pumps rapidly sucked away river water, dropping flows by more than half in a day, state officials said.

“It’s an egregious and blatant disregard for the environment and for our regulations…We are really, really interested in taking some swift action because we do take this so seriously,” said Julé Rizzardo, permitting and enforcement branch manager for the water board’s division of water rights.

The board is still investigating and determining whether to seek fines.

“We were in a critical situation. We have cattle out of water…So that’s why we started diverting (water).”
— Rick Lemos, Siskiyou County rancher

It took only a day after flows began dropping for the agency to notify the water association that they had violated their curtailment and could face fines of up to $500 per day. But under state law, the ranchers had 20 days to respond and request a hearing.

Only after the 20 days are up or a hearing has occurred can the water board adopt a final cease and desist order and raise the fines to $10,000 a day. By then, fall-run Chinook salmon would have been migrating through the river.

“It’s really unfortunate that we have those limitations,” Rizzardo said.

Felicia Marcus, a visiting fellow at Stanford’s water in the west program and former chair of the California water board, was more blunt: “In theory the water board has a lot of authority to deal with illegal diversions. In practice, they have to do it blindfolded and with one hand tied behind their back.”

California water law experts have been pushing for the water board to be granted more power to act swiftly.

Jennifer Harder, a law professor at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law urged California lawmakers to consider granting state water regulators the authority to temporarily pause water diversions and stem the damage in emergencies, while still allowing due process. Similar efforts have failed in the past.

“The bottom line is, we live in a very different world than we lived in 20, 30, 40 years ago in terms of the immediacy of some of these threats,” Harder said.

After receiving the board’s notices, Scala, Lemos and the rest of the Shasta River Water Association kept pumping the river’s water for almost a week.

“Only regret I have is we didn’t start earlier,” Scala said on Aug. 24, with irrigation water running across his land. “We’re going to lose the crop anyway. We’re going to have to pay a fine, probably.”

But later that day, Lemos said they shut off the pumps; they had accomplished what they’d set out to do, he said.

“We were going to fill our stock ponds and get some stock water and get things where we could survive, and shut off,” Lemos said. “And that’s what we basically did.”

The 20-day period before fines escalate had also factored into their discussions, Lemos said. Considering the costs of hay, replanting desiccated pasture and selling off cows, he said, “at $500 a day, it would probably be worth it, I’ll be quite honest. It’d probably be more than affordable. At $10,000 a day, it wouldn’t be.”

Lemos estimates he’s bought around $50,000 worth of hay so far this year, with more on the way; Scala counts over $100,000 in hay costs between this year and last. Both are bracing to sell off large proportions of their herds to make it through the coming year – for Scala, it could be as much as half. And he doesn’t think the water even made it a third of the way across his field.

“I’ve been pretty depressed the last couple of days,” Scala said. “There’s no future. We don’t have water. Without water, we’re done. And we can’t sell the place. Who’s going to buy a place without water?”

Pumps turned off, but will the damage remain?

Hockaday of the Karuk tribe was relieved to see flows returning to the Shasta River, but hopes to see the ranchers and growers held accountable for diversions that the state water board says are illegal.

“It’s great that they turned off the pumps. But they knew they weren’t supposed to turn them on in the first place,” Hockaday said.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is still evaluating the damage that the pumping may have caused, Tina Bartlett, the department’s northern regional manager, said in a letter to the water board Friday.

But the department expects that the rapid reduction in flows could have put young salmon and trout species at risk by shrinking their habitat, increasing temperatures downstream and interfering with critical food production.

“It is likely that some perished,” wrote Bartlett, who added that the rapid dewatering also “does not bode well” for adult Chinook salmon migrating from the Pacific to their spawning grounds.

“(If) those fish are gone, our people suffer. Those fish don’t spawn, our people suffer. We live off that — it’s our culture.”
— Arron “Troy” Hoc, Karuk Tribal Council Member

Lemos said he doubts that fish were harmed by the diversions. He expects warm summertime temperatures kept salmon species out of the lower reaches of the Shasta. “I wish you’d go down the canyon and look for some dead fish because you won’t find them,” Lemos said. “There was nothing harmed by our diversion at all.”

But Mike Belchik, a senior water policy analyst for the Yurok tribe, said the damage goes beyond salmon.

Fish species like lamprey that also are culturally important to the Yurok people are vulnerable to being stranded by a rapidly retreating water line, Belchik said. And reducing the river’s flows can cause long-term harm to the food web that can affect production for in the years to come.

“If you interrupt the food production in the summer, you don’t just get it back. It’s like removing the oxygen from a room for 20 minutes,” he said. “It’s lethal.”

Hockaday said land can be replanted and economies rebuilt; if a species of fish disappears from the river, it’s gone forever.

The ranchers who pumped the water “need to take care of his family. I understand that,” Hockaday said. But he wants to know when it’ll be the tribes’ turn to stop sacrificing so much.

“We gave up everything since the colonist people came here,” Hockaday said. “We’ve given our land, we’ve given our water, we’ve given our homeland. We gave everything up.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Paul Bradshaw Windes (Brad) was born on May 17, 1968 in Columbia, Missouri and died on August 19, 2022 in Eureka, the town he grew up in. He was born to Janet Lafferty Windes (April 28, 1942) and William E Windes (Feb. 2, 1942-Oct.25, 2017). He left behind his wife, Janet, and six adult children — Craig, Patrick, Michael, Tabatha, Tesha and Jennifer — along with many grandchildren.

In trying to capture his essence with words, I am struck by how inadequate language is, but I have so many images of him that run through my mind, particularly Brad in a skirt (kilt) because he loved his Celtic heritage.

Brad was such a big man — big stature, big laugh, big heart, big integrity. He was, at his core, a family man. Family was the most important thing in his life. For Brad, family was a term used to encompass all the people he loved and cared for. Only a portion were related by blood or marriage, but all of us were gathered to his heart along the way, and there in his heart, we knew ourselves to be a family.

Brad never met a stranger. He could (and did) talk to anyone about anything and made people feel heard and important. No matter how different our beliefs and opinions were, Brad effectively communicated respect and curiosity about those differences, never judgment or disregard.

Brad was a kid magnet. He was like his father that way. Brad came into any kid occupied space and was immediately the center of their attention. All children, not just his own, felt important, safe, and treasured when basking in his attention.

His absence has blown a hole through our hearts and our community. I will not say all the people he was survived by. I’d worry I would miss a name. Brad loved us all.

He was a son, a husband, a father and grandfather, a brother, a nephew, an uncle and a friend. He was a role model, a shoulder to cry on, a joke when you needed one, a source of advice you could take or leave. He was such a big part of our lives and we are bumbling along trying to find our way without him.

Brad was a blessing that we all deeply honor receiving. Knowing him changed us, and in all the ways that we are changed by our time with him, we will keep him in our hearts forever.

Goodbye …

Please join us if you are missing him too. We will be gathering to remember him together on September 10, 2022 at 2 p.m. at Humboldt Municipal Water District Pavilion, 7270 West End Road, Arcata, 95521.

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The obituary above was submitted by Brad Windes’ loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

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Is it possible to talk smack about someone without even mentioning them? According to an order issued this morning by Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Canning, the answer is “yes.”

Canning found that a short sentence in the official candidate statement submitted by Tiffany Hunt Nielsen violated the state’s elections code by indirectly throwing shade at Juan Pablo Cervantes, her challenger in the November runoff election to become Humboldt County’s next clerk, recorder and registrar of voters. This despite the fact that the sentence in question doesn’t even mention Cervantes’ name or existence. 

Here’s the deal: Among the many rules laid out in California Elections Code there’s one — Code Section 13308 — that says candidates for office can’t belittle their opponents in their official ballot statements. In fact, the code says candidate statements:

shall be limited to a recitation of the candidate’s own personal background and qualifications, and shall not in any way make reference to other candidates for that office or to another candidate’s qualifications, character, or activities.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after submitting her official candidate statement for the November ballot, Hunt Nielsen received a notice from Kelly Sanders, the current county clerk, recorder and register of voters, informing her that an unidentified someone had lodged an objection to this sentence:

“I am the only candidate with experience working in both offices.”

Hunt Nielsen works as a senior documents examiner at the county recorder’s office, way up on the fifth floor of the county courthouse, while Cervantes works as an elections specialist the elections manager in the county’s elections office, located in a former shopping center at the north end of town. Each candidate’s relative lack of experience in the other’s office has been a source of contention on the campaign trail.

In her notice to Hunt Nielsen, Sanders said that she had reviewed California Election Code Section 13308 and concluded that the objection had merit. The sentence may not reference Pablo Cervantes directly, but Sanders concluded that it comments on his qualifications by way of inference.

“I agree that the sentence in question makes reference beyond your own personal background and qualifications,” Sanders wrote. She added that if Hunt Nielsen had instead simply written, “I have experience in both offices,” there wouldn’t have been a problem.

After conferring with the county’s legal counsel, Sanders decided to delete the offending sentence from Hunt Nielsen’s candidate statement prior to printing it in the official voter information guide.

But Hunt Nielsen wasn’t satisfied with this proposed fix. She didn’t dispute Sanders’ conclusion about the sentence, though she may have had a good argument.  A quick google search reveals that this particular formulation — “I am the only candidate … ” — has appeared on dozens of California ballots in recent years, in statements from candidates for everything from school boards to judge to the mayor of Los Angeles. The phrase will even appear on this year’s statewide ballot, in a statement from Board of Equalization candidate Sally J. Lieber, meaning the phrase must have been approved by the Secretary of State. 

Regardless, Hunt Nielsen didn’t fight that part of Sanders’ actions. She just wanted to be given a chance to submit an amended statement of her own, rather than leaving her original statement with one sentence erased.

Hunt Nielsen retained attorney Dustin E. Owens from the Eureka firm of Owens & Ross, who petitioned the court for a writ of mandate that would allow her to replace the contested sentence with one saying, “I have experience working in both offices.” 

When the Outpost asked Hunt Nielsen about the matter on Aug. 20, while she was campaigning at the Humboldt County Fair, she downplayed the significance of the whole affair, saying she didn’t want anyone to get the impression that she was suing her boss.

In an email, Sanders said she was unable to comment and referred us to the court documents. 

In response to an inquiry, Cervantes replied via email, “In my capacity as Elections Manager I’ve stayed removed from Tiffany Hunt Nielsen’s actions. Kelly [Sanders] has been directly handling everything that has to do with the Clerk, Recorder & Registrar contest.”

This morning, Judge Canning issued an order granting the peremptory writ.

“Having considered the evidence and heard the argument of counsel, the Court finds by clear and convincing proof that the original candidate statement of Tiffany Hunt Nielsen contains a sentence that is inconsistent with Elections Code § 13308,” the order says

It also directs Sanders to replace Hunt Nielsen’s original candidate statement with her amended one, which is identical except for that one sentence. 

Press release from the Red Cross:

The Red Cross is actively looking for new volunteers for our Disaster Action Team (DAT). The members of the Disaster Action Team are the first to roll up their sleeves, grab their gear, and respond when disaster strikes.

Due to their proximity to where our response vehicles are staged, we are currently focusing our search for volunteers on the communities Trinidad, McKinleyville, Arcata, and Blue Lake. Our team serves all of Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity Counties and DAT responders must be willing to respond across our three county territory.

If you are interested in joining us or just have questions, you can begin by contacting our local Disaster Program Manager Andrew at 707-273-8481 or at andrew.bogar@redcross.org. We will schedule a brief interview and invite you to a new volunteer orientation. We will begin our Disaster Action Team boot camp on October 1st at our McKinleyville Office, training will continue throughout the month of October.

If you are outside the Trinidad, McKinleyville, Arcata, and Blue Lake communities or would like to help with sheltering, logistics, or preparedness education, you can join us by following this link this link.

We look forward to hearing from the best our communities have to offer.

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How can we develop economic growth in Humboldt County? What are our community’s priorities for local economic development? What are our strengths? Our weaknesses?

Those are just some of the questions Humboldt County’s economic development team will ask during a series of community meetings, or “roadshows,” over the coming weeks. (One of those meetings is happening tonight in Fortuna, more on that below.)

“We are intentionally starting this process by listening,” Allie Jones, marketing consultant for Illuminated Marketing, told the Outpost. “In order to create an effective and inclusive economic development strategy, we need to know what community members are experiencing, what their priorities are, and their insights on the strengths and weaknesses of our county.”

Your ideas will inform an update to the county’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). The document, which is developed every five years as required by the Economic Development Administration (EDA), provides a framework to guide local economic prosperity and resiliency.

“This roadshow series isn’t just about the county going into the community and asking what they think, this is a requirement of the EDA and a part of our fiscal responsibility,” Humboldt County Economic Development Director Scott Adair told the Outpost. “This is an opportunity to be heard, to inform metrics and key performance indicators that will create economic policy and enable our county to qualify for grant funding that will enhance the livelihoods in our community.”

This is the first time the county has used the “community first” approach, Adair added. Historically, county staff has “focused on the wisdom and guidance of economic development professionals in the community” to inform the CEDS update. 

“We decided to go to the community first because we don’t want to influence community feedback by frontloading the process with ideas and content from the experts,” he explained. “We want to know what the barista at the coffee shop or the grocery clerk thinks, then we will talk to the experts and see what they have to say.”

Jones acknowledged that “candid feedback and public engagement is messy [and] often full of strong emotions,” but it’s an integral part of creating economic prosperity that represents everyone in our community.

“The passion in the room at our first roadshow in Garberville this past Wednesday certainly reflected the … [vast challenges] for many people living in Southern Humboldt,” Jones said. “The conversation centered a lot around the need for improved roads throughout the region and supporting the existing businesses that are struggling to stay afloat.”

Once the roadshow series wraps up next month, the economic development team will present its findings to local leaders and industry experts. From there, the CEDS will be presented to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors for adoption.

Upcoming roadshows will be held at the following times and locations:

• Eel River Valley: Monday, August 29 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the River Lodge Conference Center, 1800 Riverwalk Drive, Fortuna
• North East County: Tuesday, August 30 from 5:30-7 p.m.at Azalea Hall, 1620 Pickett Road, McKinleyville
• Greater Eureka/Humboldt Bay: Wednesday, September 7 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Eureka Sequoia Conference Center, 901 Myrtle Avenue, Eureka
• North County: Thursday, September 8 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Trinidad Town Hall, 409 Trinity Street, Trinidad
• Willow Creek: Friday, September 9 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Willow Creek Vets Hall (Ironside Post 9561), 20 Kimtu Road, Willow Creek

More information on the roadshow series can be found here.

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Press release from the unified command of the Six Rivers Lightning Fires:

The Six Rivers Lightning Complex remains in unified command with California Interagency Incident Management Team 14, California Highway Patrol, Trinity County Sheriff, and Humboldt County Sheriff. The Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently 32,572 acres with 80% containment and 1,860 personnel assigned to the incident.

CURRENT SITUATION

The weather on Sunday was sunny, but smoky. For the next few days a slight rise in temperatures and drop in humidity have been forecasted. Caution will be exercised, as fire activity is likely to remain low with potential to become moderate to high.

Sunday, firefighters continued with mop up on the Ammon Fire, working systematically to extinguish many smoldering fires. This labor-intensive work is important to ensure no spot fires or rollout occur outside of containment lines. On the Campbell Fire, defensive firing operations were continued. The areas in which firing efforts were concentrated were along Lone Pine Ridge and Groves Prairie Road. The firing operations have been very successful thus far, creating good depth along the control line ahead of the advancing fire front.

Monday, a structure protection task force has been assigned to the areas of Trinity Village and Hawkins Bar. They will remain in place as firefighters continue to strengthen control lines, construct contingency lines, and conduct more defensive firing operations.

Please check this link for air quality resources.

ROAD CLOSURES

Due to a large presence of fire personnel and machinery working to build containment lines for the Ammon Fire, residents are asked to limit travel on Titlow Hill Road/Route 1 in zones HUM-E052 and HUM-E062 to essential traffic only. Residents may still use roads to travel out of evacuation order zones:

The following roads into evacuation zones have been closed:

• Forest Route 7n15 at Six Rivers Forest Boundary

• The following roads are restricted to local traffic only:

• Horse Linto Creek Road at Saddle Lane (Open to residents only)

• 6N06 Sandy Bar (Route 6)

• Titlow Hill Road (Route 1) at Horse Mountain Botanical Area

State Route 299 remains open to through traffic. Residents are encouraged to visit the CalTrans Quickmap to check for state highway closures.

FOREST CLOSURES

Forest order NO. 22-10-06 Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently in place, which includes river access at Kimtu Park.

To view this closure and map, please visit: this link.

EVACUATION UPDATES

For the latest evacuation information go to Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services or Trinity County Office of Emergency Services. For an interactive map of evacuation zones visit Zonehaven Aware. To sign up for alerts visit this link.

EVACUATION ORDERS remain in effect for zones: HUM-E032, HUM-E032-C, HUM-E058 and HUM-E061-A.

EVACUATION WARNINGS remain in effect for zones: HUM-E062, HUM-E063, HUM-E076-B, HUM-E077, Zone 483 - Fisher Road and all residences off of Fisher Road, Trinity Village, Wallen Ranch Road.

Zone 482 - Suzy Q Road and all roads off of Suzy Q Road

Zone 480 - Ziegler Point Road / Forest Service Road 7N04

An EVACUATION WARNING remains in effect for Campbell Ridge Road from Salyer Heights to Seeley McIntosh Road. Salyer area, including Galaxy Road, and the area of Ziegler Point Road/Forest Service Road 7N04 have been reduced to an Evacuation Warning.

ANIMAL EVACUATION CENTER

Hoopa Rodeo Grounds
1767 Pine Creek Rd., Hoopa, CA 95546
Phone: (707) 492-2851

For more information visit Inciweb.

Last Thursday, Louisa and I paddled over to Woodley Island — she on her SUP, me in my kayak — to enjoy a glass of wine at Cafe Marina, overlooking the boats and a pair of seals cruising for their dinner. It was our 44th wedding anniversary, practically a lifetime away from when we got married at the home of Laurence Gauthier, a Justice of the Peace, in Montpelier, Vermont, where we were vacationing. (I had to ask him to turn his TV off!)

We attribute our long-term marriage to several things, but one area stands out: the ground rules we’ve established that have helped us learn to communicate clearly and to “fight fair” — that is, when we fight at all, which nowadays is very rare. It took us years — decades! — to figure these out, but now they serve us well. So, for what it’s worth:

1. We Have a Statute of Limitations Policy

In the past, sometimes one or the other of us would bring up an old hurt, and we would delve back into our history and try to hash things out. Rarely did this work. Sometimes we wouldn’t even agree on what had happened in the first place, and resentments would resurface.

Over time we developed what we call our “statute of limitations” policy, referring to the point when we agree to no longer bring up past conflicts. If one of us does something that disturbs the other, of course, we try to resolve it. But after a couple of conversations, assuming we’ve reached a resolution — even if it’s not perfect — then the subject is closed. At that point, it’s no longer “our” problem; it’s Louisa’s or Barry’s issue, to discuss with a friend, write about, or otherwise sort out on our own without involving the other.

2. We Avoid Tit-for-Tat

Let’s say one of us washes the dishes after dinner. The next morning, if we want the other to do something for us, we don’t get to say, “But I washed the dishes last night.” In other words, we can’t use the fact that we did the dishes as a bargaining chip. We can wash the dishes or not wash the dishes, but if we choose to do them, the action stands alone, free of expectations or obligations. Our goal is to either do things freely or not at all. Of course, it’s not a perfect system, but rarely does either of us feel like a martyr.

3. We Separate Emotions and Decisions

Like any long-term couple, we have ongoing business to deal with and decisions to make about family, children, finances, house, calendar, et cetera. What we’ve found is that it helps to separate “business” from emotions.

If a business issue gets emotionally sticky, we put the topic aside, knowing we need to have a separate conversation about our feelings first. To make good decisions, we need a calm, low-intensity atmosphere.

4. We Don’t Discuss “Serious Matters” if Either of us Has Been Drinking

This ground rule has helped us avoid a lot of conflict. As everyone knows, alcohol affects the nervous system. Something that might feel like a minor irritation when we’re drinking soda water can suddenly escalate under the influence of wine.

5. One Person at a Time Tells the Story!

We don’t like it when other couples interrupt or correct each other, so we try not to. If we’re with friends and one of us is telling a story, the other doesn’t jump in with a correction, like, “Actually, that happened in 2014, not 2015.” If one of us forgets and does this, the other will say, lightly, “Hey! Who’s telling the story?”

6. “Tell Me”

This simple phrase means that the person who says it will listen to whatever the other is going through, without commenting, reacting, arguing, disagreeing, giving advice, changing the subject, or placing time limits. We find that just — just! — listening is very powerful.

7. We Gassho

A ritual gesture of Eastern origin, gassho refers to the hands pressed together in a prayer position. We gassho as a way to express apology or closure. We’re saying, “I’m sorry,” “We’re done,” or “We’re good. We can move on.”

These agreements didn’t arrive all preserved, polished, and readymade; they evolved gradually, over years and years of practice, mistakes, disagreements, and insights. Hammering out our ground rules along the winding road of our marriage is part of what made us resilient.

And they have given us a sense of safety. Without our ground rules, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy our lives as fully or be happy together. Quite simply, we wouldn’t be who we are without them.