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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And join me, if you will, in the waters of the Baduwa't River. We are taking a journey there with Dave Feral, river bum with the Baduwa't Watershed Council. Hey, Dave. And Michelle Hernandez, filmmaker. And welcome, Michelle.

MICHELLE HERNANDEZ:

Hello, I'm going to do my introduction, if that's okay. I always love the opportunity to practice my traditional language. [Wiyot]. Hi, I just said, my name is Michelle Hernandez. I am a Wiyot and Mayan descent. I'm a Wiyot tribal member of Mayan descent, and I currently reside in Los Angeles, which is Tongva land.

WHEELER:

Thank you so much for joining us. And if it wasn't clear already by the fact that we have a filmmaker here, we're talking about a new movie that is going to premiere on February 28th. Dave, do you wanna just give a quick plug for the movie and we'll do it a couple of times throughout the show?

DAVE FERAL:

That sounds good. So bottle out the documentary. It's a film that was put together with Michelle Hernandez being a director myself and a great team of folks like Lynette Nutter, Will Goldberg. They're all local folks and it'll show at the historic Eureka theater Friday, February 28th, doors open at 6 PM and we'll have a little mingle time there. And then the film will start at seven and we'll have time in the lobby at the end for people who have questions with the filmmakers who are going to be there. Some of them.

WHEELER:

Super. All right. So let's talk about Baduwa't or the Mad River as it has been known for some period of time, but for far longer as Baduwa't. Michelle, perhaps you could take us into some of this pre-European contact history of the Mad River and centralize its importance to the peoples of this area.

HERNANDEZ:

Yeah, so Baduwa't, which is the traditional name for what used to be known as Mad River. I'm trying to change the way that we pronounce, or we say Mad River to Baduwa't, because that is its traditional name, as you mentioned. But yeah, I like to say, like my dad says, it was our grocery store. So essentially, it's where we got our food. And then it's also where we got lumber for our traditional houses. And also, it was where we learned to take care of a place. That was our responsibility as Native people, not only in the past, but currently, is to take care of these lands. And so before colonization, we were doing that, we were taking care of all these resources, we never took more than we needed. And then unfortunately, colonization occurred, and then there were massacres that got rid of a good chunk of us as weots. But as you know, we're still currently here because I get to be able to talk about this film that we've created.

WHEELER:

If folks aren't familiar with Baduwa't or the Mad River, Dave, you have played in its waters extensively and know it well. Can you give a description of the river itself, its kind of headwaters and where it enters the ocean and any other interesting bits about the river?

FERAL:

Okay, so the Baduwa't Watershed is roughly 500 square miles and it begins in the headwaters above what we call Ruth Lake in Trinity County. And it's unique, many rivers flow from north to southwest along the Pacific coast. This one flows from the southeast to the northwest and flows through Humboldt County and ends up near the town of McKinleyville where it meets the Pacific Ocean. And one of the really interesting things I think about this watershed is it's a pretty narrow watershed. It's the water supply for about 90,000 people in Humboldt County, so most of the fresh drinking water that people drink is from the Baduwa't. And then it also, it has this really interesting orographic effect in that the coastal plains are low and the mountains further inland are very high so there's a natural tendency for the cool air from the coast to be drawn up the river valley on a daily basis. So we watch fog move in throughout the summer months cooling many of the areas of the river which is kind of unique, not always the case for a lot of rivers. So it's a real special place and we see it as a climate refuge.

WHEELER:

And I should also make a disclosure here that I am on the board of the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, which, as Dave mentioned, supplies drinking water for most of the Humboldt Bay region. And we source our water from Baduwa't, from a number of pumps by the Essex exit, if you're familiar with that, on 199. And we also control the Matthews Dam, which forms the Ruth Lake Reservoir on the Mad River. So I have a role to play here.

FERAL:

And we can get into that. It's a controversial topic that we should get into at some point.

WHEELER:

But just to put all the cards on the table, I wanted to make sure that that was out here. Michelle, you mentioned how the Baduwa't was the grocery store for the Wiyot people. Can you talk about the sort of groceries, to continue the metaphor, that you would have historically harvested from Baduwa't?

HERNANDEZ:

Yeah. So I also was realizing, I guess groceries were probably not the great example. I guess it was grocery lumber. Anything that we get our resources from now, the river was that for us. But yeah, we essentially got salmon. We got eels. We also, the berries that grew around that area, the foods, those are just some of the essentials. But as a WEA person, if you ever attended our events, salmon is a key source of food for us. So that's why it was so important to protect that water and keep it clean so that we had that to eat. We also hunted minks and otters because those are also another source that we use in our ceremony, in our regalia. So it was a source to receive all of these things that we needed, not only for a source of nutrition, but a source for our traditions and culture. So it was a way for us to keep that alive. And that's why it's so important, not only in the past, but it's important presently as well.

WHEELER:

So it continues to be a source of cultural regalia for food and other things for the Weyat people. Mm-hmm. Wonderful. So we have the river as it was, which is this important life source for the people of the region. And unfortunately, then we have the colonization. And Dave, I'll turn to you to tell us a little bit about that history of exploitation and its impact then on the waters of Baduwa't.

FERAL:

So yeah, I think as Michelle points out, one of the primary obstacles to accessing resources were the people that were already living there. So one of the first things that the essence of mapping the area and the discovery of the Bay by colonists, which the Bay had already been there for a long time and indigenous people knew that was that they moved those people out. They moved the tribes out. So I've hiked many, many, many miles all up and down the watershed. I have friends who have private land out there that allow me to hike around and explore, and I've found artifacts here and there. I found old campsites here and there. It's like the landscape was covered with small bands, small tribes, small groups of people living there for thousands and thousands of years, utilizing all the resources that Michelle talks about.

When the colonial capitalists came in, they didn't recognize those institutions that were already established. They already had their own doctors. They had their own pathways. They had their own trading systems. They had their own grocery stores and lumber stores. And the colonists didn't see that. So that ignorance that the colonists had, they felt like they could just come in and there were no rules. So you probably know this. The state of California declared that it was okay to capture and slave and kill indigenous people. So they were removed. That was the first step. The second step was looking at all the resources. There were so many fish in the river back in those days that when the spawns were happening, when the adults were returning to spawn, they would line from bank to bank going up the riffles so that you could see waves of silver moving through the water when the coho moved up or when the Chinook moved up to spawn. The wholesale clear-cut logging that transpired over 175 years has had an incredible impact.

Thinking back to the period of time between when the colonists first arrived in the 1850s to 1950, those first hundred years, that watershed had some of the largest redwood trees in the world. And you can find remnant stumps of that all over the place. The landscape has completely changed because that was all clear-cut logged. They had tractors running through the creeks. They filled creeks. They moved creeks. They moved the river. They burnt the landscape intentionally to clear the slash so they could drive through there and create roads. So all of these different things, the logging, the way the roads were developed and the way they've been maintained over time has had a negative impact so that now, according to our U.S. government, the river is now listed for impairments under the Clean Water Act for turbidity, sediment and temperature. Those are three physical things that really don't help fish live. Too much turbidity, the fish can't see, it reduces their ability to feed.

WHEELER:

Turbidity, in case people aren't familiar

FERAL:

Okay, so if you took a jar and stuck a handful of dirt in it and filled the rest of it with water and then shook that jar up, when the water and the dirt mix in the water column, that's turbidity. And since fish are visual feeders for the most part, at least salmonids, if you can't see your food, you can't eat. So imagine a young fish that's just come out of the gravel, sure for a few days it can absorb the sack from the egg that it was produced, but then it needs to eat. It eats small insects. If you can't see those insects, you don't get big. If you don't get big enough, like the length of a dollar bill, when you go out to sea as a small fish, you usually don't survive. You have to be a certain size to come back as an adult. So years and years and years of this went on. And then in the 1930s, the Army Corps decided to put a dam up just a few miles above the town of Blue Lake.

WHEELER:

This is the historic Sweasey.

FERAL:

Yeah, and Sweasey Dam was put right in the middle of what's called the transport zone of the river, which is where all that sediment and dirt that's coming down from the upper part of the watershed got trapped. And within five years, that dam was full of sediment. So that's the other part of turbidity. When turbidity is in the water column and it settles, it's called sediment. And that's the mud at the bottom of the creek or in the river. So that dam filled up and it blocked fish from going up to most of the river for since what the 1930s until 1971. So quite a long time. So many different things that the humans did that came here that didn't consult the traditional ecological knowledge that already existed, that didn't consider the culture that was already here, really missed out on being able to manage this for a long-term vision for future generations.

WHEELER:

All right, so a result of this, of the clear-cutting, of the road construction, all of these things, as you said, is impairment under the Clean Water Act for a variety of things. So we have this interesting problem in the Mad River. And really, the Mad River is a microcosm for all of the rivers of the North Coast. This is the same thing that was experienced by the Talawa on the Smith, the Yuroks on the Klamath, right? Everywhere on the North Coast where we had this settler capitalism come in, it has degraded and destroyed these. It's not a grocery store. It's more like a Target or a Walmart, right? You can get everything there. So we have this historic destruction, but then we still are dealing with that historic destruction today. We had removals beginning in the 1850s, but we are still dealing with the impact of that removal today. We have clear-cutting beginning shortly thereafter, and the problems are still lingering. Do you have any thoughts, or do you want to reflect on that we're living almost with this ghost of another era, and we're having to figure out how to right historic wrongs in many respects?

FERAL:

Yeah. I mean, circling back to that Swayze dam, when managers decided to blow the dam up, which is what they did back in, I think it was 1971, they had no plan for where the sediment would go. So they just let it go. And it's still moving through the system in the lower part of the watershed, according to fluvial geomorphologist friend of mine, Randy Klein, who studied the system for the past 45 years. Yeah. So that sediment is still moving through the system. And then we have legacy issues with the historic logging practices that took place, they disturbed the entire landscape. The entire watershed has been logged over five different times. There are over 2000 miles of road and 75% of those road background based geologies is just whatever's there. There's no management. There's nobody laying down the gravel and managing. It's just out there.

So when you have that road system, that's all over the place, as dense as eight miles per square mile in the watershed, the roads are what convey or bring the dirt into the water. And that's sort of some of the legacy issues, but it's ongoing because if you look at the way agency and industry have interacted, as you probably know, Tom, industry is self-reporting. So when a forester goes to do a clear cut, they have to report to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board on how much sediment that clear cut produced and how they mitigated for that. They get to report that there's nobody looking over their shoulder. So they get to report what they get to report. And if you know anything about clear cut logging, it's really all about trying to harvest as much product off the landscape as possible.

WHEELER:

The most rapacious form of logging. You are listening to the Econews Report. We're discussing a new movie that is going to premiere on February.

FERAL:

Hey, so bottle out the documentary. It's a film that was put together with Michelle Hernandez being a director and myself and a great team of folks like Lynette Nutter, Will Goldberg. They're all local folks and it'll show at the historic Eureka Theater Friday, February 28th, doors open at 6 PM.

WHEELER:

So, Michelle, tell us about this film. So you've made a film now about Badawad, about some of this history of the river and its exploitation. What drove you to make this film and what are the central themes of this movie?

HERNANDEZ:

Yeah, well, one of them is acknowledging the traditional name, constantly talking about that. And then the other is making sure that we can protect this river. I think as Native people, and I've told this to Lynette, our producer, and Dave, is that, yes, it's indigenous people, especially without people's responsibility to take care of this river. But also, it's not just our home now that colonization has occurred. There's all these new people here, right? And so this is also their home as well. And so what we want people to realize is that, yes, we feel responsible for this place, but we're also kind of tired. We've been trying for since time immemorial to take care of this place. And so I want people to step up as well, and join the movement in protecting this river before it's too late.

Because we are seeing the impacts on other rivers, such as Wiyot or Eel River, that doesn't have water currently in it, and other rivers around us. And so what we want to do is to prevent the Baduwa't from being sick before it's too late. And so what I'm hoping is that people understand that it's their responsibility as well, and that we can work as a community. And also one way of doing that is renaming it Baduwa't. And so kind of the goal is, even if the Baduwa't does not get changed legally, at least through a community, we can change it. And for me, I'm like, that's a win in itself, that people are acknowledging what the name is.

WHEELER:

I have to say at the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, we've already started talking about trying to reform the way that we talk about the river, Baduwa't, and to start to replace our old promotional materials to reflect what we also agree is kind of the more appropriate name to call this. Michelle, can you talk a little bit more about the importance of getting the name right to you as a Wiyot tribal member? Why is a name important?

HERNANDEZ:

Yeah, I think Cutcha said it in the film is that the name is important not only because it's its original name, because that's the name that it's known for so long. I think as Indigenous people, we believe everything around us is alive, right? And so like, the river is alive, the trees are alive. It sounds very like, I'm not trying to be all magical. That's not what it is. It's just that there's this life form in it. And that there's an understanding that we take care of them and they take care of us, right? It's this like, relationship. It's like, circular, right? We take care of the river, they provide food for us, and then we do that again, right? This constant circle of taking care of each other. I'm also going on a tangent, so let me come back. But the goal is, yeah.

WHEELER:

Getting the name right seems very important to you as a We Are Tribal member, and so I wanted to have you elaborate even further about why getting a name right, which might not be immediately obvious to some of our listeners, why that is itself really important to you and to this film.

HERNANDEZ:

Well, because that's the name that we've known, right? And since time immemorial is Baduwa't, that is the name that we've given her. Or I'm malpersonifying the river. But that's the name we've given her. And so like Cutcha said, when you watch the film, it's that these are names that they have known, right? We talk to them. We speak to them. And so can you imagine someone coming into your area and then renaming you? And like, my name is Michelle. But someone saying, oh, no, your name is Bob. So that would be kind of startling. And I'd be like, oh. And so that's the thing, is how startling could that be for an entity or a thing with life in it to be renamed that?

And so that's what I want people to realize, is that these things are living beings. And it's our responsibility. I keep saying that. It's our responsibility to take care of these things. And I think also it's reclaiming a language. I think that's also what's really important because of colonization and boarding schools and all these traumas that have happened to indigenous people throughout the United States. A lot of us, unfortunately, have had our cultures and our traditions put to sleep. I never say lost because that's claiming that it's gone. But a lot of us have had that, unfortunately, happen to us. And of course, one of those is language as well. And I think right now, as we got people, we're reclaiming our language and bringing it back.

And so to have people join us, I also am telling people and encouraging them to speak, so let look, because I need to talk to other people and they need to talk to us. That's how language gets spread and taught. And so I think that's another thing, is reclaiming a language to let people know that indigenous people are here and we will always be here and we're not going anywhere. And so one of that is reclaiming our language, reclaiming our culture and our traditions. And I think that's why it's so important to myself. I can't speak on behalf of my tribe. I'm only one tribal member. I want to make that kind of clear.

But that's why it's so important to me that it's renamed Baduwa't or spoken as Baduwa't instead of Mad River. And also, it's so much more prettier than Mad River. That's like an ugly name. I'm just like, it's not angry. Baduwa't has so much meaning, too, than this angry river. And so I think that's what's important to me, is reclaiming our traditions, our culture, and our language and having other people join us in that movement. And I think that's what's really beautiful about what's happening with the community.

WHEELER:

Dave, how about you give us another plug for the premiere coming up this week?

FERAL:

Yeah, so this week at the Historic Eureka Theater, on Friday, February 28th, doors open at 6 p.m. We will show the film at 7 p.m., and then after, there'll be time in the lobby to meet the filmmakers. It'll be a fundraiser for both my organization, Baduwa't Watershed Council, the Historic Theater, as well as the Wiyot Tribe. So funds will be going in distribution to everybody, and after we pay for the overhead.

WHEELER:

Very cool. So Dave, how did this film come about? What was the genesis of of making a movie?

FERAL:

Yeah, so I, as I described myself earlier, I'm kind of a river bum. So I've grown, I grew up in creeks and when I was a kid, when I could go catch a steelhead, I'd be able to bring that home and a single parent, family, low income, and that was a big deal. So I've always had my heart in the creek because it, it brings those nostalgic feels for this. I was talking to my kids during the pandemic and I said, Hey, you know, I've got all these friends who know a lot about the river and I had talked to Ted Hernandez, who's Michelle's dad about it.

And thought, well, maybe a book. And my kids were like, no, no, no, no. You need a movie. We don't want to read a book. No one reads books anymore. No one reads books. Yeah. Can it be in TikTok? And so I was like, well, you know, okay. So I talked to Ted and he said, Hey, my daughter just finished film school. So I gave Michelle a call and she agreed to work with this stubborn guy here. And she's had a lot of patience for me and taught me a lot. And I'm grateful for that. So we moved forward and we got, surprisingly, we got funded. There's a landowner out there that gave us some money to do the film.

So it paid for us to work on this for three years. So all the drone footage, all the underwater footage, the interviews that Michelle and her partner, Richie, who's an editor in the film, worked on, came together. And they say when, when you're doing the right thing, things line up. And so over the period of three years, with all of the different challenges we had with the pandemic and different things going on in our lives, we were able to come together and we've brought this to fruition now.

WHEELER:

That's lovely. I think that that's really true, that things come together when it's the right and appropriate thing. The universe seems to align in that way. So we've talked about the river before European contact as a really important place for the peoples of this area. We've talked about the impact of colonization, of depopulating the river and then exploiting the river. And that kind of brings us to the present of a degraded yet still important river for many people, for indigenous people, for also white folks who live on the river and really also enjoy it and want to respect and treat it well. Let's talk about the future for the Mad River. What, what does a healthy Mad River look like and what do we need to do to get to that point?

FERAL:

I think I'll lead off with this and please Michelle, add in wherever and I'll break so you can add in. One of the things that comes to mind is what Ted Hernandez, Michelle's dad, has said. And when he was tribal chair, he said, if you're living on Wiyot land and you're, and I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the exact quote, but if you're living on Wiyot land and you're doing good things and you're here to help, then we see you as an ally. We see you as part of the Wiyot. And that is true. That has been really true. And I've learned a lot by having this Western frame of reference or Western lens that I see things through and have seen things through. And Michelle has been really good. She's been a good friend in showing me and teaching me how to see things differently. And I think I've gained a lot from that.

And moving forward, there will be no real way to recover this watershed unless we incorporate the TEKs, the traditional ecological knowledge that both the Wiyot have and the Blue Lake Rancheria have. Those groups and other groups that, if the Whilkut and other tribes show up from other parts of the watershed to help us understand how to better do things, because the way things have been managed for the past 175 years isn't working. I mean, you can attest to that. You've been watching things from EPIC's perspective for a long time. We need to upend things. And helping reclaim the name is the beginning of ripping the bandaid off of the landscape of this watershed to really see the details and how we need to really shift the way we're doing things.

HERNANDEZ:

Yeah, no, I'm going to jump on that. I think, yeah, as Dave says, I don't think it's going to return to the original way that it was, but that's OK. But if we can protect it from becoming sick, because as we all mentioned, this is a huge source of water for all of us to drink, and we need water to drink. If we don't have that, unfortunately, we're all going to pass away. But the way I see it, and what I'm hoping, is that we can work as a community to prevent this from going in a different direction, where, unfortunately, water won't be clean for us to drink. But I also think of my little tribe and my little community, and we've done so much with just reversing things from being a toxic waste place. I think of a good example is our traditional island, Tuluwat. That was unsafe for us to go on for many, many years. And when we got it back, they were just like, do you really want this? There's toxins. You can't go on there. And we're like, yeah, we want it. And then with the help of so many allies and the tribe, we got it to be healthy again.

So there are studies shown throughout indigenous land that we can reverse things. Again, it won't be to its traditional state, but we can make it healthy again. And that's what I'm really hopeful, is that in the future and currently, that we can work together so that we can make it healthy again, and so that we can keep enjoying it, not just for ourselves, for the next generation to come, and then that generation and that generation, as they say, the seven generations. And so I may be naive, but I'm also hoping. I mean, like I said, with my tribe, I've seen it happen. With other tribes, I've seen it happen. And so I'm really hopeful that we can work together, because obviously, the administration we have now is not going to help us. But I think as working as communities, that will be kind of the hope.

WHEELER:

Well, folks, I hope to see you out at this premiere. Once again, let's go over the details, Dave.

FERAL:

Okay, so we're going to be showing Baduwa't Documentary, which is about a 42-minute film, at the Historic Eureka Theater on Friday, February 28th. Doors open at 6 p.m. And all the funds that go to this, if you buy a ticket or make a donation, will be dispersed among the three different groups, the non-profit that runs the theater, my non-profit, Baduwa't Watershed Council, and the Wiyot Tribe as well.

WHEELER:

And Dave, is there a place where people can pre-buy tickets? Cause I imagine that there's a risk of this selling out.

FERAL:

There is, we've been selling tickets really fast, honestly. People are really interested in this. And I think we're gonna have a full theater by the 28th. So you can go on my website at baduwatwatershedcouncil.org and find the documentary link. You can find tickets there, or you can go on Eventbrite if you know where to find tickets there. And you'll see posters up around town with the QR code you can scan too.

WHEELER:

Well, I, I've just seen the trailer, but already from the trailer, I can tell that it's going to be great. And it was also fun because I've seen so many of my friends in this, in this movie, Mike Furniss, there he is, the roads guy talking about roads. So I imagine that you'll also probably recognize some folks that you know, if you are a Humboldt County listener, this is a small community. So if you're into enviro things, you probably are because you're listening to the eco news report, you might see your friends in this documentary, which is itself also super fun. Well, unfortunately, we are out of time, Michelle, thank you so much for joining us all the way from Los Angeles. Dave, thank you for joining me here in the studio. I'm excited for this movie to come out.

FERAL:

Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.

WHEELER:

And join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North coast of California. Until then, be well.