Doug Duncan and Jim Brown speak at the Bloody Island ceremony Saturday. Photo by Harold LaBonte.

UPPER LAKE – It's been more than 150 years since the US Army marched into Lake County and killed dozens of Pomo natives, but the pain and horror of the event continues to reverberate for local Pomo today.

About 102 community members of many backgrounds for a sunrise ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the 157^th anniversary of the 1850 massacre.

Saturday's event wasn't just about remembering, it was also about looking positively at the future for the county's native cultures.

The event has been led and organized over the years by Clayton Duncan of Robinson Rancheria, a descendant of Ni'ka, also known by her Anglicized name, Lucy Moore.

Duncan's Web site reports that Moore was a 6-year-old child when the massacre took place, and she reportedly survived by going into the lake and hiding underwater, breathing through a tule reed.

Speaking at the event along with Duncan was his brother, Doug, and Elem tribal administrator Jim Brown. The speakers at the event focused on the positive, hoping for healing and greater understanding amongst the cultures living side by side in Lake County today.

Six young Pomo dancers in traditional costume danced and chanted. Duncan explained that the dances and songs were offered as signs of forgiveness for what happened on the land so long ago.

The dancers, said Duncan, were welcoming the opportunity to once again dance and sing on the land after 157 years.

Accounts of the Bloody Island massacre

Historical accounts from sources including Henry K. Mauldin, the National Park Service, and Pete Richerson and Scott Richerson of UC Davis, report that the events that led to the Bloody Island Massacre – also called the Clear Lake Massacre – began in 1849, when years of mistreatment of native Pomo by Charles Stone and Andrew Kelsey came to a head.

Stone and Kelsey – “in the grip of gold fever,” according to the Richersons' account – forced 50 Pomo men to go with them to the gold fields as laborers. They then sold the rations for the Pomos to the miners, which resulted in all but one or two of the Pomos starving to death.

The Pomos who remained at home in Lake County weren't faring much better. Stone and Kelsey were reportedly giving inadequate food rations – four cups of wheat a day for an entire family – to the native laborers.

When one young Pomo man was sent by his starving family to Stone to ask for more wheat, Stone killed him.

Not long after that murder, two Pomo men, Shuk and Xasis, decided to go hunting for meat to feed their hungry village, and borrowed horses from Stone and Kelsey to do it, according to an account by Pomo interpreter William Gibson, as featured on the Elem Nation Web site.

Shuk and Xasis didn't manage to bring back any meat, and were concerned they would be killed if it was found out that they had taken the horses.

At about this time, to add insult to injury, Stone and Kelsey “remained as carelessly brutal as ever, beating, even shooting, men on drunken whims. Women were raped and enslaved.” That included abducting the wife of Chief Augustine, the leader of the local Pomo band, and keeping her at their home.

Deciding to go on the offensive, in December 1849 Shuk and Xasis, joined by Chief Augustine and a few other Pomos, attacked the home of Stone and Kelsey. Inside the home, Chief Augustine's wife poured water on Stone and Kelsey's gunpowder toruin it.

Mauldin said Kelsey was killed by an arrow. Stone escaped and hid in a clump of willows on Kelsey Creek, where an Indian found him and killed him with a rock. The Pomos then took food supplies back to the village.

Many of the Pomo who had been victimized by Stone and Kelsey fled to the area of Bloody Island, which was the site of an established village.

Mauldin's history reports that Bloody Island was known by the Pomo as Badon-napo-ti, which means “old island.” The site is located one-quarter mile west of today's Highway 20 and about one and one-half miles south of the town of Upper Lake.

The historical accounts say that a US Army company, led by Captain Nathaniel Lyon – who had recently fought in Mexico during the Mexican-American War – came to Lake County in the spring of 1850 to punish Chief Augustine's band of Pomos for Stone's and Kelsey's deaths. The Army forced the Elem Pomo to supply two guides for the expedition.

The Army went through Big Valley and didn't find the band. The Army then traveled toward modern-day Upper Lake, coming upon an unknown band of Pomos.

The Army used whaleboats and two small brass cannons from the Benicia Army arsenal, as well as rifle fire, to attack the band.

The numbers of native victims vary. The accounts report that the Army killed their two Elem guides; the National Park Service reported that 60 of the 400 Pomo on the island died.

Mauldin puts the deaths at about 100. He wrote that men, women and children were killed, with soldiers spearing infants with their bayonets and flinging them into the tules. Mauldin added there were no casualties among the soldiers.

The same Army company killed 75 Indians on the Russian River shortly thereafter.

Following the massacre, Pomo leaders negotiated treaties with government agents, but those treaties were never approved, according to historical accounts.

Lyon would later be promoted to brigadier general and lead Union forces in Missouri during the early days of the Civil War. He was shot several times and died on Aug. 10, 1861, during the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

Harold LaBonte contributed to this report.

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More than 100 people attended the sunrise ceremony on Saturday. Photo by Harold LaBonte.

Captain Nathaniel Lyon led the US Army against local Indians in the Bloody Island Massacre. Lyon later was promoted to the rank of brigadier general during the Civil War. He was shot to death in an 1861 Missouri battle.

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LAKE COUNTY – Clear Lake isn't full this year, thanks to drier conditions, and that resulted in an announcement by the county's Water Resources Division Friday that Yolo County's draw on the lake would be significantly reduced for 2007.

That news is part of a complex picture regarding water rights to Clear Lake, which are primarily held by Yolo County.

As previously reported by Lake County News, less rain this year has resulted in Clear Lake not being full for the first time in several years. Water Resources Division Engineer Tom Smythe had estimated that those conditions could result in a reduction – by as much as 50 percent – of Yolo County's water allocation from the lake.

On Friday it became official when Smythe reported that because the lake wasn't full on May 1, Yolo County will receive only 85,000 acre feet of its maximum 150,000 acre-foot allocation.

Clear Lake's level peaked in March at 6.14 feet Rumsey, and had most recently measured 5.87 feet Rumsey, Smythe reported. Clear Lake if full when it reaches 7.56 feet Rumsey.

Rumsey, according to the Water Resources Division, is a measurement based on the elevation of a rock sill at the confluence of Cache and Seigler creeks, near Lower Lake. It's named for Captain Rumsey, who in 1872 established the low point of the sill as “Zero Rumsey,” which became the basis for all lake measurements.

It's the first time in five years that the lake hasn't been full, Smythe said, which directly affects Yolo County's water draws.

“We've had a lot of really wet years, so they've been getting the full 150,000 acre-foot allocation,” Smythe said.

A court decision called the Solano Decree, first passed in 1978 and modified in 1995, specifies how much water is available to Yolo County, and governs the summer operation of the Clear Lake Dam, which Smythe said was built in 1914. That decree includes the determination that if the lake is full on May 1, Yolo County gets 150,000 acre feet of Clear Lake's water.

If the lake falls below 3.22 feet Rumsey, no water is available to Yolo for release, Smythe said. As many as three feet of water evaporates from Clear Lake's surface during the summer months; that means the lake can drop from three to six and a half feet in any given summer. Smythe said, on average, Clear Lake fluctuates about five and a half feet each year.

Smythe predicted that the lake will drop as low as 1.1 feet Rumsey in November.

Yolo County can only take its seasonal water withdrawal between April 1 and October 31, according to a Water Resources Division explanation of summer lake levels. The withdrawals, which typically peak in July, are limited to certain amount so as not to harm recreation on the lake.

Another court decision, the Gopcevic Decree from 1920, requires certain flood releases between Nov. 1 and March 31, according to the Water Resource Division. That decree prevents Yolo County drawing Clear Lake below zero Rumsey.

To put Yolo County's allocation into perspective, an acre foot is the amount of water that will cover one acre of land one foot deep, or approximately 326,000 gallons. On a full lake year, Yolo is entitled to 48.9 billion gallons. This year they'll get about 27 billion gallons.

To look at it another way, an annual regular allocation for Yolo County roughly equals the reported storage capacity of Lake Pillsbury and Lake Mendocino, combined.

A complex water rights picture

Early in the last century, Yolo County established rights over Clear Lake, a fact that today is a major concern for the county.

A history of the water rights to the lake provided by the Water Resources Division explains that the county never owned Clear Lake's water. Instead, through a complicated series of agreements and court cases, the rights were obtained by Yolo County.

According to the Water Resources Division history, sometime around 1908 a plan was circulated to build a dam on Kelsey Creek to supply water to area farmers, but none were interested. When Yolo County later prepared to build its dam on Cache Creek, they approached the Lake County Board of Supervisors to ask if the county was interested in the water, and were told no.

Yolo Water and Power Co. then “made application for 300,000 inches of water from Cache Creek, naming Clear Lake and all the streams flowing into the lake, this being recorded in the Lake County's Recorder's Office on May 28, 1912,” according to the Water Resources Division.

County negotiates water rights

Over the last several years the county has been in negotiations with Yolo County Flood Control & Water Conservation District to reach a more equitable agreement that would put more control of the lake's water into Lake County's hands.

This past week, the Board of Supervisors discussed a draft memorandum of understanding with Yolo County regarding “mutual support of water supply, water quality and flood control projects.”

Antonio Rossman, an attorney specializing in water law who has worked on Lake County's behalf in the negotiations for the past several years, said Yolo County controls virtually all of the lake's water rights. “We had a relatively minor say in that up until now,” said Rossman.

As to how Yolo won the lake's water rights first, Rossman explained, “Whoever first applied for and puts water to beneficial use gets it, according to state water law.”

However, water law has undergone some change in recent years, Rossman said, with the law now giving Lake County “a much greater say in the governance of this water.”

For both ethical and legal reasons, Rossman said it's prudent for Yolo to recognize Lake County's potential rights to the water and work to find an amicable resolution.

Changes in water law also have led to Yolo's willingness to reconsider the water rights, Rossman said.

Among those changes are public trust doctrines, which prevents exercising water rights in such a way that hurts environmental quality; and the “area of origin” doctrine, which Rossman said is still a “murky area” but is meant to prevent taking water rights away from the area of origin.

Yolo County does sell water back to local agencies for $50 per acre foot, Rossman said, which is substantially lower than other areas of the state. He compared that to the $90 to $100 per-acre-foot price in the Sacramento area, and the $400 to $1,000 per-acre-foot price range in Southern California.

“You probably have the least expensive water in California,” Rossman said.

Supervisor Ed Robey said one of the resolutions he hopes the negotiations yield is a better way of managing releases out of the lake in order to offer better flood control.

The memorandum of understanding the board accepted this week, said Smythe, has no bearing on the Solano Decree and doesn't affect current water allocations.

Yolo adjusts to less water from Clear Lake

Christy Barton, assistant general manager of Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, said the district's two main agricultural water supplies are here in Lake County – Clear Lake and Indian Valley Reservoir.

According to the district's water management plan, it purchased the Clear Lake Water Co. in 1967 using more than $2 million in revenue bonds. The district references its rights covering “storage of water in Clear Lake and its release for irrigation and other beneficial uses” that date back to Yolo County original 1912 application for water from Cache Creek and Clear Lake.

In 1976 the district completed Indian Valley Dam and Reservoir, using $8.7 million in bonds and an additional more than $6 million in government grants and loans, according to the water management plan. The state issued to the district water rights permits for storage and diversion of water from the North Fork of Cache Creek and Cache Creek for “irrigation, flood control, power generation, recreation, and domestic purposes.”

Yolo farmers use the water principally to grow tomatoes, but also for farming corn, alfalfa and small specialty crops, Barton reported.

Although the district has held meetings with farmers to notify them of less water from Clear Lake, Barton said they don't anticipate having less water available overall, or having to leave crops unplanted. That's because the district has Indian Valley Reservoir as its backup water source, Barton added.

She said the district also is running a “tighter ship,” meaning that if one farmer doesn't use his alloted water, it gets passed on to another.

The reservoir, when full, has a 300,000 acre foot capacity, said Barton, which the district could “theoretically” draw down as far as a 4,000 acre feet conservation pool to protect fish. Barton added that it's unlikely the reservoir would ever be drawn down that far.

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CLEARLAKE – The Clearlake City Council approved the plan to conduct appraisals on the Austin Resort site and the business park as the first step toward developing the properties.

City Administrator Dale Neiman said appraisals are part of a procedural process Community Redevelopment Law established for redevelopment agencies to follow when considering selling agency-owned property.

Neiman said the city sent out bid requests to 13 appraisers, some of them local, but none responded. City staff had previously worked with Jerry Keyser of Keyser Marston & Associates and he agreed to do the work.

Because the city is negotiating under a tight deadline with Katz Kirkpatrick Properties of Roseville for the business park, Neiman suggested doing both appraisals at once.

Katz KirkPatrick has developed almost 50 shopping centers, many in Northern California. The council approved an exclusive negotiation agreement with Katz Kirkpatrick for the 26-acre business park property in April.

The city also is negotiating with developer Income Property Specialists for a possible mixed-use development – a hotel, retail space and town homes – on the old Austin Resort site on the lakeshore.

The total cost for the appraisals is estimated to be between $20,000 and $30,000.

In response to a question from City Councilman Roy Simons about the appraisal fees, Neiman said the developers purchasing the property, ultimately, would pay for the appraisal costs.

Establishing the land value is critical to the process, said Neiman. "The bottom line is we can't sell the property for less than fair market value," he said.

One local business owner asked about what property at the business park was being sold, and if the city would use eminent domain to take adjacent property. Neiman said no, that the city doesn't have eminent domain power. He did report, however, that Katz Kirkpatrick is interested in buying adjacent properties from willing landowners.

Clearlake resident Alice Reece said she's concerned about plans for Austin Resort.

"I'm really against the sale of it," she said, adding that the developer's proposal may not be in the city's best interests.

"I think that open space is at a premium, especially here in town," she said. Reece said she also believes park space is in short supply in Clearlake.

The sale of lakefront property is not always to the community's benefit, she said.

Neiman assured her that there will be a public hearing in the future on what is proposed for the resort site, as part of the mandated process. He told Lake County News in April that he expected the process to arrive at a final plan and a sale of the property would take about a year.

"I'm feeling really left out in the dark," she said, noting that she hasn't seen the designs proposed and doesn't know what's going on.

Neiman said the redevelopment agency is in the midst of an exclusive negotiation agreement with the developer, and the details aren't entirely public yet.

That's making people in the community feel frightened and concerned about what's being done, Reece concluded.

Simons asked about who owns the old resort property. Neiman said he believes it's owned jointly by the city and redevelopment agency. But for the sale to go forward, the land needs to be transferred entirely to the redevelopment agency.

Councilman Chuck Leonard made the motion to approve the appraisals, which Simons seconded. The council voted 4-0 to approve the plan.

Councilman Curt Giambruno was absent from the meeting, having just gotten home today from the hospital, where he recently had knee surgery, Leonard reported.

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LAKE COUNTY – The Lake County Sheriff's Office has joined a new regional task force that aims to go after sex offenders who don't adhere to the state's registration laws, and will boost local resources in fighting sex crimes.

LCSO Lt. Cecil Brown said the department will participate in the Region II Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE) Task Force.

The California legislature established funds for Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE) teams, Brown reported, with the objective of lowering the number of noncompliant sex registrants.

The law requires individuals who are convicted of designated sex offenses, such as rape and child molestation, to keep law enforcement informed of their address, said Brown.

A state Department of Justice registration update sheet, furnished by LCSO, explains that convicted offenders must follow a lengthy list of requirements, including informing the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the area where they live of address changes within five working days. If they have been committed as a sexually violent predator, they must update their information with law enforcement every 90 days.

However, some convicted sex offenders fail to comply with this requirement, moving between jurisdictional boundaries to avoid law enforcement scrutiny.

Earlier this year, Santa Clara County won a SAFE grant and invited other counties in the Office of Emergency Services Region 2 to join its task force, Brown said. Other member counties include Contra Costa, Humboldt, Napa, Del Norte, Mendocino, Marin, Solano, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito.

Brown said Sheriff Rod Mitchell was involved with the task force's development from the early stages, meeting with the other member counties beginning in February.

The task force will use a variety of methods to lower the number of noncompliant registrants in an area – from training and education for law enforcement and the public alike, to vigorous enforcement of existing laws through countywide sweeps, said Brown. The sweeps would likely involve multiple officers canvassing specific areas.

Members of probation departments, district attorney's offices, state law enforcement agencies and federal law enforcement agencies also will participate in Region II SAFE Task Force activities, he said.

The various agencies will share information and resources, and conduct operations across the different counties, he said.

Curran details local issues, efforts

Det. Mike Curran, who has spent 11 and a half of his 28 years with the sheriff's office working sex crimes cases, said $5.7 million was allocated for seven SAFE task forces throughout the state.

Curran sits on the Violent Crime Information Network Renovation Committee through the California Department of Justice, which currently is overseeing changes to the network that help provide law enforcement with more information prior to, and during, contacts with registered sex offenders.

He also was chosen by the state Department of Justice to be the rural agency representative on a seven-person delegation representing California at the 2006 National Symposium for Sex Offender Tracking & Management held last September.

Curran estimates that there are about 300 registered sex offenders in Lake County, including the cities of Lakeport and Clearlake. But that number changes everyday, he said, because of new cases, peoples' movements and, in some cases, death.

Both Curran and Brown explain that sex crimes draw on a significant amount of the sheriff's office resources.

“I review reports on sex crimes everyday,” said Brown. “It is a continuous part of what we do.”

That statement appears borne out in the numbers.

The LCSO Crime Statistics report, released earlier this year, showed an overall decrease in the numbers of specific crimes in 2006 as compared to 2005.

The only type of crimes that increased – by nearly 5 percent – were sex-related, the report noted.

The report, which covers only the sheriff's jurisdictions in the county's unincorporated areas, showed 66 sex crimes – rape, statutory rape and child molestation – for the period of Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2006. The county areas around Lakeport had the most sex crimes, with 21 reported.

The statistics can be explained in a variety of ways, said Curran. While he agrees that one factor may be the county's growing population, which brings more crime with it, he believes that increased public awareness of what constitutes a sex crime – and the importance of reporting such crimes – may primarily account for those increased numbers.

At the same time, said Curran, sex crimes are the toughest cases to make. Like elder abuse and arson, other crimes that are equally difficult to prove, sex crimes require extra investigation, he said.

Then, there is the fear of going through the legal system and, ultimately, reliving the crime in court, in front of strangers. “It does take a lot of strength, a lot of courage,” Curran said.

A father and grandfather himself, Curran is acutely aware of the delicate nature of sex crimes and the toll on the victims. He said he's seen cases where children are sometimes more brave than adults when facing the legal process.

He said he's heard of cases where it took longer to pick a jury for a sex crime case than for a homicide, because so many more people have been affected – either directly or indirectly – by sex crimes.

Even as tough as the cases are to make, said Curran, he's witnessed more than an 80-percent conviction rate for sex crimes, with many accused perpetrators pleading out before going through the process. Prosecutor John DeChaine of the Lake County District Attorney's Office prosecutes most the county's sex crimes, Curran reported.

A trend that Lake County has so far escaped is what Curran called the “explosion” of Internet predators.

“It's absolutely frightening,” he said.

Understanding the potential for it to become a problem here, Curran said he plans to draw on the task force grant's public education component.

He said he intends to organize several public workshops within the county's school districts to educate parents of junior high and high school students about the dangers of Internet predators. Craig Woodworth, a District Attorney's Office investigator and an agent with the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force will be the presenter, Curran said.

The plan, Curran said, is to begin holding the workshops sometime this summer and into the next school year.

What the task force will do

Curran said four LCSO deputies will work on a part-time, as-needed basis on task force activities, including traveling to other counties to take part in enforcement activities. Curran said he's attending classes to become more familiar with the task force's operations and surveillance techniques.

At least one sweep is expected to be performed in Lake County before June, he said; he expects two more will take place later in the year.

“Each county will put on one or more sweeps or operations at any given time,” said Curran.

The two basic types of operations he expects to see happen locally are sweeps with the goal of arresting noncompliant sex offenders, and efforts that would include contacting offenders and confirming their addresses.

Curran said many convicted offenders avoid registering because of the stigma attached, and concerns that it might affect or end new relationships.

Arrested offenders may face jail time, which will depend on the severity of their original crime, Brown said. If they have prior felonies, said Curran, they could go back to prison.

Such was the case with two men sentenced late last month for failing to register as sex offenders. Curran investigated the cases, which DeChaine successfully prosecuted. One man received six years in prison, while the other received a prison sentenced of more than 13 years.

LCSO's officers already have taken part in one enforcement activity in Monterey County, said Brown.

The county's Board of Supervisors recently accepted $23,718 from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office to cover costs of overtime for LCSO deputies who are working on the SAFE Task Force.

Task force takes a unique approach

The task force's regional nature makes it especially unique, said Brown. And that's helpful because of the nature of the sex crimes LCSO is seeing.

"A lot of our crimes are kind of a regional problem, and the players don't stay in one jurisdiction," he said, with the offenders moving from county to county.

Someone can violate the registration requirements for a while and then move on to a nearby county, said Brown. But by working together, the law enforcement agencies are taking away that ability to hide.

The task force also is an opportunity for departments to share best practices, Brown said.

"We've been doing a lot of proactive things that some of the other counties have not been doing," he said.

That includes doing regular checks on local sex registrants, Brown said. Every registered sex offender in the county's unincorporated areas are assigned to a deputy sheriff, who makes quarterly contact with them. It's an approach some other counties don't take, Brown notes.

In addition to identifying noncompliant sex offenders, Brown said the task force will give the agencies resources to work on unsolved sex crimes. “We're creating a big pool of investigative manpower here that we can draw on.”

The SAFE Task Force format already is resulting in increased compliance, by as much as 50 percent, said Curran. Most grants, he said, call for a 5- to 10-percent improvement.

Brown said he has high hopes for the task force's format.

“If we can do this well, I'm really hoping this will become a template for dealing with other problems,” he said, from drugs to auto theft to child abductions. “This could be a really helpful approach.”

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NORTHSHORE – County officials are planning to reestablish an advisory committee to assist in the process of planning for Northshore communities.

The County of Lake is seeking community members interested in serving on the committee, which will review the draft Shoreline Communities Area Plan before it is scheduled for public hearings.

Public involvement is central to the planning process, a county statement said.

The committee will provide local advice and input during the finalization of the Shoreline Communities land use and zoning plan.

The Shoreline Communities Planning Area includes all the land between Bartlett Springs Road and the Lake/Colusa County line, north of Cache Creek, including the communities of Lucerne, Glenhaven, Clearlake Oaks, Clearlake Park, High Valley, Spring Valley and Windflower Point.

The advisory committee will consist of approximately 12 to 15 people who reside or work within the planning area.

Members will be chosen from a broad cross-section of the area's geographic, social and economic interests, representing the following sectors: commerce and industry, environment, agriculture, tourism, recreation, rancherias and other residents.

Applications are available at the Lake County Board of Supervisors Office, the Lake County Community Development Department and can also be downloaded from the County Web site at www.co.lake.ca.us.

All applications must be received by 5 p.m. May 30.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to select committee members in June.

For additional information, contact project coordinator Emily Minton of the Lake County Community Development Department on the third floor of the Courthouse at 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

Minton also may be reached at 263-2221 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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A federal judge's ruling on Thursday effectively halts further plantings of genetically modified alfalfa across the county until the US Department of Agriculture conducts a full environmental study on the crop.

The 15-page decision from Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal Northern District of California sets an injunction on plantings of Roundup Ready alfalfa while the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services conducts an environmental impact study. USDA estimated the study will take about two years to complete.

Monsanto and Forage Genetics International developed Roundup Ready alfalfa, which is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Geertson Seed Farms, the Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and several other co-plaintiffs sued the USDA in February 2006, asserting the agency illegally deregulated Roundup Ready alfalfa in June 2005 without first conducting an environmental impact study. The suit also argued that the GM alfalfa posed a serious risk not just to organic and conventional alfalfa, but to the environment as a whole.

Monsanto and Forage Genetics argued that they provided an extensive dossier of environmental studies to the USDA which led to the deregulation decision, court documents reported. In addition, they said regulatory agencies in Canada and Japan had found the crop posed no environmental risks.

Additionally, Monsanto said that Roundup Ready alfalfa posed no harm to humans and livestock, and that the crop could coexist with non-GM alfalfa crops through stewardship practices, according to a company statement.

Breyer, however, disagreed. In a series of rulings that began in February, Breyer found that USDA had violated the National Environmental Protection Act by not conducting the study, and failed to seriously consider possible environmental risks.

In March, Breyer ordered a temporary injunction on Roundup Ready alfalfa plantings after March 30, but he placed no restrictions on plantings that already had taken place, which he ruled could continue to be grown, harvested and sold.

Breyer's latest ruling notes that there are 200,000 acres of Roundup Ready alfalfa planted across the US for forage, and 20,000 additional acres planted for seed. Without the injunction, he wrote, it was estimated that Roundup Ready acres would number more than one million by 2008.

Allowing the crop to continue to expand its market share without study posed a serious threat to those who don't want GM products, Breyer wrote.

In addition, he found that harm to farmers and consumers who don't want to purchase GM alfalfa or animals outweigh possible economic hard to Monsanto, Forage Genetics and farmers who wanted to plant GM alfalfa.

Although he's requiring a study to look at environmental risks, Breyer's ruling noted that contamination of natural and organic alfalfa by the GE variety has already occurred. "Such contamination is irreparable environmental harm. The contamination cannot be undone."

Breyer required Forage Genetics to provide the locations of all existing Roundup Ready alfalfa plots to USDA within 30 days. USDA, he ruled, must then make those plot locations public “as soon as practicable” so growers can determine if their crops have been contaminated, court documents report.

"This ruling is good news for organic farmers and most conventional farmers across the country," Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety, said in a statement. "This crop represents a very real threat to their corps and their livelihood. This ruling is a turning point in the regulation of biotech crops in this country.”

In a statement from Monsanto, Executive Vice President Jerry Steiner stated the company's belief that biotech and organic crops can, and have, successfully coexisted.

“We support a farmer's right to choose biotechnology, organic or conventional crops with the proper stewardship practices that make coexistence feasible,” Steiner said. “We have heard from farmers across the country who are disappointed they can't access this technology."

Monsanto's statement also reported that the company is considering an appeal of Breyer's ruling.

Despite its reported growing acceptance among farmers, Roundup Ready alfalfa has figured prominently in debates on genetically modified crops and foods.

In Lake County, the Coalition for Responsible Agriculture in 2005 tried unsuccessfully to get the Board of Supervisors to place a 30-month moratorium on the crop. The board voted against the moratorium in October 2005.

As Lake County News reported in March, Sarah Ryan, president of Lake County Healthy Environment and Life, a coalition member group, said that the effort grew out of the group's concern about Roundup Ready alfalfa's potential impacts on other plants and crops.

The Lake County Farm Bureau opposed the ordinance. Executive Director Chuck March said previously that the Farm Bureau opposes individual cities and counties establishing separate biotech policies.

Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Chuck Morse said earlier this year, before the March 30 planting moratorium, that he knew of no Roundup Ready alfalfa planted in Lake County.

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