Monterey County Director of Environmental Health, Walter Wong Nov 4 1998

To Whom it Should Concern:

According to a gentleman wearing a hard-hat, today at Rancho Canada Golf Course, they are using bulldozers and trucks to dredge golf course ponds and put the dredged material along the banks of the Carmel River.

Rancho Canada Golf Course discloses the use of thousands of pounds of pesticides per year in Agricultural Department records (unlike some other Carmel Valley golf courses who appear to severely underreport their use of toxins).

It seems reasonable to assume that the pesticides accumulate and bioaccumulate in the pond silt and associated organic matter. This activity clearly has the potential for harmful human (drinking water and body contact), fish (the FESA listed Steelhead), vegetation and amphibian (The FESA listed California Red-legged frog) impacts when placed in the river. It should have been subjected to CEQA scrutiny. No such CEQA review was mentioned in AMBAG's clearinghouse newsletter.

We request that you halt project immediately, that the deposited dredged material be removed from the vicinity of the river, that the dredged material be tested for each pesticide reported as used on the golf course in the past two years and that before this project proceed it be subject to CEQA review.

Pursuant to CEQA Sections: 21092.b3 and 21092.2, please put us on your list of "Interested Parties" so we get all notices of the project.

Please acknowledge receipt of this letter within 5 days.

We look forward to your substantive response within 10 days.

With all due Respect,

-David Dilworth, Co-Chair 408/624-6500

copies: US-Fish & Wildlife Service, Region 1

US-National Marine Fisheries Service, SW Region

California Dept of Fish and Game, Region 3

Chief of EPA Region 9, Felicia Marcus

Regional Water Quality Control Board, SLO

Supervisor David Potter

League of Women Voters, Sierra Club,

Monterey Herald, SUN, Coast Weekly, POST,