The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, the Port of Long Beach and the State Lands Commission announced an offshore wind agreement.The nine-page agreement puts into ink a commitment to generally work together to develop offshore wind power and the associated port facilities in California. The agreement touts the need for responsible development and the positive attributes of renewable energy and reinvestments at the ports.“This is about giving people a voice, the ability for people to want to invest because they can see that it’s a project that the people believe in and that the people want. There’s no better signal to investors than that,” he said.The deal includes commitments like aligning development and permitting of the ports, community engagement and workforce development. At previous harbor district meetings, the port in Long Beach was sometimes seen closer to a competitor — a purportedly better-funded and more developed port that could compete with Humboldt Bay as a hub for offshore wind turbines.Read More
California has accelerated its pace of reducing emissions in recent years, putting the state’s aggressive climate goals within grasping distance, according to a new report.Still, report authors warned that some of the biggest gains are in sectors that are vulnerable to backsliding under the incoming Donald Trump administration. They also said California will have to accelerate the pace even further to reach the goal of cutting planet-warming emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.The annual report, published Thursday by nonprofit Next 10, found that total emissions fell by 2.4% from 2021 to 2022, which is the most recent year of data assessed.“California’s progress in cutting emissions is accelerating,” Next 10 founder F. Noel Perry said. “We’re seeing real-time proof that the state’s climate policies are working.”In recent years, state emissions were at their lowest in 2020, when much of California came to a standstill amid COVID-19 restrictions. While 2022 numbers did not reach that low, they moved close to it and were just 0.8% higher than they were in 2020.Keep Reading
Humboldt Bay supplies the entire West Coast with an outsized number of oyster seeds, making it arguably the most important place in California for oyster production. Climate change could threaten that.Warming waters — under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 projection, Humboldt Bay is expected to heat up by an average of 3 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years — introduce new disease vectors that could wreak havoc on local oyster farmers, but their concerns are more immediate. As Eureka and Arcata become increasingly developed and the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District builds an offshore wind terminal, oyster companies are wary of the potential impacts on water quality and plankton productivity.“We’re all for wind development, but there are environmental changes, associated dredging and other changes that are going to be associated with that project. There’s just still a lot of questions about what those impacts will be,” Gary Fleener, the science, education and policy director for Hog Island Farms, which has oyster nurseries and a farm in Humboldt Bay, said. “When I am referring to water quality, I want to make sure that it’s clear that I’m referring to it in the largest sense: water quality related to agricultural runoff, urbanization, and certainly development like shipping and wind energy.”Oyster production companies face a twofold issue: warmer waters induced by climate change could have catastrophic impacts on local farms but the offshore wind effort meant to combat climate change’s impacts presents several known and unknown impacts that could end up degrading local water quality.The harbor district is conducting several studies, including a measurement of the specific short-term water quality impacts of offshore wind terminal construction. Drafts of the studies should be made public by May 2025, Rob Holmlund, the harbor district’s development director, said.“I think it’s pretty safe to forecast that, in the long term, there won’t be impacts to water quality because of the project, but during the construction period, there’s dredging and there’s a water construction, but there are very tight regulations about turbidity, what you can do during construction and what you cannot do, and the times of year that you can do in-water construction,” Holmlund said. “Between all of the environmental regulations that already exist and our efforts to minimize water quality impacts, it’s not something I’m really worried about, but I do want to take the company’s concern seriously, so we’re doing extra studies.”Aquaculture companies operating in Humboldt Bay have been meeting with the harbor district every other month for roughly a year, which Holmlund said allowed the district to hear concerns and identify areas of improvement. One such concern, Holmlund said, was disease infiltrating the bay.Ostreid herpesvirus, a disease deadly enough to induce die-offs among oysters, was recently found in the warming ocean waters near San Diego. The disease thrives in water at about 15 degrees Celsius, which Humboldt Bay is expected to reach under the RCP 8.5 projection. In an April symposium, Northern Hydrology and Engineering civil engineer Jeff Anderson estimated that by 2095, the waters in Humboldt Bay will have heated from an average of 13 degrees Celsius to 16 degrees Celsius.If the disease emerges in Humboldt County, the farms might be hit hard, but oyster seed facilities — baby oysters grown in a hatchery resembling an aquarium — might fare better. Fleener said robust biosecurity measures at the hatcheries significantly alleviate his concerns about introducing disease vectors; measures taken because Humboldt County supports the entire West Coast with oyster seed.However, the existence of rules and regulations doesn’t mean slip-ups never happen. In early November, golden mussels — an invasive bivalve native to eastern Asia — were found in a reservoir near the Port of Stockton despite laws mandating inspections of ballast waters before they’re discharged into local waters.“Those regulations failed, so it just points to the need to do a much better job of considering how to limit that risk as we’re increasing vessel traffic related to the offshore wind industry,” Jen Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, a local environmental advocacy group said.Given Humboldt Bay’s salinity — generally incompatible with the freshwater living requirements of golden mussels — Fleener said the area’s aquaculture companies are not particularly concerned about the species colonizing local waters.Washington state is the largest shellfish producer in the nation, but much of its seed is supplied by Humboldt Bay companies, which altogether sell about 10 million oysters per year and net $6 million in sales, according to harbor district estimates.Keep Reading
A particularly worrisome mussel species has entered North America for the first time through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — sparking what many are calling an immediate threat to California’s most significant watersheds.Golden mussels, invasive freshwater bivalves that have devastated ecosystems and critical water infrastructure in other parts of the world, were recently discovered near the Port of Stockton. Limnoperna fortunei appear to have also found their way many miles downstream into O’Neill Forebay of the San Luis Reservoir, where officials in Merced County have been rapidly conducting genetic testing.“The species poses a significant immediate threat to the ecological health of the Delta and all waters of the state, water conveyance systems, infrastructure and water quality,” according to a public alert by the California Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “This discovery is the first known occurrence of golden mussels in North America.”These mussels probably infiltrated California by a ship traveling from an international port and are likely to spread throughout the Delta and through the water infrastructure associated with the Delta, officials said in a statement. “Without containment, golden mussels are likely to spread to other freshwater bodies in California, and to other ports and inland waters of North America, and abroad.”Keep Reading
Wave energy has been untapped so far, but an experiment could unlock its potential in the United States.NEWPORT, Ore. — At a moment when large offshore wind projects are encountering public resistance, a nascent ocean industry is showing promise: wave energy.It’s coming to life in Newport, a rainy coastal town of nearly 10,500 people located a couple of hours south of Portland. Home to fishing operators and researchers, Newport attracts tourists and retirees with its famous aquarium, sprawling beaches and noisy sea lions. If you ask anyone at the lively bayfront about a wave energy project, they probably won’t know much about it.And yet, right off the coast, a $100 million effort with funding from the Energy Department aims to convert the power of waves into energy, and help catch up to Europe in developing this new technology. The buoy-like contraptions, located several miles offshore, will deliver up to 20 megawatts of energy — enough to power thousands of homes and businesses.As federal officials look to shift America’s electricity grid away from fossil fuels, they are seeking alternatives to solar and wind, which can deliver energy only when the sun shines or the wind blows. Waves — constant and full of untapped energy — have emerged as a promising option. And because wave energy projects are relatively unobtrusive, they are far less controversial than offshore wind, which has generated fierce opposition on both U.S. coasts. In September, the Biden administration announced that up to $112.5 million would go toward the development of wave energy converters, the largest federal investment in marine energy.There is enough energy in the waves off America’s coasts to power one-third of all the nation’s homes, said Matthew Grosso, the Energy Department’s director of the water power technologies office.Keep Reading
