This Tuesday, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors considered a petition from Planning and Building Department staff to address public concerns regarding data centers, detention centers and onshore oil and deep-sea mining facilities. The board considered temporary moratoriums, outright prohibitions and other regulatory frameworks for each type of facility.Ultimately, supervisors instructed staff to return with items that would prohibit onshore support facilities for deep-sea mining and oil operations as well as private detention facilities. The board also instructed staff to return with a temporary moratorium on future data centers, with supervisors citing concerns that an outright ban might be too broad and preclude developments like the Eureka Cable Landing Station in Arcata, a relatively small-scale facility that has been considered a boon to the area’s economy and infrastructure without the serious deleterious effects that many communities have reported experiencing from data centers.The board could not move forward on Tuesday with any “action to disallow, writ large, these uses,” Supervisor Natalie Arroyo clarified. Those prohibitions and the moratorium will return to the board of supervisors in the future.Public inputSeveral speakers addressed the topic of data, detention and onshore sea-mining support facilities (though attendance may have been limited as the topic was in the seventh hour of the supervisors’ meeting).Jennifer Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, called to thank the board for considering regulations on offshore mining support facilities and urged the board to enact a prohibition. She noted that a renewed appetite for expanded offshore oil leasing off the California coast — as well as known deposits of valuable deep-sea minerals off the Humboldt County coast — made an ordinance particularly necessary and timely.Sabra Steinberg, a “longtime resident of Humboldt County,” spoke on the subject of data centers. She sadi that the Union of Concerned Scientists recently hosted a webinar on the subject and noted that, while there are currently six bills working their way through the state legislature, there are very few regulations currently in place to protect citizens from issues like “24-hour-a-day noise, the commandeering of water … and skyrocketing electricity rates for communities.”Krista Boardman, an Arcata resident who works in Eureka’s visitor center, told the board that she discusses life in Humboldt County with visitors and residents all day; she never hears people discuss an appetite for extractive industry or data and detention centers.“We know why people love Humboldt. We know why we love Humboldt,” Boardman said. “… I ask that the board pursue a temporary moratorium and prohibit detention facilities, data centers, offshore and deep-sea mining in order to reassure our community, protect our environment, create a blueprint for other communities and to create a legacy that we can be proud of.”McKinleyville resident Jeff Dunk said, “I think it’s a good idea to, as the previous speaker said, be proactive on some of these things. You don’t want to install a seat belt when you’re in the middle of a car crash. It’s too late, and with some of these things, it is too late for other communities.”Keep Reading
