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3/18/17

Humboldt Bay harbor district Executive Director Jack Crider confirmed Friday that the district has been illegally renting its Samoa pulp mill property to businesses in full awareness that it is violating county land use laws.

Crider said his decision to rent to these four businesses “was all about saving jobs in this community” and said the county government is aware of the district’s actions.

Some of the businesses currently renting the district’s property — such as An Electrician, Inc. — were displaced from their previous locations due to the newly regulated marijuana industry, Crider said.

“What triggered the whole thing was the desperation of local businesses that were getting forced out because of the cannabis industry,” he said. “The warehouses in town and everywhere else were being sold at an incredible price. The tenants were being kicked out, forced to vacate.”

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3/11/17

Trinity County’s decision to nix an east-west rail line feasibility study was a loss for businesses and a win for environmentalists, groups on both sides claimed.

“A train would have been an ecological disaster,” Tom Wheeler, program and legal coordinator for the Arcata-based Environmental Protection Information Center, said Friday.

The Trinity County Board of Supervisors declined to second a motion by Supervisor Bill Burton to use $276,000 of its Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant funds for the study at a reportedly packed Thursday meeting, according to Board Chairman John Fenley. The Land Bridge Alliance Organization had agreed to match 20 percent, or $69,000, of the total $345,000 needed to fund the study, according to the board’s special meeting agenda.

Eureka City Councilwoman Marian Brady said the decision means Humboldt and Trinity counties cannot capitalize on a train service that may have connected to a port in Humboldt Bay. She said the line could have led to the development of a port for overseas markets and competitive advantages to larger ports.

Wheeler said EPIC’s concerns stemmed from plans suggesting the rail line would run across or near rivers including the Trinity, Mad and Van Duzen rivers.

“As one of the most important stops in the Pacific Flyway and a critical aquatic ecosystem home to engendered fish, such as coho salmon and eulachon, Humboldt Bay is a unique ecological treasure,” it states. “The development necessary to make Humboldt Bay a major West Coast port is extreme and would spoil the bay’s natural beauty and ecological integrity.”

Wheeler added that noise from a train, once built, would create loud reverberating sounds harmful to northern spotted owl. On its boost to the economy, Wheeler said he doubted the train’s ability to spur economic activity and said any economic boost from a port would be lost on Trinity County.

The feasibility study, he said, would have likely led to the train’s construction.

“The government doesn’t like to just spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to say ‘it’s infeasible,” he said. 

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3/10/17

The California Coastal Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will make the next rulings in the Coast Seafoods bid to expand oyster harvesting in the north and central sections of Humboldt Bay, while continuing its existing operations.

If both agencies agree, Phase 1 of the expansion project would likely begin in June.

The pending state and federal reviews will follow unanimous approval Feb. 28 at a meeting of the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Board of Commissioners.

At that meeting, the board made several changes to strengthen Coast Seafoods’environmental compliance. First, representatives of the Wiyot Tribe will serve on an ad hoc advisory committee of stakeholders and community members that will evaluate on a regular basis the monitoring data on the expansion’s environmental impacts.

Second, the company will finance a $40,000 Black Brant monitoring plan, which must be submitted to the board’s executive director before any more oyster cultivation equipment is deployed.

Third, under a last-minute edit offered by Fourth District Commissioner Larry Doss, the life of the ad hoc advisory panel was extended to coincide with the company’s 10-year lease.

These additional requirements, among many others introduced since the project’s conception in June 2016, overcame the lack of a quorum at the board’s fractious and heavily attended Jan. 19 meeting on Woodley Island.

Concerning mitigation measures, Coast promises to cooperate with regulators in helping to eliminate pollution, including agricultural, industrial and municipal discharges.

The company pledges to collect water quality samples as part of monitoring programs with federal and state agencies (e.g., National Shellfish Sanitation Program) that track quality trends and pinpoint locations needing improvement.

The company also says it will continue to assist local and state organizations (e.g., Humboldt Baykeeper) to improve water quality conditions within the estuaries where shellfish aquaculture occurs.

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California is pledging to defend its actions to tackle climate change and fund clean energy. But it should also be positioning itself as a leader on clean water.

1/26/17

Our new president said he was “committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies” such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the United States rule. He is already making good on that promise by removing all mentions of climate change from his new White House website. And Scott Pruitt, his pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, has repeatedly protected industry from environmental policies.

California’s leaders have pledged to defend California values by holding our ground on climate change, clean energy and air-quality programs fundamental to our health and economy. But there has been considerably less focus on water, despite the enormous threats coming from Washington, D.C., and even within the state. Just as we lead the nation on climate action and renewable energy, we must lead on water.