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Eureka to host public meeting on Navy weapons testing, training update

1/12/15  

The U.S. Navy will be holding a public meeting in Eureka on Friday to address a supplement to its environmental review of a controversial five-year training and weapons testing program along the North Coast and parts of Alaska. 

 As occurred at a similar meeting last year, some are gearing up to challenge the training program because of its proposed effects on marine life. 

 “(The Navy) is agreeing that there is going to be some harm to marine life, but how do they know it’s going to be insignificant as they say time and time again?” former U.S. Department of Agriculture crop loss analyst and environmental activist Rosalind Peterson said. “Where is the proof? That’s where the public needs to question the Navy with regard to this.”

  During the proposed training period — to last from 2015 to 2020 — Navy personnel will conduct exercises and test a variety of weapons and equipment such as sonar technology, electromagnetic devices and explosives off the coasts of Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Northern California reaching the northern tip of Humboldt County.  

The supplement to the training’s environmental impact statement now under public review updates the Navy’s anti-submarine sonobuoy exercise — floating buoys that emit sonar signals — due to a model upgrade. The document will be open to public comment until Feb. 2.

The old models, known as SSQ-110s, that were proposed for use in the older proposed version of the environmental document produce their acoustic signal by “a quick burst explosive charge ... which has potential to cause injury or mortality to marine life due to its explosive charge,” according to Navy experts’ responses forwarded to the Times-Standard by the Navy’s Northwest Region Public Affairs Office.

The new models, SSQ- 125s, will instead produce the sound electronically, which “will result in a decrease in potentially significant impacts to marine life,” according to the Navy responses.

The upgraded models will still come with impacts to marine life, including increasing the distance the acoustic signals will travel.

“The most likely behavioral effects will be a marine mammal hearing and moving away from the sonobuoy; no long term consequences are expected to result from that type of behavioral reaction,” the Navy response states.

Peterson said that the updated activities have added impacts to leatherback sea turtles listed under the Endangered Species Act, with the supplement stating that “entanglement from the use of fiber optic cables, guidance wires, and decelerator/ parachutes during training and testing activities may affect, but is not likely to adversely affect, ESA-listed leatherback turtles. Entanglement stressors would have no effect on leatherback turtle critical habitat.”

Peterson said that these sea turtles may make the fatal mistake of mistaking equipment for food.

“The leatherback turtle is known to forage on jellyfish,” she said in response to this section of the supplemental draft. “Decelerator parachutes may resemble jellyfish and they would mistake them for food.”

Peterson also stated that while the new sonobuoys may not explode, they still produce high enough frequencies that may greatly confuse them.

“When the sonar blasts out, well, they say the marine mammals will move out of the area,” she said. “The sonar is so powerful that it’s hard for them to tell where it’s coming from because it’s so powerful.”

Both Peterson and Environmental Protection Information Center conservation advocate Amber Shelton state that the Navy will use “visual sightings” from the top of their ships to determine whether any marine life is in the testing area before starting any training. With a proposed vessel escort training also proposed in the supplement, both Peterson and Shelton state that this along with the shipboard visual sighting practice will increase the likelihood of ship strikes on marine mammals such as whales as well as other organisms.

In a 2009 letter sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then-1st District Congressman Mike Thompson stated that “the Navy has estimated shipboard visual monitoring for marine mammals — the most commonly employed sonar mitigation measure — to be effective only 9 percent of the time.”

Shelton said that the Navy does not need to do as much live sonar training.

“I feel they don’t need to use live sonar and live bombing and testing chemicals,” she said. “They could probably practice all of those thing with simulators. ... It seems like they should at least restrict it to one small area instead of all over our oceans and restrict it to an area that doesn’t have any known migration of marine mammals like grey whales.”

In order for the testing and training program environmental review to be approved, it must get authorization from a number of federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the possible “take” of marine life.

“All estimated impacts to ESA-listed species are non-injury exposures,” the Navy response states. “The vast majority (over 99 percent) of all modeled exposures to marine mammals for the Navy’s training and testing in the northwest are estimated to be behavioral responses. ... The Navy is still seeking to renew existing authorizations that allow training and testing exercises which may potentially disturb or harass, or in very limited cases injure marine mammals. The Navy is not requesting authorization for any mortality of marine mammals ... .”

Peterson said that the authorization gives the Navy a pass when marine life is fatally injured.

“When they say ‘take,’ it sounds very benign,” she said.

Navy Northwest Region Public Affairs Specialist Liane Nakahara said that while the training program’s environmental impact statement draft was completed in 2010, “it’s going to be a little while” before the draft will be completed and reviewed.

IF YOU GO:

What: U.S. Navy Northwest Training and Testing Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Overseas Environmental Impact Statement Supplement public meeting

When: Friday, Jan. 16from 5-8p.m. Where: Eureka Public Marina, Wharfinger Building, Great Room, 1 Marina Way

Comments on the supplement can be submitted to the Navy online at http://nwtteis.com/

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Council considers homeless strategies   

City studies 2-pronged approach to getting people off the streets  

12/17/14

 Aaron West    The Eureka City Council on Tuesday adopted new strategies to deal with an old problem when they voted to explore a combination of options aiming to address homelessness.

  The council’s unanimous vote during its meeting will have city staff research how to go about starting a pilot program for a city-sanctioned, small structure encampment, as well as spend $21,000 on developing a Eurekaspecific plan that would explore what it would take to provide the homeless with temporary housing and rehabilitation services through a policy called rapid rehousing.

  “There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this problem, and if we look at it in that regard we’re going to fall short,” said Councilwoman Kim Bergel, who along with Natalie Arroyo was sworn in as a new council member early in Tuesday’s meeting. “I agree completely with rapid re-housing, and it’ll give (the homeless) opportunities to integrate into society. There needs to be education. The expectation that we’d put someone in a house after they’ve been homeless for 10 years — that doesn’t make sense to me. Counseling is where they’ll be successful. I’m open-minded to the (small structure encampments) and the tents, but we also need to create different opportunities.”

The small structure encampment idea, which was born from a work session discussion before the meeting, would see a city-sanctioned encampment of powerless, waterless structures called Tiny Houses made available to homeless people who want to live in them, although details surrounding the idea were thin, and the details surrounding the pilot program that the council proposed were thinner.

“We wanted to do a taste test,” Eureka Community Development Director Rob Holmlund said, referring to a list of potential sites for a sanctioned camp. “To see what it feels like, what it looks like.”

Holmlund presented 10 potential sites for the encampment, which he said could work for both the Tiny Houses as well as tents, which ran the gamut from bigger spaces like a northern section of the Bayshore Mall parking lot to more confined areas along the bay and the Eureka Corporation Yard near Costco.

“(The sites) are very preliminary and based on two parameters — is it large enough, and does the city own it,” Holmlund said.

During his presentation, Holmlund — using the Bayshore Mall site as an example — said that the cost of such a camp could run anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000. He acknowledged that like the sites themselves, the projected costs weren’t anywhere near finalized, and more research would be necessary.

“I could be way off,” he said.

One thing that was for certain was that the city doesn’t have the resources to run a sanctioned camp, and that a third-party agreement would be necessa ry, City Attorney Cindy Day-Wilson said.

For comparison, Holmlund pointed to several other cities, including Fresno, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, that have struck such agreements with the likes of churches, nonprofits and businesses.

“Since this would be operated by a third party, we need to think about the caliber of organization we want to work with,” Holmlund said, adding that the organization would come up with their own cost estimates.

The council’s direction to staff to research the plan would have them look into third parties willing to work with the city on such an encampment, as well as explore how long a pilot program might last and how big the encampment would be. “It’s not going to solve the whole problem, but it might give us a footing,” Councilwoman Linda Atkins said.

The the rapid re-housing part of the council’s direction would see the city looking into a program recommended to the city in an initial report developed last year by Focus Strategies, a national group dedicated to helping communities improve efforts to end homelessness by using local data to create programs.

The approach, which would combine temporary, free housing made available to the homeless with access to rehabilitative and mental services, aims to move homeless people from the streets to homes quickly.

While the city currently doesn’t have such a program, or even the housing infrastructure that it requires, the council’s direction will have staff spend the $21,000 it would take to find out how to create it.

“We’ve been studying an awful lot,” Atkins said, “and we need to do something.”

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Eureka City Council to talk homeless camps

Pre-meeting work session will present concerns

12/14/14

Eureka city staff on Tuesday will look for direction regarding the homeless encampments located inside city limits.

An open work session scheduled for 4:30 p.m., immediately before the city council meeting, will have city officials presenting various perspectives on homeless encampments in Eureka, as well as presenting ideas on what can be done. Then, during the meeting — after the council’s newest members have been sworn in — an action item will see council members voting on how staff should proceed.

“We want to get the issue in front of the council and describe the problem,” City Manager Greg Sparks said. “We’ve got a few options we’re looking at and we’ll see if there’s an interest from the council and get some direction for staff. It’s a brainstorming session.”

Sparks said the session will bring a few city officials in front of the council in order to present different departments’ takes on the issue. For instance, Eureka Parks and Recreation director Miles Slattery will discuss encampment cleanups, and Eureka police Chief Andrew Mills will weigh in on enforcement.

Sparks said the discussion will also look at different methods to address the issue.

“You’re not going to solve homelessness by enforcing your way out of it,” Sparks said. “It comes down to getting these people into housing and providing mental health and substance abuse services. The gamut runs from enforcement to positive solutions.”

Sparks stated that resources are thin and there are too many homeless people in the area to provide housing for everyone, so he said staff has been looking at intermediate solutions. Which is where Community Development Director Robert Wall will come in. Sparks said Wall will go over potential locations for a sanctioned camp that will give the homeless somewhere to go.

A sanctioned camp isn’t a done deal, Sparks said, but it is one possible route the city could take.

“We want to visit with the council about everything because we’re trying to determine what some interim steps could be,” he said. “With the size of our homeless population, getting all these people into housing — no one has that ability. But we want to make sure we’re thinking through this. At the end of the day, we only have so much for resources and we want to make sure we’re using those the best we can.”

Sparks said community concern and recent incidents, including an accidental shooting in November at the encampment near Del Norte Street, inspired the meeting, as well as concern that the city isn’t doing enough to help the homeless.

“We don’t view it as an end to the issue, but really as more of a start,” he said.

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Cruise ships in Eureka, again? Not so fast

12/2/14

About eight years ago I attended a number of strategic planning meetings conducted by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation, and Conservation District (HBHRCD).

The possibility of attracting cruise ships was examined at length. In light of previous attempts and what was learned during those meetings, I was surprised to read that the HBHRCD, Humboldt County, and city of Eureka had allocated $10,000 each to jointly hire a consultant to solicit cruise ships again.

One of the hurdles is a provision of the Jones Act enacted about 100 years ago that prohibits any foreign registered cruise ship from stopping at two consecutive U.S.

mainland ports. The objective was to protect the US shipping industry, but unfortunately almost all cruise ships are of foreign registry for a number of reasons. The USA Today article “Why Are Cruise Ships Registered in Foreign Countries” at www.usatoday.com/story/travel/ cruises/2012/12/11/why-arecruise- ships-registered-in-foreign- countries/1760759/ explains why.

This means we are basically limited to attracting “repositioning” cruise ships, which relocate seasonally from northern to southern ports in the fall and back again the next spring. These tend to carry fewer and older passengers. For more information and food for thought, visit www.repositioncruises.com. For example, we would be looking for cruise ships repositioning from Alaska to Mexico to entice here. However, due to the Jones Act, any foreign-registered ship could not have departed from a U.S.

mainland port prior to arrival in our port, nor visit another mainland U.S. port prior to arrival in Mexico. Even so, numerous west coast ports compete for that limited segment of the cruise market to fill berths that might otherwise be empty during the offseason.

There was also concern that due to Homeland Security regulations, the inner channel could be virtually shut down when the cruise ship is docked on the Eureka side of the bay.

Another hurdle for communities that came out of the Harbor District meetings is that cruise line companies often seek waivers or reductions in port and dock fees. This explains why commercial dock operators are generally not interested in the cruise business. The public sector is often asked to build and maintain facilities on the premise of money that will be brought into the community and jobs created. Economic projections presented by promoters should be carefully scrutinized, utilizing recognized cost accounting methods and local feasibility studies.

When I asked an elected board member about previous efforts and reports, the reply was that the person being considered (Bruce Conner from Astoria) has “real world experience” and “documented success on this route”. Indeed, for many years we were members of the Cruise the West program. In fact, Mr. Conner is still listed as Cruise Marketing Director on the Astoria link at www.cruisethewest. com, which is a simple 14page site with no interactivity. As you look over the website, you will see there is really very little substance — lists of attractions and a few links to Chamber of Commerce and local hotel websites. A glance at the source code indicates the site was last updated in 2007.

In fact, the “Suggested Itineraries” PDF file link at http://www.cruisethewest.com/pdf/CTW_ShoreEx_Current.pdf includes a Eureka “Shore Excursions” section on pages 25 and 26 that still lists (former) contacts Wilson Lacy (HBHRCD), Don Leonard (Cruise the West rep), and David Hull (HBHRCD). In addition, Eureka is included in multi-port cruises on pages 7, 12, and 14, itineraries that are not possible for any foreign-registered cruise ship due to the Jones Act.

The supporting documents for HBHRCD’s Nov. 13, 2014 meeting included a draft of the “Agreement for Professional Services” between the Harbor District and Mr. Conner. It is a simple three-page document with a one-page scope of work. If future due diligence so dictates, there is a 30-day notice termination clause, but it’s not clear how much of our $30,000 would be refunded in that case.

Dave Spreen resides in Kneeland.

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Letter: In regards to Eureka as a cruise ship port

Rushing pot ordinance a bad idea

11/30/14

We could not agree more with the Times-Standard editorial “Get ready for legalization, or get ready to lose” (Nov. 23, Page A4) that it is high time for Humboldt to address the impacts of its marijuana industry through locally appropriate regulation. We are heartened by cannabis cultivators speaking out about serious damage to our rivers, forests, fish, and wildlife, and advocating to bring producers out of the shadows. In our view, however, the campaign by California Cannabis Voice — Humboldt (CCVH) to force Humboldt County to accept its preferred version of a cultivation ordinance is counterproductive. If successful, it would lead to harms above and beyond those most North Coast citizens already find unacceptable.

In its current form, the CCVH proposal would exacerbate the Green Rush, establishing a right to grow a ton of weed or more a year on every parcel larger than 40 acres across Humboldt County. Far from reining in the Green Rush, this scheme would ignite another wave of impacts to our watersheds and further fragment forestland that has been impacted by decades of irresponsible logging. Iconic, imperiled species like coho salmon, already nearly extinct in the Mattole and in dangerous decline in the South Fork Eel River, desperately need impacts like water diversions and pollution reduced.

The CCVH proposal fails as well to bring the bad actors causing the greatest harms into the sunlight. Instead, it calls only for granting permits to those who comply with existing environmental laws. Given Humboldt’s long experience of law enforcement’s inability to prevent harms from illegal operations, and our recent history of rising harms associated with the Green Rush, it is hardly unreasonable to ask that the industry clean up its messes before we allow exponential growth in marijuana operations and risk even more impacts to our forests and watersheds.

Worse, by advancing their proposed ordinance as an initiative, CCVH would make it nearly impossible to fix its flaws. Once CCVH submits a petition bearing the signatures of about 3,000 registered voters, the Board of Supervisors cannot change even a period in the proposal: they must either adopt it as written, or put the question to an expensive special election, where a majority of those voting would decide the question. Only another initiative and election could ever change any detail of the new ordinance.

The initiative process would also sidestep the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), one of our best tools for reducing unnecessary environmental harms. If precisely the same proposal were to come from the Board of Supervisors, CEQA would require consideration of impacts, alternatives, and mitigations necessary to reduce harm to protected species, downstream residents, and resources at risk. Under an August 2014 ruling by the California Supreme Court, however, ordinances advanced by initiative are entirely exempt from CEQA review.

There are other possible paths to a well-written ordinance. Through a truly open, public process, we can work to develop a regulatory framework that reflects the legitimate concerns not only of growers and environmentalists, but of public health advocates, law enforcement, and the agencies that would be charged with making regulations work on the ground. Above all, such an effort should set reasonable limits on the size and number of operations; clarify the areas suitable for marijuana cultivation; and ensure sustainable funding for necessary enforcement.

We believe such an ordinance should support smallerscale, environmentally sensitive operations. Just for example, a one-thousand square foot grow can produce something in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds of finished product. If such an operation were to follow current laws and reasonable best management practices, including storing winter water and stopping summer diversions, we believe most Humboldt citizens could support it. If permit holders want to grow more, and can work with their neighbors to eliminate summer water diversions and winter sediment discharges, we believe there’s a good argument for increasing the scale of permitted grows in watersheds where recovery is really underway.

No system of regulation will work if a critical mass of current growers aren’t willing to become legitimate businesses. But neither should the cannabis industry be allowed to write its own rules. These questions are far too important to be addressed by anything less than a truly open, democratic and publicly accountable process.

Humboldt has an opportunity to create a well-crafted ordinance that protects our critically important natural resources and promotes a local industry that could be ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable. But that opportunity may be squandered by CCVH’s aggressive attempt to legitimize, and to expand, the Green Rush. Scott Greacen is executive director of Friends of the Eel River. Co-signers of this “My Word” include Dan Ehresman, executive director of the Northcoast Environmental Center; Natalynne DeLapp, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center; Jennifer Kalt, director of Humboldt Baykeeper; and Larry Glass, president of Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment.

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