The federal agency that suspended the Vineyard Wind project following the July 13 blade failure is now requiring the company to complete a new study evaluating the "environmental harm" caused by the incident in the waters southwest of Nantucket, according to a document obtained by Nantucket Current.In a Sept. 27 letter from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) addressed to Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller, the agency ordered the offshore wind energy company to "conduct a site-specific study that evaluates the environmental harm and other potential damage flowing from" the blade failure, and to identify potential mitigation measures for that damage.The order was obtained by Nantucket Current through a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of the Interior.The Vineyard Wind project remains under a suspension order from BSEE following the disastrous turbine blade failure on July 13 that left Nantucket's beaches littered with foam and fiberglass debris. That order was modified in August to allow Vineyard Wind to continue installing turbine towers and nacelles, but it is forbidden from producing power or installing blades.Keep Reading
It’s a pivotal time for the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, which has permit jurisdiction over the bay’s harbors, ports and surrounding lands.And yet with three seats on that agency’s board of commissioners up for re-election this November, only one has multiple candidates: Division 5, which extends from McKinleyville north to the county line and east to Willow Creek, the Hoopa Valley and surrounding areas. (Division 1 incumbent Aaron Newman and Division 2 incumbent Greg Dale are both running unopposed.)With the retirement of longtime Division 5 Commissioner Patrick Higgins — who told the Outpost that he plans to further commit to his environmental stewardship work on the Eel River — this seat is wide open.Enter Jack Norton and Wilfred “Wil” Franklin.Keep Reading
Even with this nice, dry fall weather we’ve been enjoying, construction of the trail’s southern portion — between the Bracut Industrial Park and the parking lot behind Target — won’t be finished as scheduled before Halloween, which is the hard cutoff date for ground-disturbing work in the county’s environmental permits.Reached by phone earlier today, Humboldt County’s deputy director of environmental sciences and preeminent trail guy Hank Seemann said the contractor, Arcata-based McCullough Construction, has been working steadily since spring, but a number of contributing factors led to the delay.“It’s a sensitive area next to the bay,” Seemann said. “It’s a very constrained corridor and construction area, so access and logistics are tricky. And then there’s just a lot of substantial work, including three new bridges.”Keep Reading
Last Thursday, Josh Buck was sprinting through the Balloon Track in Eureka. The executive director of the Clarke Museum was working on a time crunch to save something of historical significance from the property — a freight car weighing around 40 tons.The historic railroad track, and the locomotives it hosts, have sat in limbo for years. But now, property owner Security National has started phase one of cleanup, which means the removal of surface debris on the site.Casey Self, a spokesperson for Security National which bought the property in 2006 to develop it, said “they’re cleaning up the site and going through the piles and sorting the debris.”Security National hopes to complete the phase by 2025, she said, but didn’t know what phase two would mean — or why it’s started now.Kenny Carswell, Security National’s lead for the project, did not immediately respond to a phone call Thursday on the future of the site.“I’m assuming they wanna develop, you’d have to ask them exactly what that might be, but I think that’s their intent,” said Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery.Eureka approved the coastal development permit for this phase of the cleanup in June 2024.Jennifer Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, an environmental nonprofit that has filed lawsuits against the development of wetlands at the site, said this phase involves removing the debris and foundations on the site without impacting any of the wetlands, plus some testing underneath the foundations to see how extensive contamination there is.“Humboldt Waterkeeper is excited to see the contamination cleaned up, as long as it is done right,” she said — which for Waterkeeper means a thorough cleanup and mitigation of impacts to the wetlands. The contamination stems from its time as rail yard plus an above-ground fuel storage facility, and includes heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenols.She said the second phase, whatever it is, would mean a whole new public process and permitting, given its location on wetlands and in the coastal zone.The site’s zoning is stuck in limbo. Its public use zoning never officially changed after a ballot measure was passed to rezone the property to mixed-use zoning since the company never finished the permitting process to amend the local coastal program with the coastal commission, said Slattery. In the past, Security National’s aims were to develop the property to include a Home Depot at the proposed Marina Center.Keep Reading
Eureka is revisiting an effort to protect its gulches and greenways.At a special meeting Tuesday, the Eureka City Council talked about adding an ordinance to the City’s Inland Zoning Code to hamper the development of privately owned valleys and ravines that flow into Humboldt Bay.Inland greenways across the largely built-out city have no special protections from the city. Addressing this has been in the works since the early 2000s, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife described the regulations and standards as “long overdue” in a 2024 comment letter.During public comment, Jennifer Kalt from Humboldt Waterkeeper said she’s “looking forward to having this finally done so that those streams can get protected,” and two other commenters spoke in support of the plan.Read More
