Industry struggles with logistics as use of ash in agricultural soil questioned

10/14/12
Concerns over what contaminants may be associated with Humboldt County's biomass industry -- and Eel River Power's plans to shutter its Scotia facility, citing reasons including regulatory uncertainty -- highlight just two sides of the challenge of tapping the region's largest source of renewable energy.

”Biomass has played a significant role in Humboldt County,” Schatz Energy Research Center senior research engineer Jim Zoellick said, adding that it currently provides about 30 percent of the North Coast's energy.

The center recently completed a draft study for the Redwood Coast Energy Authority that said North Coast biomass energy production could potentially double by 2030.

Only Los Angeles County produces more biomass -- in its case, garbage -- according to a study from University of California, Davis. On the North Coast, biomass plants traditionally burn scraps and residue from sawmills in order to generate power.

”The mill source is very dependent on the timber industry in Humboldt County -- which has been in decline in recent years,” Zoellick said.

On top of that, some timber cut in Humboldt County is shipped overseas to be milled.

Unlike sawmill residue, Humboldt County's substantial forest biomass, created at logging sites or ecological forest thinnings, is not easily accessible.

”You can only transport it so far and have it be economically viable,” Zoellick said.

Now researchers are looking at ways to process fuel materials close to the site of recovery with satellite processors in towns like Hoopa, Willow Creek and Weaverville.

”There's not a real easy and clear path to make that stuff economically viable,” Zoellick said.

Looking toward expansion can be difficult considering the challenges facing existing North Coast biomass plants.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board recently sent letters to four biomass plants in Northern California, including Blue Lake Power, Eel River Power, and DG Fairhaven Power in Samoa.

In the letters, the board expressed concerns about the management of wood ash, a byproduct of biomass energy plants that has typically been sold or given to farmers who use the ash as soil amendment, mixing it with earth in hopes of improving various properties.

Concerns about dioxins and other contaminants in ash waste led the water board to request extensive testing, due Monday. The board will review results of the testing at its December meeting.
David Leland of the water board said that dioxins can cause cancer and be transferred through food into humans.

”It magnifies up the food chain -- or has the potential to do that at least,” Leland said.

Heavy metals and changes to pH balance are additional concerns to the area's surface water and groundwater.

Humboldt Waste Management Authority interim Executive Director Patrick Owen said that if the board determines there are too many toxins in the ash waste, power plants might be forced to send the ash to landfills instead, which would dramatically drive up costs.

”That could really affect the viability of these regional plants,” Owen said.

The problem doesn't end there. Added landfill waste could jeopardize county compliance with state-mandated waste diversion. If the plants fail, biomass would be reintroduced to the waste stream.

Water Board senior engineer Mona Dougherty said regulation of the ash lapsed in recent years. It came to the board's attention again recently when citizens expressed concerns about heavy dumping of ash and contaminants.

”We decided it was time to start taking a look and see if there were any water quality issues associated with it,” Dougherty said.

Landfilling the ash is not the only option, Dougherty said. Water board staff is researching ways to reduce contaminants during the burning process.

”We might find that there's not a problem,” Dougherty said. “It's difficult to know until we see what we've got.”

California Coastal Commission planner Melissa Kraemer said her commission had been contacted by a citizen concerned about the use of the ash in agricultural lands.

She said a lot of seasonal grazing lands around Humboldt Bay are wetlands, and the coastal commission determined that some heavy spreading of the ash constituted development, requiring a permit.

”I don't think our commission is really regulating the disposal of material as a soil amendment,” Kraemer said, but added that it was interested in the results of the water board's inquiries.

”Disposal can be a challenge,” Kraemer said. “Certainly if it has elevated levels of dioxin, we don't want that going into our waters and contaminating our oysters and dairylands.”

Attitudes about biomass appear cautiously hopeful. Matt Ross, speaking for Eel River Power, said local and state officials are working with the plant in hopes to reopen next year.

Management at the Blue Lake and Fairhaven plants did not respond to calls by press deadline.

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On Friday, Oct 12th from 1-5 pm, Humboldt State University will host a panel discussion on the Environmental Challenges of Marijuana Agriculture in the Age of Prohibition. 

This two-part symposium will gather grassroots environmental activists, community members, and policy makers to discuss efforts to address the environmental impacts of marijuana cultivation. Panelists will review the impacts of marijuana agriculture and offer insights into the opportunities and challenges involved in addressing these problems. 

1. The Problem and Responses:  Environmental Impacts and the Politics of Cannabis Agriculture

This panel of grassroots environmental organizers and policy makers will discuss environmental impacts associated with industrial marijuana agriculture, how current policy affects those impacts, and challenges involved in addressing environmental impacts associated with marijuana production.

2. Environmental, Cultural, and Economic Futures: Sustainability and Marijuana Agriculture

This panel of grassroots environmental organizers, community members, and policy makers offer perspectives on paths to environmental, cultural and economic sustainability.

10/1/12

Heading toward his fifth hour of filleting, his thick rubber boots squeaking on the wet concrete floor, Glen Libby, a fisherman by trade, looks more like a beleaguered line cook than the hero of a seafood revolution.

Five years ago this month in this unspoiled fishing port immortalized by three generations of Wyeths, Mr. Libby and a half-dozen cohorts banded together to try to rescue their depleted fish stock and their profession.

The result (“after trial and error with a lot of error” in Mr. Libby’s words) was Port Clyde Fresh Catch, the country’s first community-supported fishery, now part of a burgeoning movement that tries to do for small-scale local fishermen what community-supported agriculture has done for farmers.

In the kitchen, community-supported fisheries require cooks to agree in advance to buy whatever fish or shellfish local fishermen catch. Fishermen are asked to embrace plentiful species like skate or redfish, once routinely tossed overboard. With about 80 percent of the seafood on the American plate imported and “traceability” the mandate du jour, community-supported fisheries of varying sizes and ambition are springing up around the country, from Cape Ann in Massachusetts to Santa Barbara in California. There are about 30 nationwide, including two in New York.

Port Clyde Fresh Catch was born in crisis. Fishing is woven into the warp and woof of daily life here, a place where the water seems more dominant than the land. The village’s working waterfront still resembles a Wyeth, alive with aging trawlers, lobster traps and weatherworn shacks dwarfed by evergreens.

But looks can be deceiving: Until recently, the picturesque occupation beloved by “people from away,” as summer residents are called, was on the verge of collapse. Of Maine’s 5,300 miles of coast, only 20 miles are working waterfront, with tiny Port Clyde, originally named Herring Gut, home of the last surviving ground-fishing fleet between Portland and the Canadian border.

At the time Mr. Libby and colleagues joined forces, they faced the decimation of signature New England species like cod and flounder, largely because of overfishing and nets that damaged the seabeds, including those from an increasing number of “big box” industrial trawlers that can catch up to a million pounds of herring a day.

Overfishing continues to be a major issue; the allowable catch for cod is projected to be cut up to 70 percent for next year, said Peter Baker, the director of Northeast Fisheries programs for the Pew Environment Group. The steady decline of fish resulted in increased federal regulations, including limits on the number of days at sea.

Overfishing was one factor limiting fishermen’s profits. Another was the traditional way they sold their catch: through auction houses, which set wholesale prices. “You never knew what the price was going to be,” said Mr. Libby, who caught the fishing bug digging for soft-shell clams as a child. “My best season, I made $1 an hour.”

He and his colleagues had a choice: They could “give up and work at McDonald’s,” he said, or get together and try something radical.

Joining forces was hardly an easy sell. “Fishermen are independent,” Mr. Libby said, juggling a cellphone in one hand and a pick for plucking 30 pounds of redfish from an iced bin in the other. “Maybe you don’t like people, so you want to sit out in a boat by yourself. But the whole ‘I want to be the Lone Ranger’ stuff doesn’t work when things get tight, when people are in a lot of financial pain. Then you either have to look for alternatives, or you quit.”

They eliminated the middleman, processing their fish and shellfish themselves and then selling or shipping directly to consumers. The idea came about after Mr. Libby and his family heard a farmer give a talk about community-supported agriculture. The group started with orders for sweet winter Maine shrimp from members of the Unitarian church in nearby Rockland. That eventually led to tailgate filleting demonstrations on the back of the Libbys’ pickup truck. “Nobody got rich,” said Kim Libby, Mr. Libby’s sister-in-law. “But it was a good shot in the arm for paying the fuel bill that week.”

The Port Clyde group was environmentally proactive, redesigninging their nets to allow more juvenile fish to escape. Instead of catching a high volume of a single species, the group sought a more diverse catch and received a price closer to the cost of production. That in turn allowed them to fish at a smaller scale.

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9/25/12
After hearing three hours of public comment from 45 speakers, the Humboldt County board of supervisors agreed unanimously to continue their review of the General Plan Update with a revised schedule and new staff reports intended to help the supervisors better understand what proposed changes to the current (1984) Framework General Plan mean.

Board chair and fourth district supervisor Virginia Bass began the hearing by explaining to the standing-room-only crowd that comments made by supervisors at the previous hearing were "mischaracterized" in the media to suggest that the board was about to scrap the GPU and start the process over.

A change that extreme would have to come before the board as a separate agenda item, and it has not been agendized, Bass said.

Fifth district supervisor Ryan Sundberg, whose comments at the Sept. 10 hearing triggered the misunderstanding, apologized.

"I was angry and upset last week and I didn't articulate clearly," Sundberg said. "I don't want to kill the plan and start over ... My intention was just to ask a question about how to see it more clearly."

Third district supervisor Mark Lovelace, who had sharply criticized Sundberg's Sept. 10 statements, apologized in turn to Sundberg and thanked him for his clarification. "Last week was not the high point of the year," Lovelace said.

At the end of the hearing held last Monday, Sept. 17, the supervisors unanimously agreed to resume review of the GPU on Monday, Oct. 1.

In the meantime, county planning staff will prepare the first of their new reports on Chapter 5, the Community Services and Infrastructure Element, and Chapter 6, the Telecommunications Element.

First reports will include a description of the legal basis for the element, the key issues, a comparison of how the issues were addressed in the existing Framework Plan and how they are addressed in the current GPU draft, which was approved by the county planning commission in May 2012.

The report will also include reasons for the changes - such as state requirements, public comment, and planning commission recommendations, as well listing the board's options.

After the supervisors cast their straw votes, staff will compile a second report that will include a "strikethrough" version of the draft element showing how the straw votes changed the wording.

The second report will also provide the corresponding section of the Framework Plan, a description of the differences, and a chart that shows how these changes, if adopted, will affect landowners, and the estimated cost of implementing the changes.

The supervisors agreed to postpone further deliberations on Chapter 4, the Land Use Element, which began in July. This element, which defines land use designations that in turn determine zoning on individual parcels, contains the most difficult issues, particularly regarding residential uses on agriculture and timber lands.

Environmental advocates urged the supervisors to proceed with the draft GPU rather than go back to the Framework Plan.

Scott Greacen, executive director of Friends of the Eel River, said current property owners as well as wildlife and future generations need the complete GPU, not just a "tweaking" of the Framework Plan, so that they can have a clear picture of what they can and cannot do.

If there are no guidelines, resource advocates will have no choice but to challenge property owners "project by project," Greacen said.

At the same time he admitted that there is a lot in the GPU he doesn't like but he's willing to go ahead with the existing document rather than face the chaos that would follow abandonment of the process.

Hezekiah Allen concurred, stating, "The Framework Plan has been the guiding document for nearly 30 years marked by unplanned, unregulated, and unpermitted development in rural communities. The greatest achievement of the Framework Plan was to solidify the irrelevance of the planning and building department to the everyday lives of rural residents...

"I am frustrated that the time, energy, and resources that have been invested into this plan over the last 12 years, investments made by thousands of individuals, hundreds of organizations, and the public - as represented by the county - now seem threatened by the search for a simple answer," Allen continued.

"We need a collaborative relationship built on trust... This General Plan Update process is simply the starting point to realizing our future; the work is yet to come," he concluded.

Jeff Smith, former chairman of the planning commission, assured the supervisors, "No matter what direction you go, the work done in the past is not in vain...

"None of you were on the board when the ship set sail, and I don't know if anyone could foresee what the GPU is today. No matter whether you've been on the board 15 years or 15 minutes, it's going to be your plan."

Jennifer Kalt, one of the last speakers, told the board, "If you don't [complete the GPU], you'll be remembered as the board that kept us in 1984."

The supervisors, however, seemed to agree informally to continue with the GPU. When every member of the public who wanted to speak had spoken, the supervisors' discussion centered on scheduling, particularly whether to continue working on the Land Use Element or to proceed with some of the less difficult elements.

The next GPU hearing is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 1, beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the supervisors' chambers at the county courthouse in Eureka. The agenda will include setting a revised hearing schedule and review of Chapters 5 and 6, the Infrastructure and Community Services Element and the Telecommunications Element. Oral public comment on these elements will be taken at the hearing.

To make written comments, which may be of any length, write to Kathy Hayes, Clerk of the Board, 825 Fifth St, Eureka 95501 or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Only one copy of written comments is required.

For more information, go to the GPU website, www.planupdate.org, or call the planning department at 445-7541.

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