News

Cal Poly Humboldt women’s rowing team win the NCAA Division II National Championship

The Cal Poly Humboldt women’s rowing team won a national championship with a perfect score on Saturday. The Lumberjacks won both the Fours Grand Final and Eights Grand Final at the NCAA Division-II championships in New Jersey.

This is the third time in program history that the Cal Poly program has taken home a national title, having also done so in 2012 and 2014.

The Humboldt V4 lineup consisted of Emily Daniels (coxswain), Sarah Lorenzini, Kylie Mosley, Chloe Pieper-Wasem, and Gewndolyn Sutton.

The Humboldt V8 lineup included coxswain Sonja Scollon and Malia Seeley, Alyssa Paynton, Gabriella Griffin, Dana Foley, Cassidy Hollenbeck, Kealey Scott, Elizabeth Walters, and Molly Urtz.

The team is coached by head coach Matt Weise and assistants Ashley Donnell and Patrick Hyland.

Harbor District Awarded $500,000 EPA Grant to Assess Contamination at Redwood Marine Terminal

Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) shared the announcement that over $4.4 million from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda has been awarded to expedite the assessment and cleanup of brownfield sites in Northern California while advancing environmental justice. $1.45 of this funding is headed specifically to three projects in California’s Second Congressional District: Hoopa Valley Tribe, Cleanup Grant; Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation, and Conservation District, Assessment Grant; and Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Cleanup Grant.

The Harbor District was awarded $500,000 to support assessment and cleanup planning at the Redwood Marine Terminal, focusing on a former lumber mill with pentachlorophenol and dioxin contamination to support redevelopment into the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal. The new terminal will support tenants in the manufacturing, installation, and operation of renewable energy offshore wind floating platforms and provide crewing and marshaling services in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

“Cleaning up brownfields is good for the environment, the economy, and surrounding communities that suffer the lasting impacts that polluting and extractive industries have left behind. Contaminated and abandoned areas are dangerous blemishes that keep communities from using these places to the fullest,” said Rep. Jared Huffman. “It’s great to see money from Democrats’ historic investments going towards cleanup projects in my district. Part of our vision for the Investing in America Agenda is to rebuild and restore our land and infrastructure with a focus on climate resiliency and environmental justice. This grant will go a long way in revitalizing potential wastelands, allowing them to be utilized as working places for the tribes and cities that depend on them.”

California bill would formally ban herbicides on state roads

A California bill would formalize what Humboldt County has been doing since 1989 — ban the use of weedkillers on state highways in counties that restrict the use.

Assembly Bill 99 would require Caltrans to pivot away from chemical deployment and instead use other methods such as laying concrete, mowing and mulching to prevent overgrowth onto state highways.

In 1989, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors entered into an agreement with Caltrans to stop spraying herbicides on state roads in the county.

“In 1989, the Humboldt County Board of Supes was very conservative and it voted unanimously to ask Caltrans to stop, not spray, to continue the no-spray program, but there’s never been anything written, you can’t even find anything down at the county supervisors archives,” Patty Clary, executive director of the Arcata-based Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, said.

“To get this bill passed would then formalize that agreement and make it permanent,” she added.

On Monday, the state Assembly approved the bill, authored by Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-San Rafael), with a 55-16 party-line vote, meaning it is headed to the relatively more left-leaning state Senate. Mendocino County has also suspended the use of herbicides on state roadways.

420,842 pounds of the toxic substances were used to manage state highway roadside vegetation in 2022, according to a CATs news release.

Lanphere, Ma-le’l Dunes now a national landmark

On Thursday, Humboldt County’s Lanphere and Ma-le’l Dunes in Manila became one of the dozens of sites in the state to be awarded a National Natural Landmark designation.

The Lanphere and Ma-le’l Dunes stretch across 1.25 miles of coastline, featuring lush plant life, swamps, and as the dedication ceremony’s attendees quickly discovered, a vibrant mosquito population. They are the most pristine coastal dunes in the Pacific Northwest, said Bureau of Land Management assistant field manager Jennifer Wheeler, who spoke at the dedication ceremony.

“Through leadership and strong partnerships, thousands of people including many of you here today have come together in service to this unique coastal landscape,” Wheeler said. “Collectively, we’ve protected cultural resources, restored native plant communities, habitat for native pollinators and other wildlife, restored physical and ecological dune processes and provided a window into an ancient natural landscape, and we’ve done it while providing for compatible public use and recreation, serving the needs and well being of individuals and families at the local, national and even global community level.”

Mike McGuire: Local infrastructure needs upgrades to support wind energy

On Wednesday, a state government committee meeting in Sacramento featured several Humboldt County stakeholders to discuss the future of offshore wind power in the county.

The meeting of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, which North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire chairs, did not make any permanent decisions about offshore wind in the state, but several key players in Humboldt County were present in Sacramento to air thoughts on the pressing issues facing development. One particular concern McGuire addressed was Humboldt County’s electrical transmission lines, which would not be able to effectively transmit the power generated by offshore wind.

“(The transmission lines are) antiquated. I will take a moment to say PG&E … if we’re looking at the Humboldt (County) call area, they have not kept up on their deferred maintenance, there is no way in hell that the current lines that we have available are going to be able to take on the additional load,” McGuire said.

He noted that he is working with Cal Poly Humboldt and the Schatz Energy Research Center to develop a federal grant application to fund the research of transmission corridors. He also said that the only way to pay for improvements would be to pass the cost onto the ratepayers, a politically risky move due to the already high bills people pay to PG&E on the North Coast.

McGuire expressed frustration with staffing levels and the budgetary ability to move quickly, citing the California Coastal Commission’s single staffer.

“In all candor, there is no way this industry is going to get off the ground in the state of California, there is no way that we’re going to meet our green energy goals if we don’t step up the appropriate permit agencies. I mean, that’s the bottom line of it. The Coastal Commission can’t do it with this one staff (member). So I think we need to acknowledge that in budgets, our value statements, and if we value our climate, and we value that expediting and weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels, we’re going to invest in the people that are going to be able to get it done.”

Read More