News

Supes Take Needed Step to Protect Our Coast

7/28/17

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has joined other California lawmakers, business leaders, environmental groups and government agencies in rejecting the Trump administration’s attempts to open up the California coast to new offshore oil drilling. At its July 25 meeting, the board unanimously passed a resolution in support of the nearby Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries.

The sanctuaries, the resolution notes, “are home to some of the most diverse coastal ecosystems, which support giant kelp forests, many species of marine mammals, migrating salmon and hundreds of other forms of sea life,” before going on to confirm that, yes, the threat laid out in April’s “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy” presidential order “is of deep concern.”

The Trump administration’s directive calls for a “review” of national marine sanctuaries with the goal of opening these protected areas to new and expanded oil and gas drilling that are currently prohibited within them. As the resolution notes, Humboldt County “has long supported the protection of vital coastal resources, tourism, fishing and mariculture cultivation industries, and stands with other coastal counties in their efforts to protect these very pristine coastal waters.”

Efforts appear to have found some success, generating more than 67,000 comments and resulting in an extended comment period from the initial 30-day one, giving the public until Aug. 14 to weigh in. The North Coast's own Congressman Jared Huffman advocated heavily for the extension and will be holding a public forum in Marin to discuss the federal threat to the coast on Aug. 23.

Two Bay Area counties sue 37 fossil fuel companies over sea-rise

7/17/17

Two Bay Area counties sued 37 oil, gas and coal companies Monday asserting the companies knew their fossil fuel products would cause sea level rise and coastal flooding but failed to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution.

The lawsuit was part of a coordinated litigation attack by Marin, San Mateo County and the city of Imperial Beach.

The lawsuit, filed in Marin County Superior Court, alleges that “major corporate members of the fossil fuel industry, have known for nearly a half century that unrestricted production and use of their fossil fuel products create greenhouse gas pollution that warms the planet and changes our climate.”

State Transportation Commission Asks North Coast Railroad Authority to Prepare ‘Shutdown Plan’

7/3/17

Last week, members of the California Transportation Commission got tough with the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency that owns the defunct railroad tracks around Humboldt County, which has been operating in the red and selling off publicly owned property to stay afloat.

After peppering the railroad authority’s executive director with a series of pointed questions at its meeting Thursday morning, the commission asked the NCRA to come back to them in October with a couple of new documents: a business plan and a “shutdown plan.”

Clam Beach Named Most Polluted Beach in California by Watchdog Group

6/15/17

After climbing up the charts for the past four years, Humboldt County’s own Clam Beach has earned the dubious distinction of landing atop Heal the Bay’s annual “Beach Bummer” list, which ranks the 10 nastiest beaches in the state based on bacterial pollution measurements from county health agencies.

According to the Santa Monica-based nonprofit, the pollution problem at Clam Beach may stem from private septic systems along Patricia Creek and Strawberry Creek, which flow down to the beach. “The Humboldt Public Health lab is developing Bacteroides testing to help pinpoint the source,” the group reports.

Luffenholtz Beach, just a few miles north, also landed on the Beach Bummer list, scoring a D grade and coming in as the eighth-most-polluted beach in the state. “Private septic systems in Trinidad are culprits,” says Heal the Bay.

You can read more about Heal the Bay’s 2017 beach report card here and view the complete report, with info on methodology, by downloading the pdf file here.

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Coastal commission rejects Coast Seafood oyster farming expansion

6/9/17

The California Coastal Commission voted 6-5 this week in Arcata to reject Coast Seafood Company’s bid to expand what commission staff called the state’s largest shellfish farming operation.

After hearing several hours of public testimony and staff reports debating the expansion project’s potential impacts to the Humboldt Bay’s ecosystems and recreational uses, Commissioner Mary Shallenberger urged her colleagues to vote no on the 165-acre expansion because she felt it was “way too big” and had too many unknowns.

Opponents to the project — such as Audubon California — applauded the commission’s vote. Audubon California filed a lawsuit against the project earlier this year challenging Coast Seafoods’ environmental review of the expansion and claimed the project would irreparably impact eelgrass in the bay.

Humboldt Baykeeper Director Jennifer Kalt said the commission’s denial was surprising due to aquaculture being a priority of the California Coastal Act.

“The oyster industry has come a long way since the days of killing bat rays and dredging eelgrass off the mud flats in the 1990s,” Kalt said Thursday. “And it actively protects water quality, which is critical for oysters, eelgrass and many other aquatic species. We hope the project can be further refined to address outstanding concerns.”

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