News

12/6/15

A town hall meeting in Eureka this week will allow the public to voice their views on what is the largest proposed aquaculture expansion in Humboldt Bay in at least a decade, according to Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District officials.

Currently undergoing an environmental review, the Coast Seafoods Company’s proposed expansion would triple its shellfish farming area from 300 acres to 922 acres in the northern and central portions of the bay.

Harbor district Deputy Director Adam Wagschal said the proposed project will bring the bay’s aquaculture operations close to historic levels, which he said were about 1,000 acres for Humboldt Bay.

“There really hasn’t been anything like this for quite awhile,” he said.

But unlike shellfish farming in the 1940s and 1950s, the project requires review under the California Environmental Quality Act before it can get its permit. The project’s draft environmental impact review currently calls on the seafood company to mitigate potential impacts to the bay’s ecosystem and cultural resources. The Dec. 9 town hall meeting at the Sequoia Conference Center in Eureka will give members of the public a chance to submit verbal and written comments on the proposed expansion.

Coast Seafoods Southwest Operations Manager Greg Dale — who is also the harbor district’s 2nd Division commissioner — said that he does not believe the company’s current aquacultural practices have any significant ecological impacts on the bay, and said the expansion was designed in a way that “literally has no impact.”

“It’s hard to agree to mitigate something that you don’t feel you have an impact on, but we’re going to do it,” Dale said.

Director Jen Kalt of the local environmental organization Humboldt Baykeeper disagrees with the project’s scope and the proposed mitigation measures.

“I think it’s too big, especially in combination with the harbor district’s pre-permitting project where they’re proposing to expand to be able to lease out areas for small growers, which I think is a really good idea,” Kalt said. “I think Coast’s expansion is tripling their footprint.”

Dale recognizes the expansion is large and substantial, but said that the company has undergone an unprecedented environmental review and using as much peer-reviewed scientific research as they can to back it up.

“It’s pretty light touch as far as industry standards go,” he said of the impacts. “It sounds big, but it’s not as big as it sounds.”

Coast Seafoods currently owns about 4,000 acres in the Humboldt Bay area, with only about 300 acres being used for shellfish culturing of Kumamoto oyster, Pacific oyster and Manila clam, according to Dale and the harbor district. The expansion would add 622 acres of intertidal culturing area, which Wagschal said are areas primarily used to grow oysters into market size as opposed to the more submerged subtidal areas out on the channel where shellfish nurseries are located.

Kalt said operations in these intertidal areas have the potential to impact eelgrass beds, which she said is a “keystone species” that provides several benefits to local wildlife including fish and birds. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife had also submitted similar comments during the draft’s initial study.

“They have no net loss policies for eel grass,” Kalt said of the district’s mitigation measures.

Wagschal said that draft environmental review would require the company to change how they configure their culture sites, such as the cultch-on-long-line method in which oyster cultches are grown on a rope that is suspended above the sea floor.

“The mitigation measure in the current description is having the long line methods spaced at 5 feet between the lines rather than 2.5 (feet), which provides more space for eel grass to grow,” he said.

The company would also be required to monitor their oyster beds from December to March each day to determine if Pacific herring have spawned on the nearby eelgrass, culture materials or sands, and must postpone their activities until the eggs are hatched. The review notes that Humboldt Bay is “the most important spring staging site in California” for migrating black brant geese, which feed almost exclusively on eelgrass, Kalt said.

The review also found there to be less than significant impacts for bioaccumulation of harmful dioxins in shellfish meat, which Kalt and the report state were primarily released into the bay by timber and pulp mill operations and caused the bay to be listed as impaired by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kalt said that if dioxins are consumed, they can cause cancer and reproductive damage, and they should be monitored due to the activities of the oyster industry.

“The dioxin binds with the sediment. Anything that stirs up the sediment has the ability to resuspend dioxin and spread it around the bay,” she said.

The public comment period for the district’s environmental review has been extended to Dec. 31 as opposed to its previous Dec. 10 deadline. Once the public comment period is closed, a final environmental review will be created based off the comments. Dale said they still have to obtain a permit from both the California Coastal Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which he said they have already began the processes for.

“Once those all of those are completed,” he said. “We get a permit that allows us to go ahead an start planting. We’re hoping to do it this coming summer.”

If you go:
What: Coast Seafoods Company’s expansion town hall meeting
When: 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday
Where: Sequoia Conference Center, Room Sequoia A, 901 Myrtle Ave., Eureka

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10/1/15

There's no question Humboldt Bay is one of our most crucial resources. But depending on whom you ask, you'll get a different reason as to why.
Maybe it's those kayak trips on calm days around the bay's islands. Maybe it's the deep water port that offers so much shipping potential. Maybe it's the crab harvest each fall. Maybe it's the wildlife that flock to its banks.

In many ways, things were not looking good for Humboldt Bay in the late 2000s. The economy had tanked, the pulp mill had closed and shipping had dwindled. Locals began to realize that sea level rise was a threat to the surrounding communities. The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, a relatively quiet, unrenowned public agency tasked with overseeing the bay's waters and tidelands, was trying to figure out what to do.

The district has taken bold and unprecedented steps in recent years. Under the leadership of Executive Director Jack Crider, it acquired a major piece of property, expanded its fishing infrastructure, is getting closer to a balanced budget, and is planning more developments, all the while increasing public transparency. But with an election looming, three of the district's commissioners could change. There are questions about how the district should view itself, about whether it's been too ambitious or drifted away from prioritizing the harbor and industries that rely on it. The district could be on the edge of a philosophical shift.

8/20/15

Tucked near King Salmon, the Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant’s been shut down since 1976. It is part way to burial but, like rust, it will never sleep.

In a PG&E-sponsored Aug. 19 “open house” in Eureka, utility staffers were supposed to update the community on the nuke plant’s progress toward decommissioning. The event left many befuddled. PG&E made no presentation, so community members couldn’t hear the utility’s update, then feed off of each other’s knowledge in a group question-and-answer session. Loren Sharp, PG&E plant manager, declined to hold an open session for all.

Instead, the utility took a page from a public relations’ manual, using tactics from what PR people call the “10 Ds.” Those start with “deflect, deny . . .” and include “dividing” communities interested in a particular issue. Instead of addressing the crowd of about 50, PG&E offered one-on-one, semi-private sessions, pairing one staffer with each person who had a question. Many attendees, including Eureka City Manager Greg Sparks, ended up wandering through the Wharfinger building wondering just what sort of questions they should be asking PG&E staff.

Unlike the rest of the community, though, Sparks said that when he does come up with questions, he has a straight phone line to call and get answers from the utility.

Some who did have their questions prepared were disappointed.

“They got their answers down pat,” said Cutten resident Ed Dickinson. “They're telling me that they're building a 40-foot-high berm to protect the site from tsunamis.” But, he added that 40 feet above sea-level still appears to be in the tsunami warning zone.

At this point, PG&E plans on leaving all the high-level radioactive waste on site at the edge of the bay and in close proximity to three earthquake faults. Scientists estimate that spent nuclear fuel (plutonium) has a "half-life" of 24,000 years. That means that half of its toxic radiation is expected to expire by year 26,015.

That's only half. The rest, well, it will be around another 100,000 years.

By the bay is where all that toxic waste is going to stay. That's because, despite federal law requiring a long-term waste storage site, there is none. And nearly all observers say there will never ever be one. So, high-level radioactive waste is going to stay here. Forever.

While the high-level waste remains, there's less low-level radioactive waste now than when the plant shut down, said PG&E’s Sharp. He added that about 1,000 dump truck-sized loads of soil have been removed and sent to a facility in Idaho, with another 4,000 truck-loads expected to be dug up and disposed.

While some of the Wharfinger wanderers, like Arcata resident Jean Nobel, were concerned about monitoring soil removal for releasing radioactivity into the environment, others noted the three pesky earthquake faults near the nuke plant. The closest, the Buhne Point Fault, surfaces only 300 feet away. An earthquake that splits open radioactive waste containment would launch radioactivity into the atmosphere, where it would likely be deadly.

“It's an incredibly seismically active area,” said Kate Huckelbridge, California Coastal Commission senior environmental scientist by phone. Despite following decommissioning closely for the state, she said PG&E hadn’t notified her of its public update meeting.

The coastal commission is permitting the plan to restore the site to environmental acceptability. But, Huckelbridge said, PG&E has yet to address several of the state's outstanding questions on how to finesse that restoration.

Then, there's sea level change. Sea-level is expected to rise up to 4.7 feet in the area in the next century, according to PG&E. “Humboldt Bay is more susceptible to sea-level rise than elsewhere on the northern coast of California,” according to PG&E.

The radioactive waste is now stored 44 feet above the Bay, according to the coastal commission. So, long before the radioactive waste loses its toxicity, it could be underwater due to sea-level rise. The coastal commission also noted that the waste storage area “would be subject during a tsunami to wave energy from both incoming and retreating waves, which could result in substantial erosion and damage.”

Decommissioning doesn’t come cheap. According to recent figures from the state, Humboldt's decommissioning trust fund is at least $292 million short of what it will cost to finish the job.

PG&E forecasts full decommissioning will cost $983 million, although some think that number is too low. The utility's already spent $545 million, according to California Public Utilities Commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper. The trust fund set up to pay for burial had only $146 million left at the end of 2014, noted Prosper.

Despite that apparent shortage, there will be enough money to finish the job, said Sharp. Any shortage would be added to monthly bills under the line item “decommissioning.”

The Humboldt nuke plant cost $60 million to build, and PG&E originally estimated it would cost $166 million to decommission.

When finished, “the site will have more natural areas than existed onsite before the start of decommissioning,” Sharp noted in a July 9 letter to the Coastal Commission. Decommissioning has included transferring spent fuel from the reactor to concrete casks. Cask storage is considered a safer method of temporary radioactive waste storage than leaving it in a pool of water in the reactor vessel. In his letter, Sharp noted that decommissioning has been “complicated and challenging.”

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7/16/15



Eureka police officers on Wednesday morning posted notices in the greenbelt area known as the Devil’s Playground and informed those residing there that they had 10 days to gather their belongings and move elsewhere.



“We contacted 113 people today,” Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills said. “We went from north to south. We notified every person that’s out there. At some point in the future, we will do enforcement out there.”



Mills cautioned that does not mean a sweep.



He said the residents are being urged to begin making arrangements to live elsewhere and have been provided information about social services to accomplish that mission. Once the 10 days have passed, citations will be issued, the city attorney may seek stayaway orders and, if that doesn’t work, residents could face arrest.



“We (the police department) are a piece of this function,” Mills said. “We’re not the whole deal.” The illegal camping situation behind the Bayshore Mall has been discussed repeatedly at the department head level, he said, and the decision has been made to ask people to leave.

Redwood Empire Municipal Insurance Fund (REMIF) — the city’s insurer — has indicated it will not cover the city if any additional injuries occur at Devil’s Playground, Mills said, and environmental agencies have threatened litigation if the city doesn’t take action.

City Manager Greg Sparks confirmed in a city of Eureka press release press release issued Wednesday that the city has received complaints from the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Coastal Commission and residents about trash and pollution.

Sparks said in the release that the city “believes it is critical to enforce cleanup and end camping on public property in the environmentally sensitive marsh and greenbelt areas of the community. These areas need to be available for the enjoyment of all our residents and our visitors.”

The area is home to an estimated 100 to 200 people taking shelter in tents and other temporary structures. The site has also been the focus of past police attention to find and arrest suspects of various crimes believed to be hiding there.

Following an April 15 raid — in which more than 20 people were arrested — Mills, Sparks and Eureka Community/Development Services Director Rob Holmlund began to search for a site to establish a sanctioned and monitored camp. After a few months, that effort was abandoned and attention re-focused on the rapid re-housing model and the July 1 opening of the repurposed Multiple Assistance Center.

With this latest step, Mills said, housing information will be provided to the residents, but they will have to apply to get the assistance needed. At the same time, some $200,000 of the city’s Measure Z funds will be channeled through the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services to assist the homeless in acquiring housing.

The encampment has been a source of frustration for many.

“On top of it,” Mills said. “we’ve got scores of complaints from businesses, homeowners, community members, travelers ... I mean scores of complaints.”

EPD public information officer Brittany Powell said the notice to vacate informs residents it is illegal to camp on public or private property and that personal belongings must be removed within 10 days On the flip side of the postings, she said, is a list of contact numbers for social services.

The city press release states that while the city hopes that those needing assistance will take steps to obtain services, it hasn’t been happening.

“The Eureka Rescue Mission is a prime example of available services that go unused,” the release states. “In June, the Mission had a capacity for 60 men and 33 women; however, most days it operated at half of that capacity.”

During the process of notifying the residents, EPD officers arrested one man on an outstanding felony warrant.

Mills said he’ll be meeting with the residents of the encampment on July 22 to explain what is going on and why. It’s a message that has been delivered repeatedly, he said. EPD officers have spent 192 hours in the encampment since January.

“We’ve warned people countless times,” he said.

The effort to clean up the area has already begun and will continue once the area is no longer an illegal campground.

The city of Eureka’s marsh maintenance program — an every-Thursday cleanup area that rotates between four sections west of Broadway — will be active today in an area designated as section 3. The section’s boundaries follow Vigo Street west, veer south and back toward Broadway, skirting the rear of the Six Rivers National Forest headquarters.

The city launched the program July 2, announcing that routine maintenance such as trash and invasive plant removal would rotate weekly through the four identified sections between Del Norte Street to the north and Truesdale Street to the south.

Those camping in those area are given 72 hours notice to remove personal belongings prior to the cleanup.

“This routine clean-up program is not for criminalizing houseless or solving our homeless issues,” the release states. “This program is designed to address the city’s responsibility as a property owner ... Parks and Recreation is responsible for maintaining the greenbelts and will be the lead on illegal dumping encampment remnant cleanup. EPD presence is just to insure compliance with the notification process and make sure order is maintained.”City staff and SWAP (Sheriff’s Work Alternative Team) will do the cleanup.

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