News

6/7/15

The Humboldt Waste Management Authority is putting a lid on the Cummings Road Landfill.

Some 15 years after taking over ownership of the property northeast of Eureka, HWMA’s contractor will begin work on Phase II to cap the landfill that once accepted solid waste from throughout the county. HWMA is a joint powers authority comprising the county of Humboldt and the cities of Arcata, Eureka, Ferndale, Blue Lake and Rio Dell.

Phase I of the landfill closure plan was completed late in the summer of 2012 at a cost of $4.4 million. Phase II, estimated to cost $2.28 million, begins in about a week with all work expected to be complete by Sept. 30. Both came with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board’s approval of a Joint Technical Document for Closure, a document approved after years of information sharing and back-and-forth negotiation.

HWMA Executive Director Jill Duffy said the Phase II contractor, Meyers Earthwork of the Redding area, will have equipment on site by June 15. Their task is to install what Duffy described as “a burrito wrap,” an impermeable liner that will be attached to the site’s existing liner. The contractor also will create a haul road to transfer clean fill dirt, re-contour the land slightly, and cover the project area with 18 inches of clean fill dirt, Duffy said.

Getting to this point, Duffy said, was not exactly easy.

The Cummings Road Landfill opened in the early 1930s and was, for many years, a burn-and-shove operation. Garbage collected in and around the city of Eureka was transported to the site, burned and the remaining material pushed into surrounding ravines — a practice that continued until 1969, at which time the site became a cut-and-cover unlined facility. City Garbage took over management in 1974 and began accepting waste from throughout the North Coast. The facility stopped accepting solid waste in 1998.

Humboldt Waste Management Authority purchased the property in 2000, a move that came with the responsibility of permanently closing the landfill and an $8 million trust fund to accomplish that objective. City Garbage, which had since changed its name to NorCal Waste Inc, retained ownership of property surrounding the authority’s 33-acre landfill site. HWMA owns a total of 107 acres, including 1.23 acres of the burn dump area — where for decades what remained after the open-burning process was deposited.

Heavy storms in the winter of 2005-06 brought the residue of the burned refuse to the surface on property adjacent to the permitted landfill. In April 2013, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a Clean Up and Abatement order to HWMA and Recology-Humboldt to clean up the site in 18 months.

Previously, the Humboldt County Local Enforcement Agency determined in October 1999 that the site posed “no regulatory concern,” and no follow-up was required.

With the winter 2005-06 storms, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board took a second look at the burn ash site. The burn ash covered 6.2 acres, and stretched across property owned by Recology Humboldt (formerly NorCal Waste, Inc) and Humboldt Waste Management Authority. What was originally thought to be some 58,000 cubic yards of burn ash, ended up to be 91,600 cubic yards.

“It was all pulled out and trucked to Phase II at the top of the landfill,” Duffy said. The ash was then covered with 6 inches of clean fill dirt with straw added for erosion control. The total project cost was about $3.5 million, but it could have been much higher. The ability to transfer the burn ash to the section of the landfill not yet capped, allowed HWMA and Recology to avoid some $12 million estimated to haul and dispose of the material elsewhere, Duffy said.

In some areas, she said, the burn ash was 20 feet deep.

“Much of the burn ash site was covered with dense (in some places impenetrable) brush and small trees with no drivable access,” according to a booklet Duffy put together to explain the process.

“This was a huge project,” she said.

By October 2014, the work was complete. As there was considerable land disturbance, Duffy said, HWMA will monitor vegetation and mitigate for erosion for a period of five years.

Humboldt Waste Management Authority then returned its focus to completing Phase II of the Cummings Roads Landfill closure. During the process, Geo-Logic Associates of Nevada City will provide Construction Quality Assurance Services, which includes a daily report to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Once the existing liner and the new liner are attached, and the fill dirt covers the site, HWMA is still responsible for monitoring the site for 30 years following the closure with expected costs of $400,000 per year. Part of that expense comes in the operation of extraction wells that pump water out of the site into a storage tank. The contents will be transported to the city of Eureka’s wastewater treatment plant on a daily basis. The cost to haul and dispose of the leachate is $120,000 per year, Duffy said. Other expenses include monitoring, testing, and staff time to accomplish those tasks.

“The authority has been working for the last 16 years to close the landfill,” Duffy said. “There have been some pretty significant geologic and legacy sites challenges. We are really excited to be closing the landfill and moving into monitoring action. It reduces our liability pretty significantly.”

Duffy said she did not anticipate adverse impacts to Cummings Road neighbors. A water truck will be used to reduce dust, workers will be advised to drive carefully, and the equipment noise shouldn’t be disruptive, she said.

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5/30/15



Since the Eureka City Council embraced the Wiyot Tribe’s proposal to transfer the remaining city-owned portion of Indian Island to the tribe, several meetings have taken place and the process is inching forward. The City Council voted unanimously April 7 to return the property, which spans more than 200 acres.



Eureka City Manager Greg Sparks said Wednesday that the City Council representatives — Kim Bergel and Natalie Arroyo — gathered with tribal representatives and both city and tribal staff on May 1 to begin the discussion.



Since that time there have been staff-level discussions between Eureka city staff and Wiyot Tribal staff, Spark said.



At the staff-level meetings, Sparks said, topics have ranged from whether the 2004 land transfer between the city and the tribe is a good basis for the current transfer, as well as discussion of tideland leases held by the city. The California Lands Commission controls tidelands and leases the tidelands.



The city has hired an appraiser to appraise the value of the island. That appraisal is expected to be conducted next week, Sparks said.



State law prohibits “gifting” of public land, Sparks said.



One of the unanswered questions thus far in the discussion is what the city will receive from the deal. That compensation, Sparks said, doesn’t have to be monetary.


“At this point, we don’t have any draft agreement,” he said.



The next step is arranging a meeting between the city attorney and the tribe’s attorney.



When the city transferred 60 acres of Indian Island to the tribe in 2004, one of the conditions was giving the city the first right of refusal should the tribe ever decide to dispose of the property. That, the city manager said, allowed the transfer without cost and avoided “gifting” the island property.

“There are a number of options,” Sparks said.

Former Wiyot Tribal Chairwoman and current Tribal Council member Cheryl Seidner said the process is in the preliminary stages.

“We just started the negotiations,” she said. “It’s going well.”

As to when the process will be completed, Seidner said that’s an unknown. The 2004 land transfer was particularly quick, with the process beginning at the very end of 2003 and complete by May 2004.

“It was really quick,” she said.

That process, Seidner said, did not involve any remuneration between the city of Eureka and the Wiyot Tribe.

The May 18, 2004 city resolution supporting the transfer of the city-owned property on the east end of Indian Island, notes that the transfer was based on social and cultural factors, was a matter of public interest and “thus hereby waives the requirements of the City’s policy and procedure memorandum file no. 2.01 (regarding sale of City-owned real property), including waiver of appraisal, competitive auction and bidding requirements.” Then Eureka Mayor Peter LaVallee, then City Clerk Kathleen Franco Simmons and then City Attorney David Tranberg signed the resolution.

Four years earlier, in 2000, the tribe had purchased 1.5 acres of the original Tuluwat village on Indian Island and began an intensive clean-up of toxic waste left with the longtime operation of a ship repair facility. The clean-up continued with the additional 60 acres deeded by the city, and was completed in 2013 with the assistance of private and public funding. The Environmental Protection Agency deemed the land safe for tribal use in August 2013.

Indian Island had been the site of the tribe’s World Renewal Ceremony until 1860. That year, a group of white men boated to the Island and massacred some 200 sleeping, men, women and children following the ceremony. Beginning in 1992, an annual vigil commemorating the massacre has been held annually on Woodley Island.

In 2014, after a 154-year hiatus, the tribe held World Renewal Ceremony where it had always been held — on Indian Island.

“The center of our world is Indian Island,” Seidner told the Eureka City Council at its April 7 meeting. “This is where we come, this is where we sing, this is where we pray.”

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5/1/15

The Environmental Protection Agency and other organizations are in the final phase of transporting hazardous materials out of the Samoa Pulp Mill.

EPA representatives say Evergreen Pulp Company left millions of gallons of hazardous waste and other materials at the Samoa Pulp Mill when the organization left the site in 2008.  The EPA is investigating the company for potential liability.

"Evergreen is a Chinese-owned company and it's foreign based and there's really no entities left in the United States so that would involve working with the State Department so I believe that discussion is going on as well," said Steve Calanog, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator with the EPA’s Emergency Response Group for Region 9.

In 2013, the EPA began emergency efforts to remove the hazardous waste from the site.

"The facility posed a significant risk, an imminent and substantial risk to Humboldt Bay,” Calanog said.

"This area is prone to earthquakes and over the course of our work, there's been several large earthquakes here and it's always been our concern that something like an earthquake can exacerbate the situation and cause a catastrophic release and that's why we're taking this action."

So far, 3,000 tons of sludge has been shipped to a disposal facility in Vacaville.  Three thousand tons of the sludge still needs to be shipped.

In addition, 100,000 gallons of pulping liquor still need to be disposed of.  The hazardous liquid will remain in on-site storage tanks until the EPA finds a facility to award a contract to for disposal.  In addition, the EPA will decontaminate the remaining infrastructure before disposing of it.

However, not all of the debris and structures will be removed.  The seven tile tanks used to store pulping liquors and the smokestack will remain at the mill after the hazardous materials are gone.

The Humboldt Bay Harbor District is currently seeking federal funding to remove the smokestack and seven tile tanks.

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3/4/15

About 10 years ago, Calpine Corporation planned to locate a gigantic transfer terminal for liquid natural gas (LNG), across Humboldt Bay from Eureka. Twice a week, super tankers would dock in Humboldt Bay to discharge huge volumes of LGN. During the operation, the general area, including a considerable portion of the Bay, would be under military-style lockdown. Why? In 2004, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report provided this nightmare scenario: if the warmed LNG from one super tanker ignited, it would produce a fire a mile wide and result in second- degree burns two miles away. (We would probably be just fine in Trinidad unless the wind was from the south, and until smoldering refugees came staggering up Scenic Drive from Eureka.) Most of us were pleased that Calpine found different locations for its terminals on a bigger bay.

Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, in the 1980s, when my wife, Carol and I lived and worked there, was the hottest place on earth. Enormous quantities of waste LNG was flared off on the northern boarder of the immense Rub al-Khali. In spite of the country-club atmosphere in the ARAMCO town, our stay might have been cut short if we had known more about the dangers of LNG. Terrorists do not keep their heads in Arabia. Sharia law is draconian; beheadings are community events. I got in on one, quite by accident. Let me assure you, however, that unless it’s your own, an oil-town barbecued with LNG is far less troubling than a routine decapitation.

In Humboldt County, mega-development schemes often meet with well-informed and strident opposition. We are not likely to allow international thugs and their local toadies to auction off this incredibly beautiful biome! Other settings in North America may not be as fortunate and defiant.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate, like the House, will probably cave in to the corporatedictates and pass “HR-351”.

With weaker “checks and balances,” our restructured Congress evidently intends to give Big Buggering Oil (BBO) the green light to cut North America in half with Keystone XL Pipeline and a free rein to frack the fragile planet!

Let’s get back to this curve of the coast where there’s an element of hope. You probably heard that Fernald, another huge, slavering corporation, also checked us out, probably convinced that the brush monkeys in Humboldt County would be proud to have the world’s biggest coalburning power plant on the Samoa Peninsula. So what if millions of tons of filthy particulate matter was pooped from the furnaces into the planet’s purest air; at least for a short time, we’d have more jobs, right? Like Calpine, Fernald moved on. Local opposition was strong and Humboldt Baykeeper is on guard!

Now — we’re home free — right? The spoilers have given up. Wait! Take nothing for granted. On Feb. 12, the US Mine Corp. presented a sketchy proposal for processing gold ore on Samoa Peninsula to the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District commissioners. Evidently the commission, instead of giving US Mine the boot, gave it 90 days to get its act together.

Perhaps we might eventually agree that greed, like gold, is good! If US Mine begins operations, at least one thousand tons of ore from Canada and South America would be processed yearly, and in less than a decade, we would have millions of tons of toxic slag in our sunset sky! But, let’s not get overly cynical.

Could it be that gold-processing may not be that bad after all? There are plans for a modest extension of the oyster beds in the Bay and since oysters purify the water they would automatically ingest the cyanide and the mercury that is utilized in processing gold. That way, we could have our oysters along with a thin layer of gold leaf on the side.

John Wiebe resides in Westhaven.

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