News

Eureka adopts ordinance protecting greenways, gulches

Zoning change adds requirements for building in city’s wetlands and gulches

On Tuesday, the Eureka City Council adopted an ordinance aimed at protecting greenways and gulches in city limits and approved amendments to the municipal code related to the greenways. The ordinance, long in the works, establishes a zone with extra permits and standards for projects on slopes near Eureka’s wetlands and waterways.

The ordinance adds a newly formed gulch greenway zone, which stretches across much of southeast Eureka. The amendments adopted Tuesday tweak the code to add standards in relation to the greenways.

City goals of the ordinance are to protect water quality for streams that flow to Humboldt Bay, and keep the gulches intact for wildlife corridors and habitat.

The ordinance means Eureka’s greenways would have protections in city development rules for the first time — previously during a hearing on the ordinance, Eureka’s Development Services Director Cristin Kenyon said the existing inland zoning code didn’t have any special protections for these areas that host wetland streams and riparian habitat, allowing some development without triggering city approval.

“Eureka gulches and greenways already support essential ecosystem services, which will become increasingly important with climate change, especially as they are the few remaining remnants of a vast network of wetlands, streams and sloughs that used to make up this area before it was urbanized,” said Sylvia van Royen during public comment, an analyst for Humboldt Waterkeeper who spoke in support of the ordinance.

Canine Inspectors Helping to Prevent the Spread of Golden Mussels

One of the state’s best investigators was on the hunt for golden mussels — a dangerous new invader in California’s waters, with a reputation for destruction.

Wearing a collar and a tongue-lolling grin, Allee, a Belgian Malinois, sniffed along the glittering hull of a bass boat at an inspection station in Butte County.

The dog’s handler, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Warden Mark Rose, pointed at the outboard motor and the dog delicately nosed the propellers. She stretched up on her hind legs to get a good whiff of the port side before Rose led her away. She yawned. Nothing here.

The dog was searching for any hint of the thimble-sized mussels hidden in the nooks and crannies of boats headed to Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, or two smaller reservoirs nearby. Her human counterparts at the Department of Water Resources’ inspection station combed the boat’s interior for standing water that could harbor larvae.

Mandatory boat inspections are among the few weapons in California’s arsenal for protecting its thousands of lakes and reservoirs from the invasion. The mussels’ prolific growth and voracious appetites can upend entire ecosystems, encrust underwater surfaces, choke off water supplies and damage dams and power plants.

“We have been on high alert,” said Tanya Veldhuizen, special projects section manager in the California Department of Water Resources’ environmental assessment branch, which operates the state’s water delivery system. “It’s not just on our doorstep, it’s in our house.”

Keep Reading

Settlement announced after broken turbine parts in Vineyard Wind project washed up on Nantucket shores

GE Vernova, the maker of a massive wind turbine blade that broke apart off Nantucket Island and washed up on beaches for months, has agreed to a $10.5 million settlement to pay local businesses for their economic losses, officials said Friday.

Fiberglass fragments of the blade began washing ashore last summer during the peak of tourist season after pieces of the wind turbine at the Vineyard Wind project began falling into the Atlantic Ocean in July 2024. Crews in boats and on beaches, along with volunteers, collected truckloads of debris. The company said the debris was nontoxic fiberglass fragments and that the pieces were one square foot or smaller.

GE Vernova, which agreed to the settlement, blamed a manufacturing problem at one of its factories in Canada and said there was no indication of a design flaw. It reinspected all blades made at the factory and removed other blades made there from the Vineyard Wind location.

The settlement calls for establishing a fund along with a process to evaluate claims from businesses and distribute payments, Nantucket officials said.

Vineyard is involved in offshore wind development off the coast of Humboldt County. Earlier this year, the company laid off workers both in the United States and internationally.

Map of areas permanently withdrawn from oil and gas activities in January 2025

On April 30, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released a “Request for Information” for new oil and gas lease sales in U.S. waters to inform the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. This announcement includes federal waters that were permanently withdrawn by the Biden Administration in January, including all Pacific and Atlantic Coasts, the eastern Gulf Coast, and parts of Alaska’s Bering Sea from offshore oil and gas development. The Trump Administration is considering reversing that decision, although it would require an act of Congress.

Humboldt Waterkeeper’s pilot study says roads and parking lots may be killing salmon; AB 1313 could help fix that

Recent sampling efforts undertaken by Humboldt Waterkeeper and the California Coastkeeper Alliance have found “high concentrations” of pollutants that kill coho salmon in runoff from area parking lots. The organizations are sponsoring AB 1313 to establish statewide commercial, industrial and institutional stormwater permitting standards.