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Harbor District should reconsider Crowley deal

On Thursday, July 26th, the Eureka Times-Standard reported allegations of sex trafficking by employees of Crowley Marine Services, the parent company of the prospective leaseholder of Humboldt’s wind terminal, Crowley Wind Services. While the troubling history of Crowley’s workplace culture has been known for some time, the publicly available evidence suggests that high-level executives within Crowley were aware and complacent in allowing misconduct to thrive. These allegations, which picture a rotten company culture, are concerning and worthy of further investigation given the historical and present-day crisis of sex trafficking and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) in California and the United States. They also give necessary reasons to consider reopening negotiations regarding port development.

As an elected body, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District’s responsibility lies with the people, community, and environment it represents. Native American Tribes are a vital constituent in this community, and the safety of our women, girls, and people is paramount. While offshore wind port development could benefit the community through jobs, an influx of money, and by fighting climate change, these potential benefits must not come at the expense of our people.

Tomales Bay invaded by self-cloning sea anemones from Southern Hemisphere

Thousands of small, self-cloning sea anemones native to the Southern Hemisphere are rapidly spreading in Tomales Bay, an event researchers say could be the first recorded sighting of the species above the equator.

After the anemone was reported last year through a citizen science app, iNaturalist, researchers at the University of California at Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory confirmed the species to be Anthopleura hermaphroditica, known as the small brown sea anemone. The striped anemone, which is less than an inch, is native to New Zealand, Australia and Chile.

UC Davis researchers, led by doctoral student Keira Monuki, are contemplating how the species could affect the bay’s ecosystems.

One of the reasons the anemones have spread so successfully in Tomales Bay is that they can reproduce asexually, said Eric Sanford, a UC Davis biology professor. A single sea anemone could make thousands of clones of itself.

“They can proliferate rapidly because they don’t need another individual to reproduce. They can just spit out these genetically identical clones of themselves,” Sanford said. “So in a lot of ways, it’s something out of a science fiction movie if you’re thinking of what would be the perfect invader from outer space.”

Sanford said genome sequencing will allow researchers to estimate how many anemones first colonized Tomales Bay. It is possible, he said, that the thousands of anemones matting the intertidal areas in eastern Tomales Bay came from just one or two individuals.

The anemones also host a symbiotic algae that will be researched to determine if it influenced the species’ successful proliferation in Tomales Bay.

King Salmon algal bloom confirmed as non-toxic

Local and state environmental health officials confirmed that samples of the orange algal bloom from King Salmon beach that were sent to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board’s laboratory last week were non-toxic dinoflagellate known as Noctiluca creating a red tide. While it was still visible, officials recommend avoiding direct contact with the water because of potential respiratory irritation or effects to the skin.

Cyanobacteria can be present in any fresh water body. It looks like dark green, blue-green, black, orange or brown scum, foam or mats on the riverbed or floating on the water. Warm water and abundant nutrients can cause cyanobacteria to grow more rapidly than usual causing “blooms.”

These blooms are termed “harmful algal blooms.” Most cyanobacteria does not affect animals or people, however, a small number of cyanobacteria species are capable of producing toxins that can be harmful to animals and humans. Dogs and children are most likely to be affected because of their smaller body size and tendency to stay in the water for longer periods of time.

California’s planning a renewable energy project at a scale never before attempted in the world

The Newsom administration’s path to net-zero carbon emissions runs through one of the state’s poorer, most remote areas.

A 300-foot tall smokestack from a defunct paper mill looms over the port in Humboldt Bay, a relic of the timber industry that once defined the northwestern corner of California along with the struggling salmon fishing industry and sputtering marijuana trade.

But a gust of optimism has arrived in Humboldt County over plans to develop offshore wind at a depth and scale never before attempted in the world – sparking hope and anxiety in a region that has lived through repeated boom-and-bust cycles and ended up with one of the lower per-capita incomes in the state.

“This is a generational project,” said Jeff Hunerlach, secretary-treasurer of a council of construction unions for Humboldt and neighboring Del Norte County. “I could work 20 years on this project and my kid could work 20 years on this project.”

The offshore wind proposal, driven by the Biden and Newsom administration efforts to dramatically increase renewable energy, would erect dozens of turbines three times the size of that smokestack with blades as long as a football field in an area of the Pacific Ocean nearly 10 times the size of Manhattan.

But the project faces a host of major challenges. They include not just the obvious economic and bureaucratic hurdles but also a widespread distrust of outsiders in a region where indiscriminate logging engendered deep resentment and where an illegal marijuana industry created a counterculture haven in the fog-shrouded mountains.

The region is still recovering from mistakes of the past. International wind developers are pitching their projects just as many residents celebrate the removal of Klamath River dams the Yurok Tribe and the fishing industry fought for decades. The structures destroyed rich salmon habitat to export hydropower even as many native people lived without electricity.

“It has to be done right,” said Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers. “Because we have to avoid being in the same position we are now 50 years from now. I’ve spent most of my life fighting the dams. I do not want to leave my children a fight to remove offshore wind.”

leaders such as Yurok Tribal Court Judge Abby Abinanti worry how the expected influx of construction and manufacturing labor, some likely to occupy temporary “mancamps,” will affect vulnerable people such as native women who already go missing and are killed at higher rates than other groups.

“Our concern is that these camps end up elevating those kinds of statistics unless preventative efforts are made,” said Abinanti.

She also wants to make sure women have the same access as men to the new jobs through training.

Humboldt County beaches not on recent ‘bummer’ list - but Clam Beach still gets an F

A rarity for the past decade, Humboldt County did not have a single beach on a list of the state’s top 10 most polluted beaches.

Since 2013, Clam Beach County Park at Strawberry Creek made the worst-in-the-state list eight times. Luffenholtz Beach made two of those years and last year featured Moonstone Beach County Park on the list for the first time. However, Clam Beach still received an F grade for summer water quality.

“Unfortunately, we had a lot of beaches with bad grades, so maybe it’s not a great achievement to make it off the list this year,” said Katherine Pease, director of science and policy with Heal the Bay, a nonprofit that creates the list with county-submitted data measuring beach water contaminants.

“Regardless of the sources, people can avoid exposure to bacterial pollution by avoiding contact with water for a few days after major rainstorms. Another general rule is to swim, surf, and play in the ocean away from creek mouths and stormwater discharge pipes,” Jennifer Kalt, director of Humboldt Baykeeper, said in an email.

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