News

Caltrans is main barrier to billboard removal

MY WORD

12/3/13

The Coastal Commission’s Sept. 12 decision to give the go ahead for Caltrans’ 101 Safety Corridor Project requires removal of all billboards along the bay shore between Eureka and Arcata. Shortly after, CBS Outdoor — the company that owns these billboards — had its attorneys threaten legal action if billboard removal doesn’t come with a big payoff. Now Caltrans is trying to claim it will be too costly to remove the billboards (“Sticker shock,” Times-Standard, Nov. 23, Page A1). There’s more to the story than what Caltrans tells us.

Halvorsen Quarry hearing continued to December

10/3/13

The Board of Supervisors voted to continue a public hearing on appeals to the Halvorsen Quarry Reclamation Plan until Dec. 10.

  At Tuesday’s afternoon session, county counsel and planning commission staff told the board that at least two weeks would be needed to review recently submitted information from the North Coast Regional Water Control Board.

Stalemate continues on Marina Center

Coastal Commission still awaiting project info

9/29/13  

Nearly three years ago, Eureka voters took to the polls to overwhelmingly approve a zoning change for a huge mixed-use waterfront development after a campaign that touted the ballot measure with the slogan: “Marina Center now.” Years later, little progress is apparent, and it appears the project remains entrenched in a stalemate between the project developers and the California Coastal Commission. 

 In fact, things appear to be moving at such a snail’s pace that Humboldt Baykeeper recently dismissed its lawsuit against CUE VI, the developer and the city of Eureka. The suit challenged the city’s environmental impact report for the proposed development on the Balloon Track property, the sprawling site of a former rail yard that sits at the foot of the city’s downtown commercial district off Waterfront Drive. 

PINK STUFF INVESTIGATED! Science People Bring Back Microscopic Imagery of the King Salmon Pink Fuzz

5/23/13

It started, as you remember, with a Lost Coast Outpost reader sending along a photo of some pink gunk on the shore of a King Salmon canal and asking: What is this stuff?

Readers had their theories: Algae. Bacteria. Crabs. Krill. Nuclear waste.

And then the most amazing thing happened. Yesterday, during KHUM’s regular “Coastal Currents” program, Humboldt Baykeeper Executive Director told KHUM’s Mike Dronkers that she had put together a crack team to investigate the mystery. Last night she sent us amazing images from a digital microscope at an HSU lab, along with a precis of her team’s methodology.

Eureka will seek rail study grant; Atkins expresses concern about timing

 3/30/31  

The Eureka City Council on Friday approved a resolution to allow the city to apply for a $295,000 Caltrans grant that would go toward a rail feasibility study.  The council voted 4-1, with Councilwoman Linda Atkins dissenting, to go forward with the grant application. Atkins said the matter, which was approved in a special meeting announced Thursday, should have been given more public notice.