A view of Camoapa, Nicaragua. From Google Street View.
Camoapa, Nicaragua is a town of about 18,000. Its main industry is cows; it is surrounded by verdant fields and hills. Its similarities to Arcata made it a prime target to become its sister city in the ‘80s — their need for regular clean drinking water and healthcare supplies, which were affordable enough to pay for by mass fundraising, also helped.
In the years since, the main form of cultural exchange between Camoapa and Arcata has been the annual I Street Block party, which raises money for projects in Camoapa. Camoapans sometimes visit Arcata; a mayor, high school students, and nurses have all made the trip. The relationship is at a content equilibrium.
But there might be another sibling to add into the mix someday. Arcata’s City Council meetings have been inundated for over a year with people asking the council to consider becoming a sister city with Gaza in Palestine as a way to support those afflicted by the recently-paused war with Israel. Although the councilmembers have shown no interest in that idea, it got a few people thinking that it’d be worth it to have a framework for evaluating which cities might make another good sister city for Arcata if one’s proposed.
Some guidelines are currently in the works. They’re being developed by Wesley Christensen, a Cal Poly Humboldt political science student and intern for the city, along with city manager Merritt Perry. They might be presented to the city council next month, but there’s no firm plan on when that might happen.
Perry said in an interview with the Outpost that activists from the Redwood Peace and Justice Coalition had told him about Boulder, Colorado’s sister city partnership with Nablus, a city of 156,000 in Palestine. They’d asked him why Arcata hadn’t done something similar with Gaza, but what interested Perry was the robust organization created to make the relationship functional and worthwhile for both communities.
Perry said that the framework wasn’t set in stone, but a few of the things Arcata might want to consider when evaluating if they should take one on are things like electing a board that oversees the relationship or facilitating some face-to-face meetups. It also might be best if the city is similar in size to Arcata.
Arcata is still laying the foundations of policy for a sister city and isn’t looking for any specific counterpart abroad right now, but Perry mentioned somewhere in Oaxaca, Mexico might make a good candidate because of the many Oaxacan immigrants in Humboldt.
Perry said making sure both sides benefit from the exchange — whether it’s culturally or educationally — is also important, as is keeping Arcata from expending too much time and money into the project. Camoapa’s partnership with Arcata is built on fundraising and requires no monetary input from the city.
“Otherwise, we could say ‘Oh, we’re a sister city with Gaza City. Cool. We’re done. Let’s all congratulate each other,’ and then there’s nothing happening,” Perry said. “…We have plenty of problems to deal with at home, and our resources are scarce, like a lot of cities. So how do we balance out our needs at home, but then still keep our perspective on the world and other communities and create those connections?”
Christensen did not respond to requests for comment.
On October 21, 2025, the Eureka Police Department’s School Resource Officer (SRO) was made aware
of a potential stalking and online baiting incident involving female students at Eureka High School
(EHS) through the Snapchat social media platform.
Preliminary information indicates a male subject has been attempting to befriend young female
students online, with the apparent intent of meeting in person to engage in inappropriate and
potentially criminal behavior.
The Eureka Police Department, in partnership with Eureka City Schools, is actively investigating this
incident.
Parents and guardians are urged to remain vigilant and to monitor their children’s use of social media
and online communications. Unmonitored use of these platforms can expose youth to individuals
who may seek to exploit or harm them.
Anyone with information related to this investigation is encouraged to contact the Eureka Police
Department’s School Resource Officer or the Criminal Investigations Unit at (707) 441-4300.
Agricultural land in the fertile Eel River Valley gets irrigated during dry months via wells that draw from the alluvial aquifer. | File photo by Andrew Goff.
We somehow missed this decision when it was handed down late last month, but Humboldt County Superior Court Presiding Judge Kelly Neel ruled against local nonprofit Friends of the Eel River (FOER) in its lawsuit concerning the county’s management of groundwater extraction in the Eel River Valley.
The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, argued that Humboldt County was falling short of its responsibility to protect public trust resources in the Eel by failing to consider the adverse effects of groundwater pumping, particularly during the late summer and early fall.
FOER’s suit pointed to instances of extremely low flows and the resulting inhospitable environmental conditions for migrating salmon, conditions such as anemic flow, warm temperatures, algal accretion and low dissolved oxygen. Citing the public trust doctrine, a common law principle that dates to ancient Rome, the suit asked the court to require Humboldt County to create a program to regulate groundwater pumping.
But Judge Neel instead found that the county is already considering public trust resources on the Eel through both its Groundwater Sustainability Plan and its well permitting process. FOER may not like way the county is exercising its discretion, Neel’s decision says, but “Petitioners cannot seek declaratory relief to use the Court to tell Respondents how to do their job.”
The county has to consider many factors when weighing public trust resources on the Eel, factors such as navigation, commerce, fishing, the right to
hunt, bathe, or swim, scientific study, open space availability, animal habitat, natural beauty,
agricultural need, and human consumption. “Balancing these factors and selecting a course of
action is the essence of discretion,” Neel’s ruling says.
Because the county is exercising that discretion, she found, FOER is not entitled to a writ of mandamus, a type of court order that’s typically considered a last resort when no other remedy is available.
In a prepared statement sent to the Outpost, FOER said Neel’s decision “appears to misinterpret the nature of the public trust doctrine and FOER’s argument.”
The nonprofit’s lawsuit pointed out that the county has only analyzed the impacts of groundwater use on Chinook when flows in the Eel are above 130 cubic feet per second (cfs) and argued that the public trust doctrine requires the county to analyze such impacts throughout each season.
“The fact remains that groundwater pumping in the Lower Eel depletes surface flows by as much as 15 cubic feet per second (cfs), and that during dry summers, flows in the Lower Eel often dip as low as 50cfs,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, irrigators in the Lower Eel will remain some of the only water users in the entire County who are not required to do their part and reduce water use during dry times.”
The statement adds, “We are disappointed by the ruling and considering our options.”
Hank Seemann, the county’s deputy director of environmental services, also didn’t learn about Neel’s decision until last week. County staff had declined to comment on the case while it was still in court, but on Thursday Seemann described the suit as “misdirected and also wasteful.” He said the case was based on “a pretty extraordinary claim,” and it diverted “enormous amounts of money and staff time” away from other important projects.
Map of the Eel River Groundwater Basin. | Image via County of Humboldt.
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With help from a $2 million state grant, the county spent years developing its Eel River Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan, as required by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014.
“We did a lot of technical work and data collection and stakeholder engagement and computer modeling to try to understand the dynamics of how groundwater is used and how it affects different things like seawater intrusion, but also the interconnected flows and streams,” Seemann said in a phone interview yesterday.
The county conducts ongoing monitoring per the terms of that plan, an updated version of which will be coming in about a year and a half, according to Seemann.
Meanwhile, the county is also required to weigh potential impacts to public trust resources whenever it considers issuing a new permit for groundwater extraction.
The claim Seemann found extraordinary was that under the public trust doctrine, a judge needed to order the county to develop a program to regulate all existing wells, or at least wells that would were negatively impacting public trust resources on the Eel.
“The judge concluded that the county has discretion to implement the public trust doctrine, and she saw that the administrative record indicated that, yes, the county had done that … ,” Seemann said. “The judge determined that their legal basis didn’t hold water.”
He lamented that FOER chose an “adversarial approach” because the courtroom setting didn’t allow other stakeholders to weigh in and because such legal proceedings aren’t conducive to thoughtful consideration of complicated scientific information like hydrologic computer modeling results.
Seemann estimated that the suit cost the county a couple hundred thousand dollars and postponed work on projects including restoration work on Ryan Creek, a sand-bearing stream that flows through the McKay Community forest and empties into Humboldt Bay.
“It might be a very beneficial project, and it’s ready to move the next phase, but we had to put it on hold,” Seemann said. “We just had to divert time to this case. So I think that was really unfortunate.”
FOER is disappointed, too, albeit for different reasons.
“While cannabis cultivators, domestic users, and appropriative water rights holders are subject to curtailments when flows are low (and much stronger regulations in the case of cannabis cultivators), those taking surface flows via groundwater can pump as they like regardless of the impact … ,” the group’s statement says. “The question remains why the County did not analyze impacts of groundwater extraction continuously throughout each season, as is required by the public trust doctrine.”
Seemann said the county did the county’s computer modeling was based on the best available data and scientific information and that staff “applied it the best we could” given the limitations and uncertainties of such models.
He also noted that there are “some exciting innovations going on” in irrigation management, citing Vevoda Dairy’s use of soil moisture sensors and saying such technology will help reduce groundwater extraction.
Seemann maintained that FOER’s attorney didn’t provide compelling and overwhelming evidence that existing wells are causing harm to public trust resources at such a magnitude that the county must intervene.
Judge Neel agreed. You can read her full decision below.
No fishing for these little guys! | Photo: Kevin Cole, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia.
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Press release from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife:
The recreational Dungeness crab season will open beginning Nov. 1, 2025, except in northern California where it has been delayed due to a public health hazard.
State health agencies determined that Dungeness crab in northern California have unhealthy levels of domoic acid and recommended delaying the opening of the recreational fishery in state waters from the California/Oregon border (42° 0.00’ N latitude) south to the Sonoma/Mendocino County line (38° 46.125’ N latitude). Following this recommendation, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director Charlton H. Bonham has delayed the opening of the recreational Dungeness crab fishery in northern California.
Recreational take and/or possession of Dungeness crab is prohibited in these closed waters.
Image: CDFW
In the area between the Sonoma/Mendocino County line and Point Reyes (37° 59.73’ N latitude), state health agencies are advising the public not to consume crab viscera (guts) to avoid potential domoic acid exposure. In addition, the use of crab traps will be temporarily restricted between the Sonoma/Mendocino County line and Lopez Point, Monterey County (36° N latitude, Fishing Zones 3 and 4) when the season opens due to the presence of humpback whales and potential for entanglement from recreational crab traps. A Fleet Advisory has also been issued for all Fishing Zones for the recreational fishery and crabbers should avoid setting any gear in areas where whales are present. Also, all hoop nets must be serviced every two hours and cannot be left unattended for longer periods.
Recreational take of Dungeness crab by other methods, including hoop nets and crab snares, is not affected by the temporary trap restriction in these areas. Crab traps cannot be used south of Point Arguello.
The commercial Dungeness crab fishery will be delayed in all Fishing Zones due to numerous reported entanglements this year, high abundance of humpback whales, and presence of leatherback sea turtles. This delay will allow whales and sea turtles to migrate out of California waters prior to the opening of the commercial fishery. This delay was broadly supported by the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Association (PCFFA).
“Another year of a delayed commercial Dungeness crab season is incredibly difficult for our fleet and port communities. However, given the current risk assessment process, the commercial fleet supported this outcome as the most practical path forward,” said Lisa Damrosch, PCFFA Executive Director. “We appreciate CDFW and Director Bonham listening to input from the Dungeness Crab Gear Working Group and providing the needed clarity for planning. Although none of this is easy, we thank CDFW for their responsiveness, which reflects the cooperation that will be essential to meeting the challenges ahead for this fishery and our fleet.”
“CDFW remains steadfast in our commitment to working collaboratively with all sectors to protect whale and turtles from entanglements in fishing gear,” said CDFW Director Bonham. “Partnerships and collaborations are more important than ever as we work together to protect endangered whales and turtles and our fishing communities in the face of increasing disruptions from our changing climate.”
CDFW anticipates the next risk assessment will take place in mid-December to inform a possible opening of the commercial fishery around the New Year. During the mid-December Risk Assessment, the CDFW Director will evaluate all available data, including a recommendation from the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group to determine whether the commercial fishery can open and recreational trap restrictions can be lifted.
The delay of the northern recreational fishery shall remain in effect until the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, in consultation with the State Public Health Officer of California Department of Public Health (CDPH), determines that domoic acid no longer poses a significant risk to public health. Domoic acid is a potent neurotoxin produced by Pseudo-nitzschia, a naturally occurring single-celled, marine alga under certain ocean conditions. Domoic acid can accumulate in shellfish, other invertebrates and sometimes fish without the organism becoming ill themselves. At low levels, domoic acid exposure can cause nausea, diarrhea and dizziness in humans. At higher levels, it can cause persistent short-term memory loss, seizures and can in some cases be fatal.
For the latest information on domoic acid, health advisories and season closures please see the following:
On October 23, 2025 at approximately 8:50 a.m., a Eureka Police Department (EPD) Community
Service Officer (CSO) was dispatched to the Bayshore Mall, 3300 Broadway, for a report of a
burglary that occurred during the night while the businesses were closed. During the investigation,
a total of three businesses were found to have had items stolen from them totaling approximately
$6,000.00 The CSO collected video evidence from the business of the suspect. Additionally, a
Facebook post was made by a victim business showing the images taken from the video
surveillance. An officer from the Fortuna Police Department recognized the suspect from
a prior police contact and notified EPD of the suspect’s identity.
The CSO, along with EPD’s Forensic Evidence Analyst, obtained additional surveillance video
showing the suspect getting on a Humboldt Transit Bus outside the mall that was destined
for Fortuna.
In reviewing all the video evidence against known video from a previous EPD contact with the
suspect, EPD was able to confirm the suspect’s identity as Israel Lopez, 24 years old, from Santa
Rosa. Later in the day, Lopez was located in Fortuna and arrested for Burglary. Lopez was
transported to EPD, processed and booked at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility.
The Eureka Police Department would like to thank Fortuna Police Department for their
assistance with this investigation.
McKinleyville Middle School (above) is one of three schools in the McKinleyville Union School District, along with Dow’s Prairie and Morris Elementary. | Image via MUSD.
McKinleyville Union School District has sued the U.S. Department of Education for allegedly discontinuing the district’s federal mental health grant illegally, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
In April, the Department of Education notified McKinleyville Union and 48 other grant recipients that it would cancel roughly $168 million in remaining funds for mental health services to students in California. The lawsuit is the first on behalf of a single school district in California, as the state’s case against the Trump administration remains in limbo. Without the funding, California schools are set to lose hundreds of counselors, social workers and mental health support staff on Dec. 31.
“McKinleyville relied on its grant to hire additional mental health providers and offer critically needed mental health supports to its students,” said Amanda Mangaser Savage, an attorney at Public Counsel, the nonprofit law firm representing the district, which is seeking reinstatement of the five-year grant. “The administration’s unilateral and arbitrary actions make plain its indifference to the lasting harms its decisions are inflicting on high poverty, rural communities, including here in the state of California.”
In Humboldt County, about 58% of youth have experienced traumatic events like abuse or homelessness, and by high school, more than one in five have considered suicide, according to Savage. The county has a high population of Native American students, who also have the highest rate of suicide among any other demographic, and reports one of the worst rates of child poverty in the state.
Savage said the Trump administration sent McKinleyville Union the same “boilerplate letter” as it had to other school districts, stating that the district had violated their standard of “merit, fairness and excellence in education” and failed to comply with the “priorities and policy preferences” of the Trump administration. After the cancellation, McKinleyville Union is set to lose nearly $6 million from a school-based mental health grant that had been set for the next four years.
“We did everything that the federal government asked of us, and now our funding’s gone,” said Julie Giannini-Previde, superintendent of McKinleyville Union School District. “For many of our kids, the place they go for all of their services — for safety, for food, for mental health support — is the school. And, losing this level of support for our kids could literally be a case of life or death for some of our students.”
Before receiving the grant, McKinleyville Union had only one school counselor for 850 students in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade on three campuses, according to the lawsuit. Giannini-Previde said the district was able to hire five more school counselors to provide screenings, counseling and crisis intervention to students who experience high poverty, lack health care access and can’t make the six-hour drive to the nearest metropolitan area for support.
Angela Sundberg, social services director for Trinidad Rancheria, a public program serving Native families in the child welfare system in Humboldt County, said the loss in funding will place a bigger burden on their “already burdened” staff of two therapists. Sundberg said the county’s behavioral health system has at least a two-month waitlist for children in need of immediate care, and even when they receive it, they’re not guaranteed to find a provider who can connect with them.
“The in-school opportunity to be able to have our kids be seen is, literally, the way that our kids are able to access mental health,” said Sundberg. Native American students are “experiencing the trauma of neglect and abuse and addiction leading back to the (government) boarding schools. McKinleyville understands where our Native population comes from.”
Sundberg said Trinidad Rancheria does not have the capacity to absorb the need for mental health support at McKinleyville Union, especially since Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ cut their own funding for the next year.
In September, Trump officials announced a pared-down version of the school-based mental health grant program, requiring districts to reapply and excluding funds for school social workers and counselors. But under the Trump administration’s new criteria, McKinleyville Union School District had too few students to even qualify for the application, said Giannini-Previde.
“What’s going to happen is that our students just simply won’t have access to these mental health supports at school,” said Giannini-Previde. “They may or may not get in to see anybody in a crisis situation, and more importantly, even if they do get access to service, it’s not going to be somebody they know and trust, who they see every single day while they’re at school.”
In 2019, a student died by suicide on McKinleyville High School’s campus. Since then, McKinleyville Union has relied solely on the federal grant to prevent another tragedy in the community, said Giannini-Previde. With more support, teachers can now recognize and refer students in crisis, counselors can immediately and effectively intervene, and students can return to class better able to learn, she said. If the grant is not reinstated, students may have nowhere else to go.
“There’s no plan B,” said Giannini-Previde. “We don’t have the funding to provide this level of support without this grant.”
Humboldt County’s energy infrastructure needs an upgrade.
A new report from the Schatz Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt takes a deep dive into the history of the county’s “aging and fragile” energy system and examines why the local system is “among the least reliable in the state.” The report also explores potential pathways to modernization, including significant investments in the renewable energy sector.
Timber production in Humboldt County from 1860 to 2023. | Graph: Schatz Energy Research Center.
Most of Humboldt County’s electrical and natural gas infrastructure was built in the two decades following World War II to support the rapidly expanding timber industry. While some improvements have been made in the decades following the post-war buildout, most investments have focused primarily on “maintaining the capacity and architecture of the existing system, hardening some system components, and – in the case of the nuclear unit of the Humboldt Bay power plant – decommissioning,” the report states.
“The system was designed mainly to serve the needs of a booming timber industry,” the study’s author, Arne Jacobson, told the Outpost in a recent interview. “Following that boom period, there have been investments in maintaining the system, but there really haven’t been any significant investments in expanding the system. A lot of the equipment we’re still relying on is old.”
Some components have been replaced or upgraded, but the overall structure of the local energy system hasn’t changed in sixty-plus years, Jacobson said, adding that it is unlikely to change without a major investment from an external source.
“New infrastructure takes time to build, so you want to make those investments before the crisis point,” he said. “You need to get things going early, so the five to ten years it takes to complete the project doesn’t happen after the issue comes up.”
The floating offshore wind project slated for the Humboldt coast presents a “once in a generation” opportunity to attract the funding needed to upgrade and expand local energy infrastructure, Jacobson said. However, the project’s future has become increasingly uncertain following federal funding cuts and repeated attempts by President Donald Trump to ban offshore wind development in the United States.
Last year, CAISO, the entity that manages the flow of electricity on high-voltage powerlines and oversees infrastructure planning across the state, approved a plan to build the transmission infrastructure needed to support a large-scale offshore wind project. The plan includes major upgrades to the current system, as well as the construction of three new transmission lines that would extend from the “New Humboldt Substation” to the Fern Road Substation in Shasta County and the Collinsville Substation in Solano County.
A schematic of the New Humboldt to Fern Road 500-kV line project. | Image: CAISO
Earlier this year, CAISO selected Viridon, a Chicago-based electric utilities company, to finance, construct, own and operate the new transmission system. The project comes with a staggering $4.5 billion price tag, according to CAISO’s 2023-24 Transmission Plan.
However, if the offshore wind project doesn’t move forward, it seems unlikely that the new transmission system would be built.
“It is precarious … but it’s still on the table,” Jacobson said. “There are a lot of steps before it would be built, and it is possible that the state — if things head in a direction where it’s very clear that offshore wind is not happening [and] there’s not another reason to have to invest in building that infrastructure — would cancel it. That is a real possibility, but there’s been no indication from the state that that’s their plan. I’m sure they’re trying to read the tea leaves along with everyone else.”
If the project moves ahead as planned, the cost of electricity will almost certainly go up, but probably only by a few bucks a year, Jacobson said.
“This is an investment that was approved by the State of California, and therefore the cost is covered by all of the rate payers of California,” he said. “Humboldt County makes up about a quarter of one percent of the electricity demand in California. … One way of thinking about this, from a Humboldt perspective, is that the rest of the state is going to pay for infrastructure to support activity in this region. We’re going to pay our share, but our share is a really tiny fraction of that overall cost.”
“Over a typical transmission lifetime, which is about 50 years, [the cost for ratepayers] comes out to a few dollars per year,” he added. “Not a few dollars per month, but a few dollars per year.”
