The one.

Avery Gallacci of Arcata passed away suddenly on the 27th of September at the age of 69. He attended St. Mary’s Elementary school and was a graduate of Arcata High school.

While going to high school he worked with his dad at Twin Parks Lumber Mill. Upon graduation, he went to work for Simpson Timber Company for 30 years until his retirement.

He is survived by his mom, Wilda Gallacci, his two sons, Patrick and Christopher Gallacci, his sister and her husband, Cathey and Joe Kneer, his brother, John Gallacci, and his two daughters, Isabella and Sophia Gallacci. In addition, he leaves behind many friends and family members, and his wonder dog Jimmy.

He was an intelligent individual and had a kind and generous nature. He danced to a different drummer & had an artistic flair that spurred many interesting projects. His off-beat humor could be infections and often times hilarious. He will be missed.

Catholic Mass will be held on Friday, October 10, at 10 a.m., St. Mary’s Church, 1690 Janes Road, Arcata.

Reception to follow at the Veterans Hall, 1425 J Street, Arcata.

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Beverly was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon on January 18, 1940 to her mother, Ruth Kirkman, and her father Horace Hazen, who served in the Navy. After a long fight with dementia, she passed on September 29, 2025. She was married for 67 years to her husband, Charles Dame.

Beverly was a teacher’s aide at McKinleyville Middle School for 28 years. She leaves behind her son, Charles Dame Junior, her daughter, Annette Dame, and granddaughter, Stacey Wilkinson, and great-grandson Daxton Pierce.

Thank you for always supporting me and loving me, Grandma. I miss you so much. Please tell Grandpa I miss him and I love him and I hope you guys find peace together. Rest in peace, Grandma.

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Crab fishing in California has never been so complicated. Recent seasons have been delayed, truncated and subject to mandatory gear reductions for a variety of reasons, including a spike in whale entanglements, unhealthy levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid, low meat quality (a measurement of meat yield percentage) and ever-increasing layers of bureaucracy. 

These complications were recently dubbed “the four horsemen of the crab apocalypse” by Dr. Craig Shuman, marine region manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). When he made the remark at a statewide fisheries forum led by Senate Leader Mike McGuire last week, he was likely half joking. After all, following a few years of lower prices the state’s crab fleet last year reached a record price for Dungeness of seven dollars per pound.

“We also had the highest number of active permits since the 2019-2020 season,” Shuman said during the forum.

Opening day was delayed in the northern zones of the state until January 15 due to meat quality issues and delayed in the rest of the state due to the presence of whales offshore. And when the fisheries did open it was under trap reductions in both zones. Still, by the time the season came to a close, California’s fleet had landed about eight and a half million pounds of crab worth close to $55 million, which is about average for the past 10 years.

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Nonetheless, crabbers both locally and statewide have never felt so hemmed in by restrictions.

“It’s very hard to express and get out to the public the complexity of the hurdles and the regulatory constraints that we’re now bound by,” Harrison Ibach, president of the Humboldt Fisherman’s Marketing Association, told the Outpost in a phone interview last week.

Many of those regulations are contained in RAMP, CDFW’s Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program, which took effect five years ago. Designed to reduce the frequency of whale entanglements, the program was developed in the wake of a large, multi-year marine heatwave that would become known as “The Blob.” 

The phenomenon, which was likely tied to human-caused climate change, had serious impacts on the marine ecosystem, causing toxic algae to multiply while altering whale migration patterns, among other effects. In 2016 there was a record number of whale entanglements in fishing gear off the West Coast, and while the rate declined for a few years, the frequency remains elevated, as shown in the chart below.

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A new blob arrived this year as sea surface temperatures across the North Pacific hit a record high. 

In partnership with California Ocean Protection Council and National Marine Fisheries Service, CDFW also established a Dungeness crab fishing gear working group, comprised of commercial and recreational fishermen, environmental organization representatives, and state and federal agencies. 

The working group was formed in 2015. Two years later, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity sued CDFW, arguing that the agency was moving too slowly to protect whales and thus in danger of violating the Endangered Species Act. 

Ryan Bartling, senior environmental scientist supervisor at CDFW, said the development of RAMP complied with the terms of a settlement agreement for that lawsuit, though he said the agency had already been working toward such a program with the goal of reducing whale entanglements. 

The program works, Bartling said, by giving the agency’s director “a suite of management options to choose from to try to draw down the number of entanglements that occur in any one year.”

Ibach sounded weary even talking about these regulatory mechanisms. 

“For every entanglement that takes place in our fishery, it’s a point,” he said, “and now we’re graded on a point system. If we have too many points in a calendar year, we can’t go fishing.”

Even if whales don’t get caught up in crab gear, the season can be canceled or delayed based on whale sightings. CDFW conducts regular surveys while fishermen also report sightings. 

Ibach voiced frustration at the array of regulations and restrictions that have resulted from whale entanglement while relatively less has been done to reduce vessel strikes, which are another source of whale mortality.

Lisa Damrosch, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen, likewise expressed annoyance at last week’s fisheries forum.

“The problem is we’re being held to an expectation of zero [entanglements],” she said. “That’s like saying you’re being held to an expectation of driving on the freeway and there’s never an accident — and if there is an accident, we’re going to stop driving. … And unfortunately for us, when there’s an accident, the commercial Dungeness crab fishery stops, but all the other ocean uses don’t. Ships don’t.”

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McGuire noted another factor negatively impacting the industry: namely, drastic cuts to fisheries funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) under the Trump administration. Partially driven by the Elon Musk-led Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the cuts, which could total more than $1 billion, target specific programs including the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.

“If I could be so candid, we would be in real trouble if we did not see Proposition 4 funding in the state of California,” McGuire said at the forum, referring to the $10 billion climate bond measure approved by voters last year. Governor Gavin Newsom has appropriated roughly $267 million in Prop 4 revenues for coastal resilience and another $256 million to protect and enhance fish and wildlife resources.

But Wade Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources secretary, said such spending is insufficient.

“As remarkable as the state investment has been … it’s not enough,” Crowfoot said during last week’s forum. “You know, the federal government simply can’t divest in our fisheries in order for our fisheries to recover — just can’t happen. … We haven’t seen [any] signs of support from this administration, really, in any respect.”

McGuire concurred, noting that state revenues intended to fuel expansion may instead have to be used to backfill the loss of federal dollars.

While fishermen may grumble about RAMP, Kate Kauer, fisheries strategy lead for The Nature Conservancy, defended the program as a science-based effort to reduce whale entanglement risk, though she noted that its success depends on accurate data about whale presence and abundance along the coast. 

Speaking at last week’s forum, she said her organization advocated for putting $17 million in Prop 4 revenues toward vessel-based whale surveys, lost gear recovery efforts and investment in new types of gear. Newsom wound up allocating $11 million to CDFW for climate-ready fisheries.

The Promise of Pop-Up Gear

Environmental advocates and a growing group of fishermen believe that a relatively new type of crab fishing gear can serve as an important tool for reducing whale entanglement.

Geoff Shester, California campaign director for the nonprofit group Oceana, told the Outpost in a recent phone interview that whale-safe “pop-up” crab traps — also known as “ropeless” or “on-demand” gear — have already proven successful through experimental CDFW fishing permits up and down the coastline, though mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Based on technology developed by the Department of Defense (recently renamed the Department of War) to hide mines, nuclear warheads and other expensive equipment on the ocean floor, pop-up crab traps are equipped with inflatable buoys that can be triggered to inflate remotely. Each of these traps can be lowered to the ocean floor and left there until a fisherman returns and sends an acoustic signal that triggers a release mechanism, inflating the flotation device and sending the crab pot back to the ocean surface.

“So there are no buoys at the surface or vertical lines anymore while the gear is fishing,” Shester said. “That that eliminates the risk of entangling the whales and sea turtles, which has been one of the major causes of fishery closures over the last last six or seven years.”

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These pop-up traps can also be tethered to a “ground line” with up to 50 traditional crab pots. Putting one pop-up on either end of such a line allows for all the pots to be retrieved at once.

“The goal is to restore the fishing opportunity that has been lost over the last few years, particularly in the springtime when the whales are returning — usually sometime around March or April,” Shester said.

This gear’s not cheap. One pop-up unit can cost $1,000-$1,500, according to Shester.

“It’s running about twenty to thirty thousand dollars [per vessel] to get the full setup out there,” he said. “What we’ve seen, though, is that that opportunity has has been well worth it.”

Most fishermen who tried this gear last season were able to make their initial investment back after just a couple of trips, Shester said.

“It does have some additional cost, but the the benefit in terms of the restored opportunity is more than compensating for that.”

When we talked to Ibach about pop-up gear, he was skeptical, referring to it as “a purple unicorn idea.” He said the technology is too expensive and unreliable to be implemented across the industry. He and other local fishermen worry that nonprofits will push to replace all traditional gear with pop-ups.

Bartling, the CDFW scientist, said that’s not the case. 

“We think there’s always going to be a core season with traditional gear,” he told the Outpost. 

Shester agreed, saying pop-up gear will simply offer crabbers a new tool.

“We’re hoping to eventually have multiple options out there so that fishermen can choose what works best for them and let the market decide what technology they want to use,” he said.

Under current state regulations, pop-up gear can only be approved after the traditional season has been closed. Any day now, though, the state is expected to release a new set of regulations under RAMP 2.0.

At last week’s fisheries forum, Shuman, CDFW’s marine region manager, said the new rules include updated thresholds for entanglement and whale sightings.

“For example, if we have three humpback whales entangled in one calendar year, that will automatically delay the start of that season the next year until January 1,” he said. There have already been three confirmed humpback entanglements in crab fishing gear this year, so if RAMP 2.0 had already been implemented, the season would automatically be delayed. 

Shuman said he expects CDFW will likely take a conservative approach, meaning this year’s opening could easily be delayed again.

“I think the one silver lining of that, if we were under those rules, is [that] the fleet would have the certainty that they’ve been looking for,” Shuman said.

Ibach agreed. In recent years, the local fleet stood by week after week, waiting on new information to roll in regarding domoic acid and meat quality, unsure whether CDFW would open the season in a matter of days, weeks or months.

“And so we were constantly on the edge of our seat all fall and early winter, waiting to hear,” Ibach said. With this year’s high entanglement score, there should be more certainty.

“We would like CDFW to just state whether or not we’re delayed so everyone has a chance to better understand when we’re actually going to get started so we can plan life, execute other fisheries, make holiday plans, whatever.”

Shester, meanwhile, is optimistic about the future. 

“It’s really exciting that through collaboration and getting these new technologies, fishermen are really leading the way towards innovation,” he said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have these new systems that are out there that have now moved past the testing phase [and] that are now ready for prime time.”

It may be a while yet before the local fleet agrees to adopt pop-up traps. Ibach said he doesn’t think they’ll work as well on our ocean floor given the amount of silt deposits we get from the Eel, Klamath and other waterways. Plus, local fishermen have always used traditional gear. 

Even when told that neither CDFW nor nonprofits are pushing to have pop-up gear be the new standard, Ibach said the local fleet hopes to maintain the traditional fishery for the foreseeable future. 

PREVIOUSLY:

• LOL! The Maps Have Been Leaked, So Check Out What Our New Congressional District Will Be if Texas Republicans and California Democrats Get Their Way

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You could say California’s Nov. 4 special election is just around the corner, or you could say it’s already here. Ballots are being mailed out to every voter in the state today, as we do since the pandemic, so some people will start casting their ballots this week.

To recap, quickly: A few years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it’s not unconstitutional for states to gerrymander their congressional districts for political purpose. That led, this year, to the state of Texas — under apparent pressure from the Trump Administration — to redraw its lines in the middle of the usual 10-year cycle, so as to deliver more Republicans to Congress than it otherwise would have done.

This, in turn, led to Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing that California should do the same in reverse — to gerrymander the state for maximum Democratic gains, to offset Texas’s move. Thus, Proposition 50 and the current special election were born. The California gerrymander would undo, temporarily, the lines drawn at the beginning of this decade by the independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission. If it passes, five Republicans in California’s Congressional caucus are projected to lose their seats, including Rep. Doug La Malfa to our east.

Proposition 50 proponents have raised nearly double the amount of money that its opponents have, and from far more sources. Calmatters currently estimates that nearly 1/3 of the $151 million dollars in the pro- camp’s war chest was raised from small donations, while opponents raised only $8,400 of its $77 million from such sources.

The most recent polling shows that the “Yes” side has a significant lead.

A couple of things to note:

1. Big change this year: If you’re going to mail in your ballot, you would be wise to do that before Election Day — not on the day of. New postal service practices mean that your ballot won’t be postmarked on Election Day, in such cases, but rather the day after, and therefore won’t count. If you white-knuckle it up to the deadline, you’ll want to instead drop your ballot off in one of the county’s drop box locations. (See press release from Attorney General Rob Bonta here.)

2. If you’re looking for more resources about this election, our friends at Calmatters have an ever-updating voting guide here.

If you’re curious about what Prop. 50 does to our Congressional district in particular — California’s Second District — check the map below. The areas that would be removed from our district are in red, and the areas that would be added to it are in blue. Feel free to zoom and pan around, if you like, and you can turn layers off and on with the buttons in the upper right.

It’s still considered a safe Democratic seat.

Press release from the Integral Ecology Research Center:

A new peer-reviewed study published in Science of the Total Environment sheds light on the persistent chemical contaminants left behind at illegal cannabis cultivation sites, also known as “trespass grows,” on California’s federally managed lands. The research, conducted by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in partnership with the Integral Ecology Research Center (IERC) and with support from the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations, provides the most comprehensive look to date at how pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other organic pollutants linger long after grow sites have been abandoned. (Link here.)

Key Findings

Researchers investigated former illegal cannabis cultivation sites in Six Rivers National Forest, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and San Bernardino National Forest. Even months to years after law enforcement shut down these operations, the study found:

• Pesticides such as imidacloprid, malathion, and myclobutanil in topsoil, with concentrations reaching significant levels.

• Cannabis-related compounds including THC and cannabidiol persisting in soils and water and bed sediments, suggesting contamination of surrounding ecosystems.

• Plasticizers, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products associated with the extensive irrigation and living infrastructure used and remaining at these sites.

The findings highlight that these sites leave a lasting chemical footprint, raising concerns about impacts on wildlife, water quality, and forest ecosystems from the thousands of sites that remain on California’s National Forest Lands.

A Collaborative Effort

This study underscores the power of partnership. USGS scientists and IERC, a Humboldt County-based non-profit conservation organization, worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Branch, whose on-the-ground efforts made sampling possible.

“By documenting these contaminants, we are taking the first step in understanding the long-term ecological risks posed by illegal cannabis cultivation,” said lead author Gabrielle Black of USGS.

Illegal cultivation sites not only degrade critical habitats but also threaten drinking water supplies, fisheries, and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Findings from this study will support future remediation efforts and policy decisions aimed at protecting California’s natural heritage.

“This research highlights the urgent need to address the legacy of trespass grows,” said Mourad Gabriel, Co-Director of IERC. “Together, we can better safeguard our public lands and the communities and species that depend on them.”

Press release from Calfire:

Prescribed Burn Redway Shaded Fuel Break RX

What: The final phase of the Redway Shaded Fuel Break (SFB) Project involves the implementation of a prescribed burn across approximately 84 acres.

When: The prescribed burn is planned between Wednesday, October 8th – 11th, 2025, weather dependent.

Where: Project area is located adjacent to the community of Redway, CA between Evergreen Road and Highway 101.

Why:

The Redway SFB Project encompasses 142 acres of land adjacent to the community of Redway. Fuel reduction work was conducted by contract crews utilizing a variety of methods, including mastication, hand tools, weed eaters, chainsaws, and wood chippers. Treatments included brush removal, understory thinning, and the felling of small, suppressed, and overcrowded trees. Remaining trees were pruned of lower limbs to remove “ladder fuels,” which are vegetative materials that allow wildfire to climb from surface fuels such as grass and brush into the tree canopy.

All removed material was either lopped and scattered or chipped into mulch to reduce fuel continuity. These treatments serve to break up dense vegetation, reduce fire hazard severity, and promote healthier forest conditions within the wildland-urban interface.

The final phase of the project is an 84-acre prescribed burn located in the northeast portion of the treatment area. This carefully planned burn will further reduce residual fuels, enhance the effectiveness of the shaded fuel break, and strengthen wildfire resilience for the surrounding community.

Who:

Redway SFB reduction project is a collaborative effort between CAL FIRE Humboldt – Del Norte Unit, Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council, and the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District. This project is a result of the ongoing efforts of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council to improve the resilience of Southern Humboldt communities to wildfire.During these prescribed fire operations, residents may see an increase in fire suppression resource traffic, smoke will be visible and traffic control may be in place. Please be cautious for your safety as well as those working on prescribed burns.

Learn more how you can prepare for wildfire by visiting: www.ReadyForWildfire.org.

For more information, please contact the CAL FIRE Humboldt – Del Norte Unit Public Information Officer line at: (707) 726-1285.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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The latest blow in a seemingly endless barrage of bad news for the California agencies tasked with fighting homelessness looms: President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to deeply cut federal funding for permanent housing.

The news has sent counties throughout California into a panic. The state is bracing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for permanent housing, which is the one thing experts agree on as the most effective way to solve homelessness.

Across the state, homeless service providers and local leaders are convening emergency meetings to figure out just how bad the cuts are going to be and what to do about them. Some are scrambling to move money around or even re-label their programs to save hard-won housing. Others have already started helping fewer people in anticipation of the cuts.

But they agree on one thing: If these cuts go through, thousands of California’s most vulnerable residents likely will be evicted from their subsidized housing, and may end up back on the street.

It would likely reverse recent progress made in fixing the state’s severe homelessness problem.

“I don’t know what they think is going to happen with all these people,” said Maryn Pitt, chair of the Stanislaus County Continuum of Care, which manages the county’s federal homelessness funds. “We’re just going to turn them out and they’ll just disappear? I have no idea, but it seems rather inhumane.”

Her county has 17 permanent housing projects funded with money at risk from federal cuts.

Already reeling from upcoming state cuts to homeless funding, California’s homelessness agencies have been bracing for federal cuts for months, without knowing exactly what to expect. Now, some of those cuts have come into sharper focus. The Trump administration intends to redirect a significant chunk of money away from permanent housing and into temporary housing — while also adding requirements for people to qualify for that temporary aid, according to reporting from Politico, which cited internal HUD documents and interviews with anonymous HUD employees.

If that happens, only 30% of federal homelessness funds would be available for permanent housing — down from the current rate of 87%. Nationwide, that means the money available for permanent housing will shrink from $3.3 billion down to about $1.1 billion, Politico reported.

That would be a major strategy shift. For years, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has prioritized permanent housing over temporary housing and shelter. Permanent housing is designed to end someone’s homelessness for good, while temporary housing and shelter is a Band-Aid solution: It gets people off the street, but only for a limited time.

“Losing that much permanent housing will have an impact for generations to come.”
— Gita O’Neill, interim CEO, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

When CalMatters asked the agency to comment on the reported funding cuts it responded with an automatically generated email: “The Radical Left has shut down the government. As a result, HUD’s Office of Public Affairs is operating in a limited capacity, which impacts our ability to promptly engage with the mainstream media.”

The federal government is expected to issue a “notice of funding opportunity” this fall for its continuum of care program, the country’s main source of federal homelessness funding, laying out how much money is available, what it can be used for and what rules apply. That’s where the feds are expected to give official notice of the permanent housing cuts.

Los Angeles County, which has the largest homeless population in California, has $217 million at stake. More than 80% of that goes toward keeping people in permanent housing, said Jessica Reed, associate director of continuum of care planning for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. If the projected cuts go through, more than 8,000 units of housing would be at risk, she said.

It would be “absolutely devastating,” Reed said.

People living in subsidized permanent housing tend to be among California’s most vulnerable, including those who have chronic disabilities and were homeless for years before moving indoors. Many live on meager disability benefits. If their housing subsidies dry up, there’s no way they’ll be able to pay their rent, Reed said.

Those renters also often have criminal records, poor credit and a history of evictions — making it almost impossible for them to compete for housing on the open market, even if they could afford rent, Pitt said.

Santa Cruz County’s latest continuum of care allocation was about $7.7 million — of which about 82% is for permanent housing, said Robert Ratner, director of Housing for Health for the county. About 290 people live in those units.

If the spending cap takes effect, Santa Cruz County likely would try to shift some state money to cover the housing no longer eligible for federal funds, Ratner said.

“We’re going to end up having to close most of these programs, because there’s not enough state money,” he said. “There’s no way the math works.”

To prepare, Santa Cruz County has already started winding down some services.

“We’re helping far fewer people,” Ratner said.

Typically, Santa Cruz County helps between 40 and 60 households move from homelessness into housing each month. If the permanent housing cuts take effect, Ratner expects that to eventually drop by as much as three-quarters.

To make matters worse, when awarding homelessness grants, the feds plan to deduct points for organizations that have used “racial preferences” or recognized transgender people, according to Politico. The Trump administration already has attempted to impose similar restrictions on other homelessness grants, prompting multiple lawsuits.

Ratner worries those new rules could mean Santa Cruz County isn’t eligible for any money.

Other counties are making similar dire predictions.

Santa Clara County estimates at least 1,000 households would be at risk of homelessness if the feds cap funding for permanent housing at 30%, said Kathryn Kaminski, director of the county’s Office of Supportive Housing.

Sacramento County, which dedicated about 86% of its $40 million in federal continuum of care funding to permanent housing in 2024, worries the cuts could displace residents, slow housing placements and force service providers to lay off staff.

The scariest part is that this funding change signals the federal administration is turning its back on the long-standing belief that permanent housing solves homelessness, said Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. And the feds are making that shift suddenly, giving service providers no time to wind down their programs.

“Which is going to be devastating across the country, no matter where you are,” O’Neill said. “Losing that much permanent housing will have an impact for generations to come.”