Reader-submitted photo.

Yesterday morning, Facebook lit up with the news that someone had blocked off an access point to the Eel River Bar under Fernbridge. The river bar, as we noted on Sunday, has long been a locus of illegal, quasi-illegal or outlaw fun in Humboldt County: teen parties, shooting, blowing things up, fish poaching, offroad 4x4ing, trash dumping.

With the erection of a concrete K-Wall at the main access point, on the southwest corner of Fernbridge, it was evident to many that someone was attempting to put a damper on that fun.

The alarm was sounded on the “Lost Coast 4x4s” page, whose post was widely shared and commented upon.

Fernbridge today.

Posted by Lost Coast 4x4’s on Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The question everyone asked the Outpost yesterday was: Who did this this? Who put up the wall? Why?

The answer, it turns out, is property owner Blake Alexandre, of Alexandre Family Farms — the much-lauded organic dairy and egg ranch based in Del Norte County, but with some land in the Eel River Valley. Reached this morning at his Crescent City ranch, Alexandre said putting up the wall across his land was pretty much a last resort, the only option he had available to address a worsening situation.

“It’s incredibly dangerous for my family, my cattle and our employees,” he said. “They’re shooting at our cattle. They’re shooting at us. They’re killing the trees. They’re tearing up the river bar. There’s just a whole lot of negative things. And it’s our land.”

Mainly, he said, he was concerned about the proliferation of people firing weapons erratically and/or irresponsibly down on the river. He said he had lost livestock to gunfire, and he worried that “[s]omeday we’re going to have a dead person instead of dead cows.”

In fact, there has been a great deal of official concern in the last few months about the rising concentration of chaotic activity at the River Bar. Last November, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors held a discussion about the project, and the board received a number of letters in favor of the county clamping down on the River Bar, particularly the shooting. In his letter, Alexandre went into greater detail about the problems he was facing on his land. “On any given day,” he wrote…

… one to 20 groups of sport enthusiasts can be found discharging their firearms into the river bar bank located on Alexandre Dairy’s property. These actions pose a substantial risk to employees, livestock and adjacent residents. On more than one occasion, Alexandre Dairy has lost livestock from stray bullets, has had equipment struck, and had employees running for cover as bullets have whizzed by their heads.

This trespassing has gotten to the point where the rock barriers and gates that have been place have been removed and torn out and new roads blazed in through our property just to access the river bar. As the aggregation of river bar sentiments continues to rise, it will not be long before there is no bank to shoot into, placing our livelihood at risk.

At the end of a long hearing on the subject — in which Alexandre, Sheriff Mike Downey and others spoke — the board voted 5-0 to have staff work with local residents to try to develop an “amicable solution” to the problems Alexandre and others described. (Video of the hearing is embedded in this post, below.) 

Though the river bar itself is public property, at least up to the high-water line, Alexandre’s family owns the stretches fronting the west bank of the river on both sides of the bridge. He said this morning that the wall isn’t intended as a cure-all to the problems that neighbors have had with shooters, four-wheelers and the like, at least it should stop vehicles from driving through there, and at least people will recognize that they are on private property, or are passing through and perhaps shooting into private property.

Alexandre said he’s been getting a lot of calls from neighbors and other ranchers thanking him for erecting the wall. And though he’s steadfast about his attempt to put some order to the place, he wished that it wouldn’t have become necessary.

“I’m not anti-public access,” he said. “I’m bothered that we had to go to such an extreme to make a point, here.”

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DOCUMENTS:

VIDEO: Nov. 3, 2015 Board of Supervisors hearing on the subject. Speakers included Blake Alexandre, firearms instructor Brad Smith, Aaron Ostrum of the PacOut Green Team and Sheriff Mike Downey.

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