Fighting ecoterrorists.

Over on KINS’s essential-listening “Talk Shop” program today, host Brian “Bri” Papstein invited Eureka Police Chief Andy Mills into the studio for a little bit of the ol’ jaw-jabberin’ for half an hour or so. Many topics were discussed — the Eureka Police Chief’s new leadership plan, sexting, heroin v. crack, Malcolm Gladwell, crime analysis, self-help crime prevention tips and so much more.

But Outpost ears pricked up at about 9 and a half minutes in, when Bri steered Mills — a relative newcomer to our shores — around to the topic of “ecoterrorism,” which our host seems to have thought about quite a lot throughout his very Humboldt County life. Here’s an excerpt.

BRI: Before you came visiting, we used to have an awful lot of environmental-related stuff. Terrorism.

MILLS: Yeah. Ecoterrorism.

BRI: Yeah. Is that something that’s even monitored anymore?  Do you guys have anybody looking for that? Earth First! — we really haven’t heard an awful lot. I don’t know if there’s anybody out in the tree forts, in the trees, anymore. Some of those things that you see — the copper spiking [sic] — all that kind of stuff that was kind of the hallmarks of 20 or 25 years in our area. Has that dissipated?

Do you guys remember that? The wave of ecoterrorism that gripped the county 25 years ago? Do you remember all those ecoterrorist attacks that targeted good Humboldt County citizens and businesses during the timber wars? 

I confess that I do not recall a single one. But, hey — if you remember the ‘90s, you weren’t really there, amirite?

A few minutes later, Mills confirms that my memory is faulty and ecoterrorism has long been a yuge threat to life and property in Eureka, though maybe not so much anymore.

MILLS: Up here, ecoterrorism I think should always be a threat domain. Because we’ve had that. Now, with logging dwindling off and fishing not doing as well as it has in the past, maybe it’s lessened. But it’s still something certainly we should monitor and think about. And I don’t want to go into specifics, but we do consider all that.

There was ecoterrorism targeting fishermen? You guys are blowing my mind.

It’s a quiet Labor Day afternoon — kind of a bullshit holiday, as Papstein reminds us elsewhere in the episode — and so it’s as good an occasion as any to refight Redwood Summer, according to KINS and me.

Let’s use the comments, below, to remember and excoriate those many terrorist attacks conducted by environmentalists in Humboldt County and the City of Eureka specifically. More importantly, let us honor the victims. Never forget.