Conceptual rendering of the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal | Photo: Harbor District

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The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Board of Commissioners will receive a status update on the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project during tonight’s regular meeting. Tonight’s report will largely focus on the project timeline and budget.

“Basically, we’re going to go over the entire project schedule,” Harbor District Executive Director Larry Oetker told the Outpost in a phone interview this afternoon. “That includes, you know, grant funding applications, when we think we’re going to have environmental documents ready for the public to review and when we plan to submit permit applications.”

The Harbor District has spent the last year working with Crowley Wind Services, a private marine and logistics company, to design a state-of-the-art marine terminal, to be located at the old pulp mill Redwood Marine Terminal 1 on the Samoa Peninsula, that would support offshore wind development up and down the West Coast. Once it’s fully built out, the facility will have the potential to produce and ship the gigantic components needed for floating offshore wind turbines, everything from the blades and nacelles (the generator house) to mooring lines, towers and transmission cables.

The project will be completed in several phases over the next decade. If everything goes according to plan, construction will begin in 2028.

Photo: Harbor District


Each phase of the project will rely heavily on grant funding. To date, the Harbor District has secured $60,000 from the Headwaters Fund, $576,191 from the State Lands Commission and $10.45 million from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to support the project.

The Harbor District has applied for numerous state and federal grants, including a $8,672,986 grant and a massive $426,719,810 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant, or “MEGA grant,” through the Maritime Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Port Infrastructure Development Program. 

“We’re expecting to hear back about the MEGA grant in February or March of next year,” Oetker said. 

The port development project has sparked controversy among some local stakeholders and tribal leaders who have asked the Harbor District to reconsider its partnership agreement with Crowley following allegations of sexual misconduct among some company higher-ups. Others, including the Humboldt Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, have questioned the legality of signing a lease agreement prior to environmental review.

When asked whether the Harbor District planned to execute a lease agreement by the end of the year as previously planned, Oetker said the district and Crowley had agreed to wait.

“The Harbor District and Crowley continue to work on the lease agreement and we’re committed to drafting a lease agreement but … we agree that there’s still a lot more work that has to be done to overcome the serious allegations that were presented by the community and just general issues of trust,” he said. “That can’t be resolved in just a meeting or two. We’ll prepare a draft lease agreement, but we’re likely not going to request that the board adopt or approve the agreement until Crowley has had time to do additional outreach and the Harbor District has had a chance to go through its process as well.”

The Board of Commissioners will not make any important decisions on the port development project during tonight’s meeting. The report is purely information.

“This is a big project and we’re going to have these updates every couple of months moving forward,” Oetker said. “This is going to be a long process.”

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The Harbor District Board of Commissioners will meet tonight at 6 p.m. in the Woodley Island Marina Meeting Room – 601 Startare Drive, Eureka. Remote viewing instructions and the agenda can be found here.

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