###

As the Humboldt Bay Harbor District finalizes design plans for the Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal slated for the Samoa Peninsula, local officials are encouraging residents to weigh in on the proposed port development before environmental review kicks off later this summer. 

The Harbor District’s Community Advisory Committee hosted a public meeting at the Arcata Community Center on Wednesday night to give residents a chance to ask questions and share their concerns about the  project. The central theme of the evening: “This is the time to have a voice.”

“Now is the time,” said Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelson. “We keep saying it because we really do want to hear from each and every one of you. This is a project that will last in our community for decades to come, and we have to get it right.”

Why is it important to get engaged now? (Stay with me here, this is going to get a little acronym-heavy.) The Harbor District is preparing to recirculate the notice of preparation (NOP) for the heavy lift marine terminal project before the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) is released for public review next spring. Comments submitted through the NOP, which is the first step in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review process, will help district staff better understand the community’s top concerns about the project, and those concerns will be addressed in the DEIR. 

When the DEIR is released for a 45-day comment period next year, community members will have yet another opportunity to provide feedback, and the Harbor District will be required to respond to each comment. 

Once it’s fully built out, the heavy lift marine terminal would have the potential to produce and ship the gigantic components needed for floating offshore wind turbines — everything from the blades and nacelles (the protective housing that encases the generating components) to the towers, transmission cables and mooring lines. In fact, the Port of Humboldt Bay is the only port on the West Coast that has the capacity to host all three primary port needs of the offshore wind industry — staging/integration, onsite manufacturing/fabrication and operations/maintenance — though much of that work will also take place at the Port of Long Beach.

At the outset of Wednesday’s meeting, Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), urged meeting attendees to “take the potential for offshore wind seriously.”

Tom Wheeler

“As a community, we have the opportunity to shape this project,” he said. “The Humboldt Bay Heavy Lift Marine Terminal will be the most apparent and impactful to our local community, and will require a substantial redevelopment of Redwood Marine Terminal 1. This redevelopment will be impactful, no doubt. … I’m not here to pretend that there are not substantial concerns. These are daunting, and yet I am also hopeful that through active engagement with the community, we can develop a proposal that works for the oystermen and fishermen of the bay, the residents — both human and non-human — of Humboldt Bay, and the First Peoples of this area.”

Shane Phillips, a coastal engineer with Long Beach-based global infrastructure advisor Moffatt & Nichol, said his firm is one of 20-plus consultants working on the preliminary designs for the port development project, which will set the groundwork needed for the CEQA process and regulatory permitting. 

“For a project of this scale, you can imagine there’s a lot of different aspects, details, analysis that needs to be done, and so we’ve developed a pretty robust team here,” he said, noting that “at least seven” of the consultant firms have locally based staff. “That was very intentional. It helps bring together that good local knowledge and understanding of conditions here, but also leveraging in with such a specialized project that experience and knowledge from other locations around the country.”

Following the project overview, meeting attendees were encouraged to check out several displays around the room where Community Advisory Committee members and local experts were on hand to answer questions about the CEQA process, community benefits, design elements and environmental impacts.

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo, one of 40-plus people on the Harbor District’s Community Advisory Committee, was stationed at the “community concerns” station, where she fielded a wide range of questions, including concerns about the port project’s potential to exacerbate the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis and environmental impacts. 

“The concerns are running the gamut,” Arroyo told the Outpost. “There are concerns that the project won’t happen or that we’ll stymie it somehow, as well as concerns about specific aspects of the project and what kind of impacts that could have on Humboldt.”

“I’m just thrilled to see this much turnout,” she added. “It’s great that so many folks came out. I’ve heard a lot of speculation that this project isn’t moving forward, and I think one of the big points was to stay engaged. … I think it makes sense as a community to treat this as though it’s a real thing that requires people’s input.”

There were big sheets of paper set up on easels where attendees could write down questions and comments, which will eventually be transcribed and added to the Harbor District’s list of considerations for the NOP and DEIR. 

Attendees were also given stickers to rank their level of excitement and concern with certain aspects of the project, which, as seen below, tended to skew toward “extremely concerned.”

After about 45 minutes of wandering around the room, a seven-person panel assembled on stage to answer some of the community’s questions. In response to a question about potential impacts to birds and marine animals, Adam Wagschal, a senior planner with local engineering firm GHD, said the DEIR will address mitigation strategies.

“First, every attempt possible is made to avoid impacts,” he said. “If they can’t be avoided, then measures are identified to minimize impacts as much as possible. And when it can’t be minimized and there’s going to be a real impact, then there’s efforts to mitigate. … Biological compensatory mitigation is something that will be required by this project, and … to offset or mitigate those impacts, there will be habitat restoration [and] restoration of eel grass habitat in other parts of the bay. We’re working with landowners around the bay right now to develop projects that will restore salt marshes and other habitats to provide compensatory mitigation for this impact.”

Osprey are among the species that will be impacted by port development. “There are nests that will be displaced by the project,” Wagschal said. “Those nests will be replaced, I believe, at least with a one-to-one ratio right nearby, so they still have the same number of nests in the same general area again.”

Shelly Anghera, a principal scientist with Moffatt & Nichol, said the project will also be subject to permitting requirements from numerous regulatory agencies on top of what is required by CEQA.

“As an example, I know that there’s been concern about turbidity generated during dredging,” she said. “Part of the [EIR] analysis would be looking at, like, what is the potential for turbidity, how much, for how long and what are the impacts that that might have. … There’s also the permit that’s required from the Regional Water Quality Control Board that just says here’s the state requirement for total suspended solids, and during your construction operations, this is how you will monitor. If you are in exceedance of these specific criteria, then you need to stop your actions [and] implement a corrective measure to get it back into compliance.”

The panel also addressed questions about workforce development and job creation. Mikkelson said the Harbor District Board of Commissioners approved a project labor agreement in 2023 with the Humboldt-Del Norte County Building and Construction Trades Council that prioritizes local workers. 

“It gives preference to enrolled tribal members, it gives preference to high school graduates in this community [and] it gives preference to people who live on the Samoa Peninsula,” he said. “Those are key unique benefits to make sure we keep it here in our community, and we don’t just hire people from the outside.”

One of the last questions of the night asked who has the final say in whether the port development project — or any offshore wind-related projects — move forward. Mikkselson took the question, noting that the district’s board of commissioners will have the final say. Still, he encouraged people to speak out.

“If I haven’t said it enough, you have that say,” he said. “You just gotta get loud, you just gotta get rowdy, and you’ve gotta make your thoughts heard.”

Right on cue, someone in the audience got up to make her thoughts known. She identified herself as Melissa Star Meyers, a member of the Yurok Tribe and fervent opponent of offshore wind.

“It hurts my heart that we’re talking about our ocean like it’s a thing, like it’s an object or something,” Meyers said. “For my people who are from here … how I became a human was part of the ocean, part of the wind, and part of the land — that’s how I became a human. … I’m here right now to stick up for peeshkaahl, the ocean. … I do not give them permission to put these hideous — and I’m not sorry about it — hideous objects in my land and my water.”

Meyers sharply criticized the panel for downplaying environmental impacts to Humboldt Bay and the surrounding land. She also expressed concern about the MMIP crisis, as many other tribal members have, and asserted that the port development project would draw in violent out-of-towners.

“All those guys … they’re going to come to your bars, they’re going to take it over, they’re going to take your women [and] they’re going to rape us, pillage us and kill us like always when these industries come to town,” she said.

Arroyo, who was leading the panel discussion, asked if she could put some of Meyers’ concerns to the panelists. Meyers agreed, but continued to criticize the panel for failing to acknowledge that they were on native land.

Lonyx Landry

One of the panelists, Lonyx Landry, a STEM advisor at Cal Poly Humboldt and citizen of the Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation, asked Meyers how she wanted to deal with the threat of climate change.

“What is happening now is killing that beautiful thing you’re talking about,” he said. “What are you gonna do?”

“Lonyx, turn off your lights and ride a bike,” she said as she retreated back to the audience. 

After the exchange, Mikkelson thanked attendees for their “words of passion” and “personal testimony,” reiterating the importance of continued engagement.

“There is an incredible amount [of effort] that goes to this project and the commitment … to engage with each and every person,” he said. “Some of it we do in very public settings like this, and others we don’t do it in such a public setting. … There’s a large commitment to be all-inclusive, and we understand capacity in this community is limited. If your ability to engage is limited by capacity, reach out to me personally, reach out to our staff.”

“I’ll say it again, we’ve got to get this right,” he continued. “We can’t make the mistakes that we’ve made in the past, and I think we heard a little bit of those mistakes this evening.”

The rest of the panel shared closing remarks and, again, encouraged the community to stay engaged as environmental review moves forward.

The NOP will be recirculated for a 30-day public review period in August. If everything stays on track, the DEIR will be published next spring. Permit applications are scheduled to be submitted at that time as well.

Those interested in following the heavy lift marine terminal project a little more closely can tune into the Harbor District Board of Commissioners’ monthly meeting on the second Thursday of each month at 6 p.m. District staff present an update on the project at each meeting.

###