###

Eureka’s controversial homeless encampment ordinance is dead. 

Following three-and-a-half hours of public comment at another marathon Eureka City Council meeting, the council voted 3-2, with Councilmembers Scott Bauer and Kati Moulton dissenting, to deny an ordinance that would have increased penalties for some people living in unauthorized homeless encampments, and upgraded certain crimes from infractions to misdemeanors. 

The now-discarded ordinance — linked here — was a streamlined version of two existing city policies that restrict unlawful camping, sitting, lying and loitering in public spaces. The proposal sought to redirect offenders to community-based rehabilitative services, rather than jail, through the city’s Law Enforcement Alternative Diversion (LEAD) program. Penalties could have resulted in one year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000. 

In the months since it was first presented to the council, the ordinance has drawn sharp criticism from homeless advocates and allies who argued that the “police-centered” ordinance would cause undue harm to unhoused community members and create additional barriers to housing and supportive services. Supporters of the ordinance hoped it would have the opposite effect by steering people struggling with substance abuse off the street and into treatment.

A little bit of background: The city council took its first look at the consolidated ordinance during a grueling seven-and-a-half-hour meeting on March 18 that included hours of impassioned public testimony. At that meeting, the council directed staff to form a working group with local stakeholders and people with lived experience, incorporate their feedback into the ordinance and bring it back for discussion sometime in the near future. 

The modified ordinance was brought back sooner than expected at the urging of Bauer, who, at the council’s April 15 meeting,  expressed concern that the council would continue to “kick the can … down a long and apparently endless road.”

Ahead of last night’s meeting, a large crowd gathered at Eureka City Hall to protest the ordinance, wielding signs that called for “TRUST NOT TICKETS” and “HOUSING NOT HANDCUFFS,” among others. The crowd was greeted by several police officers as people filtered into City Hall and ascended the stairs to council chambers on the second floor, where several other police officers were chatting. Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Tim Citro helped folks find seating and directed people to the overflow viewing room when all the seats were taken.

Speaking via Zoom, Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery presented the changes to the draft ordinance, which clarify certain aspects of the LEAD program. The modified ordinance includes additional reporting requirements and notes that the LEAD program would be administered by mental health and social work professionals, not law enforcement.

“The LEAD program is limited to 10 active participants and 10 individuals on the waitlist at any given time,” Slattery explained. “When capacity is reached, LEAD staff will communicate with EPD staff, sergeant, or their designee to temporarily suspend referrals and enforcement of this ordinance except in outstanding or exigent circumstances. … The goal of LEAD is to intervene before involvement with any judicial system, whether it’s an attorney, a judge or a courtroom.”

Slattery emphasized that the ordinance would target problematic individuals, not everyone living in encampments. “[This is] a tool to address those community members — a very small population of community members [who] are not accepting those services — and to help them to realize that what they’re doing is not good for themselves or the community.”

“According to who?” someone shouted from the audience, prompting Mayor Kim Bergel to ask attendees to be respectful and wait for their opportunity to speak. Several times throughout the meeting, the audience drowned out city officials in mid-sentence with boos and jeers, laughing when Slattery underscored the importance of taking a compassionate approach to addressing homelessness.

Slattery provided an overview of city-led programs and services, adding that the city has helped rehouse 230 people in the last five years. The city recently opened the Crowley Site, a long-awaited transitional housing project on Hilfiker Lane, that will supply 33 modular housing units with shared restrooms, kitchens and laundry facilities to people living in encampments in the greenbelt along the Hikshari’ Trail. 

“We have the property manager on-site, and we’re starting to enroll tenants in there five at a time,” Slattery said. “We’ll continue to enroll until we’re at capacity. As we’ve discussed previously, we’ve been establishing a waiting list for folks along that trail segment who are on that waiting list, and they’ll start being enrolled into the program.” 

The city is also working with Betty Chinn to relocate Betty’s Blue Angel Village from its current location on Washington Street to a larger property to facilitate another 40 units, doubling capacity.

“The Betty Kwan Chinn Foundation is receiving a donation to replace the containers that are there on site,” Slattery said. “Relocating those to another location would allow for 40 more of the housing first principle, very low-barrier space for individuals.”

At the end of his presentation, Slattery shared two accounts of anonymous individuals with particularly pervasive encampments and a history of violent behavior who he believed could have benefited from the LEAD program. He also read letters submitted by Chinn and Bryan Hall, director of the Eureka Rescue Mission, both of whom expressed support for the ordinance.

“We needed to help [the unhoused community], work with them and support them in getting a better quality of life,” Chinn’s letter stated. “I really trust this proposal and believe that it is needed now. When I need help, when I need someone, when I need a professional to show up, the CARE team shows up; that’s what I need. … I really hope that people support this.”

In his letter, Hall recounts his own experience with recovery, noting that his arrest was “the best thing that ever happened” to him.

“I want to be clear, I’m not in support of punishing anyone who is struggling,” Hall wrote. “Many of the people who are living on the streets outside our facility are unwilling to come inside. It’s not because there’s no room, it’s because we have standards. … While this may seem like a hard line to some, it is one we hold because we believe in healing, not enabling. We believe that recovery starts with accountability.”

‘I’m not comfortable with it being so vague.’

Turning to questions from the council, Councilmember G. Mario Fernandez asked a series of questions about existing programs and future plans to increase shelter space and access to services in Eureka. Responding to a question about the ratio of outreach workers to unhoused people, Slattery said the city’s Uplift team has two full-time homeless outreach workers and four part-time workers, which drew laughter from the crowd. 

“There are other workers that are out there doing this,” Slattery continued. “We guesstimate that about 80 percent of the population that is unsheltered participate in the dining facility program, so a good portion of their time is concentrated there, as well as out in the field and where they’re at. There is a Point-in-Time count … that guesstimates that there are 600 unsheltered individuals [in Eureka]. I can assure you that there’s not 600 unsheltered individuals. We do surveys every two years with an actual meet and greet, face to face with those under sheltered individuals, and they’ve ranged anywhere between 180 and a little over 220.”

“That’s because they’re hiding,” someone shouted from the audience.

During a particularly testy exchange, Fernandez asked Slattery to explain how the city’s public spaces are unsafe and how the community would benefit from the ordinance. Slattery pointed to the anonymous account of John Doe that he had shared “clearly demonstrates that the amount of assaults going on down there is unsafe.” Fernandez pushed back, asking why John Doe wasn’t arrested. 

“Because there weren’t people, as I stated in the memo, who were willing to file charges. When these things happen and somebody’s hit with a metal bar and somebody’s arm gets broken, that person whose arm got broken wasn’t willing to press charges,” Slattery said, adding that one of the local volunteer trail steward groups no longer provides clean-up services out of safety concerns. “Whether it’s a perception or reality … or whether it’s just uncleanliness, they don’t feel safe.”

Fernandez noted there are “other public nuisance laws in place regarding smell, taste, etc,” and asked why, if the pervasive issue is violence, the ordinance is focused on homeless encampments rather than enforcement and reporting. “How does camping get rid of John Doe?”

“Because we can remove him … from the area where he’s causing the problem,” Slattery said, emphasizing again that many of the people living in the encampment near St. Vincent de Paul’s dining facility are reluctant to report violence to the police. “The idea would be, look, dude, you can’t be here anymore, and we’re going to arrest you under this [ordinance] — and not for violence, because nobody’s going to file charges against you — and remove him from the area that he’s causing that problem.”

Councilmember Renee Contreras-DeLoach sought clarity on what qualifies as “outstanding or exigent circumstances” in which someone would be admitted to the LEAD program when it’s at capacity. EPD Chief Brian Stephens said “exigent circumstances” referred to “anything that threatens public safety” and requires an immediate response from law enforcement.

“It can be an issue on the trail where we have an encampment that is creating a safety issue, where we get complaints that people are being threatened, or something that doesn’t quite fit or fall into probable cause for a crime but it’s unsafe for folks to use the trail,” Stephens continued. “That’s something we need to address immediately because of the number of complaints we’re getting. We can use [the ordinance] at that point, based on the discretion of the sergeant, to resolve that public safety issue.”

Contreras-DeLoach said she could understand the spirit of his sentiment, but felt the ordinance should include clearer language. 

“In order to enforce something, it has to [have] clarity, and it doesn’t seem that there is a real fine point on what’s going to be considered,” she said. “It’s going to be something that is interpreted there in the moment of what they consider it, and I’m not comfortable with it being so vague.”

Chief Stephens attempted to explain further, noting differences between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. While the letter of the law may state that it is illegal to jaywalk and anyone who does so is subject to a ticket, police officers rarely do so, and most often let people off with a warning, he said. 

Contreras-DeLoach also asked how the ordinance and LEAD Program would benefit people. Chief Stephens emphasized that the hope is to get people into assistance programs and “where we want them to be, and that’s not in jail.”

“It’s not that the charge goes forward and they’re automatically going to either face the fine or jail time,” he continued. “There are other options through probation … it just comes from a different avenue, which we have no control over. That’s the issue with sending [these cases] to the district attorney’s office versus dealing with it in-house is we lose that control over those resources when it goes to the district attorney’s office.”

At one point in the discussion, Councilmember Leslie Castellano said she was stuck on “the idea that we are creating or reestablishing a misdemeanor in order to address a problem in the DA’s office with prosecuting other existing crimes,” and asked if the city was working with the county on solutions.

Slattery emphasized again that the “main impetus” behind the ordinance was to give staff a tool to deal with problematic encampments and violent individuals. 

Jacob Rosen, the city’s managing mental health clinician, added that the LEAD program is meant to prevent someone from being referred to the DA’s in the first place. 

“By implementing the pre-bookings diversion or pre-arrest diversion, we’re able to bypass that whole system,” he said. “A positive impact of that is that it would relieve some of the impact on the DA. However, this gives us the ability to work with clients directly, and it’s a better quality of care. … We can go straight from enforcement contact and create another referral source.”

‘Please don’t do this to us.’

As the council wrapped up its questions ahead of the public comment period, Fernandez asked for “clarity and understanding” about the city-issued press release sent out last week that announced public comment on the ordinance would be limited to three hours. He asked whether the call was issued by Mayor Bergel, noting that the council had not weighed in on the item. She confirmed that she made the call.

“Then, with that being the case, I would like to appeal the decision of the mayor,” Fernandez said, promptly making a motion to that effect, which was seconded by Contreras-DeLoach.

Moulton asked for a quick head count on attendees, which was roughly 230 people, including those on Zoom. “So, that is 11-and-a-half hours if everybody gets three minutes,” she said. “We’ve heard eight hours of public comment on this issue before … and we need to get into the actual process.”

After a bit of additional discussion, the council voted 3-2, with Bauer and Moulton dissenting, to toss the three-hour limit, which drew applause from the crowd. 

However, some members of the council weren’t thrilled at the prospect of 11 hours of public comment, including Castellano, who said she had to be in Sacramento at noon the following day. She made a motion to allow for four and a half hours of public comment, which was seconded by Bauer. The motion passed 4-1, with Fernandez dissenting.

Contreras-DeLoach floated the idea of restricting each speaker to one minute so everyone would have an opportunity to speak, which was seconded by Bauer. The motion passed 4-1, with Fernandez dissenting.

The vast majority of speakers at last night’s meeting urged the council to deny the ordinance on the basis that it would criminalize homelessness. 

One man, who only identified himself as Ray, said he’s been homeless for 25 years and is newly sober. He called on the council to deny the ordinance and offer more compassion to people living on the streets. 

“You know, the hardest part about that is finding people who are willing to look at me like I was a person … and not have people look at me like I was an animal,” he said, adding that some of the local shelters are too selective in their admission process. “Sometimes they’re kicking people out for small things … and I know some people just don’t want to have to deal with certain rules or guidelines, but they just want to be accepted into a shower or bathroom.”

“If you sit and talk with some of them, a lot of times they have a coherent conversation with you,” he continued. “Why? Because you addressed them as a human. … You just took that moment to say, ‘Hello, how you doing?’ and actually mean it.”

Another woman named Crystal described her experience living in an encampment and asked the council to have empathy for people who “can’t walk the line” in the way society expects them to. 

“Maybe someone’s got a broken foot or someone’s got some twitches or whatever. We can’t all walk the same line,” she said. “We should not put everybody in the same basket and try to condemn us for just one or two people that are having a hard time, who don’t know how to express themselves in public or to people. Please, don’t do this to us. … Just help us. Don’t condemn us [or] put us in jail. Just help us.”

Dozens of other speakers echoed the same sentiment, calling for the council to provide sanctioned camping and increase access to public bathrooms and showers, not increased enforcement that could put vulnerable people at risk.

Public comment wrapped up as the meeting approach the five-and-a-half-hour mark. Castellano quickly made a motion to deny the ordinance, which was simultaneously seconded by Contreras-DeLoach and Fernandez. 

Before voting on the item, Castellano read aloud a pre-written statement detailing her reflections on the ordinance and her “deep responsibility to the community.”

“I’m voting no on this position because I believe that we are capable of changing the systems that we participate in,” she said. “For what other reason would I, an artist and community organizer, have run for office and been elected by the people of Eureka? … I want to acknowledge the work of staff in bringing this item before us for consideration. I recognize and intend to do something to change people’s lives, but I think that this strategy will erode the trust that is needed to build long-lasting change while only having limited successes.”

In his closing statement, Fernandez said he still couldn’t identify the compassionate element of the ordinance, adding that it is incongruent with previous actions of the council, including its decision to declare Eureka a Sanctuary City.

“Given that our laws are often [intended] to ensure public safety and mitigate and deter behavior, I challenge the necessity and belief that this ordinance deters the behavior of camping, given that the behavior isn’t generally out of wanton disregard or malfeasance,” he said. “Rather, it comes from economic conditions. Homelessness isn’t a behavior, it’s an environmental and social condition that can’t be easily regulated with fines in jail.”

Contreras-DeLoach said she, too, had experienced homelessness in her life, and felt that the proposed ordinance would inadvertently “target status, not conduct.”

“I swore that if I was ever in any kind of position of power, I would defend the weak,” she said. “I’ve also been homeless. I grew up in poverty. I’m not impoverished now, and I spend my resources and my time trying to help other people. … My commitment extends through to this, and that’s why I’ve made my decision.”

Moulton emphasized the importance of holding people accountable for their actions, but felt the ordinance itself should never have been presented to the council.

“This is a bad ordinance. It needs to be rewritten, but it is not a completely useless tool,” she said. “This ordinance was not ready for publication, and it shouldn’t have ever been published in this condition. It is far too broad for what staff brought us. … It would make it illegal to, as many of you have said, sit on a blanket in a park and eat a picnic with your friends. … It should have had accountability written into it, not for the folks experiencing homelessness, but for the people making the judgment decisions about who would or would not be put into this system.”

Bauer echoed Moulton’s statement and acknowledged the lack of trust in the authority. Still, he felt something should be done. 

“This ordinance isn’t perfect, but it was something,” he said. “I still think we should do something, and I hope that we can all learn to trust each other in the future and trust our government, because there’s a lot lack of trust with our federal government.”

The council voted 3-2, with Bauer and Moulton dissenting, to deny the ordinance. 

Reached for additional comment about what happens next, City Clerk Pam Powell confirmed that the “ordinance is dead,” adding that the council did not provide direction to work on it in the future.

###

PREVIOUSLY:

• Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty Pass Vote of No Confidence in President Tom Jackson Amid Ongoing Student Protest
• (UPDATING) Cal Poly Humboldt Issues Hard Closure of Campus; Law Enforcement Converges
• 320 Members of Cal Poly Humboldt’s Faculty and Staff Call For ‘Immediate Termination’ of President Jackson and his Chief of Staff

ELSEWHERE:

• ‘The Shit Show’: Body camera footage sheds new light on first hours of Cal Poly Humboldt occupation (NCJ)

###

Earlier today, interim Cal Poly Humboldt president Michael Spagna sent this message to various university mailing lists:

I want to take a moment to share that Mark Johnson has decided to step away as Acting Vice President of University Advancement. His last day with the University will be June 18.

Mark has provided leadership across a wide range of initiatives over the past two years. Named Chief of Staff in 2023, he was appointed to head Advancement in 2024. Since then, Mark has elevated the University’s efforts in fundraising, alumni relations, and community engagement.

He helped manage the transition of presidential leadership and stewarded the University’s two foundations—the Office of Research & Sponsored Programs and the Cal Poly Humboldt Foundation— strengthening their support of academic programs and resources. He played a vital role in the direction of marketing and communications. He fostered teams in Advancement, motivating them to do their best work in order to promote the values and aspirations of the University.

“I am so very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given to work in the company of remarkably gifted people here at Humboldt,” Mark says. “To have lived and worked in this special place has been an honor for me.”

An Acting Vice President of Advancement will be named soon as we launch a national search for a permanent successor this fall.

Please join me in thanking Mark and wishing him well in the years ahead.

Arcata’s city council will consider an ordinance today to make the sale and distribution of nitrous oxide illegal because of its health effects and its ease to obtain.

Using nitrous oxide “for the purpose of causing intoxication” is already illegal in California, as is selling to people who intend to use it to get high. However, its sale for use as a whipped cream propellant makes it simple to get, and liquor shops and convenience stores around Arcata sell it.

There are exemptions for doctors, dentists, and if it’s being sold in a food product. Sellers to would-be huffers could get tagged with a $1,000 fine, six months in jail or both.

Overusing nitrous oxide has some health risks; it can block the absorption of Vitamin B12, and heavy users can sometimes lose feeling in their extremities. Last year, a suspect in a Eureka vehicular homicide case admitted to using nitrous before killing a pedestrian. 

Arcata is also concerned about the young age of many users. The staff report that accompanies the ordinance cites a 2023 study from the California Healthy Kids Survey that says 11% of 7th and 11th grade students had used inhalants, though it doesn’t specify which kinds.

It’s part of a larger effort county-wide to make the gas extremely difficult to get. The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will likely adopt a motion to ban the sale of nitrous on June 3, and Eureka has also called for a ban.

Arcata city manager Merritt Perry said that the city council had been considering an ordinance since before last year, but waited until now to make sure that the rollout of the ban was consistent across county and city jurisdictions. 

He said that the city hadn’t received any pushback against the proposed ban, and had only heard positive feedback. A frequent point of contention against nitrous is the huge amount of waste its use generates; old metal canisters are a common piece of litter around the city.

“People generally recognize that there’s a threat to public health,” Perry said in a phone interview with the Outpost today. “They’re aware of the waste, and they’re aware of the adverse health impact.”

The Arcata city council will meet tonight at 6 p.m. at city hall.

###

PREVIOUSLY:

•  THE ECONEWS REPORT: Are Toxic Tires Killing Salmon?

###

A few years ago, scientists started identifying a potentially major culprit in the dramatic decline of the coho salmon fishery — a chemical known as “6PPD-quinone,” a byproduct of a chemical used in automotive tires.

Throughout the course of their life, tires deposit the precursor of this chemical everywhere they travel. This precursor degrades into 6PPD-q and enters the water system, killing coho in particular — a protected species under the Endangered Species Act — with great efficiency.

Now, a new study from Humboldt Waterkeeper, conducted in Eureka and Arcata throughout the last few months, shows that you don’t need a huge, dense car population to generate potentially lethal concentrations of 6PPD-q — regular old parking lots seem to do it just fine.

Jennifer Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, told the Outpost that her organization received a grant last year to test how much of the chemical can be found in parking lot runoff water, which — in most places — drains directly into an estuary or the bay.

Kalt and her colleagues collected runoff water from two Cal Poly Humboldt parking lots in late October 2024, and then from the parking lots of Costco and Target in Eureka in April of this year.

“We basically wanted to start at the source see how bad it is coming out of the parking lot,” Kalt said.

The samples were sent off to Weck Laboratories for analysis, and the results showed high levels of the chemical — 130 nanograms per liter in the two Cal Poly Humboldt parking lots, and 340 ng/L and 430ng/L in the Costco and Target parking lots, respectively. (See the lab reports here and here.)

The “median lethal dose” of the chemical, for juvenile coho, is believed to be around 95 ng/L.

To Kalt, the test results — taken at a particular point in time — show that the chemical is definitely entering into the ecosystem after accumulating in Humboldt County parking lots. There’s still a lot to be determined, such as how much of the chemical accumulates in estuaries where the fish live. She said Waterkeeper is awaiting test results from Eureka’s Martin Slough and Janes Creek, in Arcata. 

The study comes at a time when the California Assembly is considering legislation — Assembly Bill 1313 — that would require owners of large parking lots to acquire stormwater discharge permits and mitigate their runoff. The bill is supported by a large number of environmental organizations, including Humboldt Waterkeeper, and opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce. (See a rundown of the bill over at Digital Democracy.)

Fortunately, Kalt said, it appears that a great amount of the 6PPD-q that accumulates in parking lots can be kept out of the ecosystem with simple, low-tech measures like bioswales — natural, vegetated features that filter lots of different classes of pollutants before stormwater is released into the environment. Such features are already a standard part of any new parking lot built in the county.

Kalt said she’s hopeful that awareness of the problem and the relative simplicity of the solution — combined with a prod from the legislature — can go a long way toward building back coho stocks. 

“I don’t know if it’s going to be the silver bullet that brings coho back, but it does seem to be a key part of the puzzle as to why they’re suffering so much,” Kalt said.

###

A local osprey — or perhaps a pair of them — picked a real bird-brained spot to build a nest: way up on top of some high-voltage electricity equipment at PG&E’s Humboldt Bay Generating Station in King Salmon.

Ospreys, which were historically called sea hawks, love nesting near bodies of water that have adequate food supply, and of course the PG&E plant sits right on the banks of Humboldt Bay, from which they can nab tasty surfperch, silversides, herring and the like.

But PG&E personnel have determined that this spot isn’t safe, and they plan to move it to a nearby wood pole — one that’s not connected to infrastructure that thrums with electrical current.

“When the nest was discovered, we flagged it for our biologists on our avian team to make an assessment,” PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland said via email. “We have a comprehensive avian protection team at PG&E to address these kinds of safety issues.”

The utility is building a nesting platform atop the nearby wood pole. PG&E has a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows this kind of work, according to McFarland. She said biologists have assured her that ospreys tend to do fine with relocations.

But this particular osprey doesn’t appear to be in a relocation kind of mood. When PG&E personnel approached the nest on Saturday, the bird was defensive, possibly guarding eggs inside. 

“[S]o we wanted to give it time to calm down,” McFarland said.

Monte Merrick, co-director of the local avian rescue nonprofit Bird Ally X, said PG&E’s plan looks likely to be successful, given the parent’s demonstrated interest in the eggs and the nearby relocation spot. 

“I’ve been at the PG&E plant for other issues (river otters) and I do believe that the local team of biologists at that facility strive hard to do the right thing by the wildlife that shares the location,” Merrick said.

McFarland said that PG&E workers and biologists are working on a solution that’s in the osprey’s best interest. When osprey young are learning to fly, they experiment by practicing their skills just above the nest. So far, nobody’s been able to get close enough to see if there are eggs or hatchlings inside this particular nest. 

McFarland said PG&E is still working to determine the best timing for the relocation. She offered to keep us updated as the move progresses.

NOTE: This post has been corrected to accurately refer to PG&E’s Humboldt Bay Generating Station. 

###

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

###

Anna Nusslock never wanted to be the face of a new kind of reproductive rights battle in California, but when a small Catholic hospital refused to provide an abortion that would end her miscarriage, Nusslock girded herself for a long and difficult conflict.

Nusslock felt her civil rights were being violated, she said, even as she lay in the hospital bed curled in on herself, bleeding and mourning the loss of her twin girls. The doctor had said that her pregnancy needed to be terminated immediately to protect her from infection and other serious complications but hospital policy prohibited it, according to two lawsuits filed by Nusslock and California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“I am planning to fight this for the rest of my life,” Nusslock said in an interview with CalMatters.

Both complaints allege that Providence, the Catholic health system that owns St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, illegally denied Nusslock emergency abortion care and discharged her instead. They also allege that multiple pregnant women have been denied abortions at St. Joseph Hospital during medical emergencies.

The disputes playing out in a small courtroom in Eureka highlight the limits of California’s efforts to protect abortion rights since the Supreme Court in 2022 repealed federal protections granted under Roe vs. Wade. They also reveal geographic disparities in patients’ access to reproductive health care after dozens of California hospitals shuttered their maternity wards over the past decade.

Providence has denied the state’s allegations and argued that it provided appropriate care to Nusslock. It contends that its actions are protected by religious liberties that are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Canning earlier this month rejected a bid by Providence to dismiss the state’s lawsuit. Providence has filed a request to dismiss Nusslock’s civil suit, which is ongoing.

Catholic companies own about 13% of hospitals in California, but operate 20% of the state’s maternity wards, according to a CalMatters analysis of state data. In the rural northern counties, they represent an even greater share at 35%.

Large corporations such as CommonSpirit (Dignity), Providence, Trinity and Scripps are the most prominent Catholic health care systems in the state.

Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

In Humboldt County where Nusslock lives, Providence now owns the only hospital with an obstetrics department. The next closest maternity ward is 86 miles north along a winding, mostly two-lane stretch of Highway 1.

Last year, Nusslock arrived at Providence St. Joseph Hospital bleeding and in pain but still hopeful her pregnancy could be saved, according to the state’s complaint. Her water had broken at 15 weeks – too early for the twins to survive on their own – and tests indicated Nusslock had an infection and high blood pressure, the complaint says.

Multiple doctors said her condition was dangerous and she needed immediate treatment but Providence refused to intervene because her twins still had fetal heart tones, according to the complaint. Nusslock was discharged with a bucket and towels “in case something happens in the car,” according to the complaint and a declaration filed by Nusslock.

Nusslock’s husband drove her to another hospital about 20 minutes away where she began hemorrhaging and underwent immediate surgery, according to court documents. That hospital, Mad River Community Hospital in Arcata, has since permanently closed its labor and delivery ward, leaving St. Joseph alone in the county.

California’s constitution protects abortion rights, but religiously affiliated hospitals, clinics and individual providers are not required to provide them if they have moral objections. State law, however, requires hospitals to provide emergency services to any person who requests help whose life may be in danger or at risk of “serious injury or illness.”

Anna Nusslock and her husband Daniel Nusslock at home in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Providence St. Joseph Hospital refused Nusslock an emergency abortion after she had a miscarriage at 15 weeks pregnant, despite serious risks to her health. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

In an unsigned statement, a Providence spokesperson said the hospital is clear about not performing elective abortions but does allow “medically necessary interventions to protect pregnant patients who are miscarrying or facing serious life-threatening conditions” in an emergency.

“This is consistent with the California Emergency Services Law and the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. It is also consistent with the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives, which include discussion of the importance of the physician-patient relationship as well as the circumstances in which certain medical procedures that could result in fetal death may be allowed in a Catholic hospital,” according to the statement provided to CalMatters.

The Catholic Health Association, a trade group representing Catholic health facilities, did not respond to repeated questions about personal belief protections and the expansion of Catholic hospitals.

Religious liberty at heart of hospital’s defense

On a rainy day in February, Harvey Rochman, lead attorney for Providence, argued that religious freedoms protect Providence’s alleged actions.

“The elephant in the room so to speak on this case is there is no court that has ordered a Catholic hospital to perform an abortion under circumstances that the hospital has determined is contrary to the hospital’s faith,” Rochman said during the hearing in Eureka.

The hospital denies that it discriminated against Nusslock or improperly denied care to her. Rochman argued that federal law allows secular hospitals to transfer patients if they do not have the expertise or technical ability to perform a procedure, which is no different from a faith-based hospital saying it cannot perform a procedure that “contravenes” its beliefs.

“The current jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court…is the religious rights have the same significance as the secular,” Rochman said during the hearing.

Catholic hospitals nationwide must adhere to the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” developed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The directives prohibit abortion in almost all circumstances.

Anna Nusslock speaks about how Providence St. Joseph Hospital denied her an emergency abortion despite serious risks to her life at a rally for reproductive healthcare before a California v. St. Joseph hearing at the Humboldt County Superior Court in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

People rally in support of reproductive health care outside of the Humboldt County Superior Court in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Photos by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

Martine D’Agostino, a deputy attorney general representing the state, argued that the case was about Providence St. Joseph Hospital denying women emergency health care “at great risk to their lives.”

State law prohibits hospitals from transferring patients for non-medical reasons, such as lack of insurance. D’Agostino argued that St. Joseph Hospital did not stabilize Nusslock and illegally discharged her.

“The record details harrowing experiences of several women who were turned away from St. Joseph’s emergency department,” D’Agostino said. “The attorney general brought this case to ensure that St. Joseph Hospital follows the law that emergency health care must be provided to women of this county.”

In declarations filed with the court, multiple doctors allege that other St. Joseph patients have experienced close calls similar to Nusslock’s miscarriage.

One doctor who delivers babies at Providence St. Joseph Hospital said in a declaration that he has had three patients other than Nusslock who needed emergency pregnancy terminations during miscarriages that he was not able to carry out. The declaration states “…the Chaplain told me, that under no circumstances was I to terminate a pregnancy at Providence Hospital.”

Another doctor who later treated Nusslock at Mad River Community Hospital said one to two patients each year would come to the hospital’s now-closed obstetrics department having been turned away from Providence in the midst of a miscarriage.

Another woman has anonymously filed a civil lawsuit in Humboldt Superior Court against Providence alleging similar circumstances to Nusslock. In February, lawyers for Providence filed papers asking a judge to dismiss the case.

Differences in how hospitals treat miscarriage

Although Nusslock’s case is not unique, experts say patient experiences at Catholic hospitals vary widely.

“People always ask me ‘Why are people not dying all over the place?’ And it’s because it’s not exactly that extreme,” said Lori Freedman, a sociologist and bioethicist at UC San Francisco who has extensively researched patient and doctor experiences at Catholic health systems.

Frequently, doctors at Catholic institutions, many of whom are not Catholic, find workarounds to prevent patients from dying, Freedman said. An ethics committee headed by a priest or other religious figure at each hospital decides in the moment whether doctors can intervene. They may wait until the woman develops a fever (a sign of infection), until her bleeding increases or until the fetus dies, Freedman said.

The Ethical and Religious Directives at Catholic hospitals allow pregnancy termination for a “proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman,” but ethics committees at each hospital can have different interpretations of where to draw the line, Freedman said.

This approach, however, is often shocking to obstetricians in non-religious hospitals, Freedman said.

“When you talk to someone in a really high-quality obstetric service, their jaw drops because they’re like, ‘Well it’s not just die or not die,’” Freedman said. “What kind of level of suffering and risk are you going to require, before the intervention you know is going to happen is allowed to happen?”

Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

The Catholic Health Association states in a policy brief that “Our deeply held religious and moral convictions are the source of both the work we do and the limits on what we will do.”

Those religious and moral convictions include a mandate to continue the “healing ministry of Christ,” to care for the poor, and to advocate for marginalized groups like immigrants, according to the Ethical and Religious Directives.

They also state that the “Catholic health care ministry is rooted in a commitment to promote and defend human dignity; this is the foundation of its concern to respect the sacredness of every human life from the moment of conception until death.”

Maryam Guiahi, an obstetrician in Santa Barbara who has previously worked in Catholic institutions in Chicago, said that’s where Catholic policies begin to conflict with modern secular medical ethics that place different emphasis on patient autonomy and avoiding harm.

In cases like Nusslock’s, in which the amniotic fluid sac breaks before the fetus is viable, terminating the pregnancy is typically the safest option and the standard of care, Guiahi said.

Guiahi said Catholic hospitals sometimes don’t allow doctors to tell patients that an abortion is an option.

“I’ve been in secular institutions and we can give that information. We can let people decide what they want, and some people will choose to continue and hope and see what happens, but other women don’t want to go through that,” Guiahi said.

Not telling patients all of the risks and options compromises their ability to consent and can lead to avoidable complications like infection and hemorrhaging, Guiahi said.

Guiahi said she never saw a patient die after being denied an emergency abortion at the Catholic hospital she worked at, but sometimes patients would come back septic and require care in the intensive care unit.

“To me, medicine is about ‘to do no harm.’ I don’t know many medical situations where we wait till people get sick in order to intervene,” Guiahi said.

Moving to have a baby

Nusslock is making plans to leave Eureka during her next pregnancy. She and her husband still desperately want to start a family, but she can’t drive past Providence St. Joseph Hospital without getting dizzy. She said she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I still have that voice in the back of my head just screaming, ‘you’re bleeding to death,’” Nusslock said.

Most likely Nusslock said she’ll find a place in the Bay Area to live during her pregnancy.

Having few options to give birth reflects a larger loss of maternity services in California. The northern counties, including where Nusslock lives, have lost a third of their birthing hospitals since 2012, according to a CalMatters database on maternity care.

Statewide, 59 hospitals have stopped delivering babies in the same time period, creating broad swaths of maternity deserts particularly in rural and low-income communities.

Nearly 80% of those closures have been secular hospitals, increasing the influence of Catholic health care.

Anna Nusslock at home in Eureka on Feb. 14, 2025. Providence St. Joseph Hospital refused Nusslock an emergency abortion after she had a miscarriage at 15 weeks pregnant, despite serious risks to her health. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

During the February court hearing, Providence lawyer Rochman said that a core mission of the Eureka hospital is to keep labor and delivery services available “when it may not be financially sensible to do so.”

In a statement, a Providence spokesperson said “providing high-quality labor and delivery services” is a “top priority” for the organization in Humboldt County and throughout the nation.

But having an operating maternity ward doesn’t mean all services are available. The Ethical and Religious Directives also prohibit the use of contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, including sterilization for both males and females, and in vitro fertilization.

Josie Urbina, an obstetrician with UC San Francisco Health who specializes in complex family planning, said this creates an unequal patchwork of services in the state.

“It’s unfortunate that in rural parts of California, which happen to be dominated by religious hospitals, that the standard of care is not being followed,” Urbina said. “It’s really just detrimental to patient care.”

For Nusslock, who moved to Eureka 10 years ago and quickly fell in love with the towering redwoods and small-town feel, the lawsuits are about ensuring her experience doesn’t happen to anyone else, she said in an interview with CalMatters.

“These are good people. These are people worth protecting,” Nusslock said. “If they’re going to give me an opportunity to speak for them and fight for them, I’m going to take every opportunity I can.”

###

CalMatters Data Reporter Erica Yee contributed to this story.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

###

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

###

Fifteen California lawmakers from both parties are up in arms over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest proposal to to use the budget process to fast-track the Delta tunnel — a deeply controversial, $20 billion plan to replumb the estuary and funnel more water south.

With the clock ticking for the Legislature to pass a budget bill tackling the state’s $12 billion deficit, Newsom dropped a spending plan last week that would add sweeping changes to permitting, litigation, financing, and eminent domain and land acquisition issues aimed at speeding approval of the massive project.

“We’re done with barriers — our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future,” Newsom said in a statement last week. “Let’s get this built.”

Assembly and Senate Democrats and Republicans representing Delta counties, including Sacramento, Yolo, Contra Costa and San Joaquin, fired back in a letter last week, saying it would “change several, separate parts of state law to benefit only a portion of California, to the detriment of Californians north of the Delta.”

In a hearing and press briefing on Tuesday, several warned Newsom and legislative leaders that the tunnel’s water supply benefits would not outweigh its financial costs nor its toll on communities, farms and the environment in the Delta region.

“Shifting water from one farming region to benefit another farming region doesn’t solve our water crisis, it only makes it worse,” Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City and co-chair of the Delta Caucus, said Tuesday.

“Our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom

The Delta Conveyance Project, the official name of the tunnel, would stretch 45 miles from the Sacramento River to a reservoir near Livermore, diverting water around the Delta. The state’s original tunnel proposal dates back more than 60 years.

The project’s goal is to increase exports of Northern California water south — much of it to cities in Southern California and farms in the San Joaquin Valley — during wet years. It’s also supposed to shore up the supply against earthquakes or other disasters that could swamp the estuary in salt water, tainting or even cutting off State Water Project supplies that 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland rely on.

“It does feel like drought’s coming back for us, and it will in all likelihood be deeper and longer,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources and Newsom’s senior water advisor, told lawmakers of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Climate Crisis, Resources, Energy and Transportation.

Being able to move water when it’s wet into reservoirs or thirsty aquifers, Nemeth said, “has never been more important.”

Water agencies in the Bay Area and Southern California applauded Newsom’s proposals, saying they would cut costs and shorten the timeline for the project and make their water supply more reliable in a time of climate change.

But Delta counties warned Newsom and legislative leaders in a letter that “every city and county affected by this project in the Delta region opposes the tunnel.”

A sign displayed in the small Sacramento County town of Hood, which would be near the main construction site for the proposed $20 billion project. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

In the packed hearing room on Tuesday, opposition outweighed support. Many raised concerns that they might lose their power to fight a project that they fear could scour the Delta landscape with construction and staunch freshwater flows already insufficient to keep harmful algal blooms at bay or support the state’s collapsing salmon fishery.

“This project will damage the Delta in countless ways and pass on the costs to my generation of Californians,” Wesley Motlow, a resident of the small Delta community of Locke, told committee members. “I’ve always been proud to be a member of the state, but if this project is seen to fruition, I will not feel that way.”

A state analysis warned in 2022 that a Delta tunnel would put salmon at risk. This past spring, salmon fishing was cancelled for an unprecedented third year in a row.

“Drying out the North just to water the South doesn’t make it better at all, and it doesn’t make it fair,” said Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, a Democrat from Elk Grove who pushed instead for more recycled water and other local strategies.

“This project will damage the Delta in countless ways and pass on the costs to my generation of Californians.”
— Westley Motlow, resident of Locke, a small Delta community

Newsom’s streamlining proposals take aim at an array of hurdles the tunnel project would have to clear, as well as recent court decisions that could set it back.

One change would codify the state’s authority to issue revenue bonds to fund the project — which participating water agencies would have to pay back. A court ruled last year that the state water agency “exceeded its delegated authority” for the bonds.

Newsom’s proposal would shorten the timeline to resolve challenges in court, limit injunctions against construction activities unless they present “an imminent threat to public health and safety” and alter some procedures and oversight for acquiring properties under eminent domain. It would also eliminate certain deadlines related to water rights for the State Water Project, according to a Senate analysis, and limit the ability of others to file protests against the state.

“It creates a separate water rights system for the State Water Project that upends over a century of water rights law,” said Osha Meserve, counsel for various local water agencies and other opponents of the Delta tunnel.

An aerial view of Threemile Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Rio Vista on May 19, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters

Also, Senate analysts said, the proposal “does not contain language that would allow a court to stay or enjoin a project to protect native American artifacts or historical resources.”

Malissa Tayaba, vice chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and director of traditional knowledge, said the tunnel threatens their homelands and desecrate the resting place of their ancestors.

“It seems that, to Governor Newsom, our culture, our ancestors and the environment that sustains us is worth less than the ability to over-divert water from our rivers to send more water and money to commercial water interests,” Tayaba said.

Environmental advocates say the governor’s proposal is an end run around laws and court decisions that could affect environmental protections beyond the Delta.

“What the governor calls barriers, we call laws,” Jon Rosenfield, science director with the San Francisco Baykeeper, said at the press conference Tuesday.

“It seems that, to Governor Newsom, our culture, our ancestors and the environment that sustains us is worth less than the ability to…send more water and money to commercial water interests.”
— Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians

Many legislators took issue with Newsom’s strategy of using add-ons to the budget — called trailer bills — to rush through complex policy proposals that they fear would limit the public’s power to challenge the massive project.

The normally circumspect, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office agreed.

“These are issues that have been debated and discussed for years and even decades, and the Legislature simply does not have much time … to consider all of the potential implications,” Sonja Petek, principal fiscal and policy analyst with the Legislative Analyst’s Office, told lawmakers. With such a challenging budget ahead and decisions looming to cut services that Californians rely on, Petek said, these proposals “serve as a distraction.”

It’s not the first time Newsom has taken this tact. In 2023, he proposed overhauling permitting and litigation for the Delta tunnel under the California Environmental Quality Act as part of a broader infrastructure package. Lawmakers were outraged and rejected that part of the proposal.

Tara Gallegos, Newsom’s deputy director of communications, said in an email that the statements from legislators and environmentalists at the press conference Tuesday “demonstrated why this fast track is necessary, as it is clear that misinformation will continue to delay and obfuscate this critical project.” She said solutions such as more recycled water are “simplistic” and “ignore the practical realities” of providing sufficient and reliable supplies.

Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat from Oxnard and chair of the budget subcommittee, said debate about the tunnel will likely be deferred until after the budget vote in June.

“These conversations take time. There’s a lot of fear. There’s palpable frustration,” he said. “I know that going through policy committees is not considered fun, but given the magnitude of this issue, it may be the only way you can actually get enough information out there, in a steady enough format, to be able to make this move.”