PREVIOUSLY

• Friends of the Eel River Sues County for Failure to Protect Public Trust by Regulating Groundwater Extractions in Lower Eel
• County Staff Present Groundwater Sustainability Plan for Eel River Valley

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In extremely dry years like 2014, when the water level in the Lower Eel River gets so low that in some spots it goes completely underground, does Humboldt County have a responsibility to curtail groundwater pumping in the basin?

A lawsuit brought by Friends of the Eel River (FOER) says it absolutely does. Appearing in Humboldt County Superior Court on Friday, the environmental nonprofit’s attorney, Michael Lozeau, argued that the county has failed to adequately consider, much less protect, the public trust resources in the Eel River during the late summer and early fall. In that time of year, farmers irrigate their crops with water pumped out of the alluvial aquifer, further degrading conditions in the nearby Eel, which serves as critical habitat for Chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead.

“The county’s duties under the public trust [doctrine] don’t take the summer off,” Lozeau said before Judge Kelly Neel. “It applies all year round.”

FOER’s suit, first filed in 2022, is built off of a 2018 California appellate court decision in a case up in Siskiyou County. The Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) had sued the California State Water Resources Control Board over the same type of dynamic — the effects of pumping groundwater that feeds into a navigable river, in this case the Scott River. The judge’s ruling in favor of the plaintiffs marked the first time that the public trust doctrine had been extended to include groundwater.

The public trust doctrine, which has roots in ancient Roman law, is a legal principle holding that certain cultural and natural resources are preserved for public use. Here in California, the umbrella of public trust protections has been expanding. While the doctrine has long protected California’s coastal waters and navigable rivers, a landmark 1983 California Supreme Court ruling extended public trust protections to the tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake. It also established that citizen groups like FOER have standing to file suit under the public trust doctrine.

Cut to the 2018 Siskiyou County ruling, which opened the door to more public trust lawsuits concerning groundwater. Just last year, for example, a trial court found that Sonoma County’s groundwater well ordinance violated the public trust by allowing excessive pumping to dry up streams, damaging vital fish habitat. There have been similar public trust cases in Contra Costa, Napa and Kern counties. 

Scott Greacen, FOER’s conservation director, told the Outpost that such lawsuits are necessary due to the fundamental inadequacy of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), a 2014 law that established a “framework” aimed at protecting the state’s groundwater resources long term.

“SGMA was much heralded as, ‘California is finally regulating groundwater,’” Greacen said. “It doesn’t.”

Instead, he contends, the law merely requires certain local jurisdictions — those with designated critical-, high- and medium-priority basins — to “put up a decent show” of regulating groundwater. 

The Eel River Valley has been classified as a medium-priority basin, much to the annoyance of many locals, including dairy farmers who sometimes consider the water beneath their land part of their own property, and Humboldt County First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, who argued that the designation was unjustified and the extra regulations unnecessary. 

Nevertheless, the Department of Water Resources upheld its designation for the Eel River Valley as medium-priority, which forced Humboldt County to develop a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) for the basin. 

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Greacen, during our interview, unleashed a bit of sarcasm about the resulting document.

“Shockingly,” he said, “that plan found that there are no ‘undesirable effects’” of groundwater pumping.

While the county’s Eel River Valley GSP acknowledges a link between groundwater pumping and surface flows along that stretch of river, FOER’s lawsuit alleges that the modeling on which the plan was based only evaluated groundwater impacts when river flows were at 130 cubic feet per second (cfs) or higher, thus failing to consider impacts during lower summer flows when salmon are holding in pools waiting for rain.

In a phone interview on Monday, FOER Executive Director Alicia Hamann said it’s not uncommon for flows in the Lower Eel to fall below 130 cfs by the end of summer, creating dangerously stressful conditions for fish. In 2015, for example, pre-spawning salmon collected from pools in the Lower Eel River during the late summer and early fall were found to have damaged eyes, brains and spinal cords.

FOER’s brief cites analysis from fisheries biologist Dr. Gabriel Rossi, who concludes that the “obvious inhospitable environmental conditions” in the Eel that year, including anemic flow, warm temperatures, algal accretion and low dissolved oxygen, can reasonably be tied to reductions in surface flow caused by nearby groundwater pumping during such dry times.

“And we know we will have unpredictable and more dry times in the future,” Hamann said.

In March of 2023, six months after FOER filed its lawsuit, the County Division of Environmental Health began doing public trust analyses for new or replacement well permits. But FOER’s lawsuit argues that because these analyses are based on a flawed GSP, it fails to consider impacts to the Lower Eel during low-flow conditions.

FOER’s lawsuit doesn’t request a specific remedy from the county, a fact that Judge Neel remarked upon in court Friday.

“What exactly is your client asking the court to do?” she asked. She noted that the county can’t exactly account for “what are likely the many illegal takings of water for unpermitted [cannabis] grow sites,” so what does FOER want? 

Lozeau, the attorney, said they’re requesting an order compelling the county to comply with its public trust duty “​​to consider the adverse effects of groundwater pumping on this stretch of the Lower Eel [during] this period of time … in particular during critical dry years.”

Hamann put it another way during our phone interview: “We’re asking for the county to do something,” she said. “We just want more than nothing, which is what they’ve been doing.” 

Then, striking a note of confidence, she added, “After we win this case I will happily go to the county with lots of ideas for solutions they can enact.”

The county’s defense

In court on Friday, the county was represented by Christian Marsh, an environmental and land use attorney with the San Francisco firm of Stoel Rives, LLP. Joining him at the defense table was Humboldt County Deputy Director of Environmental Services Hank Seemann, with members of county counsel sitting in the gallery behind them.

In response to Lozeau’s opening remarks, Marsh said he, his clients and their experts “disagree vehemently” with the conclusion that groundwater pumping — as opposed to severe droughts, surface water diversions or other hydrologic factors — is having a substantial influence on water flows in the Eel. 

“FOER’s assertion is speculative and confuses correlation with causation,” the county’s opposition brief says. 

That document also argues that the county has adequately considered the public trust doctrine through its development and adoption of a GSP, its individual analyses for well permits and its use of scientific modeling to assess impacts on salmon migration. Salmonids adapt to changing circumstances, Marsh said before Judge Neel, noting that when the river disconnects as it did in 2014, fish simply hold off on their upstream migration until conditions are suitable.  

One of the county’s own expert biologists, Dr. Charles Hanson, found that salmon originating in the Eel River “have evolved a synchrony” between adult upstream migration and the environmental cues associated with autumnal rainfall.

The county further argues that recent severe droughts may not even have had significant negative impacts on Chinook salmon. Its court brief notes that the number of Chinook that “successfully migrated upstream through the Van Arsdale Fish Station in 2014, 2015, and 2021 did not appear to be statistically lower than in wetter years, likely due to strong fall rainfall events.”

Besides which, Marsh argued, there has been no “triggering event” to sue over — no specific action, such as the issuing of a well permit, that violated the public trust doctrine. 

Furthermore, his brief argues, most of the wells that draw from the valley’s alluvial aquifer were installed decades ago, which means FOER is not entitled to any relief from the court.

The brief also notes the county’s active role in working to decommission Pacific Gas & Electric’s Potter Valley Project, a hydroelectric facility with dams and tunnels that divert water from the Eel to the Russian River watershed. PG&E recently filed its application to surrender its license and decommission the facility, which will “restore a free-flowing Eel River and re-establish fish passage to upstream habitats,” the county’s brief notes.

Hamann said that while that’s true — and dam removal has been her organization’s top goal since its inception — she and FOER’s expert analysts don’t expect it to result in significant changes to flow in the Eel. 

“Right now they do a pretty good job of mirroring the natural hydrograph,” she said in reference to seasonal water releases. After the dams come down, FOER expects some highs to be higher and some lows lower, which won’t alleviate the inhospitable conditions for salmonids during the dry season.

FOER’s brief notes that Eel River salmon populations are at approximately 5% or less of their historic abundances. 

Hamann discredited the county’s defense arguments, noting that its own scientific modeling acknowledges a hydrologic connection between the Lower Eel River and its surrounding alluvial aquifer. She said the county has a “continuous” duty to consider any adverse impacts to the public trust and reiterated that Humboldt County has still not analyzed the impacts of groundwater pumping in the Eel River Valley during the summer months.

Asked for comment, Seemann declined on behalf of the county due to the case’s status awaiting decision.

After listening to both sides plead their cases on Friday, Judge Neel said she will take the matter under submission. She has 90 days in which to issue a ruling.

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DOCUMENTS

• FOER Opening Brief
• County of Humboldt Opposition Brief
• FOER Reply Brief

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

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California spent decades building one of the greenest power grids on Earth.

It ditched coal, cut fossil fuels, and built so much solar it now runs the world’s second-largest battery fleet to keep clean power flowing after dark.

Now lawmakers are poised to tie that grid to coal-burning states.

With electricity prices rising and pressure to keep the lights on, California is racing to create an expanded power market with other Western utilities to trade vast amounts of electricity. An expanded market could include climate-aligned states such as Oregon and Washington but potentially also coal-burning ones such as Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

Supporters said the proposal cuts costs and keeps the grid stable by letting providers trade energy more freely — particularly at peak times of need, like heat waves. They said expanded trading will help renewable energy proliferate as it competes with fossil fuels.

But the plan has split California’s environmental and consumer groups. Backers said it’s key to selling the state’s solar power to others, which would help bring bills down. Opponents said it’s too risky, leaving the state exposed as President Donald Trump pushes markets toward coal and gas.

The idea of a regional market has failed before. This latest push only gained traction after labor unions, once a major obstacle, got on board.

Senate Bill 540, which paves the way, passed the state Senate earlier this summer with bipartisan support and is now before the state Assembly. Gov. Gavin Newsom wants a deal this year.

“This is about affordability, this is about reliability, it’s about us maintaining our authority and autonomy as it relates to our low-carbon, green growth goals,” Newsom said last week, in response to a question from CalMatters. “I am supportive.”

State Sen. Josh Becker, the bill’s author, has urged lawmakers to move quickly. He said that California could lose trading partners to a competing Western market proposed by an Arkansas-based grid operator that does “not care about respecting our climate policies or energy goals or the interests of California consumers.”

“Make no mistake, if we do not act, we will be worse off,” Becker said in June, urging his colleagues to vote in favor.

Critics call the risk exaggerated. The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocate group, has taken a neutral position on the measure and threatened to oppose it unless California retains some autonomy and a strict procedure to withdraw.

Momentum has stalled in the Assembly, where some former supporters have backed away, warning those changes could make the plan unworkable for other states. Lawmakers have until mid-September to strike a deal as they juggle a broader slate of energy and climate measures.

A seasonal excess of clean power

California already trades electricity with neighboring states but controls its own grid that covers most of the state through an independent system operator whose board is appointed by the governor.

That matters because California is legally required to run on 100% clean electricity by 2045 — while also electrifying cars, homes, and facing surging demand from energy-hungry data centers fueling the rise of artificial intelligence.

By many measures, the state’s energy transition is a success story: Eight out every 10 days so far this year saw wind, water, and solar meet all of the state’s needs for at least part of the day, according to an ongoing tally by Stanford energy researcher Mark Z. Jacobson.

Solar generation last week hit a new high: 21,750 megawatts at peak. That’s enough solar to power 4 million homes when accounting for day and night, and the fact that solar output changes with the seasons.

Still, California’s clean energy boom has contributed to the highest electricity rates in the country outside of Hawaii.

Clean energy costs just over three cents more per kilowatt-hour than fossil power for California’s major utilities — a gap driven mostly by older, more expensive contracts and other market factors. But energy bills have become a slow-burning political issue: A recent poll showed voters support clean power, but fewer are willing to pay more for it.

Environmentalists said renewables will be cheaper long-term because sun and wind are free.

California is also wasting clean energy. On sunny, mild days in spring and fall, grid operators increasingly shut down solar panels that crank out more power than the state can use. Proponents of regionalization said that energy could be sold to neighboring states.

“We need a modern grid to develop and use this much clean power quickly,” said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, state director at Environmental Defense Fund. “While California generates more clean electricity than ever, it has never wasted more.”

Not everyone agrees that building large-scale projects and expanding markets will bring costs down. Building distant plants and new transmission lines will raise costs, not lower them, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, who leads advocacy campaigns in California for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Del Chiaro argues that expanding rooftop solar and cutting waste — using better insulation, smarter appliances and shifting when we use power — could curb demand without overhauling the grid.

“It makes no sense,” she said. “We have plenty of resources here.”

Another motivation for regionalization: the risk of blackouts, especially as climate-driven heat waves intensify. California experienced blackouts in 2020 and pleaded with residents to conserve power during a brutal 10-day heat wave in 2022. Michael Wara, a Stanford legal scholar who focuses on climate, backs the regional market plan. He said with renewable energy facing political pushback, it’s essential for California to keep its grid stable.

Without those moves, “I really worry about what, politically, would happen … the day after, or in the weeks after, any kind of a system blackout,” he said.

Sharing power between Western states

California’s plan to connect Western power markets would create a system unlike anything else in the U.S. Under the proposed plan, called the Pathways Initiative, energy providers would trade all their available electricity in a shared market while each state keeps its own energy policies and planning authority.

Smarter coordination means better preparation for extreme weather, proponents said. In winter, California and the Pacific Northwest could tap steady sunlight from the Southwest. On sweltering summer nights, they could rely on inland wind power to keep air conditioners humming.

A group of powerful interests that often butt heads backs the effort. Supporters of SB 540 include unions, utilities and business groups that hold significant sway with lawmakers, having poured more than $20 million into legislative races in the past decade, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

In the past, labor unions opposed plans they feared would outsource lucrative infrastructure contracts to union-hostile red states. Now, one of the most powerful — the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — is all in, eager to build in-state clean energy projects.

Environmental groups once worried that creating a regional grid would flood California with out-of-state fossil power. Now, many are backing the market idea, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, betting it will help unleash more clean energy across the West.

Major industry groups — and tech giants like Google and Microsoft, scrambling to power their AI data centers — are also throwing their weight behind the plan.

PacifiCorp, a six-state Western region utility owned by Berkshire Hathaway, was the first to commit to an expanded market led by California. Portland General Electric, NV Energy in Nevada and Idaho Power are other potential participants.

Solar panels at the Kettleman City Power solar farm on July 27, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

To make it work, California would have to give up some of its hard-fought control. Other states won’t join a market dominated by a board handpicked in Sacramento. That’s why regional players have long pushed to replace California’s grid operator with a new, independent agency to run the West, and why California players have resisted.

The Pathways proposal, though, is more limited than past proposals for a linked grid: It would shift control only of the market to a regional board made up of other states and utilities. Under the current measure, California would still manage its own power lines and keep the authority to decide how it buys electricity, enforce its clean energy rules and could walk away if the partnership doesn’t work.

Could Trump take control?

Critics said this is the worst time to gamble with California’s clean energy future. The Trump administration is waging an all-out ideological war on climate policy and California is a prime target.

Since returning to office, Trump has moved to dismantle dozens of environmental protections, including perhaps most important for federal climate regulations: the legal foundation for climate action.

In June, he teamed up with congressional Republicans to strip California of its Clean Air Act authority to set clean car and truck emission rules. And last month Republicans gutted the Biden administration’s landmark climate law, slashing solar and wind tax breaks that were helping California power its clean energy transition.

In his first term, Trump tried to force more coal into the power market — and even his own regulators said no. This time, he’s aiming to take full control, and he will likely replace independent experts with loyalists to push fossil fuels, no matter the cost, said Tyson Slocum of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

Slocum warned that, by year’s end, Trump could take control of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He could use that commission — which regulates electricity and gas markets across state lines — to tilt the power market toward gas and coal, under the pretext of reliability.

“That’s why efforts to regionalize the West Coast power market right now is the stupidest thing that California could do,” Slocum said. “Is now the time to partner with the federal government? No. This is the last thing that California should be doing.”

Some environmentalists opposed to the plan argue that while a regional market might help California’s emissions fall it could prompt emissions to rise in the rest of the West.

They point to a decision by the Bonneville Power Administration — a clean energy powerhouse based in Portland, Oregon, that controls power from 31 federal hydroelectric dams — to join the Southwest Power Pool, the grid operator competing with California. That move is key because the power provider’s choices help determine how far and fast the Western U.S. can decarbonize.

“The majority of the surplus generation that would be shared is coal, gas, fossil fuels,” said Roger Lin, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “From a climate perspective, it is a bad move.”

Energy Commissioner Siva Gunda told CalMatters the plan wouldn’t further increase California’s exposure to federal regulators, since the state’s grid is already under federal oversight. He emphasized California would still control what power it builds in-state, and argued a larger market could actually accelerate clean energy development across the West by giving other states a stronger incentive to supply California.

“The opening of markets does not open up our ability to have our own destiny — in terms of the resources we want to build in California,” Gunda said.

Estimates of the benefits for a regional market vary, depending on how many entities join. While an expanded market could save Californians nearly $800 million a year, cut emissions by 3% across the West, and reduce natural gas use by nearly a third, that scenario assumes nearly all Western utilities join. Many experts said that is unlikely. An alternate scenario, where the West is divided between two rival markets, would deliver $294 million in savings and far smaller emissions cuts.

Where things stand

Before passing the bill, senators amended it to include more safeguards requested by skeptics.

Those include a newly proposed oversight council, composed of some California appointees and elected officials, which would have to sign off on California’s participation in the market. The council could also direct the state and its utilities to back out in the future — if, say, federal regulation or the new market operator threatens the state’s climate goals.

“It’s about creating an exit strategy,” said Matthew Freedman of The Utility Reform Network. “Given what we’re seeing at the federal level now, we cannot be too careful.”

But the changes have made some of the measure’s original backers balk. The provisions mandate under what conditions California must exit, which market supporters said could send others to the Arkansas market instead. Several environmental groups, businesses and clean energy organizations have said they now oppose the bill.

When lawmakers return from their summer recess on Aug. 18, they’ll have a little less than a month to work it out before they adjourn for the year.

Newsom, state Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Assembly utilities committee chair Cottie Petrie-Norris said they want a bill passed this year. But any further changes in the Assembly will have to go back to the Senate, where Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire insisted on the oversight council.

“It really undermines all of the benefits of joining a Western market if nobody wants to trade with us,” said Sutter, of the Environmental Defense Fund. “If I’m a utility from another state … I’m going to go with the sure thing, not something that is up to the political whims of California.”

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Alexei Koseff contributed reporting to this story.

Benjamin Thomas Branham Sr. (Ben Cutter, Home Chicken)
Sept. 8, 1945-July 30, 2025

He passed away on July 30, 2025 in Eureka,.

Our treasured husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin and friend Benjamin Branham Sr. was born in Eureka, CA, to Adam Branham and Julia Westerman Branham on September 8, 1945. He was the baby brother of his three sisters: Mary, Becky and Maude.

Ben attended Hoopa Valley High School. While in school, he enjoyed playing football and participating in woodshop. He married Sharon Campbell on April 23, 1965. Starting a family of his own, he lived in Willow Creek and Grants Pass for short periods of time. He eventually moved home to Hoopa, where he lived the rest of his life.

He had three sons and, later in life, raised his grandchildren as well. Ben began his career working as a maintenance man for the Hoopa Valley Tribe temporarily, until he pursued a career as a woodsman. He was a logger for over 40 years. Ben also worked side jobs in construction, carpentry, mechanics and arboriculture. He was a hardworking man who valued everything he did.

Ben was a family man who supported and provided for his wife, sons, grandkids, family and friends. He was an avid woodworker, making cribbage boards, clocks, hydroplane boats and more. When not working, Ben enjoyed riding around in the hills, hunting, fly fishing, boat racing, gathering, gardening and most of all — camping.

Ben was known by many and was always willing to help when needed. The skills and knowledge he shared will be remembered by many. He could be regarded as:

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” He was a hardworking man, devoted husband, loving father and a proud grandfather.

Benjamin Branham Sr. is preceded in death by his parents, Adam and Julia Branham; his sister Maude Jarose; his brothers-in-law Harold Campbell Sr., Sam Campbell, Jonathan Leach Sr., Harold Muller and Dan Campbell; and his sisters-in-law Marie Muller and Emogene Carpenter.

He is survived by his wife Sharon Branham; his children Thomas & Jennifer Branham Sr., Benjamin Branham Jr. and Troy Branham; his grandchildren Pamela & Chris Heath, Patricia Branham (Andrew), Douglas Branham (Raelene), Thomas Branham Jr. (Newhan), Derrick Branham (Joyce) and Natasha & James Boatsman; and his 16 great-grandchildren.

He is also survived by his sisters Mary Campbell and Elizabeth Henkel; his sisters-in-law Vi Campbell and Harriet Leach; and by his nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, cousins, extended family and numerous friends.

Pallbearers:

Smitty, Horse, Benny, Doug, Teej, & Duke Branham, Chris Heath, Brandon Biondini, Trevor & Kyle Brown, O’s, Lil Bob, & Sam Campbell, Dan McCovey, Blaze Carpenter, RJ Marshall, Thomas Masten, Adam Robertson and Rocky Jones.

Honorary Pallbearers:

Jack Biondini, Mike Orcutt, Joe Jarnaghan Sr., David (“Hootie”) Lewis, Merv George Jr., Loren Norton, George Moon, Harry O. Campbell, Bob Campbell Sr., Bill (“Pecos”) Carpenter, Joe Carpenter, Ralph Brown, Travis Brown, Jason Marshall, Billy McCovey, Clyde Moon, Roger Sanderson, Zane Grant, Jeff Lewis, Derrick Ely, Matt Richardson, Jonathan “Buck” Jackson, Paul Sorvino, Patrick Jackson, Abe Camez, Martin Cervantez, Paul Baker, Sam Jones, Arthur Jones and many more.

Graveside services will be held on Thursday, August 7, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. at the Hoopa Tribal Cemetery.

The family would like to thank all who have been supportive as we navigate this difficult time.

He is gone now but will forever be in our hearts.

In Loving Memory of Shirley “Jean” Browning
March 14, 1935 - June 22, 2025

Shirley “Jean” Browning, a woman of grace, humor, and boundless love, passed away peacefully at age 90 in her home, with loved ones by her side on June 22, 2025.

Jean’s final resting place is Humboldt County, where she had spent the last two decades of her life surrounded by family, music and the redwoods she came to adore.

Born in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, Jean’s early years were spent across Kansas and Illinois before her family settled in Colorado, where she completed high school. Her love for music blossomed early — she started piano lessons at age 4, played the French horn in high school and college, sang beautifully and also learned to play the pipe organ. After retirement and later in life, rarely missed a live performance. Music was her heartbeat, her joy and her constant companion.

Jean was a devoted homemaker and mother extraordinaire to her four children — Barbara, Shelly, Chris and Leisl — before embarking on a successful career as a senior-level Executive Assistant. She brought her signature warmth and precision to her roles at Informatics and later at Paccar, supporting top executives with grace and professionalism.

Her life’s journey took her through Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, California, Idaho and Washington, before she retired to Humboldt County to be near her daughter, Barbara, and her husband, Ron. For the past 20 years, she built a rich life in the community—singing and playing music with the McKinleyville Choir and the Gila Monsters, serving on the board of the Eureka Symphony, serving as secretary of the Oceanwest homeowner group, playing poker and Mahjong and entertaining friends and family with her signature sparkle.

Jean’s sweet tooth was legendary — she adored all things sugary and somehow managed to dodge diabetes despite years of being pre-diabetic. Coke Zero was her drink of choice, and she never turned down a salted caramel treat. Her zest for life was matched only by her love for her dogs, Tank and Lily, and her cherished adventures to Costa Rica, Morocco, Ireland, Wales and Scotland after retirement.

She was deeply loved by her “girlfriends” group from Washington, the friends she met at Oceanwest, her choir companions, her fellow Gila Monsters, her many nieces and nephews and, of course, her children and grandchildren. Her home was always open, her laughter infectious and her stories unforgettable.

Though we may not recall every mischievous moment (and she’d probably prefer it that way), Jean’s legacy is one of joy, resilience and a life lived in full harmony.

Donations in Jean’s name can be made to Hospice of Humboldt.

She will be missed beyond measure and remembered with every sweet note, every shared laugh, and every song sung in her memory.

Several years after getting a gnarly downhill trail and a pump track, the Arcata Community Forest may be getting another bicycle-focused amenity after a high school team pitched it to the city. 

The city may fund a bicycle “skills trail,” where mountain bikers can practice difficult techniques on terrain not common to Humboldt. Trails may include a “rock garden” (a path choked with stones, hard to quickly ride), a steep climbing trail, and logs to descend on. The proposed site is located at the top of the Jump and Peanut Butter mountain biking trails, about an acre in size. 

The idea came from the Humboldt Composite, a county-wide mountain biking team made up of riders from the 6th-12th grades. Most of their races take place outside the county, where rocky trails and difficult-to-traverse obstacles are the norm. There aren’t many places like that to train here, so they thought it’d be a good idea to reach out to the city to see if they’d be interested. They were, and though it’s not a sure thing yet (Emily Sinkhorn, Arcata’s director of environmental services, said it would need to be approved by the Forest Management Committee and the city council), everyone’s excited about the possibilities. 

According to Brenda O’Dell, a coach for the Humboldt Composite, many of the jumps in the forest are too aggressive for many of their riders. A skills park would be a nice way to get their athletes acclimated to the trickier details of controlling a bicycle at-speed.

“It’s a good way of supporting the kids and getting them outside and active,” said O’Dell. “I’m an ER nurse, and I see a lot of kids that are struggling, and I’m like ‘You need to get outside, and get some exercise!’ It just helps build a community that fills a niche for some kids.”

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While their peers savor the last weeks of summer vacation, kids at Kneeland School are heading back to class a little early this year as the district moves to a year-round schedule — the first of its kind in Humboldt County. 

The new school year will begin on Aug. 11 and continue through June 25, 2026, with several extended breaks in between, including three weeks for Spring Break and one week each for Fall Break and Presidents’ Break, in addition to the standard time off for Thanksgiving, Winter Break and other scheduled holidays.

The shift away from the traditional two- to three-month summer vacation might sound like a bummer for the students, but teachers and administrators are hopeful that the continuous or “balanced” calendar, which redistributes the standard 180 days of instruction required in most states, will help improve learning retention and address learning loss that occurs over extended breaks.

“Over the years, teachers have noticed that they spend the first month or month and a half of school reviewing material that they had already covered during the previous school year,” Kneeland School District Secretary Cherie Circe told the Outpost. “At first, everybody thought, ‘Oh, no! Who wants to shorten their summer?!’ But after the district presented it as an issue of learning loss and reteaching from the previous year, the families got on board, and the teachers were excited about it.”

The district, which serves two dozen students from transitional kindergarten up to eighth grade, surveyed parents and teachers earlier this year to get a better idea of scheduling preferences. Not surprisingly, their primary request was to ensure that the new schedule lined up with other local school districts to accommodate family vacations.

“We also had to coordinate with the Humboldt County Office of Education (HCOE) … and they were really excited to see if this was going to work for us. I mean, I’m excited to see if it’s going to work for us,” Circe continued. “In the spring, when we go to set our calendar for next year, the school board is going to seek feedback from teachers and families to learn if there was burnout or any other issues, and we’ll go from there.”

Reached for additional comment, HCOE Superintendent of Schools Michael Davies-Hughes told the Outpost that other school districts have explored calendar adjustments in years past, including Fortuna High School and Ferndale Elementary, but no one has “elected to stretch the instructional school year over a greater span of time” in the way that the Kneeland School District has. 

“The Kneeland School District’s decision to adopt a modified schedule for the 2025-26 school year reflects a thoughtful, research-informed approach to addressing the challenges of summer learning loss — an issue that many districts across the county and state continue to grapple with,” Davies-Hughes wrote via email. “[W]e have seen evidence across the county that extended breaks can impact student retention and achievement, particularly for our most vulnerable learners. Districts are increasingly looking at calendar innovations, targeted interventions, and expanded learning opportunities to mitigate these effects.”

Additional information can be found in the press release below:

Kneeland, CA – Kneeland School has announced a modification to the traditional elementary school calendar for the 2025-2026 school year to address summer break learning loss.

Superintendent Greta Turney stated, “This decision was made with careful consideration of our students’ academic progress and the overall well-being of our school community. We recognize the impact this may have on family schedules, and we are committed to supporting our students and families during this transition.”

Key updates include:
• First day of school: August 11, 2025
• New last day of school: June 25, 2026
• Break dates:
   o Fall Break: October 13-17, 2025
   o Thanksgiving: November 26-28, 2025
   o Winter Break: December 22, 2025 – Jan 9, 2026
   o Presidents Break: February 16-20, 2026
   o Spring Break: April 13, 2026 – May 1, 2026
   o Other Scheduled Holidays: Labor Day- Sept 1, Staff Day- Nov 10, Veterans Day Nov 11, Martin Luther King Day- Jan 19, Memorial Day – May 26, Juneteenth- Jun 19.
• Transportation services will continue as normal during the modified schedule.

Parents and guardians are encouraged to review the updated calendar on the district’s website at http://humboldt.k12.ca.us/kneeland_sd/ and reach out to school administrator with any questions.

“We are grateful for the continued support of our families, staff, and community as we work together to provide the best possible learning experience for our students,” said Superintendent, Greta Turney.

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The Eureka Police Department announced Tuesday it was seeking information pertaining to the whereabouts of Amber Morris, aged 37, who was last seen in Arcata’s Sunny Brae neighborhood on April 29, 2025. 

Morris is described as a white woman, standing 5‘3” with a slim build. 

Anyone who has seen Morris of might have information about her location is encouraged to call EPD at 707-441-4044.