It’s 26 feet tall, 53 feet wide, 800 feet long, weighs 140,000 pounds, is filled with water, and is probably pretty expensive; no, it’s not a sinking megayacht — it’s the world’s largest water-filled cofferdam by volume, as well as the longest, and it was just manufactured in Hydesville by Humboldt-based company AquaDam.

A definition: cofferdams are barriers built in bodies of water, allowing for the enclosed section to be drained, useful in a flood or during construction. This specimen, ordered to help future repairs on a levee in a wastewater treatment facility in Palm Harbor, Florida, was shipped out by AquaDam this morning, rolled up in a gigantic tube and lashed to a semi-truck. 

AquaDam’s cofferdams have some advantages over traditional cofferdams; because they’re water-inflated, they can be filled up with floodwater already at the site — in this case, about 6.4 million gallons of the stuff. Using one is a lot less labor-intensive than stacking sandbags or constructing a normal dam. Because they’re plastic, they’re also far cheaper; using sheet piling for the job this dam was created for would have cost around $15 million, said AquaDam manufacturing supervisor Seth Ash in a phone call with the Outpost today, but this dam cost about a tenth of that. 

“And when you’re done, you pump the water out,” Ash said. “You drag it out with an excavator, you roll it up as you’re dragging it out, and you can reuse it and reuse it and reuse it again.”

Working six days a week, 10 hours a day, it took three weeks to make. It’s made out of 700 panels, each 164 feet long, and just sewing them all together took a week of work. AquaDam has leveled up their manufacturing capabilities in the last decade; Ash said they never would have been able to make a dam this big 10 years ago, but purchasing a custom welder that allows them to weld their own plastic liners changed everything. 

“I think all our employees are pretty proud of being able to do this and to assemble this so quickly in a timely fashion,” Ash said. “And we had absolutely no problems doing this, assembly-wise or manufacturing-wise. It went really, really well. So I do believe most of our employees and our bosses are pretty happy about how well this went…I wish we would have put a wrap on the bag before it left here. It would have looked a little prettier. But, you know, maneuvering something that’s 140,000 pounds is easier said than done.”

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Sept. 20, 2025, at approximately 12:20 p.m. Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a local business to meet with a 52-year-old female victim of an alleged sexual assault that occurred earlier that morning in the Loleta area.

During their investigation deputies learned that the suspect was identified as Amos Lee Nuckols, 56 years-old, of Eureka, and a driver for a local transit company. Nuckols was driving in the area of Little Fairfield St. in Eureka with a client in the vehicle, when encountered the victim seated on the side of the road.   He then stopped and offered the victim a ride, which she accepted.  He then reportedly drove his client to the Ferndale area where he was dropped off and then drove the victim to a secluded area in Loleta where the alleged sexual assault occurred.  

Deputies contacted the North Coast Rape Crisis team and requested an advocate respond to the scene. The advocate responded met with the victim and transported her to a local hospital for treatment and provided her with additional victim assistance resources.

Based upon the victim’s statement and the initial investigation deputies arrested and booked Nuckols at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following charges:

• P.C. 220(a)(1) Assault with intent to commit a specified felony
• P.C. 243.4(d) Sexual Assault

This is an active criminal investigation, and no further details will be released.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

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New data from the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Public Health Branch shows a significant decrease in opioid overdose deaths over the last two years — the lowest numbers reported since 2020. 

During a biennial update on the county’s syringe exchange program at Tuesday’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, Public Health Officer Dr. Candy Stockton largely attributed the decrease in local overdose deaths to increased access to overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone, commonly referred to by the brand name Narcan.

“Our participants have reported nearly 280 overdose reversals in the last year,” Stockton said. “It’s actually critically important if you think about the total number of deaths that we had in Humboldt County from overdoses last year was about 50, [and] looking at how much higher that would have been without the overdose reversals that we had as a result of our naloxone distribution.”

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office reported 32 drug overdose deaths in 2020, which ticked up to 53 in 2021. In that same time period, fentanyl overdose deaths increased by 377 percent — jumping from nine in 2020 to 34 in 2021 — launching Humboldt into a fentanyl epidemic. There were over 80 local drug overdose deaths reported in 2022, as seen in the chart above, but that number steadily declined in 2023 and 2024.

“Our overdose death rates have been decreasing slowly over the last three years, but we are still losing 50 of our friends, family members and community members to overdose,” Stockton continued. “The numbers for this year look on track to be at that same level or slightly higher this year. This overdose prevention work remains critically important in our community.”

Stockton also reported a “drastic decrease” in the local hepatitis C rates over the last five years, something she attributed, in part, to local syringe exchange programs. 

“The combination of both being able to treat and cure hepatitis C and slowing the spread among individuals who are infected has really helped us as a community combat this serious illness,” Stockton said. “[These programs] help reduce the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C transmission, as well as helping to reduce overdose deaths in people who use drugs.”

“[There is] lots and lots of data going back, showing that [syringe exchange programs] do not increase drug use, as is sometimes a concern for people,” she continued. “We also know that areas that have active syringe service programs across the country have actually lower incidence of syringe litter in their community, lower incidence of needle stick injuries for law enforcement officers, and decreased crime levels compared to areas that do not have those programs.”

Following staff’s presentation, Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone acknowledged that “we’ve all been touched in our families by addiction and these drugs in one way or another,” and thanked DHHS for their work.”

“I think the data does show that [these programs are] having a positive effect,” he added. “We’re not Portugal, so we don’t have heroin shops and other kinds of things. We don’t hand out drugs; we hand out equipment to try and make things safer. I mean, there’s some interesting data in countries like Portugal and other places that have taken it to a whole ‘nother level further, but we don’t do that in America.”

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn was more skeptical.

“I appreciate the work you’re doing … [and] I’m just an old man looking here, but we’re going to give away smoking supplies in the unincorporated community so they can smoke an illegal product, but we’re not doing any more tobacco licenses?” he asked rhetorically. “But as we move forward with the fentanyl use, a lot of that is going to be enforcement. … If they can’t get the product, maybe they’re going to think about coming in and getting help with that.”

Similarly, Board Chair Michelle Bushnell said she hasn’t been “greatly supportive” of needle exchange programs in the past, due to concerns over monitoring and lenient parameters. 

“It’s not that I don’t agree with the process or the concept, I just wanted some more — I guess more? I don’t know what the word is — I wanted it to be monitored more,” she said. “I do appreciate the work, and I do recognize that the drug overdoses have gone from injectables to more pill form now, which is unfortunate, and hopefully someday we can find solutions for that as well.”

Supervisors Natalie Arroyo and Mike Wilson both expressed support for the program, with Wilson making a motion to approve and file the report. The motion passed in a 5-0 vote.

Staff’s full presentation can be found at this link.

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The City of Eureka is among a group of plaintiffs that prevailed over the Trump administration in federal court Tuesday.

The plaintiffs, a group of local organizations and governments that receive millions of dollars of federal grant money, accused the Trump administration of imposing “unauthorized and vague conditions” on their grant funding. Yesterday, a federal judge agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction that bars the administration from making grants conditional upon fulfilling Trump’s policy goals.

The president’s administration was trying to force grantees to comply with a series of recent executive orders that prohibit recipients from promoting “woke” beliefs and practices, such as DEI, “gender ideology” and elective abortion, while requiring them to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts. The City of Eureka is among many jurisdictions to have passed a sanctuary ordinance prohibiting the sharing of immigration-related information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The plaintiffs in this suit, led by the City of Fresno, challenged the actions on constitutional grounds, arguing that they violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Fifth Amendment, Separation of Powers, the Spending Clause and the Tenth Amendment.

The City of Eureka joined the lawsuit last month. City Manager Miles Slattery told the Outpost via phone that while the city has not yet received any grants that would have been contingent on those new conditions, it regularly received Community Development Block Grants and federal transportation grants.

“We’re looking at a $5 million grant for transportation [currently],” he said.

With yesterday’s ruling, which follows a temporary restraining order granted last month, Judge Richard Seeborg found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their case. Only Congress has the authority to impose conditions on federal grant funding, he noted. And he found that the administration’s grant conditions likely violate the Separation of Powers; they’re unrelated to the expertise of the granting agencies; and the vagueness of the conditions would encourage “arbitrary and discriminatory” enforcement, among other issues.

The order applies to these federal agencies:

• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
• U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
• Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
• Federal Highway Administration (FHA)

It’s unknown whether defendants’ attorneys will now seek a permanent injunction. The Trump administration could also appeal the ruling. You can read the decision full at this link.

Press release from the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities:

Next week, September 29 through October 5, 2025, the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities (CRTP), Tri-County Independent Living, the Humboldt Transit Authority, and the Humboldt County Association of Governments are organizing the annual Week Without Driving on the North Coast. The Week Without Driving is an invitation for anyone who wants to participate – but particularly for elected and appointed officials, transportation planners and engineers, and other decision-makers – to get some first-hand experience of what it is like to live without the option of driving, here in our local communities.

In July of this year, Week Without Driving founder Anna Zivarts gave a well-attended public talk in Arcata about the nondrivers in every community, the importance of meeting the transportation needs of nondrivers, how communities can work better for nondrivers (and everyone else), and valuing the expertise of nondrivers. Nondrivers include people with disabilities, kids, older people, immigrants, people with suspended licenses, and people who can’t afford to own or operate a vehicle. Humboldt County’s nondrivers include at least 36,000 people without a driver’s license, as well as an unknown number of people who have a license but can’t drive for financial or other reasons.

For participants in the Week Without Driving, the challenge is to not drive themselves in any car. If participants do end up driving during the week, they are encouraged to reflect on why they ended up driving, and what they would have done if they didn’t have that option. Local decision-makers who sign up to participate in the Week Without Driving are also invited to ride along with a local transit rider on one of their regular routes to gain additional first-hand insights into using the local transit system.

This is the third national Week Without Driving. Hundreds of organizations across the country are hosting local Week Without Driving activities and events.

Local Leaders Sign Up to Participate

As of this release, 46 local residents in Humboldt County have signed up to participate in the Week Without Driving, including elected officials and other local leaders. The Humboldt Transit Authority also issued a formal proclamation recognizing the Week Without Driving at their September 3rd Board of Directors meeting.

Following is a partial list of local leaders who have pledged to participate:

• Robin Baker, McKinleyville Family Resource Center co-executive director
• Philip Beaudry, Eureka Transportation Safety Commission member
• Alysia Bixler, Redwood Community Action Agency projects coordinator
• Mary Burke, McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee member
• Caitlin Castellano, Eureka senior planner
• Katie Collender, Humboldt Transit Authority Deputy general manager
• Mario Fernandez, Eureka City Council member
• Caroline Griffith, Eureka Transportation Safety Commission chair
• Ashton Hamm, uxo architects worker-owner
• Frank Herrera, Cal Poly Humboldt Social Justice Equity & Inclusion Center coordinator
• Morgan King, Cal Poly Humboldt climate action analyst
• Maggie Kraft, Area 1 Agency on Aging executive director
• Meredith Matthews, Arcata City Council member
• Mark Mueller, Eureka Transportation Safety Commission member
• Nanette Nickerson, Caltrans District 1 senior transportation engineer
• Bonnie Oliver, McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee member
• Joben Penuliar, Caltrans District 1 complete streets coordinator
• Greg Pratt, Humboldt Transit Authority general manager
• Saskia Rymer-Burnett, Caltrans District 1 transit planner
• Sarah Schaefer, Arcata City Council member
• Matt Simmons, Arcata Planning Commission chair
• Emily Sinkhorn, City of Arcata director of environmental services
• Oona Smith, Humboldt County Association of Governments senior regional planner
• Jessica Welch, Cal Poly Humboldt Library organizational development & engagement coordinator

There is still time for anyone interested to learn more and sign up to participate at https://transportationpriorities.org/weekwithoutdriving.

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Press release from CalFire Humboldt-Del Norte Unit:

What: Professionally controlled prescribed burn planned for the consumption of invasive beach grass involving approximately 9 -10 acres each.

When: The prescribed burn is planned for Wednesday, September 24th, 2025.

Where: Ocean Ranch southwest of Table Bluff. Four miles northwest of Loleta. Lake Earl Wildlife Area. Five miles north of Crescent City.

Why: These burns are part of a multi-year prescribed fire study for invasive plant management and hazardous fuels reduction. The treatment will help to enhance the health of the native plant communities, aid in the control of non-native plant species, protect and enhance habitat for multiple dune species, and aid in the reduction of hazardous fire fuels.

Who: California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), CAL FIRE.

During these prescribed fire operations, residents may see an increase in fire suppression resource traffic, smoke will be visible and traffic control may be in place. Please be cautious for your safety as well as those working on prescribed burns.

Learn more how you can prepare for wildfire by visiting: www.ReadyForWildfire.org.

For more information, please contact the CAL FIRE Humboldt – Del Norte Unit Public Information Officer line at: (707) 726-1285.

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From the Eureka Police Department: