Barbara Thomas Smith Nienburg
Sept. 20, 1937 - Feb. 24, 2025

Barbara Thomas Smith Nienburg was the daughter of William and Lois Thomas. They moved here in 1942, when Barbara was five years old. Her father bought a small ranch on Tompkins Hill in Fortuna. She loved being on the ranch with all the animals. Then, about six years, later her sister Marilyn (Duval) came along. She enjoyed having a younger sister to watch over.

She attended school in Fortuna and graduated at Fortuna High in 1955. After graduating she married George Veldon (Bud) Smith, and gave birth to Michael Veldon (Julie) Valerie Leigh and is preceded in death by Stanley Neil. She was grandmother to Brook, Brianna, Shennon, Katie, Veronica and is preceded in death by George.

She was a homemaker for many years raising the children in Carlotta, gardening and canning food. When we were younger she would sew most of our clothes.

She divorced George in 1973 and married Frank Nienburg. She worked as his secretary. He had a house painting business in the Bay Area.

She wished to be cremated by Ayres in Eureka .There will be a family celebration of life in the next following week, for the immediate family.

We would like to thank Hospice of Humboldt for their care in this difficult time.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Barbara Nienburg’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On April 05, 2025 at approximately 2:22 p.m., officers with the Eureka Police Department responded to the 800 block of 5th Street for a physical altercation occurring at the “Hands Off” demonstration being held at this location. Upon arrival, officers located a vehicle parked in the roadway and numerous individuals attempting to separate subjects that were on the ground.

Officers worked to quickly separate all involved in the incident, get the truck’s occupants back in the vehicle, and clear the roadway. Once the truck was removed from the scene, officers got participants from the rally to clear the roadway so that traffic could safely move through the area. While on scene, one of the organizers was contacted and given a business card so those with any information about the incident could report it to EPD. Officers then cleared the scene.

EPD’s Detective Sergeant had instructed the driver of the truck involved in the incident to respond to EPD Headquarters. He responded to that location and conducted an interview and obtained all the necessary information regarding the occupants of the vehicle.

Additionally, a video was received from a bystander at the event and added to the investigation. While we have videos from witnesses and media outlets, none of these videos have shown the precipitating event that lead to the altercation. We believe that some sort of exchange occurred between the driver of the truck and one or more individuals attending the demonstration, which lead to the physical altercation in the street.

Additionally, just prior to this incident, EPD’s Communication Center received a call from an individual attending the demonstration reporting a driver of a vehicle passing through the area made threats of a serious nature to return and cause harm to those attending the demonstration. The reporting party was able to provide us with a description of the vehicle as well as the license plate. This information was quickly shared with officers in the vicinity of the demonstration. This threat has been assigned to an officer for further investigation.

Both of these incidents are being actively investigated. EPD is asking if anyone has any further information on either one of these incidents to please contact our Criminal Investigations Unit at 707-441-4300.

Coming this summer: Bike it, walk it, rollerblade it.

Press release from the Redwood Community Action Agency:

CELEBRATION TIME – HUMBOLDT BAY TRAIL SOUTH OPENING – SAVE THE DATE

The eagerly awaited opening of the Humboldt Bay Trail segment connecting the cities of Eureka and Arcata will be celebrated on Saturday, June 28. This segment of the Humboldt Bay Trail, also part of the Great Redwood Trail, will be celebrated through a series of activities throughout the day, culminating with a trail party at the Adorni Center, 1011 Waterfront Drive in Eureka from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. The party will include music, food trucks, trail partner tabling and brief comments by invited speakers recognizing the decades of work to make the trail possible. Following the recognition program, dance to the musical stylings of Pandemonium Jones. Refreshments will be available. Individuals or organizations interested in being a part of this day should contact Carol Vander Meer at: cvandermeer@rcaa.org. More details about the event will be available at our website: tinyurl.com/trailparty

Organizers & supporters of the Humboldt Bay Trail Grand Opening Celebration include the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities (CRTP), Great Redwood Trail Agency, Redwood Community Action Agency (RCAA), Humboldt Trails Council, Ink People Center for the Arts, Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG), County of Humboldt, City of Eureka, City of Arcata, Bike Month Humboldt Coalition, Friends of the Eel River, Humboldt Waterkeeper, Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Humboldt Bay Bicycle Commuters Association, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, and Mir de Silva.

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

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President Donald Trump has issued an order that takes aim at state and local climate change laws and policies, including California’s landmark market program for reducing greenhouse gases.

Trump’s executive order directs U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify state and local acts that may be unconstitutional or preempted by federal law. Within 60 days, the attorney general must report back to the president with findings and recommendations for action.

Trump’s order names California’s cap and trade program, a market-based system created in 2012 that is considered one of the state’s key policies for combating climate change. The program sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allows companies to buy and sell credits. Twelve other states have similar trade programs for cutting greenhouse gases.

“California, for example, punishes carbon use by adopting impossible caps on the amount of carbon businesses may use, all but forcing businesses to pay large sums to ‘trade’ carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements,” Trump’s order says.

The order comes as the Trump administration moves to boost domestic oil and gas production while sidelining efforts to develop wind and solar.

Trump’s order says states have mounted “illegitimate impediments” to domestic energy production for oil, natural gas, nuclear power and other energy sources. Notably, the order derisively placed the term “climate change” in quotation marks.

Some legal experts called the order an overreach, disputing the president’s claims that states are exceeding their authority or that their climate programs are unconstitutional.

“The implication that the attorney general can just go out and declare this state law is unconstitutional and that therefore it’s no longer a valid law — that is the big problem with this,” said Margaret A. Coulter, a senior climate attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s more of an intimidation tactic.”

Amy Turner, director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said the Constitution’s 10th Amendment grants states the authority to set their own rules in areas where the federal government has not acted. “In other words, the federal government cannot simply grab powers because it wants to; doing so would in no uncertain terms represent a constitutional crisis,” Turner wrote.

Still, they say the order could have an overarching effect on the states. Turner wrote that Trump’s order “does not directly challenge, prohibit, argue preempted, or enjoin any state or local law. But it is likely a forerunner to litigation, lawmaking, or the withholding of federal funds.” This, she wrote, will have “a significant chilling effect on local climate policy innovation.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta did not immediately return CalMatters’ calls seeking reaction to the Trump order.

The first Trump administration sued the state of California challenging its cap-and-trade program, which is linked to a program in Canada, on the grounds that the state was entering into an international treaty. Trump lost that lawsuit.

Trump said state climate policies and laws “unduly discriminate” against fossil fuel companies and “impose arbitrary and excessive fines without legitimate justification,” which raises energy costs for Americans.

“These State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy. They should not stand,” it says.

Trump also singled out laws in New York and Vermont that created climate funds requiring fossil fuel companies to contribute to a fund for climate adaptation. The goal is to cover the rising costs of extreme weather events.

In addition, the order targets civil actions against fossil fuel companies. California is leading efforts to make fossil fuel giants pay billions of dollars for the climate damage they have long denied.

Trump said these programs “extort” money from oil companies.

The oil industry has been pushing the Trump administration to take a more aggressive legal stance against these state climate accountability efforts. Industry groups are encouraging the Justice Department to either back their lawsuits or initiate federal challenges of its own against states like New York and Vermont, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

California is considering similar legislation. A bill introduced by Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, would require companies to pay for the damage that greenhouse gas emissions have caused in California since 1990.

Robert, Robbie, Rob, “Papa” (never Bob) Bradley Crouch was born on Tuesday, June 28, 1968. Robert came out screaming, so excited to be the annoying little brother of Steve. Crashing down the hills of San Diego on his Big Wheel and getting lost while camping in Mammoth with brother and Dad. Robert attended Mt. Carmel High School, where he loved being on the football team as player #44 and MVP throughout his high school career, later moving to Humboldt to pursue an engineering degree at Humboldt State University.

Robert was a wonderful, creative chef, who worked at several local establishments such as Sunset Restaurant, Cher Ae Heights, and Scotia Inn. While working at the Scotia Inn, Robert met Jean Marie and joined a family of teenagers, Lyndsay, Michael and Will. Welcoming his first grandchild, Gabriella, followed by Liam, Kaia and Lyla forever being, “Papa.” Nearing retirement, Robert worked at Costco, where he had many visitors who knew him well and made an effort to stop by for a short visit. Robert made many lifelong friendships and connections with those around him.

Robert met his love, Donna, who also attended Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego, meeting for the first time thirty years later, finding each other in old yearbooks, becoming his “spicy freshman.” The love shared between the two of them blossomed and they started their adventures together, braving the world and creating beautiful experiences for themselves and family. Taking walks in the paradise of Humboldt, Wordle mornings, beach adventures with their super pooper dog Cooper, evening puzzles, enjoying time in their lovely home listening to the rain on the roof, and building stairs in their backyard forest to overlook “Lake Sometimes.” Together, each year Rob and Donna thoughtfully curated an annual Christmas Treasure Hunt on Christmas Day, filled with mysteries, fun clues and playful challenges for his daughter and granddaughters. Christmas caroling while bringing treats to friends, chasing (at least trying to) orbit toys through Manila Park, wooden airplane races at Redwood Bowl, dressing up as pirates and crabs and digging up treasure on the beach, and finding rubber duckies at Sequoia Park are just a glimpse into the magic that Papa created.

Robert, our lucky duck, passed unexpectedly from us on Friday, February 14, 2025 and is missed lovingly everyday. Robert’s love is continued by many who adore him, including his parents Jimmie and Elizabeth and Beverly and Mel as well as other beloved family members in California, Arizona, Utah and many local friends and found family. Papa is remembered by PB&J sandwiches with milk, his air guitar skills, being a Wii disc golf master, trying a new hot sauce, and through acts of kindness and love.4

An intimate ceremony with family is planned and a Celebration of Life ceremony is in planning and those who would like to attend can reach out to Gabriella Lynn on Facebook for details.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Robert Crouch’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Lake County May Try to Derail Eel River Dam Deal With Direct Appeal to President Trump

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About a month ago, the Lake County Board of Supervisors begged President Donald Trump to put a halt to the deal to remove the two antiquated hydropower dams way up near the headwaters of the Middle Fork main stem of the Eel. That deal was reached in mid-February, after years of negotiations. 

PG&E doesn’t want the dams anymore. It plans to petition the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to allow them to be removed, in a process that would mirror the historic undamming of the Klamath.

But Lake County wanted to throw some sand in the gears, and now that body is joined by the local chapters of the Farm Bureau in Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties. Last week, they sent a letter to President Trump, who has made speeches about the folly of allowing the water in California rivers to return to the sea,  and in that letter they petition the president to order FERC to keep the dams in place.

Here’s the letter from those Farm Bureaux. 

Here’s a press release from Friends of the Eel:

Turning a blind eye to serious safety and reliability concerns, as well as questioning a private company’s business decision, the Farm Bureaus of Marin, Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino Counties have asked the Trump administration to halt or delay the removal of Scott and Cape Horn Dams.

The dams comprise the Potter Valley Project on the upper Eel River. Dam owner Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) must surrender its current federal license to operate the dams, and intends to remove them starting in 2028. A separate agreement announced this February by Eel and Russian River interests proposes construction of a new, low-impact facility to maintain a reliable water supply to the Russian River through wet-season diversions from the Eel.

In an April 5 letter, the agriculture organizations argue that, instead, the federal Bureau of Reclamation should acquire the dams from PG&E and continue to operate them for the benefit of Russian River water users. Alternatively, they propose Eel River dam removal be delayed until Coyote Dam, on the upper Russian River east of Ukiah, is raised to provide additional storage in the Lake Mendocino reservoir.

PG&E has been clear that it does not make economic sense to operate the Potter Valley Project. In 2021 when the project’s transformer failed, PG&E ultimately decided not to replace it. At the time, the company projected it would take 18-24 months, at a cost of $5-10 million. Without a transformer, the project produces no electricity. But with renewables surging, especially cheap solar and batteries, PG&E doesn’t need the expensive electricity the Eel River dams used to make. Even when the project was producing power, PG&E estimated that operating the project cost more than 20 times its revenue.

Simply put, Scott and Cape Horn dams have come to the end of their useful life. Scott Dam, built in 1922, has accumulated so much sediment that its operations are restricted and dam failure is an ever-increasing threat. If the water level in the Lake Pillsbury reservoir falls too low or too quickly, PG&E engineers warn, the accumulated sediments near the base of the dam will fall down and clog the only low-level water outlet on Scott Dam. That would end diversions entirely.

However, it is Scott Dam’s vulnerability to seismic damage that is the real headline. Over the last 20 years, the US Geological Survey has mapped the Bartlett Springs Fault. We now know what Scott Dam’s builders did not: that the dam sits nearly atop the fault, near the middle of its more than hundred-mile length. We know that the fault can create earthquakes of magnitude 7 and greater.

And we know that in 2023, within a week of PG&E receiving an assessment of Scott Dam’s seismic vulnerability, the utility lowered the radial gates atop the dam. We also know that the California Division of Safety of Dams told PG&E they can’t raise those gates again without permission. These gates were built to compensate for volume lost to sedimentation; lowering them reduces reservoir capacity by about 20,000 acre feet. Between seismic risks, sediment problems, and the need to avoid harming Eel River fisheries, diversions from the Project have become at best unreliable.

Not if, but when Scott Dam’s only low-level water outlet is clogged, or an earthquake topples the whole thing, the diversion to the Russian River will end. The best way for Russian River interests to secure a reliable diversion is not to fight Eel River dam removal, but to remove the antiquated dams now and build a modern, run-of-the-river diversion structure. Of course, they must also continue working toward self-sufficiency within their own watershed.

The critically imperiled salmon and especially steelhead of the Upper Eel River need dam removal as soon as possible. And the commercial fishing industry desperately needs relief as they look toward a potential third disastrous year of fishery closure. Against piles of evidence and analysis, the farm bureaus claim instead there’s some magically cheap and effective way to provide fish passage over Scott Dam. There is not.

The farm bureau proposal appears to align with the federal administration’s ambitions of rolling regulations back to the 1950s. Back then PG&E and the Russian River took as much of the Eel’s flows as they wanted whenever they wanted, driving Eel River salmon and steelhead toward extinction. It would also be deeply unfair to expect PG&E’s already-burdened ratepayers to carry the costs of keeping the Eel River dams operating for the benefit of wealthy landowners and perpetuating the injustice to farmers, towns, fishermen, and Tribes in the Eel River. That is the essence of this predatory proposal: powerful entities resisting change to unsustainable systems because they benefit from the status quo.

Joe Tan met me at the door clad in a dark chef’s uniform and a black Giants ball cap and asked if I wanted a glass of water. We sat outside and the sky spat rain and smiled sun at us off and on for about half an hour before retiring to a reasonable gray. It cast no light over Eureka, which we had a fantastic view of from Rooftop Sushi’s patio.

There is nothing extraneous on that patio, nothing to distract diners from the food laid out in front of them or of Old Town stretching away from them. That is the way Tan likes it: Clean. Perfect. Precise. The way Tan — the owner of Rooftop Sushi, Curry Leaf and the soon-to-be-opened Kokoro Ramen — makes his food is the same. 

It would not be much hyperbole to call Tan Humboldt’s Asian restaurant kingpin. Besides those three, he used to own Nori in Arcata and moved to Eureka to work at Bayfront about 10 years ago. 

Despite the expansive portfolio, Tan does not at all see himself as a restaurateur. He is a chef trapped in the Iron Maiden of business management. 

“I love to serve the customer,” Tan said. “I don’t like to own the business. It’s a lot of headaches.”

“As a chef, I can work 20 hours, 24 hours — just need to sleep. I have no stress. As a chef, I work, and then at the end of the night, [I] drink beer, drink sake, and pass out. Next day, wake up and work.”

Tan, 44, didn’t really end up in Eureka by choice — it was the end result of a long, meandering journey that started in a village in Malaysia a few hours from Kuala Lumpur, where he worked in his family’s noodle restaurant. When he was 17, he found a job cooking in New York City, then bounced to Japan for six years, where he fell in love with both sushi and Japanese culture. 

“Everything is amazing,” Tan said. “Everything is clean and really looks nice. Tastes good. It’s very precise. It’s a mental thing…You see something is made in Japan, you know what the quality is. It’s healthier too, especially sushi. Japanese taste is lighter, not heavier like American food — mostly deep fried. Same thing with Chinese food. Mostly deep fried.”

If he had infinite resources, he would start a Japanese-style ramen place without human staffing. It would be serviced by a ticket machine. Customers pick up a number, wait for their food to be done, and pick it up at the counter when it’s done. Tan, long tired of the immense costs and tiny profit margins inherent to the business, would welcome the reprieve. 

He’s trying to capture the vibe of a Japanese alleyway with Kokoro Ramen by situating it in Old Town’s Opera Alley. Noodles are also Tan’s thing (“We love noodles. You can eat noodles every day”), and he’s been waiting to open up a ramen place since COVID derailed his plans in 2020. 

Don’t expect him to stick around for too long. Tan’s not much of a fan of Eureka. He doesn’t like the lack of nightlife and what a ghost town Eureka is after about 10 p.m. Tan is a city man who is stuck until his kids graduate high school and he can move down to the Bay. 

“Besides fishing and hiking — what are we gonna do here?” Tan asked. “I’m from the city. Lot of activity to do there. Here? There’s nothing.”

Even with all of the restaurants he has owned or does own or will own, Tan still thinks of himself as a chef, as the guy in the back with a knife in his hand instead of the overworked paper-pusher with a pen. 

“I like to make good food and satisfy people, to [see] the happiness in their face,” Tan said. “The compliment made me happy. It’s not about money. The business person, the owner, they think about money, how they make profit, but I’m the opposite. I just want [to make] the people happy. It’s my only goal.”