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Previously: Ground Has Been Broken on Klamath River Restoration, the World’s Largest-Ever Dam-Removal Project

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Press release from the Klamath River Renewal Corporation:

(Hornbrook, Ca) – This week, crews put the final touches on the removal of the Copco No. 2 Dam and its diversion infrastructure. Removal of the dam structure was completed in September, and crews spent the last month removing the remaining diversion infrastructure, grading the river channel, and performing erosion control. This work prepares the river canyon for consistent river flows, likely commencing within 30 days, which the canyon hasn’t seen in 98 years.  Currently, flows in the canyon are fluctuating due to work being done to prepare Copco No. 1 for drawdown. 
 
“Copco No 2 is the first dam to be removed due to its small stature, location, and lack of reservoir,” noted Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), the entity tasked with the safe and efficient removal of the four lower Klamath hydroelectric dams. “However, while Copco No. 2 was significantly smaller than the other dams slated for removal, it still had a significant impact on the river.” 
 
Copco No. 2 was located right below Copco No. 1 in a steep river canyon, commonly known as Ward’s Canyon, named after Kitty Ward, a Shasta Woman who lived in the valley now submerged by the reservoir created by Copco No 1. Completed in 1925, Copco No. 2 was a diversion dam that funneled the river’s flows out of the canyon and into a tunnel system that sent the water to the Copco No. 2 powerhouse located downstream, essentially dewatering the 1.7-mile-long canyon. Without the river’s presence in the canyon, trees grew in the riverbed which, when exposed to consistent river flows, would have died off creating a hazard for future recreationists. These trees were removed in September in collaboration with area tribes. 
 
“Seeing the Klamath River flow through this canyon after being diverted for nearly a century is inspiring,” said Laura Hazlett, COO of KRRC. “It makes me excited for everything else that is to come with the removal of the other three dams.” 
 
The remaining three dams, Copco No. 1, Iron Gate, and JC Boyle are slated for removal next year. In January KRRC will implement drawdown, the slow draining of the reservoirs, which is expected to take 3-5 months, depending on the amount of water entering the system as a result of spring runoff. Once drawdown is complete, restoration and deconstruction activities will begin in earnest. All three dams are expected to be completely removed by November 2024, while restoration activities will continue for years to come to ensure restoration success. 

Each language has a worldview a way of interpreting reality, Loren Me’-lash-ne Bommelyn says. For more than a century, society considered his uncivilized.

Bommelyn grew up in a “mixed language dynamic.” His mother, aunts and uncles were part of a generation who largely responded to their Tolowa-speaking elders in English. Those elders had survived religious proselytization and boarding school. Their parents and grandparents lived through massacres and forced relocation to reservations.

Some protected their children by deliberately not teaching them Tolowa, Bommelyn said, while others decided “I am the way I am and I talk the way I talk.”

“I remember seeing a movie — I don’t remember the name of it now. It was a Western and the characters were just out on the prairie shooting Indians,” Bommelyn told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday. “He gets shot and the dust flies. I go, ‘Yay!’ Dad goes, ‘What are you doing? Did you know that guy? That’s your uncle.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘What are you?’ I go, I’m an Indian.’ He said, ‘Who was he?’ And I go, ‘He was an Indian.’ A light came on in my head. I realized I’m a member of the bad guy population and it completely re-wrote my script.”

Bommelyn, who has spearheaded the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation’s efforts to save its language from extinction, is one of 10 language keepers featured in the documentary ‘A’-t’i Xwee-ghayt-nish: Still, We Live On. The film was created in partnership with the tribe and Cal Poly Humboldt.

Film professor Dave Jannetta is the director. The producers are Cal Poly Film Lecturer Nicola Waugh and Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation Language and Culture Division Manager Marva Sii~xuutesna Jones.

The documentary will be screened at 2 p.m. Nov. 11 at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Native American Forum in Arcata. The screening will include a reception featuring traditional Tolowa foods and a panel discussion with Bommelyn and other voices from the film.

Still, We Live On will also be screened at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 18 at Xaa-wan’-k’wvt Hall Community Center, 101 Indian Court Road in Smith River. That event will also include a reception and discussion featuring the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation’s language keepers.

According to Loren Bommelyn, former Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation culture department director Pyuwa Bommelyn wrote a grant to document how their language evolved from being a “spoken tradition” to being a “written tradition.”

Loren Bommelyn said his people just began developing Tolowa as a written language in 1968 using a list of about 30 people who were born between 1868 and 1930.

“We worked with those people a lot capturing ethnographic information, village locations, villages that people descended from and just as much vocabulary that I could collect from them,” Bommelyn said. “We were pretty fortunate in that they remained in-situ — (despite) how rough it was and how the genocide occurred and the dysphoria that occurred as well, these folks were a handful who ended up continuing to live in Del Norte County.”

During the 1850s, the Tolowa people endured massacres by white settlers. In his book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, Benjamin Madley writes that the 1853 massacre near Yontocket Slough south of Smith River “may rank among the most lethal of all massacres in U.S. history.”

Despite the official tally from white sources estimating that roughly 150 people were massacred, Tolowa sources state that as many as 600 people may have lost their lives at Yontocket, Madley writes.

According to Bommelyn, the people he and others interviewed were “L1 speakers” — Tolowa was their first language.

“The community at that time was somewhat close. People knew each other and a lot of us were interrelated,” he said, adding that in the 1960s a lot of tribes had lost their language because their last-known speaker had died. “We were kind of fortunate. The four tribes in our area who have documented their language starting in the same period, they still had in-situ L1 speakers in their communities.”

Bommelyn said as a kid, his mother would take him to visit one of those elders, Amelia Brown, who lived to be 110 years old.

“I was so inquisitive and I wanted to know these things,” Bommelyn said. “I would come up with scenarios and questions and she would answer them for me.”

Another elder, Sam Lopez Sr., carried the law and protocols for the Tolowa Dee-ni’s ceremonies. Lopez passed that baton to Bommelyn when he died.

According to Bommelyn, Lopez, who had become a Christian, was alive when Congress enacted the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978. As moderator of those ceremonies, Lopez spoke on the Tolowa Dee-ni’s behalf.

“I remember being in Klamath, at the Klamath Salmon Festival when it was young, and he said, ‘Well, sisters and brothers we’re here today to do some ceremony dancing.’ And he said, ‘I have read that Bible from end to end and what I come to know today is the God they talk about in the Bible is the same God of my ancestors.’ And he goes, ‘Let’s Dance!’,” Bommelyn told the Outpost. “We never got to capture all of this stuff in the story, but this is how the language was working in all of that.”

Filmmakers began working on Still, We Live On over the summer of 2022, Waugh said. In addition to screening the film locally, she and Jannetta plan to enter the documentary into film festivals, including those focusing on indigenous causes, across North America.

There’s also plans to show the documentary on PBS following the festival run, Waugh told the Outpost.

“Our entire goal was to make a film for the community,” she said. “But it has broad enough appeal to exist outside of that. If we get a good reception in Del Norte and Humboldt it’ll make the tribe extremely happy.”

Bommelyn said documenting the ongoing revitalization of his language is important because a lot of Tolowa people “can find no economic reason to speak Tolowa,” so they question the importance of learning it.

Then there are others who are ignorant of the language itself. Learning Tolowa is viewing the Tolowa world through its own lens, he said.

Up until now, Bommelyn said, Tolowa religion and spirituality had been seen through an English framework. He said he sometimes gets jealous of those who speak their original language.

“We had to speak a colonizer’s language and wonder about our world,” Bommelyn said. “That’s the ultimate gift to the new generation — to know who you are in a deeper way, a clearer way.”

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Michael Joseph Dal Porto passed away peacefully in his sleep on Oct. 24, 2023. Michael was born in Arcata to Lena and Nelo Dal Porto in the old Trinity Hospital on Sept. 19, 1941. He played football for Arcata High School. He started working at the family store, Hutchins Grocery, at the age of 13. Then he managed 4th Street Market when his father purchased it. He and his wife Joan opened Dal Porto’s Deli in 1979.

Michael was a huge 49er’s fan and attended many games as a season ticket holder. He loved to watch Giants baseball as well. He was on a bowling team at Arcata Bowl for 20 years. He coached Pop Warner football when his sons played. He hosted many fun weekends for family and friends at his cabin in Salyer. He was a member of the Elks Lodge and was a past treasurer for the ICF.

Family was everything to Michael. He always had time to listen and offer advice. He always looked after his own and gave generously to his community and church. He enjoyed good conversation and a good argument. If he knew you; he knew you well.

Michael was preceded in death by his grandson Michael and his great-grandson Jerimiah. He is survived by his wife Joan, his sister Diana and his six children: Kim (Marilyn) Miller, Dan (Terri) Dal Porto, Jodi Stanley, Phil (Robyn) Dal Porto, Jamie (Mark) Hammer and Ken (Angie) Dal Porto along with 13 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. The family would like to give a special thanks to the wonderful staff at both Granada Wellness Center and Timber Ridge Care Home.

The funeral will be Saturday, November 11 at 11 a.m. at St. Mary’s Catholic Church 1690 Janes Road, Arcata. With a reception immediately following at Leavey Hall also at St. Mary’s Church. If you had the blessing of knowing Mike, please come to the service or reception to share your stories and celebrate his life with his family.

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Marilyn Maxine Faustino
February 2, 1933 – October 23, 2023

Marilyn Maxine Faustino passed away in her home on October 23, 2023 at the age of 90.

Marilyn was born and raised in Eureka and was a proud member of the Yurok Tribe. She was a mother first and foremost, but worked as a prep cook and a server most of her life. She was very proud to have worked at both the Carson Mansion and the Eureka Inn for many years.

Marilyn was a loving and dedicated wife, mother, auntie, grandmother and friend to many. She made sure everyone had their needs taken care of and were prepared for anything and everything. People were drawn to her voice, her laughter and her exuberant personality. She knew how to make people laugh everywhere she went. Everyone fell in love with Marilyn and could not get enough of her.

Whether you were family or not, most everyone called her Grams, she loved it and would introduce herself that way as well! She loved all the kiddos and would welcome them in like her own. Truly the best Grandma!

In Marilyn’s younger years she and her husband George were members of the local Elks Lodge, where they spent many days and nights attending events and enjoying the company of their friends. As they got older they turned their passion to Bingo; you would see them both at Cher-ae Heights just about every night of the week sitting at the same table in the same spot. Marilyn was known around the Bingo hall as ‘Big Mama Big Winner’!

Marilyn loved the casinos and would take trips to Reno often with friends and family over the years; and hit up every casino possible when traveling. As a matter of fact, the traveling was planned around what casinos they would be stopping to gamble at!

Marilyn enjoyed sewing, cross stitch and crocheting. She spent hours and hours making large afghans for many family members and friends. She was very crafty and made a variety of things including earrings, clothing, button dolls, ceramics, pot holders, ornaments and too many more to list. She loved painting wooden birdhouses and other pieces of wooden art that her husband would make himself. She asked him to make it and he did; then she put on the finishing touches. She loved creating and did this most of her life with friends and family as well. Marilyn was very fond of cooking and was also an amazing baker. She loved to make applesauce from her apple trees, zucchini bread fresh from the garden, cookies of all sorts and of course her special Hello Dollies.

She is survived by her children Tina Stachel and Tracy Faustino; grandchildren Desiree Faustino, Tara Faustino, Tracy A Faustino, Amanda Faustino, Jason Omholt, Suntalena Downs and Jessie Sky Downs, Michael Frost and Herman Smith; great grandchildren Andrea Lillian, Natalie Layla, Nova Lynn, Jordan Trystan, Anthony Lee, Ellie Anabella, and Malia Rose; and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.

Marilyn loved spending time with her nieces and nephews Linda O’Neill, Pam Malloy, Rhonda Taylor, Michael Ward and Sandra Bebe. They held a special place in her heart and have quite the stories to tell of their times together.

She is preceded in death by her husband of over 60 years George Faustino. Her father and mother George Henry Quinn and Irene Quinn-Ferris. She was the last surviving sibling of 11 children: Grace, Eleanor, MargEdith, George (Chub),Verna, Glen (Mickey), Robert (Bob) and Arlene (Leenie). As well as her son Fred Downs and daughter Vicky Johnson. Her close friend and niece Dixie Taylor.

The family wishes to thank her amazing caretakers as well as Hospice of Humboldt who all helped so much with her care near the end. More than words can express.

Marilyn will be missed by many but memories of her will forever be with us.

We will have a graveside service at Oceanview Cemetery on Saturday, November 4 at 3 p.m., and a funeral reception to follow at our house in Eureka.

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Our proud Mark Earl Armstrong passed away on October 12, succumbing to end-stage kidney and heart failure. Born in San Diego in 1962, he was born into a family of five, and he spent his childhood and early life in San Diego, spending time tending to his dogs and starting his lifelong passion for fitness. He often loved telling his friends and family about the way his cat would jump from chair to table in his house because if his cat touched the ground for even a second, his dogs would hound it.

He spent much of his adult life moving around while working many different construction jobs, his favorite of which was pouring concrete. He loved telling his family about the day the company he worked for purchased a concrete pourer. Among other jobs he performed included jobs such as oil rigs and roadwork.

As he reached his 30s, he reached a major turning point in his life when most of his family would come to know him when he made the choice to settle down in Humboldt, where he would become familiar with the Eureka police, causing them quite the headache throughout his life. While he met and dated many women throughout his life, he would find his life partner in a woman named Julie Williams, who, while he never legally married, he and most others would consider his wife. Spending 23 years by his side before his passing, he also became the beloved father to her four children, as well as fathering one more with her.

His family quickly became one of his greatest joys in life. While often missing time due to being sent to jail many times throughout his life, when out of prison, he enjoyed sharing his love of sports, fitness, and fighting with his children, spending much time with his daughter Cynthia Retzloff, bragging about her skill in sports and fighting for the rest of his life. Sometimes, more than once a week, he often stated that he didn’t believe there was a man in Humboldt County who could beat her. While she never fell into sports like her sister, Mark would often talk about his daughter Sarah Retzloff, sometimes speaking about the potential she had for sports herself. Around this time, after some small amount of begging from his children, Mark would adopt a small Jack Russell terrier whose name would often switch between Sam, Sammy, and Samuel. He would stay with the family until his thirteenth year, dying just a year before Mark himself.

Alongside his sports, the family would go on summer trips to Willow Creek to swim and camp, making a yearly tradition to read Harry Potter to his children, starting his fifth child’s lifelong love of reading. This tradition would continue until most of his children had grown up and could no longer attend as they built their own lives. Around this time, the Armstrong family would become very briefly homeless after being kicked out of their home due to a police raid. They would soon move in with the family’s grandmother briefly, where they would adopt a red tick hound named Stanley, who would make himself known by peeing on Julie’s leg in their first meeting, and a mixed pitbull named Mama, who would become known for her hefty size despite her belief that she was a lap dog. Mark and his family would then move into McCullen’s Motel, where he would live until his death.

During this time, Mark’s life slowed down, now having only one child left to raise. Growing older, he would still grace many a gym in Eureka, proud of his ability to deadlift 450 pounds even in his fifties. He would put much of his later years into his dogs, walking them every day and often being seen throwing the ball at the park with them, his wife, and his son. Living with some ups and downs, Mark’s family life would soon come to an end when, after a long period of decline, he was admitted to a hospital and lost the ability to walk, as well as contracting diabetes. He would fight this condition for a year, regaining some ability to walk and returning home after nearly a year. However, unknown to his family, he was diagnosed with end-stage kidney and heart failure and was never going to live longer than the end of the year. Knowing this, he returned home for, as he put it, “a couple smiles and a couple laughs.” He would spend his last two weeks alive being tended to by his wife and occasionally watching a movie with his youngest son before having a stroke and dying peacefully, together with his family, after being taken off his ventilator at the request of his youngest son and receiving his last rites according to his faith.

Mark is survived by his loving wife of 23 years, Julie Williams, his fierce two daughters, Sarah and Cynthia Retzloff, and his proud three sons, including Mike and Robert Armstrong, as well as his mother, Etta Wood, and his sister, Jane Wendt.

Mark was known as both kind to his loved ones and fierce to those who went against him. He never lost a fight until the end.

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JoAnn Howell
August 28, 1932 to October 30, 2023.

JoAnn Howell was born on August 28, 1932 to Foster Scribner and Viola (Peggy) Scribner, nee Pennell. Christened June JoAnn Scribner, she grew up during the great Depression and described her early life as full of hardship. Her parents divorced and she and her only sibling, Lester Scribner, lived with their father who was a carpenter and did various odd jobs to support his family during the Depression. When WW II began, JoAnn’s mother and stepfather, Helmuth Maier, took possession of her and her brother in order that Helmuth not be drafted.

JoAnn married Oscar Haux in December of 1949 at the age of 17. Danny Haux was her first born, on August 1, 1950. She was just short of being 18. Two years later in the month of September she gave birth to her daughter, Sandra Haux. About five years thereafter, JoAnn and Oscar divorced. Shortly thereafter, she married Raymond Martsch and in January of 1960 gave birth to twin boys, Eric and Aaron Martsch.

She attended night school in order to finish her high school education, then went on to earn a B.A. in psychology from California State University, Hayward. She and Raymond Martsch divorced about 1967. She had a career as a successful real estate agent in Berkeley. She married Fred Howell in 1986. They lived in Berkeley, then Gualala, California, then Snohomish, Washington. They divorced about 1998. JoAnn then moved to the Humboldt Bay area where she resided until her death. About 2001, she met Larry Holsen who became her beloved partner until his death in June of 2022.

JoAnn was a very social person and spent many years actively participating in the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside. She volunteered for many years with College of the Redwoods Foundation League raising money for scholarships. She enjoyed gardening, yoga, fine art and her many good friends.

A person is more than the sum of their parts; they must be taken as a complete entity. JoAnn was a person loved by many and will be missed. The family thanks the attentive and caring personnel at Redwood R&R where JoAnn spent the last 3 ½ months of her life and are grateful for the care she received from the staff of Hospice of Humboldt who kept her comfortable and pain free in the last 2 weeks of life. Ever helpful, she donated her body to science. There is no memorial planned.

Go now in peace, blessed be.

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Big bird news, people! If you just got the same New York Times alert message on your phone that LoCO got, then you already know that the American Ornithological Society announced today that, henceforth, birds in the Americas will no longer be named after human beings. This edict will be applied retroactively to existing English bird names. 

As you may have instantly surmised, this initiative is an effort to ensure that figures who may have done bad in the past are not granted everlasting avian honor. For example, as the Times notes, the Scott’s oriole — a l’il black-and-yellow fellow found in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest — is named after Civil War general Winfield Scott, who forcibly relocated Native Americans along the Trail of Tears. Moving forward, the AOS says it plans to choose new monikers that highlight birds’ characteristics — say, plumage or beak shape. 

The Scotts (oriole and Winfield)

What does this mean for us bird watchers here in Humboldt? Well, thanks to the invent of LoCO‘s new-ish Humboldt Life species database, we were able to easily pull the names of every human-named bird species spotted in the county. Thus, without further delay, the following is the list of at least 48 local feathered friends who’ll need to change their letterhead:

• Allen’s Hummingbird
• Anna’s Hummingbird
• Audubon’s Warbler
• Baird’s Sandpiper
• Barrow’s Goldeneye
• Bell’s Sparrow
• Bewick’s Wren
• Bonaparte’s Gull
• Brandt’s Cormorant
• Brewer’s Blackbird
• Brewer’s Sparrow
• Bullock’s Oriole
• Cassin’s Auklet
• Cassin’s Kingbird
• Cassin’s Sparrow
• Cassin’s Vireo
• Clark’s Grebe
• Cooper’s Hawk
• Forster’s Tern
• Franklin’s Gull
• Gambel’s White-crowned Sparrow
• Hammond’s Flycatcher
• Harlan’s Hawk
• Harris’s Sparrow
• Heermann’s Gull
• Hutton’s Vireo
• Lawrence’s Goldfinch
• Leach’s Storm-Petrel
• LeConte’s Sparrow
• Lewis’s Woodpecker
• Lincoln’s Sparrow
• MacGillivray’s Warbler
• Nuttall’s White-crowned Sparrow
• Rivoli’s Hummingbird
• Ross’s Goose
• Sabine’s Gull
• Say’s Phoebe
• Steller’s Jay
• Swainson’s Hawk
• Swainson’s Thrush
• Thayer’s Gull
• Townsend’s Solitaire
• Townsend’s Warbler
• Vaux’s Swift
• Virginia’s Warbler
• Wilson’s Phalarope
• Wilson’s Snipe
• Wilson’s Warbler