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UPDATE, DEC. 1: 

• BREAKING: Honsal Makes About-Face, Will Allow Donation of Organs From Man On Life Support 

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Clyde and Jeanine Matilton stood outside the entrance to St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka today, having just left the bedside of their son, 38-year-old Eric Matilton, who is on life support in the Intensive Care Unit.

His injuries have been declared non-survivable, they said. He will likely die within days or even hours, and they say their only hope now — the only thing that might bring them some peace of mind in the midst of tragedy — is if some of his organs can be salvaged from his body to save the lives of others.

They were in the Bay Area on the afternoon of Saturday, Nov. 18, when they got a call from a sheriff’s deputy saying he had bad news: Their son Eric had been found unresponsive, hanging from his neck in his cell the previous day.

Eric Matilton is a registered organ donor, and personnel from Donor Network West, a nonprofit organ procurement and tissue recovery organization, have flown into Humboldt County to help arrange and facilitate multiple donations. 

Humboldt County Sheriff-Coroner William Honsal. | File photo by Andrew Goff.

However, over the past 11 days, while Matilton lay unconscious, his condition slowly deteriorating in the ICU, Humboldt County Sheriff-Coroner William Honsal has denied all requests to allow the donations to proceed. In emails and other written communication to employees of Donor Network West — as well as the chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, of which the Matiltons are members — Honsal has said that because Eric Matilton suffered his fatal injuries while in law enforcement custody, departmental protocol mandates that a full criminal investigation be completed, including an autopsy, and therefore organ donation is not an option.

Clyde and Jeanine Matilton have tried numerous times to get Honsal to explain this policy, to meet them in person or even on the phone and help them understand why their son’s wishes would be denied, but he has declined, saying there’s nothing to discuss. Protocol is protocol.

“Eric wanted to donate his organs,” Clyde said. “We want to honor that, and we still do. But we’re running out of time here and we’re just being stonewalled. The sheriff has absolutely refused to talk about it.”

Robynn Van Patten, chief legal and administrative officer and executive vice president of Donor Network West, said her organization has also been struggling to get Honsal to communicate. She believes his office policy is both unjust and contrary to accepted protocols across the state and beyond.

“Organ donation and autopsy are not mutually exclusive,” Van Patten said when reached by phone this afternoon. “We routinely work with medical examiners and sheriffs because we’re in many counties. And what we do is we cooperate.”

If a criminal investigation needs to be conducted, it can co-exist with organ donation. “We can preserve evidence, take samples, do biopsies. We do that anyway to determine if the organs can be transplanted into a human … ,” Van Patten said. “The issue is that this sheriff is relying on a protocol … that says anytime someone passes away in custody they have to do a full autopsy. But he has not had any discussion with us about the fact that both can occur.”

That fact is even spelled out in state law. California Health & Safety Code 7151.20 says that a county coroner can allow organ donations from people who died “under circumstances requiring an inquest by the coroner.” If the coroner wants to withhold one or more organs from donation for any reason, they (or their designee) must show up to the autopsy. And if they deny organ removal, they can explain their reasoning in an investigative report or explain it to “the qualified organ procurement organization,” which, in this case, would be Donor Network West.

“The sheriff or coroner can cooperate with us,” Van Patten said. “We have mutual objectives: to preserve the integrity of forensic investigation while saving these lives.”

Like Eric Matilton’s parents, she’s been frustrated by the lack of communication from Honsal. “He has not had any discussion with us,” she said. “His belief is just, ‘Hey, that’s our protocol.’ I think it’s a mistaken belief. If he’d have a real conversation — he won’t — there’s a good chance he’d change his mind and have his pathologist say, ‘We can do the donation.’ Instead he just says [conversation is] not necessary. ‘We have a protocol.’ It’s crazy.”

The Outpost emailed Honsal earlier today but did not receive a reply before publication time. The department lost its public information officer weeks ago, and Honsal himself has not responded to Outpost emails for months.

Eric Matilton had multiple run-ins with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office over the years, including a 2016 standoff in which he allegedly fired a weapon in the direction of deputies, one of whom shot back. His most recent arrest was on Nov. 3. 

Eric Matilton (left) with his father, Clyde Matilton, at a San Francisco 49ers game last October. | Submitted.

But his parents say their son was a lot more than his criminal record might suggest.

“I want people to know about my son,” said his mom, Jeanine, outside the hospital this morning. Choking up, she continued. “I mean, he was a dad, he was an uncle, he was a brother, he was a husband. He was a person. I don’t want to take that away from him.”

A member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe born and raised on the reservation, Eric Matilton has three children, ages 7, 14 and 18, and a fiancee who may as well be his wife, since they’d been together for so long, Jeanine said.

Jeanine and Clyde don’t suspect any foul play in their son’s pending death. They understand that he hanged himself in jail. But they want to honor his wishes, and they want his body to save the lives of others.

“He was the one who wanted to donate,” Jeanine said.

Clyde doesn’t understand why they’ve gotten the runaround. Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Joe Davis reached out to Sheriff Honsal on their behalf, he said, but Honsal again said that protocol precludes organ donation in this case, and further conversation would be pointless.

The Matiltons’ requests to at least speak with him have been denied “over and over and over again,” Clyde said. “Then they [deputies] cite, ‘Oh, we had a shooting, we’re short staffed. It was the holidays.’ But now we’re into Wednesday and it’s still just ‘No.’” Clyde shook his head. “That’s a pretty hard ‘no’ because there are four people that are waiting for his organs that could die.”

Van Patten said Eric Matilton’s body parts could save the lives of as many as seven other people. Donor Network West has identified four potential recipients who are matches for his blood type, and with his two kidneys, heart, liver, corneas and skin tissues possibly available for donation, more organ recipients are possible.

The Matiltons said they can’t say where all of his organs would end up, though they’ve been told that his heart would be sent to someone in Los Angeles.

“In this case, here’s the deal,” Van Patten said. “This is a relatively young and healthy man who had, certainly, a tragedy befall him. I don’t know that the family thinks there’s foul play. They just want to know why. They just want the sheriff to talk to them. For our part, look, we’ve expended a lot of resources on this. This would bring a lot of peace to the family. It’s a healing opportunity that they want and that [Eric] himself wanted.”

Van Patten said it’s possible that Sheriff Honsal or one of his designees could find a valid reason to deny the organ donation request. If the office sent someone with medical knowledge into the operating room and identified an organ or two that they needed to withhold for an investigation, that would be within their rights. But to make that determination from afar strikes her as unjust, and possibly tragic.

While Honsal has been “very unresponsive,” Van Patten said she and her staff have managed to get hold of deputies lower on the chain of command for brief discussions. “But at no point have any of them provided a copy of that [department] policy or explained which part is incompatible for donation. It’s like there’s a foregone conclusion that [the organ donation request] will be denied because it’s their policy.”

Donor Network West is considering filing for injunctive relief or an order to show cause, but timing is an issue. There’s not much of it left before the case becomes moot. Throughout the course of her career, she said, only one other coroner — also from a rural county — denied her organization’s request for an organ donation. But in that case, the coroner at least sent someone to the operating room who denied the request onsite.

“Many, many counties are able to do both an autopsy and provide evidence — and do organ donation,” Van Patten said.

Outside the hospital, Clyde said he understands that his son’s fate is now sealed, but others aren’t.

“I believe in the [donor] system, especially now,” he said. “It’s so hard to lose a son. It is. And we’ve got the ability to help some other family that won’t have to go through this. … That’s about the only good that’s gonna come out of it for me, you know. My son’s dead.”

Van Patten made virtually the same point.

“We can’t get away from the human impact of this,” she said. “This one family would have some peace and healing from a tragic thing that occurred, but also this [situation] is important globally because if that’s the [Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office] policy — or if that’s how it’s being interpreted — think about all the lives that will be lost over time.”

Press release from Humboldt Bay Fire:

At 1734 hours on Tuesday November 28th, 2023, Humboldt Bay Fire responded with four Engines, and a Chief Officer to a structure fire at the 1200 block of Ridgewood Dr. While responding to the initial call, we received a report of a possible exposure to the vegetation.

The 1st arriving Engine secured a water source and set up for a defensive attack. The vacant trailer was fully involved with no spread to the vegetation. The second arriving engine provided support and assisted with fire attack and all other engines were canceled. There was a report of explosions and it was determined the owner had butane canisters and propane in the trailer. Crews remained on scene for approximately two hours for overhaul operations.

There were no Firefighter injuries. The property owner sustained minor burns to both hands and was evaluated by City Ambulance. The fire was located and controlled within fifteen minutes of the arrival of the 1st Engine. Damages are estimated to be approximately $53,000. A fire investigation was conducted and the cause of the fire was determined to be accidental in nature.

Humboldt Bay Fire would like to thank our allied partners for their assistance during this incident; HCSO, City Ambulance, and PG&E. Humboldt Bay Fire reminds everyone to have working smoke detectors in their residence and change the batteries twice a year during daylight savings.

UPDATE, 3:56 p.m.: Mark Distefano of the Humboldt Redwood Company tells us that the fires up in the Greenwood Heights/Freshwater are theirs. Looks quite dramatic, but Distefano assures us that the fires are under control and behaving as expected.

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UPDATE, 3:33 p.m.: Sorry — took a while for it to dawn on us that there is in fact another burn underway closer to home, in the hills above Eureka.

We don’t have any information about that one, unfortunately, and for some reason we couldn’t get through to the usually on-it folks at the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, who would know. Maybe they’re swamped with other calls at the moment.

In any case, we’re seeing if we can get closer to figure out what’s going on. Bear with us.

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We get lots of press releases for controlled burns this time of year, but people are reporting that this one is very visible north of Arcata. No emergency!

Press release from Green Diamond, sent this morning:

Weather conditions permitting, Green Diamond Resource Company plans to conduct prescribed burning for fuel hazard reduction near Big Lagoon, today, November 29th. Burning operations are implemented in coordination with CAL FIRE and the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District.  Please note that smoke may be visible in surrounding areas, including Highway 101, while prescribed burning activities are being conducted.  Green Diamond staff will be on site monitoring prescribed burning and fuels reduction operations. 

(Ed. Note: The following editorial was written by Theresa Grosjean, President of the Northern Humboldt Union High School District Board of Trustees)

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McKinleyville High was on lockdown for an hour yesterday. There was no active shooter. There was no specific threat made. Someone saw someone walking near the school with a holstered gun on them (or at least what they thought was) and called the police.

Because in the America we live in today, school violence is all too real a threat.

I have read so many accounts of the trauma our staff and students experienced during that hour. Barricaded in whatever room they were in, as police lights reflected on their walls, as alerts blared through the school speakers, as police went room to room rattling door knobs to make sure they were locked. Not knowing if the threat was real, they waited in locked classrooms. Not knowing if the threat was real, they texted their friends and family. Not knowing if the threat was real, they saw police out of their windows carrying guns.

When the “All Clear” came and they could leave their rooms, they went about their day. Additional counseling was brought in to help those in need deal with their fear and trauma. The threat didn’t need to be real for it to have been traumatic.

Because in the America we live in today, we value gun rights more than people.

Because in the America we live in today, lobbyists have more say than we the people.

Because in the America we live in today, we say we care about mental health, we just don’t care to fund the resources needed to deal with it.

In the America we live in today, people are so busy, working hard banning books, banishing lived history, banning the word gay … all to protect the children.

In the America we live in today, our elected officials expect us to hope that thoughts and prayers will fix our problems.

Our schools should be a place where our kids and teachers and staffs are safe and free from fear. We know why they don’t feel that way. We know what the threats are.

In the America we live in today, there is just not enough will to deal with it.

Our problems are complex and require complex solutions. There is no easy fix. But the desire to make things better should be enough to put our politics aside, roll up our sleeves and get to work actually doing something that will protect people.

In the America we live in today, it’s time for action.

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The Arcata Marsh has long been a favorite spot for bird watchers, with hundreds of species of birds making their home in the damp fields and ponds. Migratory birds have also been known to stop by the marsh for a visit, and our latest bird traveler – a Purple Gallinule – made its first-ever known appearance in Humboldt last weekend. 

“It’s unmistakably a Purple Gallinule, and the northernmost record for California,” Rob Fowler, a local bird expert and birding guide, said in an email to the Outpost. “And the first for Humboldt County.” 

Local birder Greg Chapman said that bird was first spotted by Arcata resident Yana Valachovic and Nicole King of Berkeley, who noticed the visitor at the Arcata Marsh on Friday, Nov. 24.

Generally found in the wetlands of South America, Central America and the southeastern United States, the Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio martinica) is a smallish bird, distinguished by purple, blue and green feathers, a bright red and yellow beak with a blue shield, and very long legs and toes. Juveniles are a pale brown and don’t get their brightly colored plumage until later in life, so the bird spotted in the marsh is definitely an adult, Fowler said. 

The Purple Gallinule on Nov. 26 | Photo: Laura Cutler

Though they tend to hang out in warmer climates, Purple Gallinules are migratory birds and are very strong fliers, known to appear far outside of their normal range. Observations posted on eBird show that they have been spotted in western Europe, Canada and have even appeared in Iceland a couple of times. There have also been recorded sightings in California, but previously only in Southern California and the Bay Area. So, it’s pretty exciting to catch a glimpse of the brightly colored bird in our own backyard.

Last we heard, our purple friend was hanging out on Brackish Pond, where its image was captured by local wildlife photographer Laura Cutler at around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 26. Fowler also caught a good closeup of the bird on Sunday afternoon. 

How long the Purple Gallinule will stick around, it’s hard to say. But Fowler did say that the bird seems to be pretty happy where it is for now, so it might decide to stay put for a while. 

“It does seem to be doing well at the location where it’s at here,” Fowler said. “So who knows? Maybe it will winter!” 

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UPDATE: This article has been changed from its original version to include the first local sighting of the bird, made by Yana Valachovic and Nicole King. 

For the second morning in a row, McKinleyville High School was placed on lockdown due to a report of a person on or near campus with a weapon. And just like yesterday, law enforcement searched the campus and determined that there was no threat.

The Northern Humboldt Union High School District sent out a text message to the campus community at 9:16 a.m., saying, “MHS campus is on lockdown due to law enforcement calling to report a person on campus with a weapon. We will let you know we have further information.”

Three minutes later, another message: “We rec’d update from law enforcement, they did not see a threat on campus. Received a report from a comm. member. LE working to clear campus. Update to follow.”

At 9:36 a.m. the district reported that law enforcement had determined there was no threat and lifted the lockdown. More information will be released via email, the district said.

The world’s oceans may be vast, but they are getting crowded. Coastal areas are congested with cargo ships, international commercial fishing fleets, naval vessels, oil rigs and, soon, floating platforms for deep-sea mining.

But the Pacific Ocean is going to get even busier: Nearly 600 square miles of ocean off California have been leased for floating wind farms, with more expected. Now the state is considering hosting another renewable energy technology in the sea: Blue power, electricity created from waves and tides.

A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October instructs state agencies to study the feasibility and impacts of capturing ocean movement to create power and report back to the Legislature by January 2025.

The goal is to jumpstart an industry that could fill in the power gaps as California tries to achieve its goal of transitioning to an all-renewable electric grid by 2045.

But for all the interest in renewable energy — and the government subsidies — public investment in ocean energy has lagged. And the technology that would make the projects more efficient, cost effective and able to withstand a punishing sea environment is still under development.

So far, a handful of small demonstration projects have been launched off the West Coast, although none has produced commercial power for the grid. Through 2045, the California Energy Commission’s new projections for future power do not include any wave and tidal power. Yet energy experts say there is great potential along the Pacific coast.

“Of all the energies out there, marine energy has been the slowest to develop. We are kind of where land-based wind was 20 or 30 years ago,” said Tim Ramsey, marine energy program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office.

Energy from waves and tides is generated by an action that the ocean almost always provides — movement. Although wave and tidal devices take different forms, most capture the ocean’s kinetic motion as seawater flows through cylinders or when floating devices move up and down or sideways. In some cases, that movement creates hydraulic pressure that spins a turbine or generator.

As with all developing energy technologies, Ramsey said, the cost to produce wave and tidal power is expected to be quite high in the early years.

Although there have been advances in technology, getting ocean-based projects from the pilot stage to providing commercial power to the grid is the next hurdle for the industry — and it’s a substantial one.

“It’s very expensive right now, and really hard to do. Working out in the water is very complex, in some cases in the harshest places on Earth…Then being able to build something that can last 20 to 30 years. We’ve made progress, but we’re a decade away,” Ramsey said.

“Of all the energies out there, marine energy has been the slowest to develop. We are kind of where land-based wind was 20 or 30 years ago.”
— Tim Ramsey, U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office

State Sen. Steve Padilla, a Democrat from Chula Vista and the author of the wave energy bill, said ocean power has “great potential” but it has been agonizingly slow.

“Folks have been busy focusing on other things,” he said, citing the state’s current push for floating offshore wind development. “There has been a combination of a lack of knowledge and awareness of the infrastructure and impacts. We know the state’s energy portfolio has to be as broad as possible.”

A spokesperson for the California Energy Commission, which is taking the lead on the new state study, declined to comment about waves power, saying its work has not yet begun.

The potential is enticing: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that the total wave and tide energy resources that are available in the U.S. with current technology are equivalent to 57% of 2019’s domestic energy production. While the report noted that the technologies are in early stages of development, “even if only a small portion of the technical resource potential is captured, marine energy technologies would make significant contributions to our nation’s energy needs.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s “Powering the Blue Economy” initiative, among others, provides grants and sponsors competitions to explore new and better technology. The fiscal year 2023 federal budget for ocean waves energy is $123 million, Ramsey said.

One program is funding research led by national labs, including designs to improve wave-driven turbines and building better motor drives for wave-energy converters.

Motion in the ocean

The idea of harnessing wave power has been kicking around California for decades. So has the state policy of ordering research into its potential: A 2008 study prepared for the Energy Commission and the Ocean Protection Council concluded that much more research was needed to better assess the potential impacts of wave and tidal energy.

At the time that study was released, one of the technology’s most ardent proponents was a young politician named Gavin Newsom. While mayor of San Francisco in 2007, Newsom proposed a tidal energy project near the Golden Gate Bridge. That idea was scrapped because it was prohibitively expensive.

Not long after, as lieutenant governor, Newsom backed a pilot wave energy project he hoped would be up and running by 2012 or 2013. It wasn’t.

But the dream has not died. California is already hosting wave energy projects, including one being assembled at AltaSea, a public-private research center that supports marine scientists focusing on the so-called Blue Economy. It operates out of a 35-acre campus at the Port of Los Angeles.

Its CEO is Terry Tamminen, a former California environmental secretary, who had a hand in writing the new wave and tidal energy law. Tamminen said wave energy has been ignored by some state and federal officials in the face of “irrational exuberance” for offshore wind.

He said the smaller, cheaper wave energy development would help the state meet its clean energy goal and could produce power well before massive floating offshore wind projects.

“These machines can only be developed toward commercial viability by putting them in the water and assessing their performance. .. It’s a long slog to build and deploy and make money.”
— Jason Busch, Pacific Ocean Energy Trust

One of AltaSea’s tenants, Eco Wave Power, is designed to deploy near shore, in breakwaters and jetties that roil with moving water. Its floating, paddle-like arms bob up and down in waves, triggering hydraulic pistons that power a motor.

Tamminen said the system is “ready to deploy. Within two years we could have a commercial installation of Eco Wave technology.” The demonstration project will be installed at a wharf in L.A.’s harbor and will not generate any significant power, he said.

California is not likely to see much electricity from tidal energy, said Jason Busch, executive director of Pacific Ocean Energy Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit fostering research into marine energy. He said the state of Washington is more conducive to this new energy, for example, because it has deep bays and estuaries for funneling water through turbine equipment.

“A little bit of homework would have told you there isn’t much of a tidal opportunity in California,” he said.

A small number of companies are preparing to launch pilot wave projects in other states. The Navy operates a wave energy test site in Hawaii; three developers are preparing to launch new projects in the water there.

PacWave, which operates two test sites off Newport, Oregon, is another demonstration project. A California-based company, CalWave, which concluded a 10-month demonstration off the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s research pier in San Diego, will deploy its wave energy devices in a grid-connected, pre-permitted open-water test. The demonstration at the Oregon site is scheduled to begin next year.

This type of wave-energy device is moored in the open ocean, where it is submerged. Units like this from CalWave will be used in a project off the coast of Oregon that will provide power to the grid. Photo courtesy of CalWave

Much is riding on the success of the project, which took 11 years to acquire permits. Some testing has been conducted with small-scale versions of the final device, but not in harsh open water conditions and with no expectation of supplying power to the grid.

“It’s the first-of-its-kind full-scale deployment. Not in ‘nursery’ conditions. It’s the real world, off you go,” said Bryson Robertson, director of the Pacific Marine Energy Center at Oregon State University, which is constructing the two testing sites. “We want to prove that we can deliver power.”

Robertson, an engineer who studies wave dynamics, said one of the technologies being tested places large, buoyant squares in the water just below the surface, attached by lines to the sea floor. Kinetic energy is created as the floats bob and pitch with the action of the waves.

Some companies’ technology sits atop the waves and others are fully submerged. Another is deployed on the surface and moves like a snake, with each segment creating energy from its movement. Each bespoke device is expensive, and some of the one-of-a-kind devices can cost $10 million to design and build.

The industry “hasn’t narrowed in on a winning archetype,” Ramsey said. Some smaller designs can be picked up and thrown off a boat, he said, while others are large enough to need a boat to tow them into position.

“It’s the first-of-its-kind full-scale deployment…We want to prove that we can deliver power.”
— Bryson Robertson, Pacific Marine Energy Center at Oregon State University

To Busch, it’s a critical moment for ocean energy, with small companies requiring years to raise enough funding to continue testing. And with attention on the industry, they cannot afford to stumble.

“Early companies that got full-scale machines in the water committed the mortal sin of overpromising and under-delivering to shareholders. One by one they went into bankruptcy,” he said.

“This is the second generation. These machines can only be developed toward commercial viability by putting them in the water and assessing their performance. That process is very long. Companies receive only limited private capital. The venture capital model does not fit marine energy. It’s a long slog to build and deploy and make money.”

In the near future, wave and tidal energy may not provide huge amounts of power in the clean-energy mosaic that will form the grid, but the technology may prove to be one of the most versatile. Experts say marine power doesn’t have to be transported to shore to be useful — it could charge oceangoing vessels, research devices, navigation equipment and aquaculture operations.

Closer to shore, modest wave-powered projects could support small, remote so-called “extension cord communities” at the end of the power supply. Federal researchers also foresee ocean power being used for desalination plants.

Wave-powered generators and other renewables are already supplying all of the needs of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, with the surplus energy used to create hydrogen to run ferries to the mainland.

Lots of unknowns

New technology often comes cloaked in questions: How will the wave devices impact marine animals, shipping and other ocean users? What about transmission lines and possible floating power stations?

“Blue energy synergy’ is a future possibility, with wave projects sited alongside floating offshore wind projects, allowing the power producers to share transmission lines and other infrastructure.

The state report due next year is meant to answer those questions and more.

“We still don’t fully understand all of the interactions of the device in the marine environment,” Ramsey said. “Until you can put devices in the water and get long-term data collection, we don’t know. We do try to extrapolate from other industries and activities in the ocean — oil and gas, offshore wind — but that only gets you so far.

“I think the potential is so enormous. If we can figure out how to do it cost-effectively, I know it will get solved. I hope the U.S. is at the forefront of solving that. If we lose a big industry to overseas, that is a lost opportunity.”

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