###

Previously: Man Suffers Major Burns After Another Man Set Him on Fire in Downtown Eureka Yesterday Afternoon, Police Say; Suspect Still at Large

###

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

Jones

On July 12, 2023, a 43-year-old man was lit on fire near the 400 block of A Street in Eureka. The man received critical burns and was transported out of the area for treatment.

Through extensive investigation, Eureka Police Detectives identified 60-year-old Vaughn Pernell Jones as the suspect. On July 14, 2023, a Ramey Warrant was obtained and Jones was taken into custody near the 100 block of 2nd Street. Jones was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for attempted murder and mayhem.

There had been casual discussions over the past few years about the possibility of a visit to the Mattole valley, but the talk never seemed to evolve into a plan of action. At a recent dinner party, though, that barrier was broken and my friends rather unexpectedly said, “Let’s go!” As we climbed the “Wildcat” out of Ferndale on our way to my family’s camp on Conklin Creek Road, the suggestion was repeatedly made that my information about that part of the county ought to be recorded before it fades into the unrecoverable past.

And so I am charging forth on the wings of family history, on the stories of earlier times told by my mother and father until their passing in 1963, and on my own personal visits to the Mattole commencing around 1939.

My mother, Cora Farnsworth, was born in Ettersburg on the Upper Mattole in 1901. She had nine siblings. She graduated from the Petrolia School around 1912, and I have a photo from that time. It shows her standing on the school porch with the other students and the teacher.

She often spoke fondly of a little black mare that she and her sisters rode to school. There must have been a one-room school in Ettersburg at that time. Her father had apparently come into the Upper Mattole with one of the earliest wagon trains to reach that area. He is buried in tbe old Mattole cemetery on the knob just south of tbe Petrolia Store. His name, Farnswortb, persists among some of the old-timers who use it to identify a ridge to the north of the table that one crosses traveling the Mattole Road to and from Petrolia.

Learning responsibilities in homemaking very early, my mother occasionally traveled to nearby Briceland, where she worked as a domestic servant. It wasn’t long before she had made the two-day journey by horse and wagon to Eureka, where she had gained employment as a clerk at Hink’s department store, which later became Daly’s.

It was, however, the Mattole Valley that always remained in her heart, and when the opportunity occurred to purchase a few acres with a cabin on the lower river near Petrolia around 1956, my dad threw economic caution to the winds and purchased the property as a family retreat. To my mother it was like coming home. My parents were acquainted with many of the original ranch families of the area: Roscoe, Clark, Hindley, Lindley, Oeschger, Etter, Lloyd Roberts, Ear] Schortgen, etc. (Ken Roscoe’s Heydays in Humboldt is a fascinating collection of humorous anecdotes, mostly from the Mattole). Both my mom and dad loved going there, often inviting friends to share in what they considered their good fortune. In 1958 my dad paid $25 for a unit of “farmer’s lumber” from the mill in Carlotta to build an additional shelter. He pieced the components of the structure together in our horse barn at Hydesville, loaded them on the old 1947 International, hauled them down to the valley, and assembled what has survived to this day as “the sleeping cabin.” Their vision for the future of the property was that it serve as a special meeting place for the extended families of my two sisters and myself, a purpose it has served well for over fifty years.

Some of my earliest experiences on the Mattole took place in the forties at another beautiful cabin on the little flat, up a gulch and just slightly downstream from the mouth of Conklin Creek. Tbe cabin belonged to two older ladies named Williams and Graham, one a widow, the other a “spinster.” At that time these women owned the ranch in Hydesville that was later purchased by the Fearrien family when Les first came there. My dad had entered a business arrangement with Williams and Graham involving their ranch property: he would seed the large front fields on the Hydesville table to subterranean clover in return for the use of the entire ranch for livestock pasture. The older ladies insisted that our family make use of the cabin on Conklin Creek Road anytime we might choose during those years. There were at least three other cabins on this little flat. One belonged to Adrian and Sue Chapin, who ran a dairy farm in Ferndale, and Marge and Rae Wright utilized another. The Wright family bistory is associated with the earliest valley settlements. It was at this cabin tbat I first slept on Mattole ground, went trout fishing and first encountered water snakes and pinch bugs in my swimming trunks at the close-by pools.

My dad spoke of his experiences as a young man driving livestock from the Mattole to markets in Eel River Valley. During our family’s trips to Petrolia he always identified the various ranches that the road passed through from Bunker Hill to Bear River, over Cape Mendocino and down the coast to Davis Creek. Many of these properties were initially developed by the Russ family and acquired names from legends and myths like Mazeppa and What Cheer, to comments on the prevailing weather such as Spicy Breezes and Windy Nip. These titles always called forth my father’s memories of trailing cattle over the ridges in wind that made it difficult to sit a saddle. The perpetual ocean wind along the coastal ridges was often a distinct actor in these stories.

Curtis and Olive Walker were close friends of my parents. They lived on the Walker Ranch, which was situated on an exposed ridge above the Zanoni Ranch. For many years, access into the Mattole was directly up Domingo Creek from the ocean, tbrough Zanoni’s and past the Walker gate over into McNutt Creek. The transition from the coastal environment, where all the trees branched to the southeast from the perpetual ocean winds, over the ridge into the more protected valley climate, always seemed like pure magic to me, symbolic of suddenly arriving instantaneously in a true “heaven on earth” for a boy. Mixed with that magic is a story my dad told repeatedly about Grandma Walker, arriving at the gate from a daylong stage journey. According to accounts, it bad been so windy that the elderly lady bad been thrown off her feet and had crawled hand over hand clinging to the fence about a quarter of a mile to make it home.

Thoughts of the Walker ranch bring forth my lifelong friendship with Curtis and Olive’s son Lowell. Redheaded Lowell was a couple of years older and a seasoned mountain ranch boy. One of my earliest encounters with Lowell was during a family visit to the ranch when he introduced me to archery. I think it must have been around 1939. Using Lowell’s bow and arrows out behind the barn, we took turns shooting straight up until the arrows disappeared into the wind and we ran for the barn to avoid being brained by the returning missiles. I was hooked and began begging my parents for a bow and arrows. Lowell had gotten his bow from the Cape Mendocino lighthouse keeper, who had fashioned yew wood bows for several years as a hobby to pass the solitary time. Finally, tired of listening to the begging, my parents took me out to the lighthouse to get me a yew wood bow.

The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse as it appeared in 1915. Photo: Humboldt County Historical Society.

What I recall about that day may be one of those little episodes that has expanded with time but it frightened me enough to stick with me for seventy years. The lighthouse keeper had suspended a ship’s hawser the short distance from his living quarters to the light so that he might go back and forth hand over hand to perform maintenance in all weathers. It was fair with a rather regular northwest wind over the cape that day as we got out of the car to walk down to the keeper’s quarters, but it kept me clutching the door handle of our little Ford. My father took one of my hands and my mother the other as they leaned into the wind to get down the trail. What I distinctly recall is a sensation of flying between and behind my parents because the wind kept me airborne behind them, my weight inadequate to allow my feet to touch the ground. I still the treasured bow acquired out on the cape that day, a reminder of a world of experiences.

The Walkers eventually moved to town where Curtis became a dairyman. He passed away as the result of a heart condition aggravated by a night spent attempting to save his milk cows from the rising waters of the Eel River during the 1964 flood. Lowell became a veterinarian and returned to purchase a ranch in the Mattole valley upon his retirement. The manned light house on Cape Mendocino was eventually replaced by an automated navigation light coded for identification by navigators. Over the years Blunt’s Reef was marked by an audible bell buoy and also by a manned light ship anchored on the reef, both now passed into history.

The author’s father, Everett Beck, with his horse and dog.

During our journeys to and from the cabin on the Mattole, my dad always had a string of tales concerning various points of interest along the way. Some came from have his personal experiences as a young cowboy in the twenties. Others related to the location and naming of stop on the early journeys from the various ranches and places. I learned of the early history of Bear River Valley and the original ranch families that first settled this tiny isolated community. It was interesting to realize that the old hotel at Capetown on Bear River was the primary stage stop on the journeys from Mattole country. It was a necessary facility because the trip took two days, at first by horse-drawn wagon that involved some segments of travel along the ocean beaches at low tides and required fording the Eel River. When the Mattole Road was developed, the stage always stopped overnight at Capetown. There were stories of waiting for low tides to herd cattle up the coast past the promontory that old timers refer to as Devil’s Gate, in order to avoid driving the stock up over the ridges at that point.

The changing perspective of Steamboat Rock was always fascinating to watch as we traveled past the cape. It was the stuff of seafaring fantasies for a ten-year-old, as were stories of a mounted cavalry detachment that was maintained on the beach between Devil’s Gate and Davis Creek during the years of the Second World War. Dad always pointed out the location of the corrals and barracks that had housed a small team of horsemen who patrolled the coast from the mouth of the Mattole to the cape. Their mission was to look out for Japanese submarines and foreign ships.

To remember the Mattole is to remember the joys of swimming and fishing. Early visits to the valley, before the acquisition of our cabin property, always meant daily swimming adventures in the nearby pools and a regular opportunity for trout fishing in virtually untouched streams. To a ten-year-old it was the best of all worlds. What could surpass sleeping out under the stars, awakening with a blacktail doe peering down at you, promenading to the river to swim, lunching on all your mother’s favorite dishes, and going fishing in the afternoon with trout for breakfast next morning. Heaven on earth!

The Mattole has been one of the very best streams on the entire North Coast for salmon and steelhead fishing. When I became interested in the larger fish, I often fished the river and learned of questionable harvesting procedures carried out at the river’s mouth. In a normal rainfall year the mouth would dry up, leaving a narrow spit separating the river estuary from the ocean. When it was determined that the runs were waiting offshore to travel upstream for spawning, it became common practice for a team of locals to open the mouth of the river by digging a narrow channel across the spit with shovels, to fork the numerous salmon out of the narrow channel with pitchforks and to haul away wagon loads of salmon. This was likely one of the factors contributing to the decline in fish populations. Another factor is probably the erosion and silting of the stream resulting from the years of unregulated logging. Modern efforts aim at preventing the anadromous fishes, particularly the Coho, from becoming extinct.

The Mattole Valley has always struck me as a raw uncontrolled landscape of amazing wildness and excesses, such as the earthquake activity, the torrential rainfalls, rapid floods, wildfires, and lawless pioneering. Historically, there are areas of the drainage that have experienced frequent downpours in excess of ten inches in single twenty-four-hour periods, resulting in annual precipitation totals well over one hundred inches and rapid river flooding. Some of the original ranchers repeatedly set fire to their land with the dual purpose of eventually making the land produce more forage and exercising seasonal control of the noxious species and poison oak.

The younger generations currently residing in this area have accomplished clear changes in the social, economic, and cultural structure of the Mattole drainage. Laura Walker’s Mattolia gives a view of current residents’ perspectives about the valley. Current policies of fire control have changed the landowner’s management procedures. Seasonal uncontrolled wildfire is no longer a forage management option. A great deal more attention is directed at preserving the various aspects of the environment, including timber management, water utilization and restoration of the fisheries. The valley now sports day camps for kids and a high school. In earlier times, many valley youngsters were boarded out in Ferndale during the school year because of the time and uncertainty of travel in and out of the area.

Such symptoms of civilization, however, cannot erase the early history, the indelible string of boyhood adventures, and the later years of country experiences that feed my love for the Mattole River Valley. To this day I get up in the morning, go to the sink and splash cold water in my face, pretending it is water from the Mattole.

###

The story above was originally printed in the Summer 2011 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

Carl Meyers, 87, of McKinleyville, passed away peacefully in the sanctuary of his home on July 11, with his beloved wife, Rhonda, and daughter, Emily, holding his hands.

Carl was born in the Bronx in 1936, but raised in the East Bay area of Northern California. There he developed a love of nature, learning new things, playing tennis, and figuring out how to take apart and fix almost anything. In his 40’s he moved up to Arcata to study biology and botany and he found the place where he felt truly at home. Carl always had an enthusiastic joy sharing his knowledge of native plants and birds with anyone and everyone. Working at the Arcata Co-op he met the love of his life, Rhonda. They were married for 42 years. Together they experienced the joy of raising their daughter Emily and later welcoming their son in law Jerrod into the family. When granddaughters Sadie and Simone arrived, Carl was overwhelmed with love for these two precious young girls. Through his final days, he still couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be their grandpa

Community activism and volunteer work were always important to Carl. He was a docent at the Arcata Marsh, and worked for Friends of the Dunes, California Native Plant Society, Redwood Alliance, The Environmental Center, Food for People and many more fine organizations. Later in his life he discovered a talent for drawing and shared his beautiful pictures of birds on notecards and prints. Drawing gave him another connection with nature and with his many artist friends.

As well as being a beloved husband, father and grandfather, Carl was a dear brother, uncle, friend to many and a dedicated cat dad.

A memorial service and celebration of Carl’s life will take place on Wednesday, August 2, at 11 a.m., at the Humboldt Unitarian Fellowship, at 24 Fellowship Way, Bayside, CA. Reception to follow.

Carl and his family would be honored for any donations to be made in his memory to the local organization Food for People. 

###

Local opponents of the City of Eureka’s plans to build housing on underutilized downtown parking lots say that they’ll be taking their fight to the voters.

Just recently, they filed a “notice of intent” to circulate a petition to put an initiative on the ballot — one that they say would amend the city’s General Plan to stop the parking lot conversions.

The notice of intent was signed by former mayoral candidate and “Take Back Eureka” leader Michelle Costantine, and by local financial planner Mike Munson. Both are also members of “Citizens for a Better Eureka,” a Security National-led coalition that has filed lawsuits against the city in an attempt to achieve the same end.

Recognizing the need — and indeed, the state-mandate — for new housing, including below-market-rate housing, within city limits, the proponents are offering a different vision: Put all the new apartments out by Winco. The ordinance’s proponents believe that the 14-acre Jacobs Campus, an abandoned school in the Highland Park neighborhood, has more than enough space to accommodate all the new development the city needs for many years.

But it’s unclear whether rezoning the Jacobs Campus for housing would actually result in new housing development there. The City of Eureka has been trying for some time to purchase the Jacobs Campus for just such a purpose, but so far the district has been unwilling to sell the land. Most recently, it rejected a bid from both city government and the California Highway Patrol, which is looking to build a new headquarters locally. The Outpost’s recent emails to school district leadership to inquire about the status of the Jacobs Campus have not been returned.

A press release from Costantine and Munson, sent by the Tennessee-based public relations consultant Gail Rymer, who has recently been representing Arkley in Eureka housing-development matters — others‘ and his own — is below.

###

DOCUMENT:

• “Notice of Intent to Circulate Petition,” July 12, 2023.

###

Two local citizens are spearheading a ballot initiative designed to provide badly needed housing in Eureka. The “Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality” initiative is the focus of A Notice of Intent filed today with the City Clerk’s office. The petition, signed by Mike Munson and Michelle Costantine, seeks to put a measure on the City ballot amending portions of the City’s 2040 General Plan.

One of the key features of the initiative is rezoning the 14-acre site of the former Jacobs Middle School for single and multi-family housing. Located adjacent to bus lines and close to stores and services, this planned development would provide several hundred housing units, bringing badly needed funds to the local schools and fixing the poorly planned efforts by the City to build on several downtown parking lots, which would result in the loss of 640 parking spaces that are critical for downtown businesses, restaurants, and shops.

“This initiative addresses a problem in the City’s General Plan,” Munson said. “Re-zoning the school property and several other properties throughout the city will lift development restraints, paving the way for hundreds of housing units for all income levels in Eureka without impacting downtown vitality.”

The Jacobs site could accommodate almost all the City’s housing needs, including low, medium, and market- rate housing. Located adjacent to an existing bus line and close to stores and services, the development of the Jacobs site would help the City of Eureka to provide urgently needed housing that would reduce reliance on automobiles, increase the use of transit, include state-of-the-art technology to conserve energy and minimize the carbon footprint that new housing ordinarily entails.

In a recent poll conducted by FM3 Research, 57% of the 365 respondents (Eureka registered voters) said they would vote yes if such a measure were on a future Eureka ballot. Eight percent were undecided. The poll also asked how they would vote if the now vacant 14-acre Jacobs Middle School site were proposed for the several hundred units of subsidized affordable housing in place of the parking lot developments. 77% were in favor of the alternative location over the parking lots. Seven percent were undecided. The polling results can be found here. [Ed. note: Link not provided.]

The ballot measure would allow voters to determine the approach to developing low, very-low-income, medium, and market-rate housing in the City while requiring the City to maintain current levels of public parking on downtown City-owned, off-street parking lots.

According to Munson and Costantine, building housing without parking severely harms the economic vitality of small businesses downtown and ensures parking for businesses and potential residents. This initiative will require any housing built on those lots to retain the existing parking spaces and provide an appropriate amount of parking to accommodate the needs of residents in the new units.

“This is about housing for all – working, middle-income families, along with low and very-low-income households, who are finding no place to rent or buy that they can afford,” said Costantine. “This initiative is a small but important step towards addressing this problem in the City of Eureka.” The initiative can be found here.

The City has 15 days to prepare a title and summary for the ballot measure, followed by a required legal notice published in a local paper. Around August 1, the petition will begin circulating to collect registered voters’ signatures.

PREVIOUSLY: Local Weed Dispensary Humboldt Patient Resource Center Closes Suddenly Following Owner’s Death

###

When the Humboldt Patient Resource Center Inc. (HPRC) announced its unexpected closure on June 1, bringing an abrupt end to 24 years in business, the statement posted to social media explained, “The untimely and unexpected passing of the owner has presented us with unavoidable challenges concerning our state cannabis license.”

What it didn’t mention is that the corporation had been accumulating tax liens over the past year, and by the time it closed the company owed $973,064.95 in state taxes, enough to earn a place in the top half of the “Top 500 Sales & Use Tax Delinquencies in California.”

Documents on file with the California Secretary of State include 11 active notices of sales tax liens levied against HPRC since February of 2022. 

The oldest active lien on record, which covered the tax period from April 1 — June 30, 2020, was filed on Feb. 18, 2022, in the amount of $105,435.96. The most recent delinquent tax bill on file is nearly $32,000 assessed this past Valentine’s Day.

The registered agent for HPRC’s business license, which has been suspended by the Franchise Tax Board, is Connor T. Hawkins, who died on February 28, three months before the business closed, at the age of 58, according to an obituary posted online. 

Mariellen Jurkovich, the longtime director of HPRC, was, for many, the face of the operation, a staunch advocate for the medicinal value of cannabis. Reached by phone on Friday, she said she retired from the business about a year to a year and a half ago, though she was aware of its accumulating tax debt.

“There just wasn’t a lot of money to pay the taxes,” she said. “They were trying to pay it off but it got out of control. I know [Hawkins] was trying to take care of it.”

Jukovich said Hawkins had put someone else in charge of the day-to-day business operations and wasn’t working in the Arcata dispensary much in the months before his death. He had been sick for some time with liver problems, she added, though she’s not sure what his cause of death was.

Launched in 1999, HPRC operated solely as a medical cannabis dispensary for most of its years in operation. In 2019 it opened a Eureka dispensary and associated wellness center, both of which closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With all the recent talk about creating more housing in Humboldt and projects like Arcata’s Gateway Area Plan, Eureka’s Waterfront Plan and the McKinleyville Town Center Plan in the works, you’ve probably heard the term “walkability” thrown around a bit, and keep hearing how these plans are being designed to prioritize bikes and pedestrians over cars and parking. 

But how exactly do we make our communities more walkable? Well, that’s where Dan Burden comes in. Burden, an internationally recognized transportation and walkability expert, has more than 45 years of experience in transportation planning/ engineering, urban design and public engagement and has hosted thousands of walkability audits and transportation studies across the country.

And Burden’s next stop just happens to be our own cozy corner of the world. On July 22 through 25, Burden will host walks in several Humboldt towns, helping city planners and members of the community with ideas on how to make our communities more pedestrian-friendly. He’d like you to walk with him. 

“Walkability is really about building communities so that people have a choice in transportation and aren’t always forced into getting into a car to make a trip,” Burden told the Outpost in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. “For many people that’s not affordable…And it’s a huge cost to society to have to build the full systems for cars that just keep getting bigger and longer and wider.” 

Burden

Burden, who currently resides in Port Townsend, Wash., has been pursuing his field since he was a teenager who loved bicycling and realized that he wanted to help build other people’s love for bicycling too. After studying recreation sciences and interpersonal communications at the University of Montana, Burden eventually landed a job as the first State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the Florida Department of Transportation. In 1996 Burden started his own organization, Walkable Communities, Inc., focused on building cities that prioritize people, rather than cars. He has since visited more than 3,500 cities around the country, helping policymakers create more walkable environments. You can view Burden’s impressive resumé here.) 

Burden was recently invited by the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) to bring his expertise to some of our local communities – Arcata, Eureka, Blue Lake and McKinleyville. Each town’s officials selected an area they wanted to focus on and provided Burden with background information on the various projects planned for these areas and some of the traffic and pedestrian-related issues the towns are facing. Burden will host separate walking audits in each of these areas, followed by presentations he will compile to lay out his recommendations. 

The first walk will be held in Arcata on Saturday, July 22 from 10 a.m. to noon, and will focus on the area surrounding 11th and K Streets, in the part of town that has come to be known as the Gateway Area, after the town’s ambitious Gateway Area Plan, which aims to bring rezone the area to facilitate the development of high-density housing and mixed-used developments.

Later that day, from 1 to 3 p.m., Burden will host a walk audit in McKinleyville, focusing on Central Avenue. The McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee (MMAC) has been working to develop the McKinleyville Town Center Master Plan, which aims to create a thriving town center, with retail shops, parks and that encourages bicycle and pedestrian travel. 

On Sunday, July 23, Burden will make his way to Eureka, hosting a walk from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. that will focus on the Old Town Area, and on Tuesday, July 25, Burden will guide a walk in Blue Lake from 12 to 1 p.m. 

Burden said that his expertise and outsider perspective helps him notice issues that might have been overlooked. He’s also familiar with a wide range of tools that can be used to address these challenges and often provides communities with options that had not been previously considered. 

“I teach people to see things with a new set of eyes that they walk past all the time but don’t notice,” Burden said. “Once we know what the issues are we’ll be able to start a robust public engagement process.” 

What exactly will Burden be looking for during these walks? Well, he focuses on a range of issues, including traffic flow and safety. One of Burden’s frequent approaches is what he refers to as “road diets,” which is an approach to traffic management that focuses on taking things away from the roads, rather than adding more. 

One example of a “road diet” is reducing the number of lanes on a road. Often when traffic has become congested in an area, planners will decide that the best option is to add more lanes. However, while adding more lanes does sometimes calm traffic initially, it does not usually help in the long run. Burden often recommends removing some of the lanes, making more room for bicycles and pedestrians and slowing traffic.

Burden says that when it comes to reducing traffic congestion, it is actually more effective to focus on the intersections. One approach that Burden often suggests is converting traditional four-way intersections into roundabouts, which have been shown to reduce traffic congestion. “A roundabout can carry 30 to 50 percent more traffic per lane than a signal can,” Burden said.

Another way Burden suggests improving intersections and calming traffic is through curb extensions. Expanding the size of curbs and sidewalks, Burden said, can slow down drivers when they are taking turns (making the intersection safer) and also create a shorter distance for pedestrians to cross the street. 

Burden also focuses on parking issues, something that has been a hot-button topic, especially surrounding some of Eureka’s and Arcata’s development plans. Burden said that many cities will tell him they have a “parking problem,” when what they really have is a “parking management problem.” Burden often works with cities to identify ways to better manage parking by finding spaces that can be used for parking and encouraging cities to install meters in busy areas. 

Of course, Burden supports the idea of deprioritizing parking in general, and wants to encourage people to visit areas by walking, biking or using public transportation. Encouraging people to walk in communities not only supports healthier lifestyles, but also encourages more social interaction and helps encourage patronage of local shops and other businesses. 

“When we do the wrong thing with traffic, we’re destroying businesses,” Burden said. “We’re destroying the social life of our communities.” 

Burden’s walks and presentations are free and open to the public. If you’re interested, you can view a complete schedule of Burden’s walks and presentations and contact information for each city here. 

###

Big changes are coming to the Samoa Peninsula. 

The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District held a public scoping meeting at the Wharfinger Building on Wednesday evening to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art “heavy lift marine terminal” that would support offshore wind development all along the West Coast. 

Last year, the Harbor District entered into an agreement with Crowley Wind Services, a private marine solutions and logistics company, to build and operate the full-service marine terminal at the old pulp mill property in Samoa. Once it’s fully built out, the facility will have the potential to produce and ship the gigantic components needed for floating offshore wind turbines, everything from the blades and nacelles (the generator house) to mooring lines, towers and transmission cables.

If everything goes according to plan, the floating offshore wind development will bring the United States one step closer to meeting the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy – enough to power 10 million homes – by 2030, and 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.

“It’s a very ambitious goal because it’s nearly double what the world currently has,” Harbor District Development Director Rob Holmlund said during Wednesday’s meeting.

The Port of Humboldt Bay is in an ideal position to become the epicenter of offshore wind energy manufacturing and distribution on the West Coast. In fact, our humble port is the only port on the West Coast that has the capacity to host all three of the primary port needs of the offshore wind industry: staging and integration, onsite manufacturing and operations and maintenance. 

Holmlund

“Each port has the opportunity to do component manufacturing, staging and integration and/or operations and maintenance,” Holmlund said. “The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has evaluated all these ports and found that there are really only two spots [where] staging and integration can happen – Humboldt Bay, Los Angeles and Long Beach – because you need specific parameters to be able to do that particular stage. You need to have the right channel width, depth and no vertical draft restrictions.”

Among those three ports, only Humboldt Bay has immediately available developable space to accommodate the offshore wind industry, he said. And, because of its proximity to Morro Bay and other proposed wind energy lease areas in Oregon, Humboldt Bay is the only port capable of shipping the fully assembled platforms and turbines out to sea.

“These turbines have to be manufactured in a port,” Holmlund said. “You can transport the blades of a certain size by train, but after they get too large they have to be on a truck – each blade individually. Transport logistics become more and more difficult until, at some point, it’s just too big to transport on land. … Ocean-based turbines can only be moved by large ships, so they can be much, much larger than land-based turbines.”

To give you a better idea of the sheer scale of these things, the wind turbines that will be spinning off of our shores will be taller than the Eiffel Tower. The triangular platforms the turbines will be mounted on would cover the entire Arcata Plaza.

Despite their colossal size, Holmlund said the turbines would be barely visible from shore.

“I was in Trinidad the other day with my wife and children and we were hiking on Trinidad Head. It was a particularly clear day and I could actually see the smokestack on the Samoa Peninsula,” he said. “I looked it up later – that’s 17 miles – and it was really tiny and very, very far away.”

The big takeaway from the public comment portion of the meeting was the importance of community involvement. Lonyx Landry, Humboldt County Planning Commissioner and STEM advisor at Cal Poly Humboldt, said he is “all about” the transition away from fossil fuels but expressed concern for “how that happens in our community.”

“Perhaps by going slower [we can] make sure we are taking care of the fears and concerns of our community and maybe in the long run [that will] allow us to go faster with rolling out these new technologies and abilities,” Landry said. “I want this to be happening with us, not to us. … In some respects, this is a sacrifice, and I believe it’s a sacrifice that many people are prepared to make. But we absolutely want to make sure that we’re getting something for us. I don’t believe that corporate America needs any help and fast-tracking their agenda.”

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo urged Harbor District officials and Crowley representatives to advocate for the community’s “specific concerns” as offshore wind development efforts move ahead.

Arroyo

“I know there are things that aren’t exactly in your jurisdiction that are going to take a regional approach, and I want to really encourage you to include those and document them in your EIR,” she said, noting that her comments do not reflect that of the entire Board of Supervisors. “[That] include[s] things like housing, possible transportation impacts, visual and sound impacts, green portfolios, emergency response, etc. … That allows me – although the county has a somewhat limited role in the project – to advocate to Sacramento or D.C. and ask for these infrastructure changes to be funded in a way that allows us to really address these concerns.”

When nuclear power plants are developed, there are entire towns built around them to support the facilities, Arroyo said. “The level of investment is off the charts. I will go and ask for that, but I ask that this document is robust enough to give the framework for those big asks,” she said.

Jennifer Savage, a 20-year resident of the Samoa Peninsula, emphasized the importance of keeping the public involved throughout the planning and development process.

Savage

“If we’re going to reindustrialize the peninsula, you really need to do it right,” she said. “This proposed marine terminal project provides a unique opportunity to reduce planetary harm by assisting in the transition away from fossil fuels while providing living wage jobs – which should be local – for our struggling region. And these are really noble goals that deserve support, but the communities that live and recreate on the peninsula should not be forced to suffer unnecessary negative consequences as a part of that deal.”

Savage paused for a moment and said she was trying to think of a “respectful, delicate way” to phrase what she was about to say. “Even the most cursory Google search of Crowley will show that there is a disappointing record when it comes to environmental impacts and human rights,” she said. 

She also questioned the legality of moving ahead with a lease agreement, which is likely to be signed before the end of the year, before the completion of CEQA compliance. 

“I think it’s really concerning that we may be signing the lease agreement before the environmental review is complete,” she said. “My understanding is you’re legally required to complete CEQA prior to signing the lease. I thought that’s the way the law worked. If not, it would be great to have some clarity around that.”

A quick Google search indicates that final CEQA documents must be completed before decision-makers commit to a project and prior to leasing, selling and acquiring property. However, Holmlund says it’s “standard procedure.”

“It’s absolutely not in conflict with CEQA,” Holmlund told the Outpost during a brief phone interview on Thursday afternoon. “The normal procedure for development throughout California – and for this region – is for the property to be leased before the CEQA process is complete.”

Holmlund pointed to Nordic Aquafarms’ proposed land-based fish farm as an example. “They’ve had a lease with the Harbor District for three years. They’ve got their [final] EIR but they’re still working on various permits. They have to pay for the right to hold onto the land throughout the permitting process. … A lease is an agreement between two parties over how much they’re going to pay to use the land. CEQA is the process used to minimize environmental impacts.”

Holmlund acknowledged that there “seems to be a lot of confusion” surrounding the issue and invited community members to reach out to the Harbor District with questions. He added that there will be many more opportunities for the public to offer their two cents on the project in the coming months. 

Want to learn more about the project? Holmlund gets into the nitty gritty of the proposed development, the lease areas, shipping, logistics and manufacturing in this hour-long YouTube video.

The Harbor District’s Notice of Preparation of Draft Environmental Impact Report was released at the end of last month. The document will be circulated for a 30-day review and comment period. If you weren’t able to make it to Wednesday’s meeting you can submit comments by emailing Rob Holmlund at districtplanner@humboldtbay.org.

###

PREVIOUSLY:

• Harbor District Announces Massive Offshore Wind Partnership; Project Would Lead to an 86-Acre Redevelopment of Old Pulp Mill Site
• Offshore Wind is Coming to the North Coast. What’s in it For Humboldt?
• ‘Together We Can Shape Offshore Wind for The West Coast’: Local Officials, Huffman and Others Join Harbor District Officials in Celebrating Partnership Agreement With Crowley Wind Services
• SOLD! BOEM Names California North Floating and RWE Offshore Wind Holdings as Provisional Winners of Two Offshore Wind Leases Off the Humboldt Coast
• California’s Aging Electrical Infrastructure Presents Hurdle for Offshore Wind Development on the North Coast
• Crowley — the Company That Wants to Build a Big Wind Energy Facility on the Peninsula — Will be Opening Offices in Eureka
• Harbor District to Host Public Meeting Kicking Off Environmental Review of Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project