Oshun O’Rourke waded into the dark green water, splashing toward a net that her colleagues gently closed around a cluster of finger-length fish.

The Klamath River is wide and still here, making its final turn north to the coast as it winds through the Yurok reservation in Humboldt County. About 150 baby chinook salmon, on their long journey to the Pacific, were resting in cool waters that poured down from the forest.

O’Rourke’s colleagues hoisted the net into a mesh-sided bin in the shallows to sort through their catch, in search of young chinook to test for a parasite that can rot fish from the inside.

Two years ago, during a deepening drought, most salmon captured for testing during peak migration were infected with the lethal parasite. One tribal leader called it “an absolute worst-case scenario” for the Yurok, who rely on salmon for their food, culture and economy.

O’Rourke and fisheries biologist Leanne Knutson laid out 20 small dead fish on paper towels, then wrapped them in plastic to send to a lab that will check for the parasite. The rest were released back into the river, where they will swim for days to reach the ocean.

A few years from now, when these fish return as adults ready to spawn, it will be to a Klamath remade.

“These ones will return either as three or four-year-olds,” O’Rourke said, standing barefoot on the riverbank flecked with fool’s gold and crossed by an otter’s footprints. “And the dams will be gone.”

For more than a hundred years, dams have stilled the Klamath’s flows, jeopardizing the salmon and other fish, and creating ideal conditions for the parasite to spread.

But now these vestiges of an early 20th-century approach to water and power are being dismantled: The world’s largest dam removal project is now underway on the Klamath River.

By the end of 2024, four aging hydroelectric dams spanning the California-Oregon state line will be gone. One hundred thousand cubic yards of concrete, 1.3 million cubic yards of earth and 2,000 tons of steel will be hauled out of the river’s path.

Tribal members, researchers, rural residents near the dams, conservationists and the fishing industry are all anxiously waiting to see how this river, dammed for decades, will change — and with it, its fish, wildlife and human neighbors.

It’s an existential question for rivers, especially in a region where water left in nature is often deemed wasted: “Once a river is dammed, is it damned forever?” experts ask.

So many uncertainties remain as the Klamath reemerges: Will sediment from the demolition harm the river and its inhabitants? Will healthy numbers of salmon finally return? Will it flood its banks more readily? What will the riverfront look like?

Young chinook salmon are collected for lab testing on the Klamath River near Weitchpec on July 20, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Fisheries biologists and technicians from the Yurok Tribe’s Klamath program are collecting salmon on the Klamath River. Top: Gilbert Myers, Oshun O’Rourke, Keenan O’Rourke and Leanne Knutson. In middle: Keenan O’Rourke. Bottom: The technicians open a probe to collect tracking data. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

For O’Rourke, 31, a Yurok tribal member, the Klamath is more than a study subject — it’s home for her and her team, and the lifeblood of their tribe, which has inhabited this region since time immemorial. From the research boat, she gestures to the stretch of river where she grew up in her ancestral village, fishing with her father.

O’Rourke is hopeful that tearing down the dams will mean her son will have salmon to fish, too. But, as a scientist, she plans to investigate, seeking evidence that the river will rebound for the next generation.

“It’s hard to say for sure,” she said, “what things will be like in the future.”

‘To fix a place and right past wrongs’

The Klamath is often described as an upside-down river. It’s born in the high deserts of eastern Oregon as a trickle, and by the time it reaches the Pacific more than 250 miles later, it swells with water drained from more than 12,000 square miles of land, spanning five national forests and seven counties across two states.

There’s a stretch of river, crossing the California-Oregon state line, where feral horses pick their way up pine-studded slopes and osprey nest on power poles.

This is where, in 1918, a power company began operating the first of its hydroelectric dams on the river to light the towns and power the farms, mines and mills of California’s far north and Oregon beyond.

This is where dam construction dispossessed the Shasta people, blockaded salmon runs and stewed the river’s water into a warm, algal brew — drawing decades of activism from tribes and conservationists.

And this is where demolition has begun.

For more than 20 years, four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath have been at the center of a fight to restore the river.

Iron Gate Dam, one of four hydroelectric dams that will be removed on the Klamath River, on July 17, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Top: Copco Number 1 Dam. O: Copco Number 2 Dam. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

The dams weren’t built to store water for drinking, irrigation, or to stop floods. They generated electricity for PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, producing less than 2% of its customers’ power supply.

On one side are Native tribes in California and Oregon, conservationists and the fishing industry — all fighting to restore native salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey that have dwindled under the combined threats of changing ocean conditions, farming and ranching, timber harvesting, mining, overfishing and dams.

On the other side are nearby residents and their politicians, who see demolition as another way for state and federal agencies to impose their environmental wills on their rural way of life.

And in the middle is PacifiCorp. The company had planned to continue operating the dams to generate electricity after its license expired in 2006. But by 2010, facing growing protests and hundreds of millions of dollars in federally mandated updates to make them less dangerous to fish, PacifiCorp agreed to demolish them.

The Klamath River near Happy Camp on July 19, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Deals between the company, California, Oregon, the Secretary of the Interior and others were struck, blocked in Congress, and remade until, last November, when federal energy regulators gave their final blessing to demolish the dams.

“It’s about damn time we got this done,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in December at the fish hatchery below Iron Gate dam, the most downstream of the dams slated for demolition.

California taxpayers will cover $250 million of the roughly $450-$500 million bill with funds from the Proposition 1 water bond approved by voters in 2014. Another $200 million comes from surcharges that PacifiCorp customers, mostly in Oregon, have already paid.

For California officials, the cost of demolishing a private company’s infrastructure is worth the benefit of a more free-flowing river.

“Sometimes, the need to do something so bold — to fix a place and right past wrongs — means you have to sit down and just be pragmatic on how you’re going to get a deal done,” Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told CalMatters.

Native tribes and scientists see demolition as a victory for the river’s first peoples and the fish they depend on for their food, cultures and livelihoods. Chinook populations have crashed, so much so that the 2023 fishing season was cancelled statewide. The river’s spring-run chinook are listed as threatened under California endangered species law, while coho are listed under both the state and federal laws.

Mike Polmateer, a Karuk fisheries field supervisor, at Horse Creek along the Klamath River. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Removing the dams is expected to reopen more than 400 miles of habitat for steelhead and other threatened and iconic fish, and restore flows that can better flush away toxic algae and disease.

But residents and officials in Siskiyou County worry about the sediment that the project will unleash into the river and the consequences of losing a reservoir to refeed groundwater wells, fight fires and recreate.

Landowners mourn lakeside property that will no longer be waterfront as reservoirs vanish and the exposed land becomes the property of the state of California or a designated third party.

“It’s hard to say for sure what things will be like in the future,” said Oshun O’Rourke, a senior fisheries biologist with the Yurok Tribe who is shown near a study site along the Klamath River near Weitchpec. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

What is clear is that the Klamath won’t return to the river it once was. Designated as a wild and scenic river, the Klamath has long been the nexus of some of the West’s fiercest water wars, and removing PacifiCorp’s hydroelectric dams ends only some of the battles.

Other dams will remain upriver in Oregon, where the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation controls flows from Upper Klamath Lake — portioning out too little water to satisfy tribes, wildlife refuges, lake, river, farms and fish. The battle over water allocation will continue, as will the fights over tributaries downstream of the dams.

“The work is not done, by any means,” O’Rourke said, the Klamath River rushing beside her. “There’s still so much to do after the dams come out.”

As construction begins, ‘there is no going back’

The smallest of the four dams, the 33-foot Copco Number 2, located in Siskiyou County, is already almost gone. Water rushed past it by mid-July, and only a concrete and steel structure on the river’s bank remained visible from above.

“Quite a remarkable sight to see and feeling to feel,” said Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit formed to oversee the removal effort. “Knowing that we’ve broken ground and allowed for the river to start that healing.”

This time last year, Bransom said, the riverbed was dry, the water diverted to generate power. Trees now crowd the canyon floor where they sprouted from a riverbed long absent its river.

By October of 2024, the river will flow freely past the other three dams as well — the J.C. Boyle dam in Oregon and the Copco Number 1 and Iron Gate dams in California’s Siskiyou County.

At this point, Bransom said, “there is no going back.”

Mark Bransom, chief executive officer of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, stands above the Copco Number 1 Dam, one of four hydroelectric dams being removed on the Klamath River. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Driving around the mirror-still reservoirs reveals clusters of activity.

Neon-vested workers on the hillsides collect seeds to replant the bare landscape exposed by drained reservoirs. Overlooking Copco Number 1 dam, the pop-pop-pop of target practice in the distance is audible over the din of drilling for a new groundwater monitoring well.

From a hillside above Iron Gate dam, Bransom explains the vast undertaking that is unmaking four dams and a century of environmental interference.

Starting in January 2024, contractor Kiewit Infrastructure West will use explosives to blast out concrete walls beneath the spillway at J.C. Boyle dam in Oregon and remove the last plug of concrete from a tunnel drilled into the Copco Number 1 dam downstream. Water will flow into Iron Gate reservoir.

A yellow front-end loader trundles to a tunnel at the base of the Iron Gate dam, next to the spillway. This tunnel is where every drop of muddy water will pour into the river starting in January, draining Iron Gate reservoir by up to about 5 feet a day.

About 20 million cubic yards of sediment have collected behind the dams over decades — enough to fill about 2 million dump trucks, though only about a quarter to a third of it is expected to end up in the river, Bransom said.

The sediment can choke salmon and other life, and cause oxygen levels in the river to drop. But the work will be timed to avoid migrations, and the ill effects are expected to diminish with time and distance. Federal officials report that ultimately the new conditions will be beneficial to the river and its fish.

From June through October, excavators will dig into the earthen parts of J.C. Boyle dam in Oregon and use the material to fill in an eroded riverbank and the canal diverting water to the powerhouse.

Contractors will use explosives to break up the concrete of the Copco Number 1 dam into chunks and cart it away. Iron Gate will be unzipped from top to bottom by excavators that will deposit the earth in the spillway and a scar left by the dam’s construction.

Restoration will also start when the reservoirs are drained, replanting the newly exposed land and restoring habitat.

Looking down at Iron Gate dam, where water still churns from the turbines generating power, Bransom said he thinks of the river as a creature exploring new territory.

“I’m most curious and excited to basically watch the river emerge, and to see where the river wants to find its way back through this area where it’s been so constrained for 100 years,” Bransom said. “There’ll be some curiosities and trepidation, but it will be only forward progress.”

Neighbors living in limbo

In the meantime, newlyweds Francis Gill and Danny Fontaine are living in limbo in the Copco Lake community, built on the reservoir, soon to vanish, formed by the Copco Number 1 dam.

Gill, chief of the Copco Lake volunteer fire department, and Fontaine, a realtor, own a home, rental properties, the long-empty Copco Lake store and a workshop next door. Gill estimates that around 75 to 85 people live in the community full time — double that when those with vacation homes are there.

At Gill and Fontaine’s workshop, a sign on the wall lists Lake Rules. “Go barefoot,” reads one. “Jump off the dock.” But the water has already lowered enough during deconstruction that the dock now rests on the reservoir’s grassy bank, foreshadowing the future.

Francis Gill, left, and his husband Danny Fontaine, right, in front of their lakefront property on Copco Lake on July 17, 2023. Their property will no longer be lakeside when the dams come down, since the reservoir will disappear. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

At first, when the deal was finalized, they were angry — a feeling that reverberates across Siskiyou County, which has long chafed against the reach of state and federal agencies meddling with local industries. County residents overwhelmingly voted to keep the dams.

Now, with dam removal starting in earnest, Gill and Fontaine are feeling more resigned.

“It’s kind of like a facelift,” Fontaine said. “What’s it going to look like? I hope it looks good!”

“Do I really trust this doctor?” Gill joked.

State and federal environmental assessments spell out the potential impacts on local residents, including the loss of lakewater for firefighting, some unstable lakeside slopes and a drop in groundwater levels.

Downstream of the dams, floodwaters could rise as much as 20 inches higher during extreme, 100-year-floods, with levels dropping back down to normal 19 miles downstream, according to federal projections.

Some of the money in the budget — the dam removal corporation won’t say how much — has been set aside for an independently managed mitigation fund that residents can apply to, provided they agree not to sue. CalFire has also signed off on a plan to address local firefighting capacity, which includes dry hydrants and a camera network to spot fires.

Gill and Fontaine fear they will lose access to the water their community was built around. They are holding out hope that at least the river will be close, feeling for the bottom of the lake when they go swimming and measuring it with a depth probe, looking for the river’s original channel. Fontaine thinks he discovered it while swimming off of the store’s boat ramp.

“It was kind of exciting, that maybe it could be right there. But we don’t know,” he said.

Docks lay on the banks of a receding shoreline of Copco Lake on July 17, 2023. This land will soon be riverfront as the reservoir disappears when the dams are removed. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

They are clear-eyed about the algae that turns the lake green every summer. But the two aren’t convinced that removing the dams will fix it. Gill said he heard that before the dams were constructed, the river would slow to a trickle between puddles of algae in the summer.

The river’s flows will continue to be controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which declined to answer CalMatters’ questions.

The original locals, the Shasta Indian Nation, also have mixed feelings about the dam removal. Though they support the river’s restoration, they’re bracing for what deconstruction and drainage will reveal. Dispossessed by the dam’s construction, the Shasta Indian Nation now faces disturbance once again of burials and other cultural sites.

“There are consequences with the construction of the dams,” said Sami Jo Difuntorum, culture preservation officer of the Shasta Indian Nation. “And now with the dams coming out, we have consequences that are unique to our people — the disruption and disturbance to our sacred sites.”

‘More than just a river to us’: Awaiting return of healthy salmon

Richard Marshall, president of the Siskiyou County Water Users Association, which opposes dam removal, doubts the disruption will be worth it. The idea that demolition is going to “automatically create salmon,” he said, “is simply not true.”

Marshall suspects that warm water upriver, underwater barriers to fish migration and predators have always made the upper basin inhospitable to salmon.

Federal scientists disagree. They point to historical descriptions of chinook, steelhead, coho salmon and lamprey above the dams. A photograph from the Klamath County Historical Society from 1891 shows men in suits, ties and hats displaying their salmon catch on the Link River, which flows from Upper Klamath Lake.

It’s a matter of timing, said Jim Simondet, Klamath branch supervisor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division. Temperatures should be cold enough and flows sufficient for spring-run chinook salmon, a state-protected species, to migrate above the dams in the spring, but should also support fall-run chinook migrating after the heat of the summer subsides.

Simondet said scientists will be keeping a close watch for any bottlenecks that might prevent fish from reaching the upper basin.

“There’s a lot of fish that are bumping their heads up against Iron Gate Dam currently,” he said.

The river’s coho salmon, listed as threatened at the state and federal level, are also expected to use about 70 miles of habitat above the former dam sites after demolition, Simondet said.

Juvenile coho salmon collected for tagging in Horse Creek along the Klamath River. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Mike Polmateer is helping the Karuk tribe track them — if and when they do return.

“We believe wholeheartedly that once the dams come down, the fish will return,” said Polmateer, a field supervisor with the Karuk Tribal Fisheries Program. The Karuk and the Yurok downriver are the largest tribes in California.

Polmateer is also a traditional fisherman and a fatawana, which he describes as a medicine man. He’s been protesting the dams for years, after a massive fish die-off on the lower Klamath in 2002 catalyzed the movement to restore the river.

“That’s still the water that runs through my veins. We only want it to be taken care of,” Polmateer said.

Mike Polmateer, a fisheries field supervisor and member of the Karuk tribe, at a pond built as a refuge for coho. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Top: Juvenile coho salmon are weighed and measured before tagging in Horse Creek. Bottom: Fisheries technician Clay Tuttle injects a tag into a coho salmon. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Highway 96 unfurls along the river from the dry volcanic slopes downstream of the dams to wooded canyons downriver. And just off the highway, tucked away down a bumpy dirt road where horned cattle rest in the shade, is a clear blue pond built as a refuge for young coho salmon.

Polmateer meets his team there — three younger men in wetsuits who wade into the pond to capture the small silver fish for tagging.

The operation takes seconds: The fish, less than three inches long, are sedated in a bucket of water laced with clove oil and something more, then weighed, measured and scanned for existing tags. Then, a deft poke into the fish’s abdomen with a needle, and a tag, no bigger than a grain of rice, is slipped inside.

Tagged, these coho can be tracked on their way to the ocean and as they return, after the dams are gone.

Polmateer, now 63, will be retired by then, but he hopes that his crew, the next generation, will continue the work.

“It’s more than just a river to us. It’s more than just something that harbors fish,” Polmateer said. “It’s who we are as a people. We’re fix-the-world-people, Karuk people are.”

Hunting bugs — a critical link in the river’s food web

Green gobbets of algae raced down the Klamath about 11 miles downriver of Iron Gate dam. Big rigs roared in the opposite direction on Interstate 5 above, rumbling towards Oregon.

And in the middle of the river, water up to his knees, stood Yurok fisheries technician Gilbert Meyers, a net plunged into the gravel and muck. A team of researchers was there to take the river’s pulse.

One way to do that, said Meyers’ boss, Jamie Holt, is by capturing bugs.

“Fish eat bugs, so it directly equates to fish food,” said Holt, a senior fisheries technician with the Yurok Tribe’s Klamath program.

Gilbert Myers, a fisheries technician with the Yurok Tribe, collects mayflies and other aquatic bugs from the Klamath River near I-5 on July 19, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Top: Dragonfly larvae collected from the Klamath River. Bottom: A fly perched on a branch at Tree of Heaven Campground. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Monitoring which insects like mayflies, caddisflies and salmon flies are living where, and in what numbers, offers a real-time view into the river’s health before and after the dams come down. The work, a collaboration with UC Davis and California Trout, spans the basin, fingerprinting conditions on the Klamath over time.

The crew’s next sampling location, at a campground downriver, is more scenic than the site under I-5. But here, too, algae clogs the sampling nets.

A flotilla of children on rafts have scared away the fish the team tries to survey, and they break for food — salmon that Yurok fisheries technician Keenan O’Rourke caught, smoked and jarred last summer.

This year, salmon projections are so dismal that federal officials and the Yurok tribe canceled commercial and subsistence fisheries, a devastating decision for people with an average income of less than $21,000 a year.

Jamie Holt, a Yurok senior fisheries technician, examines insects taken from the Klamath River on July 19, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Holt warns that the dam removal won’t be a panacea as the federal government will still control flows upriver. But she’s optimistic about all the ways it will improve the river’s health. “It’s just going to harbor far more life … It’s going to hatch all kinds of bugs, which grow bigger fish,” she said.

Holt’s been hearing about demolition of the dams for so long that it doesn’t seem real that they’ll soon be gone.

“I kind of joked around for a lot of years that I’ll believe it when I’m floating over where they used to stand,” she said. “And it still kind of holds.”

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Kalvin Mitchell Reed was born on July 10, 2004 to Josh and Andrea Reed of Eureka. He graduated from Eureka High School in 2022. He passed away on August 12, 2023.

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

Jennifer Nielsen, beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and friend, passed away peacefully from natural causes on August 20, 2023. She was 44 years old at the time of her passing and, though Jenny left us far too soon, she lived and loved fiercely in a way that most only dare to dream.

A firecracker from the start, Jenny was born on July 3, 1979 in Fortuna. She grew up in Loleta and attended Loleta Elementary, where she made lifelong friends and developed a passion for participating in team sports. Her love for sports continued to grow at St. Bernard’s High School, where she played soccer, basketball and softball. Loyal to her core, Jenny made close friends in high school who will forever remember her generous heart, unflinching integrity, and larger-than-life laugh. As someone who always had a knack for connecting people and bringing them together, Jenny allegedly threw a party or two in her teen years and her brothers fondly remember her holding the title for being grounded the longest in the family.

Through any adversity that came her way, Jenny persevered. Ever the hard worker, she juggled three jobs while attending Chico State University. She originally planned to become a teacher, but, as someone who always took great inspiration from music, she changed her mind at an Eric Clapton concert and adjusted her major to Communications.

After earning two degrees at Chico State, Jenny entered the tech world in San Francisco and made a name for herself. One of Jenny’s greatest joys was helping others realize their potential, so it was fitting that she chose a career in marketing and public relations, consistently working behind the scenes while pushing others forward. Always leading with her heart, she epitomized inclusivity and regularly sought out opportunities to highlight and connect people of various backgrounds, interests and abilities.

Any success Jenny experienced in life, she shared with others. She came from a large extended family and also became family, almost immediately, with everyone she met. As a 4th generation Humboldt County native, Jenny never forgot where she came from and took great pride in her Humboldt roots. In addition to her roots, Jenny also had wings, traveling the world with friends, which further exposed her to some of the things she loved most in life: art, music, writing, food and people.

In more recent years, Jenny returned home to her beloved Humboldt County. She held a few different jobs, her last being at Poletski’s Appliance Center, which she often said made her happier than any other place she had ever worked.

In addition to her love for people, she also had a special bond with animals, particularly cats, dogs and frogs. Jenny was also very in tune with her spirituality. A deep believer in justice and humanity, Jenny was a unique and wise spirit. Her light ignited everyone who was lucky enough to know her and, even in death, her spark will never be extinguished.

Jenny is survived by her mother, Robin Burns, her father, Dale Nielsen, her brothers Steve and Dylan (Brooke) Nielsen, two nieces, Rowan and Saylor, and close friend, Josh. She was preceded in death by her stepfather, Kenny Burns, and her grandparents, Rich and Bev Haman and Robert and Beryl Nielsen. Jenny was also blessed with lifelong friends, Nathan, Amber, Tracy, Abbey and Molly, as well as the Miller, Wilson and Pucillo families, who were all very dear to her.

Jenny’s family invites you to a Celebration of Life on Sunday, September 17, 2023 at 1 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building, 1 Marina Way, in Eureka. As Jenny lived, so let us celebrate her - with love, light and laughter. Please bring stories and memories to share to honor Jenny’s eternal spirit.

Throughout her life, Jenny was committed to helping others and, as an active blood donor herself, Jenny’s family encourages you to donate blood in her name at the Northern California Blood Bank (http://nccbb.org). For those who are unable to give blood or who live out of the area, please consider making a monetary donation to the Northern California Blood Bank in Jenny’s name or giving blood at your local blood bank.

###

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

Joe Ann Carroll Larue, 74, of Redway, passed away on June 30, 2023 after a beautiful summer day at home with her family and a long and wonderful life.

Joe Ann was born on April 28, 1949 to Robert and Dionysia Carroll in Joliet, Illinois. Her family moved to San Diego when she was young and she enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Ocean Beach together with her siblings Bob, Patty and Mary Beth and extended family.

She met her soulmate Philip Larue (1936-2004) in San Diego when she was a nurse and Phil a patient. After extensive travel across the country, they chose Redway as their home due to its stunning natural beauty and warm community. Some may remember Phil’s trophy business, SoHum trophies, run out of their home. Together they raised three sons, Anthony (b. 1985), Nicholas (1986-2005) and Lucas (b.1991) and enjoyed many visits with Joe Ann’s eldest son Aram (1975-2010), who lived in Monterey.

Joe Ann loved living in Redway, her “little corner of the world” as she called it, and was an active community member, teaching CPR all over Southern Humboldt. She was affectionately called “Mama Joe” by her children’s friends, who could always expect a warm hug and meaningful conversation. Her sisters shared that “Joe Ann was a loving and caring mother, proud grandmother, sweet sister and loyal friend. She had a healing voice and hands; a gift that is hard to describe.”

Joe Ann loved the land and people of Kauai and treasured visits there with her family, as well as to Maui. She also loved spending time with her many dear friends, including Sue Sheldon and Peggy Sarver, visits to Shelter Cove, listening to music, time in the backyard and caring for her grandchildren. Her close friends shared that, “Joe Ann was truly amazing. Her ability to connect with people both old and young with love and empathy was remarkable,” and “tell Joe Ann I will catch up to her in heaven. I’m so glad she was in my life.”

Joe Ann is dearly missed and survived by her sons Anthony (fiancée Megan and her son Braelen; their children Nikolai and Aleena) and Lucas (daughter Eliauna), sisters Patty Stafford (Rod) and Mary Beth Gismondi, sister-in-law Leslie Carroll and many beloved cousins, nieces, nephews, friends and her chosen community of Redway. No services are planned at this time but Joe Ann will be loved and remembered every day.

###

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

Press release from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force:

On August 28th, 2023, Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) Agents assisted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) with a traffic stop on a vehicle on Highway 101 north of Trinidad. HCSO Deputy McKenzie and his K9 Uno Rex conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle being driven by Mario Alberto HERNANDEZ-PULIDO due to a vehicle code violation.

Hernandez Pulido.

HERNANDEZ-PULIDO was found to be driving without a license. Deputy McKenzie and K9 Uno conducted an open-air sniff on the vehicle. K9 Uno alerted to the vehicle indicating drugs were present. HCSO Deputy McKenzie then contacted HCDTF Agents who responded to the scene.

Inside the vehicle, Agents located 6 pounds of methamphetamine.

Mario Alberto HERNANDEZ-PULIDO was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility where he was booked on the following charges:

• HS11378- Possession of Methamphetamine for Purposes of Sales
  
• HS11379(A)- Transportation of Methamphetamine for Purposes of Sales
• VC12500- Driving without a License
• VC26708(A)(1)- Tinted Windows

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.

UPDATE, 4:50 p.m.:

Barely 15 minutes after this post was published, Bohn sent us a photo of a copy of his completed Form 501, stamped “received” by the Elections Office.

“Hope I don’t get too much jail time,” he quipped.

###

Original post:

###

Humboldt County First District Supervisor Rex Bohn has been soliciting donations for his 2024 re-election campaign despite the fact that he has yet to file a candidate intention statement, known as Form 501, as required by California Government Code Section 85200.

Blogger John Chiv was the first to point this out in a post last week, and the Humboldt County Office of Elections says Bohn’s campaign still hasn’t turned the form in.

The First District supervisor’s re-election website is actively soliciting and accepting credit card donations, and at his campaign kickoff event last Wednesday, he encouraged attendees to make donations on the spot. 

Here’s what he said on that front:

Form 501, which you can download by clicking here, includes instructions that tell aspiring candidates they must, “File the Form 501 before you solicit or receive any contributions.”

The form also notes, “A candidate for state or local office must file this form for each election, including reelection to the same office.”

What are the repercussions for violating those rules? From a financial standpoint, not too severe.

The Enforcement Division of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) deals with violations of the Political Reform Act in a complaint-driven process. Often, the commission will issue a warning letter, like this one sent to a 2020 candidate for the Hesperia Unified School District Board. The commission let her off the hook since she had filed her other paperwork on time and had no history of prior violations, but the letter warned, “Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act in the future will result in monetary penalties of up to $5,000 for each violation.”

The FPPC has assessed fines in other instances, though hardly enough to sidetrack most campaigns. In 2016, for example, the FPPC fined a Newport Beach City Council candidate $200 for this exact reason: He solicited and received contributions prior to filing his Candidate Statement of Intention.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Bohn said he was unaware that his campaign had yet to file a Form 501. 

“I’ll ask my accountant,” he said, adding that he’s sure that he’s filed the form in previous elections. “I’ll figure it out,” he said.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Aug. 27, 2023, at about 4:21 p.m., a Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to the Ferndale area for the report of a vehicle theft.

According to the victim, an acquaintance, 80-year-old Steven Foster Stiles, had reportedly entered the victim’s home on Upper Bear River Road without consent while the victim was away. Stiles then reportedly stole a vehicle belonging to the victim. While returning to the residence, the victim located Stiles and the vehicle on Wildcat Road.  

A deputy responded to the area and located Stiles on foot approximately a quarter mile from the stolen vehicle’s location. Upon deputy contact, Stiles attempted to flee over a metal gate on a private road but was quickly apprehended.

Stiles was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of vehicle theft (VC 10851(a)), possession of a stolen vehicle (PC 496d(a)) and resisting a peace officer (PC 148(a)).

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