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The wind resource beyond Humboldt Bay is among the best in the United States, with strong, consistent wind speeds that are ideal for commercial development. There’s just one problem: electrical transmission.

Getting the power from the floating offshore turbines to the shore is one thing; getting the power to communities throughout the region and across the state is another. Wind developers can run big, subsea cables from their offshore wind projects to land with relative ease, but once that power comes ashore it encounters an electrical grid that wasn’t designed to handle it.

The Humboldt Wind Energy Area (WEA), located approximately 20 miles west of Eureka, will host as many as 100 floating wind turbines across 200 square miles of deep ocean waters. The Humboldt WEA will capture a mere fraction of the state’s renewable energy potential. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates the state’s offshore winds “have the technical potential to produce … approximately 150 percent of California’s annual electricity load.”

The problem is, local capacity is extremely limited, and the North Coast region is relatively isolated from California’s electrical load centers. As you can see in the map below, there are only a handful of transmission lines running in and out of Humboldt County, none of which have the capacity to accommodate the power generated by a commercial offshore wind development.

California’s power grid. Thicker lines = higher capacity transmission. Zoom in for greater detail. Data: California Energy Commission.

Matthew Marshall, executive director of Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA), likened the state’s electrical transmission system to a network of roads, offramps and highways. The highways, or bigger transmission lines, can carry more electricity.

“Here in Humboldt, we’ve got little two-lane, winding roads like State Route 36 going in and out of the county, but what we need is, like, Interstate 5 through Los Angeles, because the potential for power generation is at a state level of significance,” Marshall explained. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us, not only to meet our own climate goals but to be an exporter of clean power and to help further the state’s goals. It’s going to be a huge undertaking, not to just build the wind farms but to also build up the infrastructure needed to handle the power being generated.”

In fact, parts of the county are already at capacity. Late last year, Pacific Gas and Electric informed the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors that it had all but reached its limits to transmit electricity to new projects throughout the Eel River Valley and Southern Humboldt. 

“That line that travels south through the county is very small and it needs upgrades to provide more service,” Marshall said. “When we look at offshore wind and the scale of our energy use here, there is no way our existing infrastructure can accommodate the energy the offshore wind farm will produce. Our local energy demand is, like, 10 percent of what the Humboldt [WEA] could generate.”

Upgrading the line from 60 kilovolts (kV) to 115 kV would alleviate existing transmission limitations, said Arne Jacobson, executive director of the Schatz Energy and Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt, “but it won’t be big enough for what is required for large-scale offshore wind development.”

“There are basically three state agencies involved in the energy transmission aspect of offshore wind: the California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Independent System Operator (CAISO),” Jacobson explained.“The CPUC issued a decision at the end of February to order reliability procurements. Essentially what it’s doing is ordering the CAISO to develop transmission lines for offshore wind.”

CAISO, the entity that manages the flow of electricity on high-voltage powerlines and oversees infrastructure planning across the state, estimates the total cost of transmission development over the next 20 years – including transmission line and substation upgrades across the state – to clock in at a staggering $30.5 billion.

The report, 20-Year Transmission Outlook, notes that some existing transmission lines could be used for the Morro Bay WEA but the North Coast area will need “significant” upgrades to integrate offshore wind into the state’s grid.

“To facilitate the interconnection of the 4,000 MW of offshore wind in the North Coast to the ISO system, the ISO identified the need for two 500 kV [alternating current] lines connecting to the Fern Road 500 kV substation and a [high-voltage direct current] line to the Collinsville 500/230 kV substation,” the report states. “One other alternative considered in the ISO’s 2021-2022 Transmission Plan is a … deep sea cable to a new station referred to as Bay-hub located in the Greater Bay Area.”

In simpler terms, the state could increase capacity by upgrading the main transmission lines for the region – one coming in from Cottonwood to the east and the other from Laytonville to the south – or connect directly to the San Francisco Bay Area via subsea cable.

“We’re probably going to need two out of those three options to accommodate the power that will be generated by the offshore wind farm,” Marshall said. “There are other options, like, what if we went up to Oregon instead? Wind energy areas are being developed for Oregon as well. Whether we connect to a larger western grid of the California grid is definitely not decided yet. It’s probably a 10-year process between planning and permitting and then, eventually, construction.”

Another report, Transmission Opportunities for California North Coast Offshore Wind, Vol. 1: Executive Summary conducted by the folks at the Schatz Center, explores options for offshore wind development that fit within the bounds of the region’s existing transmission infrastructure. However, the study notes that “developing an economically viable offshore wind project at a small scale is challenging.” The alternatives identified in the study were projected to have financial losses over the project’s lifetime.

“While the wind resource could enable [the] development of large-scale wind farms, the existing transmission infrastructure limits the size of projects in the absence of significant investment in transmission upgrades,” according to the report. “An initial option for [the] establishment of an offshore wind industry in the region could involve [the] development of one or more small commercial wind projects that are scaled to match local loads and transmission capacity, requiring only modest investments in new transmission infrastructure.”

Marshall spoke in favor scaled approach because it would prioritize local energy needs.

“I think there’s a lot of that’s a desirable outcome to meet our local goals and potentially hit those targets for clean, renewable energy sooner rather than later,” he said. “Doing it that way, we can also learn and make sure there aren’t unanticipated environmental impacts. … But, even if it’s not entirely done in phases, the developers can’t just snap their fingers and suddenly there are a hundred turbines in the ocean. There’s going to have to be a sequential deployment because it will take a while to get the projects fully built out because of the sheer size and scale of the effort.”

Even so, state and federal lawmakers are trying to expedite the process. 

“This is going to take many years,” Rep. Jared Huffman told the Outpost in a recent phone interview. “Anyone who thinks that we are very close to manufacturing these huge turbines, getting the clean power onto the grid and adding these thousands of jobs might be disappointed. This is going to take close to a decade to really bring it all forward, but I’m hoping we can speed that up.”

However, the development of offshore wind is completely dependent on California’s transmission capabilities. Those issues must be resolved before offshore wind can move forward, Huffman said.

“The developers don’t know how many of these floating platforms they’ll even be able to install until they know whether there’s enough transmission to move the power onto the grid,” he continued. “To me, that’s by far the most important bottleneck here. Until you have all that figured out, you really don’t know a lot about the economics of the project. When you’re trying to negotiate community benefits and other things, you can begin those conversations now, but you can’t sign on the dotted line until you know how big the project is, how much it’s going to cost, how profitable it’s going to be. It all depends on all of these details that tie back to questions about transmission.”

There are several bills moving through the California legislature that would ease the implementation of offshore wind and electrical transmission efforts across the state, including AB 3, AB 50, AB 80, AB 344, SB 286 and SB 319.

AB 50, introduced by Assemblyman Jim Wood, would ensure that large electric corporations adhere to electric connectivity timeframes.

“​​We can’t reach our housing and climate goals and expand local economies if utility companies can’t meet the demand for electricity when it is required,” Wood said. “My bill, AB 50, looks to improve the planning process for meeting the state’s electrification goals, which will be crucial in ensuring the North Coast has the infrastructure to support the development of offshore wind farms as well as to meeting California’s critical housing and climate goals.”

Similarly, state Senator Mike McGuire’s bill, SB 319, would implement “a long-term fix-it plan for [PG&E’s] antiquated system.”

“PG&E has been underinvesting in their infrastructure for decades, putting profits over people, and our communities are paying the price. This simply can’t stand,” McGuire wrote in an emailed statement. “That’s why we’re advancing critical legislation, SB 319, that would force PG&E to do their actual damn job connecting homes, businesses and green power projects with safe and reliable distribution and transmission lines.”

Marshall added that RCEA will continue to engage at the regulatory level to advocate for local interests.

“We want to make sure [this project] doesn’t end up just being a flyover situation where they build the wind farms and build a giant 500-kV line that just takes the power straight from the ocean and down to the Bay Area,” he said. “That would be the worst-case scenario. … To use my road analogy, it would be a shame if this brand-new highway doesn’t have any off-ramps. Hopefully, there will be local benefits as well as an investment in our community infrastructure and power grid. That would be a win-win.”

[CORRECTION: This post originally stated that the Humboldt WEA could potentially produce more than 150 percent of the state’s current demand for electricity. It has been corrected. The Outpost regrets this error.]

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DOCUMENT: Transmission Alternatives for California North Coast Offshore Wind: Volume 1 Executive Summary

PREVIOUSLY:

• Biden Administration Proposes Offshore Wind Lease Sale, Including Two Spots Off the Humboldt County Coast
• IT’S ON: Humboldt Offshore Wind Leases to Go Up For Auction on Dec. 6
• 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?
• North Coast Fishermen Fear for the Future of Commercial Fisheries as Offshore Wind Efforts Advance
• North Coast Tribes Advocate for ‘Meaningful, Impactful Partnership’ with Potential Developers Ahead of Tomorrow’s Highly Anticipated Offshore Wind Lease Auction
• ‘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
• ‘It’s Beyond Frustrating’: Yurok Vice-Chair Calls Out Provisional Winners of Offshore Wind Bid for Failing to Engage With the Tribe Aheads of This Week’s Auction

PREVIOUSLY:

• McKinleyville Missionary Reportedly Kidnapped in Niger

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Woodke.

Multiple news outlets are reporting that McKinleyville resident Jeffery Woodke, who was taken hostage in Niger in 2016, has been released. (See: CNN, NYT, Axios, etc.)

Woodke, a graduate of Humboldt State, was an instructor at the Redwood School of Missions when he embarked on a Christian mission in the largely Muslim West African country.

It is not yet known exactly who took Woodke, news outlets report, though Woodke’s wife — Els Woodke, who still lives in McKinleyville — said that she believed an affiliate of Al Qaeda was behind the kidnapping, a 2021 Associated Press story reported.

Woodke is reportedly receiving medical evaluation in the country’s capital at the moment.

I’m gratified & relieved to see the release of U.S. hostage Jeff Woodke after over 6 years in captivity. The U.S. thanks Niger for its help in bringing him home to all who miss & love him. I thank so many across our government who’ve worked tirelessly toward securing his freedom.

— Jake Sullivan (@JakeSullivan46) March 20, 2023

A recent court ruling that favored gig work companies may have a silver lining for pro-labor groups.

Last Monday, a California appeals court ruled that Proposition 22 — a 2020 ballot measure that allowed Uber, Lyft, and other platforms to classify their workers as independent contractors rather than employees — was largely constitutional, reversing much of a lower court ruling.

But the court found that one part of the proposition wasn’t valid.

It’s a part that defined legislation on certain subjects, including unionization for app-based drivers, as amendments to the proposition. And amendments, the proposition declares, need to pass by a seven-eights majority vote of the Legislature. That super, super, super-duper majority is a steep climb.

“If the Legislature wanted to enact collective bargaining legislation today, it would be free to do so by a simple majority,” said Stacey Leyton, an attorney with Altshuler Berzon, a law firm representing the drivers and Service Employees International Union in challenging the ballot measure.

Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California, said that the drivers the union works with have “motivation and fire behind them” with the possibility of being able to unite with their coworkers and bargain collectively. Orr said there are several options that the drivers are considering in the wake of the ruling, and pursuing legislation that would allow drivers to unionize “certainly is one of them.”

But a lawyer representing the Protect App-Based Drivers and Services coalition, which includes Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart and is defending Prop. 22 in court, saw the Monday decision slightly differently.

If the Legislature passed a new collective bargaining law for app-based drivers by less than a seven eights vote, it could be challenged in court “and it would be up to a court to decide at that point if it is an amendment or not,” said Kurt Oneto, an attorney with Nielsen Merksamer, who is representing the coalition.

When reached for comment, Uber referred CalMatters to its statement about driver independence from earlier in the week.

What exactly a union representing app-based drivers could negotiate over — if the rest of Prop. 22 stands — is also potentially up for debate. The initiative established minimum pay for the time between when a driver accepts a ride or delivery and when they complete it, for example. So could a union bargain over drivers’ wages?

“To the extent that Proposition 22 establishes minimums, a union could bargain to go above those minimums,” said Leyton. Unions often negotiate wages that are above wages in minimum wage law, she said, “so I would think that a collective bargaining law could authorize that.” But, she said, there could be a legal battle over that.

If lawmakers did pass a law allowing gig workers to unionize, that could also face challenges in court, said Catherine Fisk, a law professor at UC Berkeley who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the union and drivers challenging Prop. 22. For example, gig companies could argue that collective bargaining by workers who are not employees is price fixing that violates antitrust law, she said.

The case (probably) isn’t over yet

The fight in the courts over Prop. 22 likely isn’t over, though, and being in legal limbo impacts the political calculus around passing new laws.

If either side appeals the recent ruling, and the California Supreme Court decides to hear the case, it could still strike down Prop. 22 in its entirety or uphold the whole thing, effectively rendering Monday’s ruling moot.

“That leads me to wonder whether there will be a serious push for legislation until that is resolved,” said Fisk.

The chairperson of the state Senate labor committee, Dave Cortese, doesn’t plan to take action until the case is resolved. “While we are disappointed by the court’s ruling, we are optimistic that the rights of rideshare and delivery drivers will be vindicated by the California Supreme Court. It would be premature to move legislation as we await that determination,” the Campbell Democrat said in a statement. “Regardless of the outcome in court, we will not stand for wealthy corporations buying their way out of labor laws and we are committed to pursuing all options to ensure app-based workers are protected.”

His counterpart leading the Assembly labor committee, San Jose Democrat Ash Kalra, said in a statement: “The fight to recognize gig workers as employees who deserve full protection under our labor laws is not over. As Chair of the Assembly Committee on Labor & Employment, I will continue to monitor the issue and explore all legislative options on the table.”

The clearest path for drivers to have full rights and the ability to vote for their own union would be for Prop. 22 to be struck down in its entirety, said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, an association of rideshare drivers. That’s why “it’s absolutely critical that this ruling not be allowed to stand,” she said.

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

As I understand it, the reason most anti-abortion activists take the stand they do is that they believe abortion is murder. And that is based on their notion of “ensoulment,” that life begins at conception when a bunch of rapidly-dividing pre-blastocyst cells (the zygote) is endowed with a soul, and is therefore a person. (After seven days, the excitement settles down into a more organized clump, the blastocyst.) The great majority of those supposedly soul-encrusted cells die without any human intervention: many fail to glom onto the wall of the uterus, while of those that do, about half are miscarried, without anyone being any the wiser. That is, most of the supposedly ensouled zygotes never make it to first base. But still, a few do, leading to the idea that to willfully abort a growing set of cells anytime after conception is tantamount to murder.

(Incidentally, talking about a “moment of conception” is a misnomer, since fertilization takes about 24 hours.)

Week-old human (ensouled?) blastocyst. (J. Conaghan, National Institutes of Health, public domain)

If “ensoulment at conception” to justify a pro-life stance sounds a bit ad hoc — it’s because it is. It’s certainly not found in the Bible, which is understandable, given that two thousand and more years ago, pregnancy wasn’t understood as the result of fertilization of a female egg by a male spermatozoon. Aristotle, for instance, thought that the only role for the female in the process of creating new life was to provide a nest for the developing embryo — a man’s semen was all she needed. He, and presumably anyone influenced by Greek philosophy, certainly believed in ensoulment, except it happened later: 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses.

If Christians are to fall back on the Bible to justify banning abortions, shouldn’t they be checking what it actually has to say about the start of life? Like, Genesis 2:7, which says it’s all about breath: “And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Breath equates with life. Not coincidentally, this followed the ancient Greek concept of pneuma (breath), which held that life only starts when breathing starts…nine months after conception.

FWIW, wise old Saint Augustine, who had clearly thought this through 1700 years ago, wrote, “I have not been able to discover in the accepted books of Scripture anything at all certain about the origins of the soul.”

Rather than falling back on religion (not as found in the Bible but as taught by the Catholic church hundreds of years later) shouldn’t we be facing the issue of abortion in the light of what we know now, not what was believed out of ignorance 2000 years ago? For instance:

• About 1 in 4 women in the US have had an abortion. Of those, 60% already have a child, half of whom have two or more children.
• 46% of those women who have abortions are single.
• Abortion isn’t generally seen as a form of birth control: for 58% of women getting an abortion, it’s their first one
• A sexually active woman who ends up with two children has to dodge nearly 30 pregnancies in her fertile lifetime if she wants to avoid having an abortion
• Women living below the poverty line account for half of all abortions in the US (the only country in the “first world” that doesn’t mandate paid family leave).
• Women want abortions for many reasons, beyond the more obvious ones of incest and rape, including: knowing they have mentally or physically compromised fetuses, economic hardship, failed or destructive relationships, health risks, and taking care of other children.
• Legislating against abortion won’t end it, based on pre-Roe vs. Wade history. It will only make it more dangerous.
• 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal, according to a 2022 Pew survey.
• Oh, and no one’s actually seen a soul, in case that makes any difference.

Unfortunately, the people making the anti-abortion laws are almost entirely white, well-off men far removed from the plight of a desperate woman who is often poor and unmarried. They’re also ignorant, as when Texas governor Greg Abbott boasted that rape would be eliminated in his state, so abortions wouldn’t be necessary. Which reminded me of this: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” (Todd Akin, Missouri Republican and Senate candidate.)

Legitimate rape? Sigh.

This week, Colin Fiske of Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities and Matt Simmons of EPIC join the show to talk about why the race to electrify cars and trucks isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to our climate woes. More - and larger - electric vehicles mean more mining lithium for batteries, which comes with social and environmental costs. And the more vehicles on our streets, the more dangerous those streets are for people walking and biking. One solution is building more housing close to where people work, shop, and study, so that we can free ourselves from auto dependency.

For more info:

• Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining

Mushrooms.

Some people hate them because they taste earthy and spongy. Other people love them for the same reasons. Jennifer May, 45, loves to make them into a powder, mix them with spices and cacao, and sell it for you to mix into hot drinks. She calls it 14 Sacred Mushrooms.

Originally from Pennsylvania, May came to Humboldt County for the first time when she was 22 years old. It was on a camping trip where she realized that she needed to leave the East Coast and seek out the next step in her path. It took her two months and following the band Phish on tour to get her here.

May originally had the intention of returning back east, but quickly found a sense of community. She started a gig at the Bayshore Mall, where she met her husband, and decided to stay for a while. After a few months of dating, it became difficult to stay in the harsh Humboldt economy of the early 2000s, so they left.

Life took them away to Tahoe, Washington, and North Carolina as they began to have children. They did not believe they could ever return, but they still had ties here. Then 11 years ago, a few close friends began to renovate a house and invited May and her family. They could not resist so they returned with nothing but the clothes on their backs and two kids in tow.

“We had to live super simply,” May said.”It was some of the best years of our lives. We didn’t have a lot and we just played in the forest.”

Over the years, May did photography for Coastal Grove Charter School and provided child care, but naturally, kids grow up and things change. May’s experience here has thematically been, “a struggle.” Maybe the Humboldt Hustle in reality is the Humboldt Struggle.

For May, it came in two particular ways — her health and her finances.

She felt as though all of her focus was revolving around taking supplements so she began studying naturopathic medicine. She came across the book, Christopher Hobbs’s Medicinal Mushrooms: The Essential Guide: Boost Immunity, Improve Memory, Fight Cancer, Stop Infection, and Expand Your Consciousness and decided to go all in on mushrooms.

May found a farmer in Washington who grows, powders and sells the 14 different types of mushrooms she was looking for. She then began mixing and playing with ratios of spices, cacao and mushroom por until she found her ideal replacement for coffee — or, in some cases, as a supplement to it. She began to share her mushroom cacao blend with friends and people were responding well to it.

Then the struggle came in the form of veterinarian bills for the family dog, which they could not afford. Quickly, May decided to start a fundraiser where she would sell her mushroom cacao blends to pay for the bills. From that, 14 Sacred Mushrooms was born.

May rented out a kitchen to package her mixes and started selling them out of our local grocers, including Murphy’s Markets, Eureka Natural Foods and North Coast Co-Op. You might find her at one of these stores demo-ing her cacao blends or selling at our local farmers markets. [CORRECTION: Oops, not at the Farmers’ Markets. Yet! — Ed.]

14 Sacred Mushrooms has already expanded to Andy’s Produce Market in Sebastopol, markets in Santa Rosa, and Shelton’s Natural Foods Market in Healdsburg. May has plans to launch a website to make it easier to find her product but for now, she has just started to use Instagram.

May often refers to the mycelium found in mushrooms. Mycelium is a root-like structure of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching or hyphae that grows underground but can also thrive in other places such as rotting tree trunks.

It looks like webbing, but for fungi.

May describes this webbing or networks of mycelium similarly to how she views Humboldt as a community — all interconnected and eager to thrive.

“Mushrooms are our allies and they have a lot to teach us,” May said.

Dr. Theodore Dwight Felt was one of the pioneer settlers in Humboldt County and, with Jonathan Clark, was one of two physicians in practice in the early 1850s. Dr. Felt originally homesteaded in the Goose Lake Prairie (now Hydesville) area and for many years was closely associated with the development of that and neighboring towns.

In addition to the practice of medicine Dr. Felt played a prominent role in numerous community and commercial ventures. One of these projects which occupied his energies for a number of years was the development of Mt. Glen Springs, or Felt Springs, as it was often called, a resort-health spa situated near Fortuna and promoted primarily on the basis of the alleged medicinal properties of the waters located there.

Dr. Theodore Dwight Felt

The springs were discovered in 1874 on land obtained through a grant to Dr. Felt. Some men employed by him returned one day saying that they had found some unusual tasting water. Upon Dr. Felt’s personal investigation he found two large mineral springs lying in a basin formed by a slide on the south side of a ridge separating Salmon Creek and Strongs Creek five miles from the town of Rohnerville. This spot lies not far from the present Newberg Road.

Dr. Felt was impressed with the quality of the water and was quick to appreciate its commercial possibilities as evidenced by the following notice which appeared in the Humboldt Times Weekly of January 24, 1874: “Mineral Water - Probably the finest and best mineral springs at the present known in the State of California is that recently discovered in this county and owned by Dr. T.D. Felt of Rohnerville. It is said to contain medicinal and curative qualties such as no other mineral water possesses. Dr. Felt has sent Mr. Fruchlicht of our Corner Saloon several gallons of the waters from the spring where the sick and curious will do well to call and give it a try.”

Soon after, development had proceeded to the point where patients could visit and stay at the springs. In the Humboldt Times Weekly of May 23, 1874, the following was recorded: “Favorable Acting: Several persons, invalids, who have come in from Felt’s Mineral Springs after a stay there of two to three weeks, give the most favorable accounts of the beneficial results experienced in their own cases from the use of the waters of those springs. For rheumatic troubles the water seems to act like a charm. Dr. Felt will have his road to the spring completed in a few days when they can be reached without trouble or inconvenience. We understand likewise that he will proceed at once to erect suitable buildings for the accommodations of visitors.”

By 1876 the enterprise must have been successful, as Dr. Felt closed his practice in Rohnerville and moved to the springs. Individual cabins and a hotel for visitors were present at this time. Unfortunately, soon after his move, in May, 1876, a disastrous fire destroyed the hotel and damaged other buildings, fortunately with no loss of life but with a property loss estimated by Dr. Felt of $50,000. With characteristic vigor Dr. Felt immediately began the rebuilding of the resort. Later in that year a new project was added — the development of a piped water system to supply the town of Rohnerville. From the Daily Humboldt Times, July 18, 1876, this notice appeared: “Felt Mineral Springs: The work of conducting the water from Mountain Glen Springs to Rohnerville through pipes is being pushed through rapidly. The pipe is already laid from the springs to the edge of the timber near Rohnerville and will be carried to Felt’s Hotel in about a week. The pipe selected for the purpose is of the finest quality and is coated with asphaltum so that it will last for many years. After this work is completed Rohnerville will be “fixed,” having a regular system of water works for protection against fire and her hotel supplied with mineral water that cures the sick.”

Bad luck intervened, however, and another fire destroyed the recently reconstructed buildings. Perhaps depressed from this turn of events and certainly in need of funds. Dr. Felt now returned to the practice of medicine in Rohnerville. Mt. Glen Springs continued now under the direction of T.D. Felt, Jr., who rebuilt the property and managed the resort. Sporadically, mention of the springs appeared in the local papers, including this note in the Humboldt Times Weekly, 1877, which gave a chemical analysis of the waters and concluded: “…proving it to be one of the finest alterative and tonic compounds ever offered to the public.”

The most detailed account of the spring waters and of the resort is found in the Humboldt County Directory, 1890-1: “The waters in these springs, although in the same basin, prove, by analysis, to be very different. But one is as desirable as the other. The water differs in color also, one having a clay or milky appearance, while the other is perfectly clear. The gas rises in each at intervals of 3-4 minutes. The waters of these springs are used for different diseases…The water is pleasant to taste and of a decidedly saline flavor, or to be more thoroughly understood, like soda. At intervals of a few minutes an effusion of gas takes place, which bubbles quite furiously and then gradually subsides, almost ceasing. The gas seems to be of a chlorotic nature, having a faint greenish-blue flame when ignited. It gives no soot or sediment and leaves no odor and the gas would remain lighted the entire night. The place is under the management of Mr. T.D. Felt, Jr., son of Dr. Felt. The hotel and cottages at the spring provide accommodation for 50-60 guests. The former hotel which could accommodate double that was burned in 1876. This is a most enjoyable place for those who seek quiet and rest. The air is pure and invigorating, the altitude being 1400 ft. above sea level. The scenery is grand and picturesque and for the suffering and ailing the remedies from nature’s own lab are here provided, which if they do not affect a cure will at least afford a relief. Hunting and fishing abound plentifully. This is one of the gem retreats of California for recreation and rest.”

Felt Springs sits just outside the western edge of what we now call Headwaters Forest.

Stages now met the 11 a.m. train arriving in Fortuna from Eureka Tuesdays and Saturdays of each week to convey visitors to the spa. Despite the suggested success of Mt. Glen Springs, it floundered and was soon closed. Time and the forest gradually reclaimed the buildings, parts of which could yet be found in the 1960s. Late in the 1960s the final remnants were cleared from the area and no trace of them remain today.

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POSTSCRIPT, 2023: In a 2015 piece for the North Coast Journal, local historian Jerry Rohde notes that in 1852 Dr. Felt was among the Eel River Valley residents who “cosigned a letter asking residents from Humboldt Bay to help Eel River area residents massacre Indians.”  — Ed.

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CORRECTION: Thanks to the readers who noted that the original title given to this story was incorrect — these were mineral springs, not necessarily hot springs. We regret the error. — Ed.

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The story above was originally printed in the November-December 1985 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.