California’s water board decided Tuesday to temporarily allow more storage in Delta reservoirs, waiving state rules that require water to be released to protect salmon and other endangered fish.

The waiver means more water can be sent to the cities and growers that receive supplies from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta through the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. The state aqueduct delivers water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and 750,000 acres of farmland, while the Central Valley Project mostly serves farms.

The flow rules will remain suspended until March 31.

Environmentalists reacted today with frustration and concern that the move will jeopardize chinook salmon and other native fish in the Delta that are already struggling to survive.

“The flow standard they relaxed is probably the most important regulation we have,” said Gary Bobker, program director at The Bay Institute. He said the rule is aimed at simulating natural runoff in rivers, which is critical for native fish to reproduce and thrive.

The order from the State Water Resources Control Board, signed by Executive Director Eilleen Sobeck, comes eight days after Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended two state environmental laws and urged the board to act. Water suppliers and growers had criticized the state for “wasting” water during the January storms by letting it flow through rivers out to sea instead of capturing it in reservoirs.

On the day that Newsom issued his order, the state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — which oversee reservoirs and water exports in the Delta — petitioned the board to lift the flow rules.

San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield said this is the third year in a row, and the sixth time in 10 years, that the state has waived its rules that set basic flow standards in the Delta. The previous waivers were issued because of severe drought conditions, while the new waiver was triggered by the opposite: high-volume storm conditions.

“The governor is taking water from winter-run Chinook salmon, which just experienced their worst incubation season ever,” Rosenfield said. “The few that remain could be given a better chance of surviving to the ocean. Instead, they’re going to get worse conditions.”

Water that flows through the Delta and into San Francisco Bay helps young salmon complete their seaward migrations through the estuary, and it improves the estuary’s salinity conditions to the benefit of many species.

If the state’s Delta flow rules had remained in effect, water would have to flow through the Delta at a rate of 29,200 cubic feet per second. But as of Feb. 21, outflow was less than half that,14,300, Rosenfield said.

Sobeck acknowledged in her order that fish benefit from the flow rules and they “are specifically intended to provide for some population growth of native estuarine species.” But after weighing the cost of harming fish with the benefit of providing water for farms and cities, she made the choice “to maintain and expand water supplies given prolonged drought and uncertain climatic conditions.”

Sobeck wrote that the waiver is permissible only if it’s made in the public interest and “that the changes will not result in unreasonable effects to fish and wildlife.”

Winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon, tiny Delta smelt and several other Delta fish species are listed as threatened or endangered by the state and federal Endangered Species Acts, which prohibit harm to protected species.

Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, and Ernest Conant, regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said that lifting the flow requirements was unlikely to harm Delta fish.

“Our modeling shows that January’s wet hydrology, along with operational actions…, created conditions that will be protective of species throughout February and March,” they wrote in a letter to the water board.

To allow the water board to waive the flow rules, Newsom’s order suspended two state laws — Water Code Section 13247, which requires state agencies to comply with all water-quality rules, and Public Resources Code, Division 13, which ensures environmental quality, and its regulations.

Environmentalists lambasted Newsom last week, saying that the governor was “putting his thumbs on the scale in favor of extinction in the Delta” and “eviscerating environmental laws” with the stroke of his pen.

But water suppliers applauded the decision today, saying the water is needed to help provide enough water to cities and farms. Currently they are only receiving 30% of requested deliveries from the state aqueduct.

“This grants water users a little cushion,” said Tim Quinn, an affiliate with Stanford’s Water in the West program and a former executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. “It leaves a little more water in storage than we would have had.”

Fed by the January storms, the state’s main reservoirs, Oroville and Shasta, which had been parched by drought, are at 116.5% and 86.6% of historic average levels.

Although the state received heavy criticism last month for not capturing more water, Bobker said California “did a pretty good job.” His organization estimated that almost half the rain that fell in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds in December and January was captured in reservoirs.

The storms also heavily padded the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which is now at about 200% of average and will melt and drain into reservoirs later this spring.

“But they wanted more, so they suspended the rules,” Bobker said. “It’s not even a drought. If we can’t provide good conditions for fish in a year like this, then we are totally bankrupt as resource managers.”

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

Bring on the brr! We appreciate all the snow photos on the LoCO Facebook page — we plan to include some on Humboldt Today this evening — and we hope you keep us updated on whatever weather comes your way over the next couple days. According to the National Weather Service, there is more frigid fun to come. 

“A winter storm is underway in Northwest California,” NWS said this morning. “Around and above 1,000 feet elevation, snow will continue today and into Friday. Throughout today, snow levels are expected to drop to around 500 feet elevation and continue to drop into tomorrow morning. This could mean some snow at the coast is likely by tomorrow morning.”

NWS believes that the heavy snow is most likely to tickle Humboldt today through tomorrow — this goes for Del Norte western Trinity and coastal Mendocino, as well.

Below is a map of predicted snowfall totals for the region.

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Rob Arkley’s recent tirades directed at Eureka city staff and elected officials were shocking for their insulting and bullying tone, their profanity and the blatant sense of entitlement to special treatment that they reflected.

What was not so shocking was Arkley’s underlying premise: the idea that “parking is the lifeblood of downtown retail and restaurants” and should be prioritized over all else, including affordable homes. This assumption is so common as to be unremarkable. But that doesn’t mean it’s true.

Research in the United Kingdom has shown that while access to parking may be important to retailers in low-density suburban environments, it is not the amenity many assume for a downtown. The studies show that downtown business owners severely overestimate the proportion of their customers who arrive by car; that people who walk, bike or take the bus spend more at local businesses over time; and that abundant free parking can actually hurt business by lowering turnover and getting in the way of what shoppers actually want — an inviting atmosphere and diverse retail mix.

The actual “lifeblood” of downtown businesses is not parking - it’s customers. Given that people who walk, bike or take the bus end up spending more, it’s pretty clear that putting a lot more people within walking and biking distance of shops, and improving public transit, is a much better bet than abundant free parking.

In this context, it’s confounding that business owners like Arkley have put up such a stink about replacing underutilized parking lots with downtown housing and a transit center. (A plan to build a much-needed transit hub in Crescent City has even drawn concern over loss of parking from non-profit community institutions like the library and community foundation, despite those institutions’ clients being even more likely not to drive.)

This resistance to losing some parking spaces is even more notable because, as the Outpost has reported, independent third-party analysis has shown that downtown Eureka has more parking than it needs, and much of it goes largely unused.

It’s also well documented that providing a lot of parking, far from being just a natural response to high driving levels, actually causes people to drive more, thereby increasing congestion, traffic deaths and injuries, and pollution. The passionate defense of parking by Arkley and others, however, seems immune to facts like these.

A recent study, also from the UK, has put a name to this phenomenon: “motonormativity,” which the researchers define as “unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars.” These researchers surveyed a cross-section of the British public and found that people hold deep-seated opinions about cars and driving that cause them to suspend the ethical and moral judgements that they would apply in other contexts.

For example, people overwhelmingly disapproved of exposing others to second-hand cigarette fumes by smoking in populated areas, but endorsed exposing people to second-hand exhaust fumes by driving in those same places.

Another example of this pervasive motonormativity shows up in Arkley’s professed concern over the safety of his female employees having to walk a few blocks to work. Statistically, it is far more likely that a person will be injured or killed in a car crash than from assault on the street. But Arkley apparently shares the feelings of those surveyed in the British study, who felt that risk of injury is an acceptable characteristic of driving but not of any other kind of work.

You may notice that a lot of this research has been conducted in Britain and not the United States. Before dismissing the results with an appeal to American exceptionalism, consider that car culture is even more entrenched here than across the pond — so entrenched, in fact, that few if any researchers are even questioning it here, as they are in the UK. It’s highly unlikely that research in the U.S. would find people — and business owners — any less motonormative than their British counterparts.

This bias has real impacts. Motonormativity leads to Americans responding to 40,000 car crash deaths and over 50,000 deaths caused by tailpipe emissions every year with a collective shrug. It leads to climate-conscious citizens and politicians remaining largely silent on our single biggest source of climate pollution. And of course it leads to business owners regularly advocating against projects and policies that are in their own best interests.

Vehicles are machines, tools that can be used many different ways — or not at all. But they are also layered with a lot of emotional baggage. Today’s transportation issues are as much or more about culture as they are about technology.

It’s time to acknowledge that, and to openly question the internalized motonormativity that leads us to counter-productive, knee-jerk reactions like Arkley’s whenever a parking spot or driving lane might be modified or removed. Successfully challenging these deep-seated biases is a key first step toward improving our safety, our health, our climate — and our businesses’ bottom lines.

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Colin Fiske is the executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities.

Shirley Arlene (Souza) Cooley, 75, a life-time Humboldt County resident, passed away on February 16, 2023 surrounded by family after a long fight with cancer. 

Shirley was born on June 2, 1947 in Scotia, California to Frank and Alice Souza.  Shirley was preceded in death by her parents, Frank and Alice Souza, brothers-in-law Kent Sherwood (Linda), David Blachly (Irene), Fred Oliveira (Jeanette) and Mike McClendon (Sharon).

Shirley was raised at various locations around Fortuna and Ferndale along with her seven sisters.  She attended Fortuna Elementary School, Ferndale Assumption School and graduated from Ferndale High School in 1965 with her future husband Dale Cooley.  Together they lived in Fortuna, Ferndale, Clearlake Oaks, and back to Fortuna and raised two children, Ricky and D’Anna.  Shirley held many jobs during her life including sawyer at Crown Redwood, cashier at Short Stop, seasonal work in pear and tomato sheds in Lake County, seasonal work in potato fields in Loleta, packer/picker at Eureka Fisheries, and various positions in the Factory at Pacific Lumber Company in Scotia where she retired in 2001.  

Shirley will be remembered for her love of family, especially her five grandchildren.  She spent her retirement years chasing her grandchildren around to many of their sporting, school and Scouting activities and always being present to celebrate their birthdays and graduations.  Upon being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, family ancestry became an obsession along with her long-time involvement with her Portuguese heritage.  In 1995, with the help from her sister Mary, she organized a major family reunion, where most of the family attendees were strangers.  A good time was had by all 375 family members.  In 1997, she and Dale traveled to Terceira, Azores, and found many more family members.  Additional trips to the Azores Islands in 2000, 2004, and 2007 as well as other excursions throughout the United States and Canada resulted in more family finds.  She loved to return and visit the new family connections and share family photos and stories as well as visiting with family she had grown up with.  Additional travels took Shirley and Dale to Alaska, Hawaii, Ireland, Paris, Germany, Prague, Australia, New Zealand, Copper Canyon Mexico, Aruba, the Panama Canal, and the western coast of Central America.  In 2007, they pulled their travel trailer around the US visiting 31 states.  Shirley took great pride in her yard, always maintaining her flowers.  She was very emphatic, if you do not bloom you are gone.  Anyone who came in contact with Shirley could easily pick her out of a crowd taking pictures or video of events and participants and always making sure someone took her picture so that people would know she was there also.

Shirley is survived by her husband of 56 years, Dale; son Ricky Cooley (Kimberly) and daughter D’Anna Quen (Joseph, Jr.); grandchildren Kassidy, Ryan, and Dylan Cooley and Jordyn and Joseph Quen III; sisters Sharon Thomsen (Mel), Judy Olsen (Richard), Jeanette VanDusen (John), Linda Souza Sherwood, Irene Blachly, Mary Hubner (Glen), and Kathleen Monroe (Shane); and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and godchildren.

A celebration of life will be held at a later time yet to be determined.  In lieu of flowers or gifts, please consider donating to the American Cancer Society instead.

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

Karel Perras passed away on February 12, 2023, in the care of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Eureka after a fierce battle with cancer. She was born on August 18, 1946, in Missoula, Montana to Eugene and Dolores Kopriva. She spent her first ten years in northern Idaho before moving to Fortuna in 1956. Karel graduated from Fortuna High School in 1964 and then attended Providence School of Nursing in Oakland. She married Randal Lee Perras on August 27, 1966, and they had two sons, Todd Randal and Dustan Anthony.

The family lived in Eugene, Oregon for a few years before moving to Ruth Lake, where they owned and ran Ruth Lakeside Resort, now known as Journey’s End. Later, Karel helped establish and worked as an EMT1 and in the clinic for S.T.A.R. Southern Trinity Area Rescue. In 1987, Karel and her sons moved to Sacramento where Karel worked and retired as an LVN for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Jail.

In 2005, Karel and her partner Rodney Pinkston retired and moved to the family property she loved so much in Mad River. There, they enjoyed the peace, serenity, and beauty of the mountains and rivers. Karel loved spending time with family and friends, visiting, playing games like rummy cubes and panguingue, boating on Ruth Lake with family and friends, sharing a meal, or just sitting around and reminiscing and telling stories.

Karel is preceded in death by her parents Eugene and Dolores and her brother James Kopriva. She is survived by her partner of 30 years, Rodney Pinkston, her sisters Camille Regli and Mary Casewell, her brother and sister-in-law Andy and Joan Kopriva, her children Todd and Dustan Perras, daughter-in-law Naomi Perras, her grandchildren Erica, Donovan, Anthony, Shilo, Todd Jr. (Perras), Maxwell Konopitski, and her great-grandchild Brendwyn Perras, as well as numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws, and friends.

Karel was an incredibly beautiful, loving, and kind soul, and she will be deeply missed by her family and all who knew her. Services will be held on March 6, 2023, at Assumption Catholic Church in Ferndale, CA at 4 p.m.

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

William Edmum Roth completed his journey  in Fortuna, California, on January 25, 2023, surrounded by his children. Born December 13, 1925 in Louisville, Kentucky to Alfred, James, Roth and Mary Crystal pawley.

On William’s 17th birthday he enlisted in the USMC, serving his country during World War II, in the islands of the South Pacific. Upon his return to the states, he met his future wife, Nell Marie Baker, in San Diego. After being discharged William and Nell were married in De Queen, Arkansas, they were married 62 years, until Nell’s death

In 1951 William moved his family to California, ultimately ending up in Humboldt County in 1952. William worked 30 years in the timber industry. In 1972 William went to work for Ernie Pierson and he spent his remaining working years as the purchasing manager at Pierson‘s Building Center.

After retirement, William, achieved one of his lifetime long dreams of raising registered quarter horse in Tehama County.

William was preceded in death by his wife Nell, sons William Jack Roth, Ronald Edmund Roth, Richard Ingraham, Christopher Lynes, daughters Shirley Roth, Kathy English, and grandson, William Keith, Roth.

William is survived by his children Judy Ingraham, Jim Roth, Larry Roth, Linda Lynes, Tony Roth, Ramona Cooke, and countless grandchildren, great grand, children, and great great grandchildren.

Willams family would like to thank the nurses and doctors for their extraordinary care for him while he was at Providence hospital in Fortuna.

William was a true patriot, he was honored to have been part in event that shape the world in a positive way. William will be laid to rest at Oceanview Cemetery in Eureka. A service is planned for the summer of 2023.

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

Daniel Alexander Moors
April 27, 1964 - February 15, 2023

As a young man, Daniel worked various jobs, starting as a nursery/landscaper. He later moved on to commercial fishing, became a green chain puller for a local mill, and eventually worked in construction.

In 2005, Daniel was hit by a car while crossing the street, causing severe injuries and putting him into a six-week coma. This incident left him disabled both physically and mentally. In 2015, he began attending the Adult Day Center, where he spent three days every week. With their help, he was able to accomplish many things for himself. He loved the Adult Center, the staff who cared for him, and the many friends he made there.

Daniel enjoyed his 59 years with his family and friends. He is survived by his wife, Lisa Moors, his mother, Anna Christiansen, his father, Jerry Moors, his sister, Deby Pressnall, his brother, Lenny Moors, his children, Zach Moors, Jered Moors, and Nicole Moors, and his aunt, Sheila Foster.

Daniel passed peacefully from his physical impairments in Douglas County, Oregon. No services will be held in his honor.

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