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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC. And we are going to Humboldt Bay in this episode, and we're going to be talking about the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal project being brought forward by the Harbor District. And so, of course, we have Rob Holmland here from the Harbor District. Hey, Rob. We also have some friends who have been participating in the Community Advisory Committee and have been watching the development of the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal project. We have Matt Simmons, Climate Attorney at EPIC. Hey, Matt. Colleen Clifford. Hey, Colleen. And Rachael Smith. Hey, Rachael.

All right. So let's start at the beginning. Maybe I'll kick this one to Rob first. What is the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project? Which I understand it's a project in development, so it's a little bit in flux. But Rob, tell us about the general contours of this project.

HOLMLUND:

Yeah, well, I'm going to start by just saying thank you for having us on Econews and helping us spread the message about this meeting and about the project itself. So a heavy lift marine terminal is, it's a type of port terminal, kind of a connection between the land and the water, that specializes in lifting really heavy things. So in this case, a heavy lift marine terminal is the type of port terminal that is needed to stage and integrate offshore wind turbines, which means that we receive all of the manufactured components of a wind turbine, like the blades and the towers, and then put them all together and then launch them into the bay, and then they get towed to the ocean.

So this has been happening throughout Europe for quite a while. Norway has been doing floating offshore wind for more than 12 years. Denmark started offshore wind in general in 1990. So the state of California has got a goal to get to renewable energy, entirely renewable energy in the state by the year 2045. Offshore wind is a component of that. It's largely solar, but about 13% of the state's overall goal of renewable energy portfolio will come from offshore wind. And offshore wind requires a lot of activity in ports, one of which is a staging integration port terminal, and our project is one of the two in the state planned to accommodate offshore wind.

WHEELER:

Yeah, so when we talk about offshore wind, we are talking about a suite of things, right? We're talking about the actual wind turbines out in the ocean spinning and generating electricity. We're also talking about the port facilities necessary to both construct and service those wind turbines. And we're talking about transmission infrastructure. So this is one component of a larger piece. And Rob, is it correct to say that for offshore wind to work in Humboldt, we need to have a port facility in Humboldt to construct these wind turbines?

HOLMLUND:

No, I wouldn't say that. So there are five wind farms planned off of California's coast clustered into two chunks, one off of the Humboldt Coast, one off of the coast of Morro Bay. And the turbines in those, say, two general locations will need to be assembled somewhere and then towed to those locations. There are a lot of constraints to making this sort of heavy lift marine terminal. And through a lot of analysis by the state and federal governments, only really Humboldt and the Port of Long Beach, LA, are capable of doing the type of project that we are currently pursuing. If you do the math on the renewable energy that the state's trying to accomplish, you really couldn't do this with just one port terminal. We really will need the project that Port of Long Beach is pursuing and the project that Humboldt Bay is pursuing if we're going to reach our renewable energy goals.

But to answer your question in a really technical sense, technically, no, we wouldn't need a terminal in Humboldt Bay to have wind turbines off of our coast. You could tow them from Long Beach all the way up to Humboldt. There's a lot of wind turbines off the shore of Scotland that are being produced in Norway and towed across the North Sea. So great distances are possible. But that has its limits. And towing from Long Beach up to here, you're towing against the wind and the tides, it would be very expensive, very difficult, but theoretically possible. So in a general sense, I'd say we don't have to have this project to have offshore wind, but it certainly makes it a lot easier. And we will not get to the state's goal for renewable energy if we don't do it.

WHEELER:

Rachael, there is a public meeting coming up on June 24th and it is being hosted by the Harbor District's Community Advisory Committee for this Heavy Lift Marine Terminal. Can you tell me about this meeting and the purpose of this meeting and why you as an employee of the Humboldt Area Foundation and CORE Hub at the Humboldt Area Foundation are helping to bring forward this meeting?

RACHAEL SMITH:

Yeah, absolutely. So I serve as chair of the Harbor District convened community advisory committee on the heavy lift marine terminal project. And I'm also a program officer for the climate and community resilience hub or CORE Hub. And we are a program of humble area and wild rivers community foundation. So broadly what we do is we act as a convener. So we bring together local orgs and individuals and provide technical support to our community partners. And our premise in getting involved in this project is that if our region hosts offshore wind development including this port project, it has to be done in a way that doesn't repeat harmful extractive patterns that the region has experienced with industry here in the past.

So a lot of our focus has been on planning towards protections and benefits, particularly for frontline and disadvantaged communities who've been harmed by past developments. So I share that that's the lens that I bring to my role as committee chair. So a little about the community advisory committee is it's a committee convened by the Harbor District, one of many committees convened by the Harbor District to advise on this project. And it's a large committee of over 40 members who are representing the interests and concerns of their various communities in regard to the heavy lift marine terminal project. And it's meant to facilitate engagement between the Harbor District and community members.

So it's, like I said, it's a 40 person committee so I can't list all the representations here but the members are peninsula residents like Colleen, environmental and climate orgs, some representatives of tribal nations, educational institutions, labor, fishing, community-based organizations, et cetera. And why we're hosting that, this will be the first public meeting, the Harbor District has hosted a number of public meetings but this will be the first public meeting hosted by the community advisory committee. And we're meant to be advising the Harbor District on how to successfully do outreach and engagement with the community.

And so to do that, we really need to understand how the community is thinking and feeling about this project. So we really want in this big public meeting to collect feedback, ideas, questions, and concerns from the public and also to share up-to-date information about the project. It's a special part of this meeting is a lot of the consultants, the experts and engineers working on the project will be present there and available to speak directly and answer directly questions from the public. And we're also hoping to share information about the environmental review process that's currently underway and how people might get involved and make public comments.

WHEELER:

Thanks, Rachael. Rob, back to you. Maybe this is a little bit of a preview of what you will talk about at the meeting, but I'd love to hear some of the latest updates on the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal project, where we are in this process, and maybe a focus on the opportunities that are gonna continue to exist in the future for the public to participate in the shaping and the direction of this project.

HOLMLUND:

Good question. So the project is pretty deep into the design and permitting CEQA stage. CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires that a project prepares an environmental impact report or an EIR. Maybe your audience already knows this stuff. So our CEQA EIR process is coming to the latter half to the end of the process. It will come before our board as a draft environmental impact report at our April board meeting in 2027, with a public comment period preceding that. I think that's 45 days. And so that is what we're marching towards. In the meantime, as we've been doing for quite a while, we are putting a lot of effort into talking to a variety of interested parties and affected communities.

We spend a lot of time in the town of Samoa and the Phyllis Rex townhomes, working with aquaculture and fishing, a number of tribes. And so that work will continue through the whole process and beyond even CEQA probably. As I ramble here, I'm forgetting your question.

WHEELER:

I think that you largely answered it, which is updates on the project, which you've provided in the timeframe of the project, as well as the opportunities for the public to participate. So we have this community advisory committee meeting in which the Harbor District and the community advisory committee is going to solicit feedback from the community. And I imagine that this is not going to be the last opportunity for folks to weigh in with their thoughts, concerns, and other feedback that they might have.

HOLMLUND:

Yeah, definitely. So one important thing to add, we do have the public meeting this coming Wednesday of next week, the 24th of June, and there will be a lot of opportunity for people to participate and interact with stations and posters. The Community Advisory Committee has done an incredible job of preparing for that. But we also have monthly board meetings, second Thursday of each month, 6 p.m. Open public meetings, you can attend in person, via Zoom, or just watch a recording of it. And if you attend in person or watch via Zoom, you have the opportunity to comment, and there is an update about this project every month. And most months, we have technical speakers, so the structural engineer that's leading the design team to design the wharf, or the stormwater design team specialists, all kinds of different technical specialists, I think it's a total of 50 different technical specialists speaking over the course of a two-year period. So that continues.

So that's a great opportunity for people to participate, come monthly, or just speak via Zoom, or just listen. So that's something I would really emphasize. And then we're always open to new ideas on how community members can get involved. So we encourage anyone to call the Harbor District to learn about the project or to make a suggestion about how we can do more engagement. And we have a 40-person Community Advisory Committee who is constantly seeking better ways for us to engage. So you can contact anyone on the Community Advisory Committee who will bring that back to the district.

SMITH:

One important clarification that I just want to make is this public meeting that we're hosting on June 24th, we want to get tons of public feedback to inform the community advisory committee's efforts, but it's not an official public comment period. So the comments that the public makes there, the questions that they submit to our question boxes, the conversations that they have with the community liaisons from the CAC and the technical experts won't be entered into official record. And like Rob mentioned, you can make a public comment that is entered into official record at the standing heavy lift marine terminal update item at any board meeting, and also when the notice of preparation for environmental review comes out in August.

WHEELER:

Thanks Rachael, an important update or clarification. You are listening to the Econews Report. We are talking about the Harbor District's proposed heavy lift marine terminal and a community meeting to talk about it coming up on Wednesday the 24th. So Colleen, you are a member of the Peninsula Community Collaborative, which is a group of community residents in Fairhaven, other folks on other places on the peninsula. I would love to get some of your thoughts about how you're thinking about the heavy lift marine terminal project. Thoughts, concerns that you might have moving forward and how the PCC, the Peninsula Community Collaborative is participating and engaging with the project.

COLLEEN CLIFFORD:

Yeah, thanks, Tom. Yeah, I've been a member of the PCC for several years and recently became the co-lead. And we are engaging residents and businesses and organizations that reside on the peninsula, not only with Offshore Wind, but a lot of other ways that they can help keep the community safe and help beautify the area, keep it clean. So we have a lot of activities, but Offshore Wind is definitely something that has captured a lot of our attention. There is something about this special place out here. It's so unique. It's a special ecosystem. It's special people, special communities.

And the three different communities out here, Manila, Samoa, and Fairhaven, which includes Finntown, they all have kind of a different interaction with this port site that would actually be in Samoa. So we're really trying to engage residents all along the peninsula to pay attention to what could come to their neighborhood, especially the people in Samoa. There are people who live right up against the site of the port that would be developed. And they're also going through a really unique transitional period as the entire town is shifting gears. So without going into too much detail, Samoa has been a company town historically for about 100 years. And more recently, homes have been parceled off to individual homeowners. So people are now purchasing homes in that community. And those people are entering the community with little understanding of what might be down the road for them. So we really wanna make sure that their voices are at the table, and we hope that they're able to participate. We're trying to build capacity for people to continue paying attention to this conversation. It's been an ongoing, long-term, ever-changing dynamic situation out there. And the industry has gone through a lot of shifts, even in just the few years we've been talking about it.

What I love about this June 24th meeting is that we're trying to target anybody with any sense of knowledge, whether they've learned about this in the past, or they have never heard of this project. We wanna make sure that everyone is able to come away with an understanding of what is down the road and how they can get involved, how they can become engaged and continuously pay attention to the conversation, whether it's every day or it's once a month. We wanna make sure that their voices are at the table.

SMITH:

I would like to jump in to add a little bit of context about the project site. So Rob earlier shared about what exactly a heavy lift marine terminal does and what that means. But the project site is 180 acres next to the town of Samoa, like Colleen mentioned. And we also mentioned earlier the Phyllis Rex Townhomes located in the town of Samoa. The townhomes are an 80-unit affordable housing development that has a ton of children, a really large youth community there. And it is very front line and adjacent to the project site.

So a lot of the time when we're thinking about possible impacts of this development, that's a community that will be deeply, deeply impacted. The project site also has been an industrial site in the past. So it's a brownfield site that previously hosted a mill and timber operations. And across the channel from the site is Tuluwa Island, which is the center of the world for WIAT people. And in the water, even closer to Tuluwa Island, is where wet storage facilities are proposed. Wet storage is where the 900-foot turbines are stored before they're pulled out to the wind farm areas out in the ocean.

WHEELER:

Thank you, Rachael. So obviously there are gonna be folks who are adjacent to this project, who are gonna be impacted from the project, and their voices are important to uplift in conversations like these, just to provide a perspective on the diversity of stakeholders. So we have other folks like Matt Simmons, climate attorney here at EPIC. So Matt, perhaps you could give your reason for participation in various committees that have been convened by the Harbor District related to the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal and your participation in the Community Advisory Committee. What is your perspective or how might it differ than let's say Colleen's or Oyster Fisherman and this rough attempt that we're all doing here together to bring all of these voices together? Thanks.

MATT SIMMONS:

So, as you know, EPIC supports responsible offshore wind development. As climate attorney, I'm constantly in meetings talking about how we're going to meet that 2045 Renewable Energy Goal, and the models of what you would need to do to meet it without building offshore wind look pretty unrealistic to me, and look, everyone thinks they can build this sort of stuff some other way or some other place, and eventually you just have to actually build it and meet the goal and start fighting climate change.

But that being said, we don't support offshore wind development at any cost or at any price. We want to make sure that it's done with as few impacts as possible to communities and ecosystems and everyone around us in Humboldt. And so I have been tracking this really closely and trying to encourage and working with the Harbor District to reduce and mitigate those impacts as much as possible. The Harbor District passed a Green Terminal Resolution where they talk about how they're going to reduce emissions from the terminal. They passed the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Resolution where they talked about how they're going to try to avoid impacts in that sense from the terminal. And I think throughout this entire process, we have been and are going to continue trying to make sure that this project avoids as many impacts as possible while supporting California's offshore wind industry.

Now, I think you can tell from who is on this call that diverse perspectives and diverse community groups need to come together to work together on these sort of projects, because the only way that it can move forward is if everyone is represented and is able to do so. So I would say that I feel pretty confident that we can continue to work together to improve these things, even if we don't all agree on the best outcome or the exact outcome.

WHEELER:

Yeah, well, Rob, I will let you kind of riff on that subject as well, which is this is going to be a terribly difficult project to pull off, right? We have obviously environmentally sensitive areas, we have eelgrass, we have culturally sensitive areas like the center of the world at Tulawat for the Wiyot people, we have neighbors who are right next door who are going to be concerned about project construction and operations, you have environmentalists who will be concerned both about the environmental impact of the project itself, but also excited about the opportunity for offshore wind to actually achieve these carbon reduction goals that we have.

As the Harbor District, who is the project proponent here, how do you think about the need to reconcile all these voices or to get everybody paddling in the same direction because this is going to be necessary for the Harbor District to successfully, let's say, compete with other ports across the United States for funding to get this accomplished?

HOLMLUND:

Yeah, that was a big question. So we're constantly updating our processes and the way we think about how we convey this project to the community, how we get feedback. I've been involved in downtown specific plans with a lot of community participation where there's a lot of discussion about how wide do you want the sidewalks and what's the appropriate building height. I participated in the Arcata gateway plan and there's so much room for flexibility there. An industrial terminal like this, an industrial marine terminal, doesn't have a lot of room for flexibility, right? We have to have a 6,000 pound per square foot bearing capacity wharf that is 1,600 feet long. It has to have an 800 foot tall crane. It has to have 100 acres of lay down area. There are homeland security requirements about what the fencing is going to look like.

And so there's a lot of really specific things that are either going to be part of the project or we won't have the project. There are also places where we can flex a little and do the best we can to minimize impacts. And so that's why we spend so much time talking to people that live next door. And we've entertained a sound wall, but only if the people next door want a sound wall, right? We're not pushing it on them, but we're not going to deny it either. And so that's an example of the sort of thing that we are talking about adding or taking away from the project, depending on the people impacted. With all of that said, as much as we attempt to eliminate impacts, there will still be impacts.

And so what I often tell people is, even if you really hate this project and you don't want to see it happen, we still want you to come and work with us. We still want you to participate because you can be very clear and say, I don't want this project, but if it is going to happen, then here are my expectations. And so I think that's if I could boil down my message to just one thing, it is that is even if you don't want to see this happen, please come to the public meetings and express that. I really don't think this is the right thing for our community, but if it is going to go through, here are the things that I think you ought to do. And that really leads to productive conversations and just starting with that immediate honesty.

And I think there are some people who their instincts naturally and very logically is this is not a good thing for the community. But once they participate, they realize like, hey, this could be pretty good. Other people will never come around, but still can participate and give us ideas on how to make it better. So everyone's welcome, regardless of their feelings about renewable energy, industrial development or doing a project of this size in Humboldt Bay.

WHEELER:

Well, so something I've felt like I've learned in my time at EPIC, and this is related to controversial projects that we've engaged in from Richardson Grove to Last Chance Grade, is that oftentimes I think that public opposition to something is predicated on a lack of understanding. And that the more that we bring together people to let them know, well, Department of Homeland Security requires a fence like this. And so these are the things that we can't negotiate because these are our obstacles. When you bring people in and have them understand the challenges, when you bring them into the decision-making process, folks start to understand that what might've seemed arbitrary, what might've seemed an oversight, were actually deliberately thought through, that people have thought about all of these things and have worked and have tried to reconcile them to the best of their ability.

And so this is maybe a different way to encourage people to come and participate. Because if you, I think from participating, you'll start to understand why projects end up looking the way that they do. And the good thought that goes into projects and the deep well of compassion that project developers have for the folks who are gonna be impacted by the project. And sometimes they're just running into the Department of Homeland Security, which is not a terribly flexible agency. So we are nearing the end of our time.

Rachael, I will throw this back to you. Let's get the details of this meeting on Wednesday, June 24th again. So hit me, where is it, when is it, and who's invited?

SMITH:

Yeah, so this meeting will be June 24th, which is a Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Arcata Community Center. And I want to add with what Rob just shared about people regardless of their status as a supporter or opponent of this project are welcome to come. The Community Advisory Committee who is hosting this meeting consists of project proponents and people who are in opposition. And they still are coming and showing up at the committee to advise on this project. And the idea here is we want to help the community learn about the project. And I also want to emphasize here that people are not talking about this as much as they were a couple years ago. Largely the federal climate around offshore wind has really shifted and it feels like not an urgent issue.

But as we've mentioned in this call, environmental review is underway, permitting is underway. And that's when a lot of really important and impactful decisions about impacts to the health, to the environment of the Bay and to humans and to Tuluwat Island are made. So this is actually a really important time to get involved in the process and make your voice heard. So you can learn a lot more about that at this meeting. This meeting will include technical speakers.

So like I mentioned, some of the engineers and scientists who are working on the project, there'll be subject specific stations. So kind of a science fair feel where people can walk around and go to a station that they're interested in the subject matter and directly ask questions and have conversations with experts and with community liaisons from the community advisory committee. And we encourage you to come and ask a lot of questions and give your feedback, give your thoughts. Because the more that we can understand about public perception, the better job we can do advising the Harbor District on how to do effective community engagement going forward.

HOLMLUND:

Rachael, can you talk about the kid's corner?

SMITH:

Yeah, so there will also be a kid's corner. So if people, this is after work for most people. And if you wanna come and bring your kids, we don't have childcare, but there'll be activities for kids to keep themselves occupied while the parents can pay attention to the meeting content. And there also will be food there. And you can dip in and out at any time. So if you wanna come and listen to the intro speaker and take a walk around and leave, that's fine. Or if you wanna stay for the full two hours.

CLIFFORD:

I'd like to add that there will be bus transportation from the Samoa townhomes. They'll be leaving at 4.30 and 4.50 p.m. and returning at 7.30 and 7.50 p.m. So anyone in that community can get a ride. It's first come first serve. We're hoping that we can get more attendees from Samoa to Arcata for this meeting.

WHEELER:

Wow, this seems like a really well thought out meeting. And I know that that is the product of the folks who are on this call and others who have spent so much time volunteering their time, I should also add, to help the Harvard District do better community engagement. So thank you for that and thank you for this show. Thank you, Rachael, Colleen, Matt, and Rob. I really appreciate you coming on and I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday the 24th in Arcata.

HOLMLUND:

Thanks everybody.

SMITH:

Thanks for having us, Tom.

WHEELER:

Join us again next week on this time in channel for more environmental news from the north coast of California