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August 9, 2001
Norton and the Klamath
Secretary of the Interior Gale
Norton has decided to ask for a scientific review of policy in
the Klamath basin, according to Associated Press reports.
Irrigators who receive water
from the Klamath system had most of their supply shut off by
the Bureau of Reclamation earlier this year in order to protect
three species of fish listed under the Endangered Species Act
(See Journal
cover story, July 26).
Farmers and their supporters
have long argued that the suckerfish who live in Upper Klamath
Lake do not need as much water as they're getting. The National
Academy of Sciences has now been asked to investigate the biological
opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that set minimum
water levels for the lake.
Also factoring into the bureau's
decision to withhold irrigation waters were threatened Klamath
coho salmon. Thousands of the fish died last year from diseases
linked to high water temperatures -- a symptom of a water-starved
river system.
No word has yet been issued
on whether the biological opinion on salmon is being reviewed.
Farmers initially responded
to the shutoff by breaking into the bureau's facilities and illegally
opening headgates, allowing water into the irrigation system.
Secretary Norton decided July 24 to allow some additional water
into the irrigation system, claiming that summer storms had contributed
enough water to allow for limited releases to farmers.
Eureka Fisheries
sells facilities
Troubled fish processor Eureka
Fisheries announced last week that it will be selling many of
its facilities to an Oregon competitor.
Eureka Fisheries owns fish-processing
plants along the coast from Neah Bay, Wash., to Fort Bragg, as
well as connected businesses like Eureka Ice and Cold Storage.
Many of those facilities, as well as the Seafood Grotto restaurant
in Eureka, will be sold to the Pacific Seafood Group, based in
Portland, Ore.
Peter Hall, president and general
manager of Eureka Fisheries, said the precise terms of the sale
are unclear and that negotiations continue.
The sale comes less than a month
after Eureka Fisheries announced it was suspending operations
at its fish processing plants, laying off more than 100 employees.
Under the terms of the sale,
Eureka Seafoods might retain some facilities, but Hall said the
firm will no longer operate as a fish processor.
Water board hearings axed?
When the North Coast Regional
Water Quality Control Board announced last fall it would hold
hearings on alleged damage caused by the Pacific Lumber Co. logging
in five Humboldt County watersheds, many residents rejoiced.
The timber giant protested claiming
that since it already operates under strict environmental protections,
hearings could increase licensing requirements and further curtail
harvesting activities.
It now appears that PL has won
this round. While the water board has taken no official action,
staff now concede hearings on the health of Jordan, Bear, Stitz,
Elk and Freshwater watersheds are unlikely.
"We're not planning to
have hearings on the five watersheds," said Frank Reichmuth,
senior water resource control engineer for the board, in a telephone
interview from Santa Rosa. Board members appear to be looking
for options to address the issue of timber harvesting and water
quality short of official hearings, he added.
"That's an outrage,"
said Ken Miller, litigation coordinator for the Humboldt Watershed
Council. "We spent thousands of dollars and weeks of our
time preparing documents for those hearings."
While the failure to hold hearings
angers Miller, he said it isn't a surprise. Originally scheduled
for last November, the hearings were postponed several times.
They were last scheduled for February but postponed again due
to scheduling conflicts.
Asked who is to blame for the
cancellation, Miller had a ready answer: Daniel Crowley, chairman
of the water board, who is "abusing his authority by not
protecting water quality," Miller said.
Crowley, appointed by the governor
in December 1999, is a partner in the Santa Rosa law firm Lanahan
and Reilley along with former Congressman Doug Bosco. Bosco has
been a consultant for Pacific Lumber in the past.
"There's no secret about
where Crowley's bias is," Miller said. "He's a disgrace
to government."
(Neither Crowley nor Bosco returned
calls for this report.)
Reichmuth said that the water
board still plans to address the concerns of residents about
harvesting -- just not through public hearings. Those hearings
were based on studying the watersheds as a whole and the board
has shown more of an interest in looking at smaller units of
land. He suggested that monitoring programs might be used to
study the effects of specific timber harvest plans.
That amounts to "replacing
something substantive and protective [the hearings] with political
bullshit," Miller replied.
In April 2000 the council filed
a petition that focused on just two watersheds. When that petition
was rejected in early July, the council wrote to the state water
board asking for help. The state board has agreed to consider
the petition.
For its part, PL feels vindicated
by the news. Company spokesperson Mary Bullwinkel said PL "had
not been notified" that the regional board is not planning
to hold these hearings.
"But if in fact that is
the case, we are pleased." she said. "We felt the hearings
were not necessary or supported by science."
HSU investigation
released
Humboldt State University released
the results of an investigation into embezzlement and fraud by
a former member of the administration Aug. 1.
According to the report, John
Sterns, who until March was HSU's executive director of University
Advancement and in charge of all fund-raising, took between $60,000
and $70,000 from the university during his three-year tenure.
He pocketed the money by exaggerating or inventing expenses.
The report also alleges Sterns
reported fictional donations to the university, inflating fundraising
figures by $15 million.
The results of the investigation,
conducted by an auditor from the California State University
office in Long Beach, are available online at www.calstate.edu/audit/SpecialInvestigations.shtml.
PL shuts
down Carlotta Mill
The Pacific Lumber Co. of Scotia
announced Aug. 3 that it will be curtailing operations at its
Carlotta Mill and laying off or firing at least 70 workers. While
the move is likely temporary and some operations will continue
at the site, the mill itself is now quiet.
It is the second mill PL has
taken offline since the beginning of the year.
The shutdown is due to an inadequate
supply of timber, said Jim Branham, director of government relations
for the company. He said that the habitat conservation plan under
which PL operates has hamstrung the company.
"The rate we've been harvesting
since the HCP is about half of what it was before," Branham
said. He said it was the company's hope that further study would
allow for more harvesting.
The 1999 Headwaters Agreement
stipulated that PL operate under its current harvesting guidelines
until watershed analyses could be completed on the land it was
harvesting. Future management strategies were to be based on
those analyses. The first such analysis was completed for the
Freshwater watershed earlier this year.
Company CEO and President John
Campbell placed the blame for the layoffs at the feet of environmental
groups, specifically EarthFirst and the Environmental Protection
Information Center in Garberville. The groups are trying to "shut
down our company and ultimately an industry" through lawsuits
and protests, Campbell said in a statement.
That statement is "a desperate
attempt to hide the truth," said Cynthia Elkins, EPIC's
program director. She said the real culprit was PL's rate of
harvest, which she said was not sustainable. There isn't any
PL land currently closed by court injunction, she added.
In May of this year operations
at PL's old-growth redwood mill were stopped in a move many saw
as symptomatic of the end of harvesting the ancient trees. By
contrast, the Carlotta plant processes smaller second-growth
redwood.
Seventy workers are being laid
off at the Carlotta mill. Some will relocated to another of PL's
mills, but they still represent a net job loss, Branham said,
as they will displace other workers on the basis of seniority.
The mill may be reopened this
fall, Branham said. Several timber harvest plans have recently
been approved and a supply of logs might be secured.
"We will revisit our situation
in a couple of months," he said.
Trinidad
has police chief again
The city of Trinidad hired long-time
Humboldt County law enforcement member Floyd Stokes as chief
of police Aug. 1, filling a position that had been vacant for
over a year.
Stokes has plenty of experience
with small-town policing: He has served as the chief of the Hoopa
Valley Tribal Police Department and the Blue Lake Police Department.
But one officer isn't enough
for Trinidad, said mayor Dean Heyenga. The town has to have at
least one other officer to relieve Stokes, he said. What remains
unclear is how the city will pay for the additional officer,
as Trinidad's budget already shows a deficit.
Heyenga said the first year
of an additional officer's salary would be covered by a state
grant. During that time the city would have to "come up
with a plan that reduces expenses and increases revenue."
Economy
down, not out
Unemployment is up, the number
of new jobs being created is down, and consumer debt is growing
-- but Humboldt County may yet bounce back, according to the
latest Humboldt State University Index of Economic Activity.
Despite a bleak overall economic
environment, several factors seem to point to the possibility
of an upturn in the Humboldt economy. The retail, home sales
and hospitality sectors all continued strong performances during
June, the most recent month for which information was available.
In addition, the timber industry completed its first two consecutive
months of growth in almost a year.
That growth is likely due to
a "booming" national new-home construction sector,
said John Manning, managing director of the ongoing HSU project
which produces the Index.
"Most of the lumber produced
in Humboldt County leaves the area," he said, making the
timber industry dependent on nationwide trends in new home sales.
When lots of people are building -- as now -- Humboldt benefits.
The June report does not take into account the recent curtailing
of operations at Pacific Lumber's Carlotta plant. (See related
news item.)
Existing home sales in Humboldt
also remained vigorous, rising 7.2 percent during June. That
month 134 units were sold -- more than 80 percent more than during
the same month just five years ago.
Manning said the health of the
home sales sector is probably due to people moving from the Bay
Area, a trend that started as home prices there rose during the
dot-com boom. That has benefits for those who already own homes
in Humboldt, Manning said.
"Local homeowners will
see the value of their homes rise, so their equity is going up,"
Manning said. The bad news is that, as the value of homes rise,
so does the rent that tenants will have to pay to stay in them.
"Affordable housing for
working people is becoming less and less of a real thing,"
Manning said.
As the energy crisis continues
in California, Humboldters can say they are doing their part.
According to the index, the average Humboldt resident is using
17.7 percent less electricity and 39.1 percent less natural gas
than last year.
Activity in the retail sector
remained high during June. While that's good for the owners and
workers involved in the retail industry, Manning said it was
problematic when juxtaposed with the higher unemployment rate.
Humboldt County lost 100 jobs in June and the unemployment rate
rose to 5.4 percent.
"You would think people
would stop buying as much" when they lost their jobs, Manning
said. The fact that they haven't -- retail sales are more than
4 percent higher than last year at this time -- suggests they
may be buying on credit. That's a concern because those debts
will have to be paid off sometime.
In the meantime Humboldt County
is left "hoping for the best and expecting the worst,"
Manning said.
Local good,
chains bad
"I wouldn't ever try to
tell someone that shopping at a chain is wrong," said Jeff
Milchen, co-founder of the Boulder Independent Business Alliance
in Boulder, Colo. That said, Milchen sees it as his mission to
educate people about why "community prosperity will be promoted
when people spend money at their local businesses."
Milchen, along with his partner
Jennifer Rockne, will be spreading his gospel Aug. 13 at the
D Street Neighborhood Center, Arcata's old Community Center at
14th and D streets. Milchen and Rockne will discuss how to keep
jobs in the community, how the multiplier effect increases local
prosperity and how to form a Humboldt Independent Business Alliance.
See this week's calendar for
details or call 822-4208 for more information.
NEC open
again
The Northcoast Environmental
Center, destroyed along with two other buildings in a July 25
fire in downtown Arcata, has reopened.
The NEC's temporary home is
a building on the corner of 6th and H streets in Arcata. What
to call that building is the subject of some debate -- while
NEC manager Connie Stewart called the building "the former
Angelo's pizza shop," it may be better known to some as
the former Humboldt Cannabis Center.
Stewart said the staff was thankful
for all the help they had received and are still receiving. She
asked that people who want to help rebuild the NEC's extensive
archive wait until a permanent location is found to donate materials.
COVER
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© Copyright 2001, North Coast Journal,
Inc.
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