Re: “Weighing the Fish Scales of Economic Development”

There are so many problems in this dEIR it's hard to know where to start. First, the company that prepared it hasn't got any qualified biologists to do the work or review the document. That's kind of a red flag that this might not be as accurate as it could be.

Here are but a few of the big problems.

EPIC pointed out that they plan to raise 10 times as much salmon on Samoa as Los Angeles port imports in a year. That doesn't seem like a good business model either since they claim half their fish is going south 12 hours and half north 12 hours driving in refrigerated trucks. Seattle gets all the fish it needs from closer than 12 hours drive. Los Angeles already imports fish. I don't see that there's a market.

31 January 2022 Nordic Aquafarms is giving up producing salmon in Norway 31 January 2022 as not profitable. https://salmonbusiness.com/norways-first-l… If salmon are not profitable to the applicant at present, then why is this project proposing to grow more Atlantic Salmon?

They want to use as much power as Eureka and Fortuna combined, 3% renewable. The way they wrote this dEIR, they could buy biomass power and really kill the County's greenhouse gas targets.

There's too much that is just plain wrong in and with this document.
-The "biology" in parts of this document is very sketchy.
-The tsunami report is kind of a joke. The only kind of tsunami they studied would be from the Cascadia when everyone knows that in the 21st century alone, we took water from two from Japan, one from Chile and one from Tonga - and none from Cascadia since the 1700s.
-They claim in one part of document that a building will be three stories, but if you draw the sightlines in their visuals, it's more like six stories.
-They claim only a few trucks, but the weight of fish alone is nearly a thousand trucks.
-They flat out lied about who prepared a whole section. Three of four names listed had nothing to do with it, but their credibility is forever tainted. When challenged, they claimed "administrative error" which means that no one above clerk level even proof-read this huge and important document - or that the "professionals" are just blaming women and POC for their mistakes.

I'm with the fishermen here; this dEIR report is greenwashing.

Either do it right or don't do it at all.

Re: “Suddenlink Ups the Ante to $10K”

Unfortunately, "Nimrod" in the sense of silly or foolish has been incorporated in dictionaries up to and including the American Heritage Dictionary, however their suggestion that it's from a Bugs Bunny cartoon is probably not correct, as that cartoon postdates the first known usage cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as: "He's in love with her. That makes about the tenth. The same old Nimrod. Won't let her alone for a second." (B. Hecht and G. Fowler, Great Magoo, 1933) "Nimrod, n.", Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press: 2007. Cheers!

Re: “Shell Out”

In fact, the wave project wasn't "squashed," PG&E didn't do their environmental work - the state decided not to waive the environmental work - and PG&E ceased working on the project.

Wind energy certainly isn't dead in Humboldt County, just the Shell project was limited in vision and simply wasn't a good fit.

At the moment there is a proposal to the US DOE from Makani Power (http://www.makanipower.com/) to install test units of a new type of offshore wind generator several miles offshore of Humboldt County, bringing the power in through the PG&E connector that was put in for their stopped tidal project.

Humboldt was considered by Makani for this project in large part due to the availability of that hookup and the absolutely dreadful offshore conditions in which to test their gear.

That will be a very interesting offshore project, the cost / benefit to Humboldt County as a whole will be a lot greater than from the Shell Project. Plus, it's new technology, not the 30 year old turbines that were planned for that ridge.

The wind units for the Makani project can come in packed in a 40 foot standard shipper, no extra road widening, no road development and no extra power lines are needed.

The money that stays in Humboldt is not only hospitality, shipping and construction, but engineering and other white-collar work which the Shell project was doing in Texas and San Francisco. So this is a bigger win for the county economy, even before Makani starts generating 4 MW with no interference in daily life.

Oh, and murrelets? They don't forage as far off shore as the Makani units are going, nor do eagles and bats fly there.

This is new tech, homegrown at Stanford U, designed from the ground up to generate wind power, not endless hassles and disruption for the enrichment of multinational corporations.

The entire county of Humboldt stands to gain from the Makani project and it's our RCEA that's been partnering with them to get it "off the ground" literally and making power by flying in endless circles. Do take a look at their website - it's fascinating !

Re: “With Wal-Mart Looming, Toy Barn to Close its Doors”

When I lived in the big city, Home Depot decided to move in a couple of blocks away from three hardware stores which were all around the corner from my house.

Store #1 closed before HD arrived, claiming they couldn't compete. No surprise there. They had been overpriced, understocked and an annoying shopping experience for years.

Store #2 closed a year later, claiming they couldn't compete. The truth was, their dad died and the kids wanted the ton of money from selling the land under the shop, so they did.

Store #3 which was the smallest one when HD moved in is still open and four times the size it was.

I don't believe it's just "we can't compete" that closes stores. What we learned in town was the family owned store #3 had their act together, gave good customer service and actually put the big box out of business because HD has terrible customer service and pulled their standard game of opening with full stock and never stocking up after the opening. So why go somewhere with lousy help and no selection, when Store #3 was stocked up with the same friendly faces to help you?

Back to the here and now... Wal Mart didn't "force" this store to close. The owners made a decision without waiting to see the actual impact and decided to blame the big box in advance. Reminds me of Store #1 back in the city. Vince Lombardi would have loved it.

Re: “Monster Trucking”

Without thinking, windmills sound very green. However, to sacrifice virgin land on a fault created ridge separating salmonid streams and over flown by marbeled murrlets... to run miles of transmission line through unwilling owners' yards... to destroy a small town's roads and businesses... all in the name of "environmentalism" is shallow green, if indeed it can be claimed to be green at all. To threaten boycott against people whose properties and businesses are at risk for seeking to protect themselves is also shallow and not environmental either. Environment means "everything which surrounds us." That's not only trees and cows, but homes and businesses. I don't think there many in Ferndale where I live would be against this project if it were adjacent to infrastructure already capable of dealing with it. However, what no one, including this newspaper has pointed out is that during the entire construction the towns of Petrolia and Honeydew would be isolated. Anyone entering or leaving those towns would be required to drive an extra hour to hour and a half (depending on where you start from) to get to Ferndale or Fortuna. Now, tell me how causing people to buy all that extra gas, and burn up all that gas to get around the construction which itself is burning a huge amount of fossil fuels, to run that many trucks at 5mph up to the ridge and back down again, tell me how environmental that is? Maybe the folks in Ferndale have a clearer vision of the long-term profit-making plans this Houston based company has for our area than people who take shots at others, but are too afraid to leave their name. I'm not a company shill. My name is here. Read anonymous comments with caution, we all know anyone can post anything in an effort to sway editorial or public opinion. And here's one more thing Ferndalians know. The whole project is being done, not really for profit - because it is not economical - but for huge Federal Government Subsidies, which we all pay. So this isn't economic. This isn't environmental. Instead, it's pure corporate greed. And 20 years later when their project is "over," the local people will be left with the ruins to pick up and the eternal effect on currently undisturbed land.
Don't fall for shallow green. The green this company represents is the deep, deep green of Federal subsidies, a milk so pure and dark that the average welfare mom is green with envy.

Re: “DIY Willits Bypass”

I wonder why the Willits police and/or Caltrans didn't mark the alternative route and flag people onto it to prevent two hours per car gasoline emissions while people waited for the wreck to be cleared.

It's not very difficult to make plans to assist motorists stuck because of road closures, it only takes a plan, some cones or sawhorses and a couple of public safety workers to thoughtfully guide people around hazardous situations.

I'm surprised that no public agency provided alternative routing information, especially when a good alternative route exists.