Recycling’s new reality
Why recycling has grown more complicated and why you’re probably doing it wrong.
UPDATE: CHP Releases Name of Santa Rosa Man Killed in 101 Crash Near Miranda
UPDATE: The California Highway Patrol today released the name of the Santa Rosa man killed Nov. 27 in a head-on crash on U.S. Highway 101 near Salmon Creek Road that also injured two others. According to a release, John Bare, 59, was driving a BMX SUV when he lost control of the vehicle amid winter…
Celebrating Therin Brooks
Friends and family of Therin Brooks, who died in a car accident on Nov. 15, gathered for a celebration of life in Redwood Park on Saturday, Nov. 23. As tribute to the 37-year-old Eureka artist’s colorful style, attendees were asked to come in bright attire and they did — right down to their pets. See…
FIFTH UPDATE: 101 at Miranda is Back Open After ‘Multiple Collisions’
FIFTH UPDATE: Caltrans reports at 3:30 p.m. that traffic on U.S. Highway 101 at Miranda is now moving. Southbound lanes have been moving, with northbound expected to open “any minute now,” according to Facebook post. FOURTH UPDATE: Caltrans is reporting at 2 p.m. that “U.S. Highway 101 has closed in the Miranda area of Humboldt…
‘Bomb Cylone’ May Have Set a Low Pressure Record; Good News, Bad News in the Forecast (With Video)
High wind speeds hit most of the North Coast region yesterday, according to meteorologist Scott Carroll at the National Weather Service in Eureka, with speeds hitting 69 mph at the Crescent City Airport. Carroll also said that gusts up to 80 mph hit at 1,700 feet south of Ferndale, 70 mph at 2,900 feet southwest…
Coasties Brave ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Conditions for Training
When what the Eureka office of the National Weather Service deemed “extremely dangerous ocean conditions” hit the North Coast on Tuesday, local Coast Guard crews hit the waves. According to a Facebook post by U.S. Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay, crews set out to take advantage of the conditions for Surf Operations Training. “The crews…
Winter Storm Packing a Punch on the North Coast
The first real storm of the 2019-2020 season is slamming the North Coast – ripping off at least one roof, dropping snow, causing accidents and throwing large waves high onto the land. The National Weather Service in Sacramento is reporting the storm has undergone “Bombogenesis,” which is “defined as a mid-latitude cyclone that drops in…
APD Chief, Charmaine Lawson Ask Witnesses to Come Forward
The mother of slain Humboldt State University student David Josiah Lawson has joined with Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn to tape a public service message asking for any witnesses to his April 15, 2017 stabbing to contact the department. In the short clip, Charmaine Lawson says, “There is DNA evidence from the knife used to…
Four Pounds of Heroin Seized by Humboldt County Drug Task Force
The Humboldt County Drug Task Force apprehended 4 pounds of “suspected heroin packaged for sale” during a traffic stop last week in Southern Humboldt. Jessie Kate Hawk, 38, and David Eugene Couch, 62, were identified as suspects and detained. The two were stopped on U.S. Highway 101 near Miranda after agent were able to secure…
FIFTH UPDATE: Thousands Without Power as Strong Winds Arrive, Snow is Falling
FIFTH UPDATE: The CHP is reporting multiple incidents of trees or poles down in roadways, including on U.S. Highway 101 at Big Lagoon, Eel River Drive at Table Bluff Road, Old Arcata Road at the Bayside Cutoff and the State Route 255 offramp, among others. Large swaths of Humboldt — from the Garberville area to…
Snow, Hail, Strong Winds and High Tides Forecast to Hit this Week, May Close Centerville Road
With the arrival of some of the year’s highest tides, Centerville Road at Centerville Beach may be shut down Tuesday to mid-day Wednesday, according to county. Tides ranging from 7.9 feet to more than 8 feet began hitting the coastline Sunday and will continue through Thanksgiving, which — combined with elevated surf and southerly winds…
McKinleyville Again Mulling Town Center Plans
McKinleyville is once again in the process of reimagining itself and that again means envisioning a Town Center. Town Center plans were the focus of a Nov. 13 community meeting, with additional conversations slated for December, January and February. Some McKinleyville residents have long dreamed of a time when their town will be a beautiful,…
HumBug: Revisiting Old (Poisonous) Friends
Back on Oct 2., 2016, I posted an article on the infestation of western black widow (Latrodactus hesperus) spiders at the Carlotta Post Office. Just this week my wife and I had occasion to visit the area again. Guess what? As we strolled along the walkway directly in front of the post office, I nearly…
Hundreds Attend ACEs Town Hall Featuring California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris (with Video)
The Sequoia Conference Center on Humboldt County Office of Education’s campus was at capacity, 448 people had landed a seat — while at least another 100 watched from a live stream in a separate room. The draw was a conversation among California’s first Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris and a panel of locals spearheading Humboldt…
High Tides, Stormy Weather on Tap for Thanksgiving Week
Extremely high tides and stormy weather are set for the week of Thanksgiving, according to the National Weather Service office in Eureka. Tides ranging from 7.9 feet to more than 8 feet will arrive from Sunday to Thursday, which — combined with elevated surf and southerly winds — could result in “some minor coast flooding,”…
Rio Dell Mayor Asks Supes to Move Terra-Gen Appeal Meeting Down South
Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes has sent a letter to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors officially requesting a change of venue for any future meeting on Terra-Gen’s proposed wind farm. The Humboldt County Planning Commission voted 4-2 Thursday, with commissioners Mike Newman and Alan Bongio dissenting and commissioner Brian Mitchell absent, to deny the…
Planning Commission Denies Wind Farm Project
The Humboldt County Planning Commission voted 4-2, with commissioners Mike Newman and Alan Bongio dissenting and commissioner Brian Mitchell absent, to deny a proposal to build a wind farm on Monument and Bear River ridges south of Rio Dell. An initial vote on a motion to accept the project stalled with a 3-3 vote, which…
St. Joseph Hospital and Redwood Memorial Hospital Healthcare Workers on Strike
Employees at St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial hospitals donned red shirts and held picket signs demanding fair labor practices as they crowded the corner of the entrance into St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka yesterday. They were protesting the hospital’s staffing shortage and the state of new employee salary negotiations, according to a press release sent…
North Coast Night Lights: Lights Out in Eureka During the PSPS of 10/27/19
When the PG&G Public Safety Power Shutoff of Oct. 27 cast its shadow on Humboldt County, the chance to explore Eureka in light of the unusual darkness was irresistible. Just 16 days earlier I’d had the opportunity to traipse around a darkened Arcata and capture some unusual images of the city under the light of…
Local Native Basketry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you were scrolling Instagram this morning (as one of our readers was), you might have seen a familiar basket form on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s account. The shot from the museum’s ongoing show Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection features a gorgeous piece by Elizabeth Hickox, a Wiyot and…
Why California’s top court just struck down the state’s Trump tax return law
Many constitutional law experts, former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Republican Party are now all officially entitled to say, “I told you so.” This morning the California Supreme Court unanimously struck down a new state law that would have required presidential candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns before appearing on the primary…
Vocality Gives Big to SoHum Nonprofits
Last night may have been chilly but hearts were warmed at the Southern Humboldt Chamber of Commerce’s Mixer in Garberville when Vocality Community Credit Union unexpectedly donated a total of $200,000 to Southern Humboldt’s two main medical organizations. Both Redwoods Rural Health Care and Southern Humboldt Community Healthcare District received $100,000 checks. “People were totally…
Recycling’s New Reality
You’ve gone to the grocery store, bought everything you needed for dinner — chicken and potato salad — and you’re ready to cook. You peel the potatoes, chop carrots and celery, and set the scraps in the compost. You throw away the plastic mesh the potatoes came in because it’s not recyclable. The mayonnaise is…
Redwood Reborn
At 18-inches tall, the delicate sapling looks almost vulnerable as Blue Ox Millworks and Historic Park co-founder Eric Hollenbeck and Freshwater resident Steve D’Agati hold it aloft on a recent morning in front of a massive cross-section of the ancient tree from which it was cloned. The moment was, in many ways, a homecoming for…
Blackened Brightness
This week is a bit of a somber one for me, as Nov. 25/26 marks the 20th anniversary of my mother’s death from cancer at the far too young age of 52. I give those dates because she passed away late at night after Thanksgiving of 1999, likely with the cold front that curls over…
Nuna’s Frozen Cheesecake
My maternal grandmother ‘Nuna,’ otherwise known as Elinor Walker Flinn, was born in the Tennessee mountains but lived her adult life in Columbia, South Carolina. An upright, dignified woman, she embodied a word we don’t use much anymore: lady. She was married to Pappy, my colorful grandfather, a binge drinker with a wooden leg —…
Save the Date: PG&E Blackout Reveal Parties
Last month’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs in Humboldt County taught all of us here at PG&E a number of valuable lessons. First and foremost was that our communication flow with local government and law enforcement agencies, as well as media, was nearly as Byzantine and mysterious as the power grid we refuse to show you.…
Buckle Up
Reviews FORD VS. FERRARI. Motorsport in the middle 1960s stood on the precipice of change: still hewing to its daredevil origins, it remained delicate and brutal, homebuilt and homicidal. It was a time when a little upstart car company off the beach of Los Angeles, helmed by a former world-class racing driver turned failed chicken…
Protect Tsakiyuwit, Deny Terra-Gen’s Wind Farm
Long before there was a company named Terra-Gen, an electrical grid or climate crisis threatening the planet, the Humboldt Bay region was inhabited by Wiyot people — as many as 3,000 of them, by some estimates — who lived in some 20 villages scattered around the bay. It’s where their ancestors lived, and their ancestors’…
Supes Punt on Hemp Ordinance
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Nov. 19 not to take up a hemp cultivation ordinance and indicated it instead intends to extend an existing moratorium for another year. “It seems like prohibition all over again,” mused Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone as the board took up the discussion, which spanned nearly two…
In Defense of Yeo
Editor: A letters submission took issue with Journal Setlist columnist Collin Yeo’s politics, as well as implying that Mr. Yeo’s knowledge and recommendations for local music were suspect(Mailbox, Nov. 14). My eyebrows were raised at Collin’s “chimera” of Russian interference quote in a recent column, as well (“Loving the Alien,” Nov. 7). That said, Mr.…
Where the Wind Blows
Editor: In regard to your article “Green versus Green” (Nov. 14), I am saddened our community is divided on this issue. It is not easy to decide between what is right and right. It is right to protect the traditions and cultures of Native tribes. It is right to protect wildlife and wilderness. It is…
The Donbass Saga
A recent essay on the Clarke Historical Museum’s website about how Eureka came to be electrified attracted a single, terse comment: “Nothing beats the story of the Donbass.” Although the essay didn’t mention the Donbass, old-timers will surely know what’s being referred to. It’s quite a tale. Prior to Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt wanted…
ode to surfer dave
I didn’t really know him to be honest his life story what I knew of him was from our acquaintance out at the beach our conversations I always felt a deep kinship now that he’s gone I can hear his voice in my head it’s calming he left doing what he had spent so much…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Beware of what disturbs the heart,” said Ibn Mas’ud, a companion of the prophet Mohammed. “If something unsettles your heart, then abandon it.” My wise Aries friend Artemisia has a different perspective. She advises, “Pay close attention to what disturbs the heart. Whatever has the power to unsettle your heart will…
