Horse Mountain is a popular place for outdoor enthusiasts in the Humboldt Bay area. In the winter, the 4,880-foot peak attracts snowboarders, sledders, skiers and snowshoers. In the spring, summer and autumn, it brings birders, wildflower viewers, hikers, photographers and rock-climbers, while history buffs enjoy the remnants of an old quarry where copper was once […]
Elaine Weinreb
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Port of Entry
Big changes are afoot on the Samoa Peninsula. The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District is planning to construct a large manufacturing center to craft and assemble giant wind turbines suitable for the deep offshore waters of the Pacific Coast. Officially known as the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Multipurpose Marine Terminal Project, […]
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McKinleyville, Inc.?
Although McKinleyville is the third-largest community in Humboldt County, it is not legally a city. It does not have a city council and cannot pass local ordinances, collect sales tax, police its residents, plan its development or even fix its own roads. All its major decisions are made by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, […]
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‘The Whole System is Broken’
Kristi Wrigley can remember back decades when her family’s apple orchard, located in the Elk River watershed, was fruitful and productive, helping supplement the family’s income. The trees are mostly dead now, killed by deposits of river sediment around their roots. Many of her neighbors’ homes have flooded, while others have stories of being blocked […]
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Public Meetings When the COVID State of Emergency Ends
California’s Brown Act requires that when decisions are being made, public agencies’ meetings must be open to the public. The traditional method of meeting this requirement was to have boards or councils meet in one physical location, which was posted in advance on agendas made available to the public. Members of the public had to […]
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Supes OK Fish Farm Environmental Review
The proposed Nordic Aquafarms California fish farm project on the Samoa Peninsula lurched forward Aug. 28 as the Board of Supervisors, at the end of a nine-hour meeting, voted unanimously, with Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone absent, to reject an appeal of the project’s environmental impact report and grant the company three necessary permits. But […]
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‘Chipping Away’
If you get in a wreck or have a heart attack, chances are the first rescuers on the scene will arrive in a big red firetruck. And if you live in Arcata or McKinleyville, at least one of those rescuers may well have been on duty for 72 hours straight. Hopefully, they will have had […]
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Humboldt Moves to Overhaul Bus Fleet
The redwood curtain is poised to start lifting, at least a bit, courtesy of the Schatz Energy Lab and the Humboldt Transit Authority. If all goes as planned, by 2024, the HTA will be running state-of-the-art, hydrogen fuel cell electric buses to Ukiah. There, connections can be made to Mendocino County’s transit system, and from […]
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Fishing Association, Environmental Groups Appeal Fish Farm EIR Certification
The Humboldt Fishermen’s Marketing Association, the Redwood Region Audubon Society and 350 Humboldt have appealed the Humboldt County Planning Commission’s recent approval of an environmental review of a large fish farm on the Samoa Peninsula to the Board of Supervisors. In an Aug. 17 letter , the three agencies listed numerous issues with the review […]
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PlanCo Takes Up Aquafarms’ EIR
The Humboldt County Planning Commission met July 28 to consider certifying Nordic Aquafarms’ Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) but, after three-and-a-half hours of presentations and public comment, continued the meeting to Aug. 4. The hybrid meeting was plagued by technical difficulties, resulting at times in some commissioners being unable to speak, and requiring the postponement […]
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Quantifying Impact
I n 2019, Nordic Aquafarms approached the county with a unique proposal: Using some derelict land owned by the Harbor District, the Norway-based company wanted to build a giant land-based fish farm, with Atlantic salmon raised in tanks, separated from the waters of the ocean and Humboldt Bay, and marketed all over the nation. As […]
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Here’s the CAP
The long-awaited draft Climate Action Plan (CAP) was released on April 21. Technically, this is a second draft: The first was released in 2021 but quickly rescinded for additional work. Unfortunately, this 2022 edition cannot be considered complete either, since most of the calculations are in the appendices, which are still being worked on. Nonetheless, […]