Much of the focus on the largest dam removal and restoration effort in the nation’s history has been on extraction — the removal of the four dams that have choked flows on the Klamath River for more than a century. And from a sheer extraction perspective, the breadth of the project is breathtaking, as it […]
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Salmon Season Crisis
Next month, the National Marine Fisheries Service is all-but-certain to officially close the California ocean salmon season due to what’s forecast to be near record-low returns of Chinook to the Klamath and Sacramento rivers. The shuttering of the multi-million dollar industry will come with wide-ranging implications for those who depend on the fishery that has […]
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‘When the Lord Restored Our Fortunes’
It was toward the end of a small press conference in the Fireplace Room of Arcata First Baptist Church, where McKinleyville’s Jeffery Woodke was offering his first public remarks since being freed March 20 after being held hostage by kidnappers in Western Africa, when a local reporter rose to ask about the process of reconnecting […]
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Trans Residents Celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility
As lawmakers across the nation work to advance hundreds of bills targeting trans rights and anti-trans rhetoric increasingly fills local online community forums, some used Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31 to celebrate trans joy. “We spend so much time thinking about what we’re losing and what we’re worried about,” Tommie Moore conceded after […]
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‘A Symbolic Gesture’
On the morning of Dec. 16, the Earth flag was raised to the top of city-owned flagpoles in Arcata, above the United States and California flags, respectively. The unprecedented arrangement came after the Arcata City Council voted unanimously in closed session the night before to uphold a voter-approved initiative dictating the new placement but with […]
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Lawsuit Alleges Humboldt, California Unfairly Denied Foster Care Benefits
A recently filed lawsuit accuses Humboldt County and the state’s Department of Social Services of unfairly denying Native American youth access to extended foster care benefits, designed as a lifeline for young adults ages 18, 19 and 20 who’ve been raised in government care. The plaintiffs include tribal citizen and former foster youth Madison Fisher, […]
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The Foilies 2023
It seems like these days, everyone is finding classified documents in places they shouldn’t be: their homes, their offices, their storage lockers, their garages, their guitar cases, between the cracks of their couches, under some withered celery in the vegetable drawer … OK, we’re exaggerating — but it is getting ridiculous. While the pundits continue […]
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‘He is Safe’
A McKinleyville man kidnapped and held hostage for more than six years in Africa has been freed, President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials announced March 20. “Today, I am gratified to share that American Jeff Woodke was released from captivity in West Africa,” Biden said in a statement. “Jeff was kidnapped while serving people […]
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An Industry on Edge
The Humboldt County cannabis industry is on edge, with an initiative slated to come before voters next year that would dramatically reshape cultivation regulations, capping the number and limiting the size of farms, and overhauling how the county’s primary cash crop can be grown moving forward. More than four dozen cannabis farmers and industry advocates […]
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Newsom’s Climate Budget Would Slash Funds that Protect Coast
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget would cut funding for coastal resilience projects almost in half, eliminating more than half a billion dollars of state funds this year that would help protect the coast against rising seas and climate change. The cuts are part of Newsom’s proposed $6 billion in reductions to California’s climate change programs in response […]
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Saving the Sea Otter
On rare occasions, a sea otter makes an appearance on the North Coast. Locally extinct since around the turn of the 20th century, the last confirmed sighting was in 2015, when one was filmed frolicking in Humboldt Bay. In less fortunate cases, remains of two sea otters were separately discovered washed up on area beaches […]
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A ‘Robust’ Conversation
Over the course of nearly three hours on March 4, as a panel of county and city officials discussed mental health services, a number of themes emerged: Humboldt County is brimming with trauma but has limited resources to address it amid a legal framework that gives all but the very sickest among us power over […]