The Klamath River and the tribal communities that depend on it got some welcome news this week, as what would be the largest dam removal project in U.S. history took a significant step forward. Two decades after poor water quality on the river triggered a massive fish kill that left tens of thousands of salmon […]
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Broken Trust
A months-long dispute over a stop-work order issued on the construction of a prominent local developer’s private home bubbled into public view at the Aug. 18 Humboldt County Planning Commission meeting. From the dais, commission Chair Alan Bongio said he’s “lost all trust” in two local tribal governments, while making some far-reaching comments about “Indians” […]
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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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Obon Humboldt Style
People are still trickling into the lot in front of the Arcata Playhouse, thickening the crowd already encircling the low stage, where Marylyn Paik-Nicely, a “founding mother” of Humboldt Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI), stands in pink sneakers and a purple T-shirt commemorating this, the first Obon festival in Humboldt County, a cell […]
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Becoming the First Native Woman in Space
Nicole Aunapu Mann will be making history as the first Native woman to fly into space this fall. Mann, enrolled in Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in northern California, will be aboard the SpaceX Crew-5 mission to go to the International Space Station no earlier than Sept. 29. (The Wailacki’s ancestral territory lies along […]
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Murals Under the Bridge
On the evening of Thursday, Aug. 4, a couple dozen people gather in the Pacific Outfitters parking lot for a guided walk, ready to take in the sights of murals underway for this year’s Eureka Street Art Festival. Leading the tour is organizer and local artist Jenna Catsos, who has been directly involved coordinating the […]
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PlanCo Certifies Fish Farm EIR, Moves Project Forward
Nordic Aquafarms took a giant step closer to its goal of building a fish-rearing facility on the Samoa peninsula Aug. 4 when the Humboldt County Planning Commission unanimously certified the company’s Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) and also granted it a Coastal Development Permit and a Special Permit. The commission listened to one last brief […]
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‘A Long Battle’
About 100 residents from the Willow Creek area crammed into a small church on State Route 96 on Monday, where billows of smoke could be seen from a large, pane glass window spiraling into the sky across the Trinity River from the Bremer Fire as it continued to encroach on Willow Creek’s eastern edge. They […]
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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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The Yurok Tribe Offers ‘Blueprint’ to End the MMIP Crisis
By the time the news came in mid-October of 2021, Blythe George was already immersed in the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people. A Yurok tribal member with a PHD from Harvard serving as an assistant professor of sociology at University of California at Merced, George had already spent more than two years working […]
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Burning the Buckeye
The scariest thing about prescribed burns — to me — is not the flames. It’s the people. This is what I explained to my friends when they asked about our plans for the 109-acre Buckeye Ridge Burn, a project funded by a CalFire Climate Change Investment grant awarded to the Save the Redwoods League. Save […]
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SCO: ‘Commitment to Competence’ Needed in HumCo Finances
Those hoping that a long-awaited investigative report from the State Controller’s Office into Humboldt County’s fiscal dysfunction would carry either a blanket vindication or condemnation of former Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez were likely disappointed. The report, released publicly July 22 after months of investigation followed by months of review, stops well short of blaming Paz […]