44 Feet
The de-facto nuclear waste site on the edge of Humboldt Bay and one group’s efforts toward an atomic-ally correct future
Cover Story
44 Feet
Forty-four feet isn’t all that high. It’s halfway up the tall side of the county courthouse. If you stacked Guy Fieri seven-and-a-half times on top of himself, his platinum blond hair would reach 44 feet high. Forty-four feet is also the height above today’s sea level where 37 tons of radioactive waste from the former…
Supes Support Proposal for Sue-meg Point Naming
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to support a proposal to rename the Patrick’s Point headland as Sue-meg Point, following in line with the State Parks and Recreation Commission’s decision last year. The item brought forward by Fifth Supervisor Steve Madrone supports a request that California State Parks submitted to the U.S.…
Natural Shocks at Redwood Curtain Theatre Postponed
Redwood Curtain Theatre is postponing the one-woman show Natural Shocks due to COVID-19 issues, the theater announced yesterday. The show will now open Thursday, Sept. 29. The theater also said if you have tickets for the original first weekend, Sept. 23-25, you may contact the box office at boxoffice@redwoodcurtain.com to reschedule, and that they will be…
Sara Bareilles Returning to Eureka for Free Concert
UPDATE: Tickets for Sara Bareilles’ free concert in Eureka were snatched up this morning within three hours of becoming available, but Mayor Susan Seaman urged those who missed out initially to add their names to the waiting list on the ticket site. “We’re releasing some more tickets,” she said, adding that they would go to…
Marilyn L (Paxton) Robertson: 1933-2022
Marilyn L (Paxton) Robertson of Eureka passed on September 1, 2022, age 89. Marilyn was born February 13, 1933 in San Bernardino, California, the eldest of four children. She moved to Northern California in the early 50s with her first husband Willard Watts and two small children, Linda and Tony Watts. She was working for…
Supes to Consider Censure of Bongio
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is slated to consider censuring Planning Commission Chair Alan Bongio tomorrow, a month after he made incendiary and offensive comments about local Native tribes, referring to them as “Indians” while intoning they had lied and negotiated in bad faith with a local developer. The agenda item will also see…
Cal State Says It Can’t Afford a Staff Wage Hike Even if Newsom OKs It
A last-minute bill that sailed through the Legislature may leave Cal State University on the hook for nearly $900 million in new costs over the next decade — possibly forcing it to raise tuition for only the second time in more than a decade. That “may” assumes lawmakers allot no new increases in university funding.…
NCJ Preview: Nuclear Safety, Zoellner’s Civil Case and Painted Wild Times
Is 44 feet far enough away from Humboldt Bay for spent nuclear fuel rods? We’ll talk about the long-term plans and risks, as well as the 44 Feet group working toward a longer-term solution. We’re also updating on the civil case Kyle Zoellner has brought against the city of Arcata and the twist in the…
EPD Seeking Individual Suspected of Following Women, Spraying Them with Unknown Liquid
The Eureka Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a suspect in five battery and suspicious activity investigations that date back to November of 2021, with the most recent incident taking place on Wednesday. “In each incident the male follows a female victim for a period of time before approaching close enough…
El Fogón Costeño’s Bright Ideas, Big Flavors
Slow down on Myrtle Avenue, both in the name of safety and so you don’t miss the little red El Fogón Costeño truck — decorated with a pastoral image of burrito-eating bears — tucked in the Chevron station (1679 Myrtle Ave.). Enrique Buenrostro, who originally hails from Acapulco, Mexico, has run his truck out of…
Drug Task Force Announces Largest ‘One-time Seizure of Narcotics’
The Humboldt County Drug Task Force announced the largest one-time seizure of narcotics in its history yesterday after serving six search warrants at locations stretching from McKinleyville to Fortuna, resulting in one arrest. The yield — the culmination of a nearly one year investigation — included 30 pounds of methamphetamine, 5.5 pounds of cocaine, 3…
Humboldt CSD Board to Consider Stripping Bongio of Presidency
The Humboldt Community Services Board of Directors will consider at its next meeting whether to remove Director Alan Bongio from his role as president amid an ongoing backlash over recent comments made in his role as chair of the Humboldt County Planning Commissioner that left local tribal officials deeply offended and shook their confidence in…
‘Edge of the Cliff’: PG&E’s Lack of Electricity Capacity Puts Eel River Valley Projects at Risk
City officials in Fortuna and Rio Dell are raising concerns about PG&E’s inability to provide new electric hookups in the Eel River Valley, leaving major economic development plans in the lurch and putting future projects, including new housing, at risk. Fortuna City Manager Meritt Perry said he is bringing the issue before the City Council…
Hot Surfperch Moms
One day I found myself stuck in an elevator with a beautiful pregnant female. Just to make both of us less uncomfortable, I said, “Hey babe, I ain’t into knocked-up chicks anyway, dig?” She stared at me with her big glassy eyes and characteristically used her large pectoral fins for propulsion. For she was a…
‘A Thought Experiment’
Editor: Regarding Jerry Rohde’s column “This Land is Their Land” in the Sept. 1 NCJ: As a thought experiment, consider if those of us who are descended from colonists, settlers and immigrants stopped reproducing. Not impossible since birth control has been legal for over 50 years. Then the indigenous American Indians could finally retake the…
The Red Moon Rises (A Haiku)
Fires burn in the east, Smoke lifts high into the sky, The Red Moon rises. Sherman SChapiro
Weeping for Our Climate
Mankind has a very real danger closing in on it: This danger is moving at a rate that is making a mockery of avoidance and denial. It is climate change (Mailbox, Sept. 1). Science, that purveyor of the magnificence through which civilization flourishes, also provides us with the methods and markers to gauge the degree…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): My reader Monica Ballard has this advice for you Aries folks: “If you don’t vividly ask for and eagerly welcome the gifts the Universe has in store for you, you may have to settle for trinkets and baubles. So never settle.” That’s always useful counsel for you Rams. And in the…
Zoellner Civil Case Lurches Toward Trial
With a trial date approaching for a civil lawsuit Kyle Zoellner brought against the city of Arcata in the wake of his 2017 arrest, the recent deposition of Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming has become a point of contention, prompting Zoellner’s attorneys to seek sanctions from the court as the city’s lawyers accuse them…
The Coastal Commission is Not the Enemy; Developers Flouting the Rules Are the Real Problem
Sure, an 8,000-square-foot house sounds crazy to those of us who somehow managed to raise three children in humbler accommodations, but saying you wouldn’t do something is always easier when that something isn’t an option. If I had the money to build a mansion, maybe I would! But what I wouldn’t do is choose to violate…
End-of-Summer Joy and Goat Cheese
When I turn the wall calendar to the September page, I go into denial about the approaching end of summer. At the farmers market, I continue purchasing summer produce until the last day it’s available. Preserving produce also helps keep summer alive in the kitchen. For example, in the recipe I am sharing here, the…
Where the Party’s At
In our third hour at Toni’s restaurant the other night, I told my three friends, each visiting the North Coast for the first time from a different city, about the art show we were going to see the next day. “The work depicts a kind of psychedelic homelessness,” I said. My comrades all laughed at…
Clair de Lune
Well, this was quite a weekend, let me tell you. Apparently there was something called a Pisces Moon on Saturday, which is supposed to turn people like myself who have a birthday between Feb. 19 and March 20 into wicked and fantastic werewolves. Or so I am told; honestly I’m so checked out on the…
The Cat Would Like You to Stop Being So Divisive
Well, well, well. Once again, I reach out to you and I’m met with verbal abuse, blame and violence. It’s like I can’t even extend a paw and drag a single litter-dusted claw along the vein of your forearm without hysterics over “a deep gash,” “arteries” and what might get “infected.” I see your arm…
A Day’s Drive to 10 Beautiful Places
My wife, Louisa Rogers, and I offer what has become a popular class through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Cal Poly Humboldt’s continuing education program for learners aged 50 and better. It’s so popular that our recommendations for “destinations that lie easily within a day’s drive” have made it into print, right here. (Note:…
Wide Variety of Tuna Caught off the Coast
There is some absolutely insane offshore fishing happing right now off the Northern California coast. From Fort Bragg to Crescent City, the albacore bite has been wide-open. But that’s just part of the story. What has everyone talking is the number of exotic, warm water species. Fort Bragg has seen the widest variety. A wide-open…
The Last Minute
ON THE COUNT OF THREE. Suicide, for an act (force/influence) that will most likely eventually affect us all, is too often marginalized in culture and in conversation due either to fear, false reverence or simple misunderstanding. It becomes an easy punchline when something doesn’t go our way, or a caustic epithet cum directive vollied at…
‘Shenanigans’
Editor: Thank you for shining the light on the arrogant actions of local builder Travis Schneider, and the responses to his building violations by the Humboldt County Planning Commission (NCJ Daily, Aug. 8). Mr. Schneider needs to be held accountable for ignoring the stop work order. It’s creepy to read his scripted sounding remarks; since…
Correction
The photo on the cover of the Sept. 1, 2022, edition of the North Coast Journal was credited to the wrong entity. It was taken by Valerie Hanson and the Journal regrets the error.
‘He Needs to Resign’
Editor: In your article about Arcata City Councilmember Brett Watson seeking re-election (“‘Outcry,'” Sept. 8), he says: “I believe it’s important to challenge the assumption that support for my campaign is defined by who has time to email their council member or attend a public meeting.” This dismissiveness toward people who took the time to…
The Coastal Commission is Not the Enemy, Developers Flouting the Rules Are the Real Problem
Sure, an 8,000-square-foot house sounds crazy to those of us who somehow managed to raise three children in humbler accommodations, but saying you wouldn’t do something is always easier when that something isn’t an option. If I had the money to build a mansion, maybe I would! But what I wouldn’t do is choose to…
