January/February Art Show

During January and February, photographs by Aldaron Laird will be on display at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center. Shows featuring local art and photography are sponsored by Friends of the Arcata Marsh. The Interpretive Center, located at 569 South G Street in Arcata, is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (707) 826-2359. Aldaron will be giving a lecture to accompany his show at the Interpretive Center and via Zoom on Friday, January 12 starting at 7:30 p.m. The Zoom link is https://humboldtstate.zoom.us/j/84071717621?pwd=TTk3aUJtWGYwb3gvNnRlV3g0M1FBdz09. Statement from the photographer: My show is entitled “Sea Level Rise: North Unit of the Arcata Marsh.” This area contains five marshes, four ponds, one lake, a boat launch, 3.5 miles of trails, one mile of City access streets, and an interpretive center. The Marsh is very much on the frontline for sea level rise impacts this century. Less than a foot of sea level rise during a 2005 New Year’s Eve extreme water event (9.6 feet at NOAA’s North Spit tide gauge), caused by a King Tide and storm surge, resulted in Governor Schwarzenegger declaring a state of disaster on Humboldt Bay. That is less than a foot higher than our mean annual maximum tide (average King Tide) of 8.8 feet! The diked shorelines on Humboldt Bay are extremely vulnerable to a small sea level rise of just 1-2 feet. The North Unit, under existing shoreline conditions, is vulnerable to sea level rise of 1.6 feet (0.5 meter) to 3.3 feet (1.0 meter), which we are most likely going to experience in the near term and this century. I have lived in Humboldt since 1975. I am a retired environmental planning consultant who has specialized in sea level rise vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning on Humboldt Bay. I am also an avid kayaker who has circumnavigated all 102 miles of Humboldt Bay’s shoreline and a landscape photographer.