Editor:
Elaine Weinreb’s “Port of Entry” article (July 27) gave a great overview of the challenges to constructing a wind farm manufacturing hub on Humboldt bay. This project, and the related off-shore wind farm could have far reaching impacts to Humboldt Bay. The article reports on the many challenges and impacts that were debated at the packed-house July 19 community meeting.
One thing I did not see emphasized in the article was the scale of the benefit the project could provide. Crowley (the apparent project builder) claims on its website that the project could develop 1.6 gigawatts (gw) of power — enough for 1.6 million homes (when the wind is blowing). That is more than enough to power all the homes in Humboldt County. It should also be enough power for the homes in Humboldt’s 17 nearest neighboring counties, as well. The entire population of the 18 counties that stretch from Mendocino and Placer counties north to the border is just under 1.6 million people (about 500,000 households). So 1.6 gw might power not just the homes, but many of the business and institutions in these counties, as well. I agree with Jennifer Savage who, at the meeting said, “These are really noble goals that deserve support.”
Can the Humboldt Bay community navigate the multitude of challenges this project presents to develop a sustainable, environmentally friendly wind industry that benefits not only the local community, but neighboring communities as well? I’m not a local resident but I am a regular reader of the North Coast Journal and I have been to a number of kinetics sculpture races. My impression is that if any community has the spirit, drive, recourses and creativity to pull this off it is this one.
Wind energy — For the Glory!
Ed Ries, San Jose
Editor:
Elaine Weinreb, thank you for your informative and well-written article about the proposed wind energy project.
Clear. Comprehensive.
Good work!
Hope to see more of your articles in the future.
Michael Bruner, Eureka
Editor:
You know I love you, but the “Port of Entry” story on the Humboldt Bay Harbor District’s recent-ish meeting about the offshore wind marine terminal has me feeling sad.
First, a shoutout to my friend Luis Neuner of the Karuk people — lazily referred to in the story as “Someone identifying themselves as a ‘tribal member'” — for the thoughtful and heartfelt comments he made regarding the importance of fully engaging with regional tribes on a personal level.
Second, regarding, “Because those [timber] days have passed, much of the peninsula now sits empty, allowing plenty of room for a large industry to set up shop.” Um, empty? I mean, we have some people out here. And a lot of animals. And a lot of habitat those animals depend on and that people would like to see restored from industrial degradation for better coastal access and climate resilience. Just because we’re not covered in buildings (yet), doesn’t mean we’re empty.
Third, while I appreciate being quoted (thank you!), in the two weeks between the meeting being held and the story coming out, a least a couple of my points have been addressed: the Harbor District extended the comment period and the Times-Standard covered the pending sex trafficking allegations against Crowley (Google search for the win). The story›s datedness does a disservice to any of your readers trying to keep up on offshore wind’s onshore impacts, something those of us here on the “empty” peninsula care a lot about.
Jennifer Savage, Manila
Editor:
The recent NCJ “Port of Entry” article praises Humboldt Bay’s admirable features that can accommodate “components of the turbine … too large to be shipped by air, rail or highway, they must travel by sea.” Humboldt Bay “has no large barriers, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, to block the entry of 1,100-foot-tall turbines being towed in and out … such enormous component parts, the turbines must be assembled in large, clear areas very close to the water.”
Given the enormity of the project — one of the largest in the world — we might wonder, how durable are these critical features? Maybe not very.
Sea level rise threatens the jetties that ensure ingress and egress to and from the ocean to Humboldt Bay. This threat is about more than overtopping and swamping the jetties, which extend out from the land spits that anchor them. The spits themselves, their anchors, are at risk, meaning no amount of jetty armoring can prevent jetty unmooring and jettisoning. This could happen within 100 years, depending not just on warming rising seas, but also on unpredictable earthquake subsidence. Sea level rise poses an existential threat to Humboldt Bay as we know it.
Meanwhile, maintenance-free solar panels can be transported to our already built environment on small trucks, generate power, revenue and lots of jobs, tomorrow, all while protecting ocean and terrestrial habitat by leaving it undisturbed by massive industrial structures, including thousands of miles of wires and cables, abundant C02 pollution, constant petroleum use and crowded ocean and land traffic (as shown in the Journal).
No energy system provides more resilience, or protects more biodiversity, than distributed solar, where society must concentrate its alternative energy efforts, rather than rely on grandiose, untested, experimental solutions that are a lot like those that got us here.
Ken Miller, McKinleyville
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Port of Entry
This article appears in Best of Humboldt 2023.