Long before there was a company named Terra-Gen, an electrical grid or climate crisis threatening the planet, the Humboldt Bay region was inhabited by Wiyot people — as many as 3,000 of them, by some estimates — who lived in some 20 villages scattered around the bay. It’s where their ancestors lived, and their ancestors’ […]
Bear River Ridge
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Overflow Crowd Again Turns Out for Public Hearing on Controversial Wind Farm Proposal
The debate over the proposed Terra-Gen wind energy project seemed no closer to resolution after a second heated five-and-a-half-hour public hearing at the County Planning Commission on Thursday. Once again, the Supervisors Chamber was packed with people standing in the aisles. About 40 people who could not fit into the crowded room stood outside in […]
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Green Versus Green
Two public forums held earlier this month on the proposed Terra-Gen Wind Generation Project covered the same topics but the moods were radically different. The first meeting, a Nov. 6 panel discussion sponsored by the Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University, was calm and rational in tone, attracting nearly a thousand people to […]
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In the Balance
Seven local environmental groups have signed onto a letter to the Humboldt County Planning Department demanding changes to a proposed wind farm project that would place dozens of large turbines on two ridgelines south of Rio Dell. The letter — signed by some of the North Coast’s environmental heavyweights — comes as the the large, […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘Hook, Line and Turbine’
How dispiriting to read that officials at Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) have fallen hook, line and turbine for a deeply flawed energy proposal. Like many outside colonizers since 1850, a Manhattan energy company, Terra-Gen, is relying on local officials to support its plan to place up to 60 wind turbines, each standing 600 feet […]
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The Cost of Wind
Give me the restless power of the wind,” wrote lyricist John Hall in an anthem about renewable energy popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary. The phrase evokes sails billowing in the wind, or maybe a cooling breeze on a hot summer’s day. But in reality, wind energy on a scale large enough to power an […]
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Controversial Place Names in Humboldt County
Last week we ran a story which dipped briefly into the history of Larabee Creek — named for a participant in the Indian Island massacre. Local historian, author and Journal contributor Jerry Rohde was inspired to send us a list of other places in Humboldt County with ignominious eponymy. Below are the results of his search. […]