Category Archives: Environment

Articles, Community News, Environment, Science

EPIC Offshore Wind Panel Stirs Little Local Interest

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Only about a dozen Del Norters showed up on a cold Friday evening to hear the latest science concerning offshore wind energy’s potential impact on marine wildlife. The event, held in the United Methodist Church in Crescent City and hosted by the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) of Arcata, was billed as an Offshore Wind Information Panel. Featured speakers addressed the possible interaction between marine mammals, birds and turtles and the giant floating wind turbines proposed for the waters off Del Norte and Humboldt counties.

Before the presentations began, Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC, explained the purpose of the event to Redwood Voice. “Under the Biden administration, Del Norte county was slated to have an offshore wind lease executed in the next four years. That’s obviously in question now with the Trump administration, but it’s still important for us to have these conversations and to understand the potential benefits and costs of offshore wind. And so we’re here tonight to help the community have that conversation.”

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Articles, Community News, Economy, Environment, Local Government

Del Norte Supervisors Weigh In On Updated Plan For Managing Forest Service Lands

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Thumbnail: A rain-swollen Smith River in the Smith River National Recreation Area, which is one of the U.S. Forest Service units addressed in its Northwest Forest Plan. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews

District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard used an example from the 1960s to highlight the importance of local input into an amended Northwest Forest Plan.

Del Norte County housed 52 manufacturing mills six decades ago, he said, now there are none. Howard blamed their collapse on the Northwest Forest Plan, which was created in 1994. Now, with a public comment deadline approaching on an amended plan, Howard urged his colleagues to weigh in on a letter to the U.S. Forest Service, the agency spearheading the process.

Tacked onto Tuesday’s agenda at the last minute due to the Monday public comment deadline, the county’s letter was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors.

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Articles, Community News, Environment

Del Norte Fire Safe Council Hosts Prescribed Burn Workshop

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Thumbnail photo by Ethan Caudill-DeRego.

Flecked with dirt and soaked in sweat from the intense heat of fires burning all around, crew from the Del Norte Fire Safe Council and interested participants worked away with their drip torches, burning pre-collected debris piles on the hills overlooking Rock Creek Ranch.

March 5th was the first day of the Del Norte Fire Safe Council’s two day Prescribed Burn Workshop. This workshop helps teach local residents how to deal with the vegetation that builds up on their land and poses a threat during wildfires.

“This is our first workshop. It’s more about pile burning because that’s the time of year that we have right now,” said Aaron Babcock, Del Norte Fire Safe Council Coordinator. “It’s still pretty wet to do an actual real prescribed burn, but we’re hoping in April we’re gonna do another real workshop, where we’re gonna try to get some fire to carry.”

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Articles, Community News, Emergencies, Environment, Local Government

Federal Funding Freeze Puts Del Norte Fire Safe Council Fuels Reduction Projects In Limbo

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Thumbnail: Del Norte Office of Emergency Services Public Information Officer Bill Steven snapped this photo of the Smith River Complex wildfires burning above Patrick Creek Lodge and U.S. 199 on Aug. 16, 2023.

(Updated at 12:03 p.m. Friday with a correction: The California Climate Investments grant is a state program and Cal Fire is a state department. There is a $70 million federal grant available, though Del Norte Fire Safe Council County Coordinator Aaron Babcock said he’s not sure how it will be distributed.)

Flames from the Smith River Complex crept within 600 feet of Aaron Babcock’s Gasquet home in August, 2023.

A former firefighter, Babcock is the county coordinator for the Del Norte Fire Safe Council. He said he and his wife chose not to evacuate from the smattering of wildfires burning around the Gasquet area. Instead, he and two of his Fire Safe Council colleagues helped clean out gutters and create extra defensible space for about 50 homes threatened by the fire.

“The houses we had worked on definitely got skipped over,” Babcock told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. “Because they had firefighters preemptively clearing around people’s homes in case the fire came through, those homes didn’t have to have anything done [to prevent them from burning], which was great because it lowers the amount of firefighting resources that were needed and helped protect other homes.”

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Articles, Community News, Curry, Economy, Environment, Local Government

Curry County Proposal to Take Over Management of Federal Lands Draws Overwhelming Opposition

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Pistol River in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. | Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service

A proposed resolution stating that Curry County aims to “invoke policing powers of the state” to “clear and thin undergrowth and to remove fire-damaged trees” on federal lands is not a takeover, according to its newest member.

Facing 17 north county residents who opposed the resolution on Wednesday, Patrick Hollinger said he and his colleagues hope to be stewards for lands currently managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other state and federal agencies. The proposed emergency declaration seeks to hold them accountable, though the Board of Commissioners said Wednesday they weren’t yet ready to approve it.

“We are the closest elected officials to the people with special authority under environmental and jurisdictional law to see these matters through to success,” Hollinger said. “We’re working right now on completely overhauling our land-use plan for the county, our comprehensive plan and our Wildland Urban Interface plans. The state and federal agencies, by law, are supposed to be consulting with the county on an annual basis in order for them to move forward with their plans. That’s not happening. That hasn’t happened in forever. We’re going to implement that going forward.”

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Articles, CC Harbor, Community News, Economy, Environment

‘The State Won’t Work With You’; Long-time Shrimper Says Lack of Infrastructure Is Forcing Fleet, Processors Out of California

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Thumbnail photo courtesy of the Crescent City Harbor District

Randy Smith says he understands why Pacific Seafood shuttered its facilities in Crescent City and Eureka.

The same regulations the Clackamas, Ore.-based processor gave as its reasoning for abandoning Humboldt and Del Norte counties have also forced Smith and other local fishermen to land their catch elsewhere.

Smith, owner of the Mistasea and member of the Crescent City Commercial Fisherman’s Marketing Association, the California Dungeness Task Force and, up until last year, the Newport, Oregon Board of Shrimp Producers, said he bought a house in Oregon about two years ago because “I’m up there more.” The harbors in California are a place to park a boat and do some repairs, he said, but there’s no infrastructure anymore.

“You can’t blame Pacific Seafood for doing what they did,” said Smith, whose father was one of the first fishermen to work with the company when its CEO opened the Eureka processing facility about 39 years ago. “You don’t know how many pots you’ll get to fish with and you don’t know when you’re going to get to fish…. The state won’t work with you and Fish and Game won’t work with you.”

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Articles, CC Harbor, Community News, Environment

CC Harbor Officials May Ask McGuire To Help Support Commercial Fishing; Crab Season Starts Jan. 15

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Thumbnail photo by Paul Critz

Crescent City Harbor commissioners are expected to ask State Sen. Mike McGuire to support Del Norte and Humboldt counties’ commercial fishing fleets.

The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday will discuss sending a letter to McGuire, who represents the North Coast and is the highest-ranking member of the California State Senate.

Harbormaster Mike Rademaker said he expects commissioners to discuss the substance of the letter and then he intends to reach out to the Humboldt Bay Harbor District to coordinate on a joint message to the state senator.

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Articles, Community News, Emergencies, Environment, Science

Cal Poly Humboldt Prof. Discusses Why Today’s 7.0 Temblor Spawned A 6-8 Inch Tsunami In Crescent City

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Map courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey

Lori Dengler said she wasn’t surprised that Thursday’s magnitude 7.0 earthquake only produced a tsunami that topped out at roughly 8 inches in Crescent City.

But, while Dengler, geology professor emeritus at Cal Poly Humboldt, is still going through the reports and is speaking with the media about today’s temblor, she said one of the outcomes might be a rethinking of how the U.S. approaches tsunami evacuations.

“The Tsunami National Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska has developed a template for if an earthquake happens here and it’s in this magnitude range, this is what we do,” Dengler, whose expertise is in geophysics, earthquake and tsunami hazards and hazard reduction, told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. “Because this earthquake was so relatively close to the coast and their preliminary magnitude was 7.3, it immediately triggered a tsunami warning from basically Santa Cruz to Central Oregon.”

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Agriculture, Articles, Community News, Environment, Health, Smith River

Smith River Residents Air Concerns About Illnesses They Say Are Linked to Pesticide Use In Lily Industry

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Marilyn Gray Wintersteen admitted she didn’t think much about what growers were spraying on the lily fields in her neighborhood until last year when it hit her in the face.

Wintersteen was planting flowers in her backyard on Ocean View Drive when she got a face full of spray from the adjacent lily field.

“My skin burned, my eyes burned, my tongue swelled up, I had blisters on it [and] I ended up in the ER,” she said. “I got from the back of my house where they were spraying around to the front of my house and bent over to catch my breath. I could not breathe.”

Wintersteen, a 35 year resident, told her story to the North Coast Water Quality Control Board at a town hall meeting at the Smith River United Methodist Church on Monday and to the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Both meetings, and a third at the United Methodist Church in Crescent City, focused on the Water Quality Control Board’s efforts to develop water quality regulations for Easter lily bulb production in the Smith River plain. Those regulations will be in an order monitoring and mitigating the impacts of copper diuron and other pesticides and fertilizers on the watershed aquatic ecosystem. 

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Agriculture, Articles, Environment, Smith River, Tribal Affairs

(Updated) Public Asked To Weigh In On Pesticide Use In Smith River’s Easter Lily Bulb Industry

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(Updated at 3:58 p.m. with a clarification about Monday’s public meeting in Smith River from the Environmental Protection Information Center.)

Conservationists seeking to eliminate the use of “highly toxic pesticides” on Smith River’s Easter lily fields want to give residents and county officials a chance to voice their concerns next week.

Scientists with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board also want to hear from the public as they continue work to develop water quality regulations for commercial Easter lily bulb production in the Smith River area.

The meeting on Monday will include a presentation from Water Quality Control Board staff on the waste discharge permit process and will give the public a chance to offer testimony.

Representatives with the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), the Siskiyou Land Conservancy and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation will be part of that discussion at 6 p.m. Monday at the Smith River United Methodist Church before going before the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors.

Monday’s public forum will be broadcast live on KFUG Community Radio, 101.1 FM — listen by clicking here.

“We are hoping that affected community members will come to each of the two meetings and help make a compelling case as to why pesticide application needs to be more regulated,” Josefina Barrantes, EPIC’s Del Norte advocate, told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. “We want both the water board staff and the Board of Supervisors to hear how the pollution has affected the community so that it can motivate real change.”

The Water Quality Control Board will also go before the Board of Supervisors at their meeting 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Flynn Center, 981 H Street in Crescent City.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will hold a public scoping meeting from 4-6 p.m. Tuesday at the United Methodist Church in Crescent City. This meeting will also be held virtually. For more information about efforts to develop waste discharge permit requirements for Easter lily bulb production in Smith River, click here.

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