The LookOut is a monthly review of climate issues and recent developments in our neighborhood.

 

On
a brighter note than the most recent Supreme Court decision
, it looks
like the coal train threat has run out of rail.
A
Wyoming-based
organization, the
North Coast Railroad Authority,
had
applied to the federal Surface Transportation Board for a permit to
ship coal through Humboldt county to the port. Fortunately, it missed
a crucial deadline by one day, disqualifying its
application.
Senators Padilla and Huffman and Rep. Mike Thompson have also sent
the board a letter accusing the NCRC of filing financial information
that was “at best misleading and at worst fraudulent.” At this
point an appeal of the STB
decision doesn’t look possible.

The
idea to renovate the decrepit Northwestern Pacific railroad line was
a recipe for disaster even if the proposed cargo was something
besides coal. Senator McGuire’s bill, SB 307,
would confirm the state’s intent to railbank the route for The Great Redwood Trail
by making sure no state money would help finance a different purpose.

 

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The
free bus ride deal
from Humboldt Transit Authority in June is over
now–for grownups. Anyone under the age of eighteen can still ride
for free during the months of July and August. Check it out: https://hta.org/summer-youth-pass/

 

 

The state’s Scoping Plan continued to attract criticism and alarm from California
climate change activists. Every five years the Air Resources Board
reports and assesses progress towards SB 32 emissions reductions
targets, and discloses its planned course towards carbon neutrality
by 2045 at the latest.

For this purpose
meetings, workshops and public engagement began on May 24 this year
and ended a month later. During that time more than a thousand
written comments were logged. Multitudes more have commented live
during the meeting. The vast majority of the commenters demand or
plead for a stronger plan. A short critique of the plan can be read here. Here’s a more detailed, wonkier critique.

During the month of
July CARB staff will decide how to respond to the public’s feedback.
They can either choose of the four pre-packaged scenarios and tweak
it or, as some hope, they might scrap all of them and start over.

 

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The
Board of Supervisors consented
on
June 7 to
let Humboldt’s draft Climate Action Plan
go to the next stage, which is an Environmental Impact Review. The
vote was 4-0 with the missing councilmember, Supervisor Wilson,
expressing his support before he left midway through the discussion
to attend another meeting. However, the green light was conditioned
on directions to
Planning
Department
staff to address six concerns during the EIR process. Those concerns
ranged from Supervisor Bushnell’s determination that rural lifestyles
should not be affected by the plan’s decarbonization targets to
Supervisor Madrone’s suggestion that more incentives could help the
county exceed the plan’s expectations.

Number
three on that list for planning staff is to make a definitive
case for or against including individual, stationary sources of
emissions, such as power plants and factories, etc. Right now these
point sources aren’t included for two reasons. One is that the county
doesn’t control them. The state has regulatory control through
CEQA–which exercises more stringent restraints on new point sources
than on old ones–but the county can’t add to that. Most county and
municipal CAPs in California don’t cover point sources for that
reason.

The
second reason point sources aren’t included in the plan is that the
baseline for reductions is 1990. Since that time many lumber mills
have closed, so emissions dropped significantly. If the county takes
credit for those reductions, it wouldn’t need to reduce its emissions
any
further to meet the state’s 2030 target. Taking
the easy way out would mean
a lot of scrambling to meet 2050 targets since we’d probably rest on
our undeserved laurels until the last minute.

During
the EIR process, mobilized members of the public will present
alternatives that may strengthen or weaken the plan. With any luck
the finished product will be ready for another county-wide round of
public review next August. You can read an interesting and more
thorough account of the Supervisors’ meeting here.

 

 

The Final
Environmental Impact Report for the Nordic Aquafarm proposal
is available for review
as of July 1. It
will come up before a special Planning Commission meeting on July 28
at 6 PM. A
Coastal Development Permit and a Special
Permit are
required to
demolish the old Samoa Pulp Mill and conduct a
much-needed
remediation of the site before the
land-based, re-circulating aquaculture system
can
be built.

The
county held informational workshops about the proposed
facility in
April and May.
Due to running out of time, the question and comment period for
the last one was
carried over to the Planning Commission meeting on June 2. Only four
people spoke.

If
the Planning Commission certifies the FEIR, a slew of additional
permits are required from the California Coastal Commission, the
Regional Water Quality Board, California Department of Fish and Game,
National Marine Fisheries Service, and the US Army Corps of
Engineers. According to Jen Kalt of Humboldt Baykeeper, surveys required for some
of these permits have yet to be conducted.

Contemplating
this proposal requires grappling with a lot of big numbers. The
facility’s five buildings would total more than 766 thousand square
feet with a 4.8 MW rooftop solar array, which would provide close to
a quarter of the required electricity. The source of the rest of the
electricity isn’t clear yet and would be highly significant in terms
of the climate impact.

Another
big number: approximately 2.5 millions gallons of fresh and
industrial water would be required daily to raise 25,000 tons of
Atlantic salmon per year. The water would be provided by the Mad
River, which supplies customers from Eureka to McKinleyville through
the administration of Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. An
additional ten million gallons daily would come from the ocean.

About
12.5 million gallons of treated wastewater would be discharged every
day into the ocean through a mile and half long pipeline. If
approved, this facility would be the largest of its type in the
country.

 

defunct pulp mill on the left; planned aquafarm on the right. Photo from Lost Coast Outpost

 

Links
Selection

Activists
pressured Harvard for ten years before they succeeded.
Listen
to the story of how students, faculty, and alumnae finally persuaded
the rich college to divest from fossil fuels. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/cool-solutions-wendy-ring-E_Jbr9mUnv7/

Environmentalists
camped out at Ruth Lake
to
study and marvel at post-wildfire ecology. https://www.wildcalifornia.org/post/2022-fire-recovery-campout-summary?

Don’t miss this
important link
from the Ruth
Lake wildfire ecology story. https://rewilding.org/myths-of-prescribed-fire-the-watering-can-that-pretends-to-be-a-river/

The largest emitter in Great Britain wants to build a
“negative-carbon” biomass plant in California. https://www.desmog.com/2022/06/28/drax-eyeing-california-as-site-of-new-biomass-carbon-capture-plant/

California
Senator’s brainchild would give a tax break
to
people who don’t own a car. https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/06/06/new-bill-would-create-an-incentive-to-go-car-free-in-california/

Everything you
wanted to know about challenges of recycling

solar panels, batteries, and wind turbine blades but were afraid to
ask. https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/06/26/u-s-renewables-industries-scramble-to-reuse-recycle-before-waste-volumes-skyrocket/?

Your natural gas
stove could be polluting your indoor air.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/climate/natural-gas-home-toxic-chemicals.html

New technology
looks promising for large-scale energy storage.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/10/energy-dome-introduces-its-carbon-dioxide-energy-storage-system-on-sardinia/