\ncoal train just got a little more serious<\/strong>, thanks to the federal
\nSurface Transportation Board. Its recent ruling<\/a> on the old
\ndecrepit Northwestern Pacific Railroad line between Humboldt and the
\nBay Area denied the North Coast Railroad Authority the authority to
\nrailbank the railroad for the Great Redwood Trail<\/a> and the
\nAnnie and Mary Trail between Arcata and Eureka. Rather chillingly,
\nthe STB ruled that two parties–Mendocino Railway and the North Coast
\nRailroad Company–must be allowed to make their proposals to revive
\nrailroad service. The NCRC appears to be the shadowy corporation<\/a>
\nthat wants to run coal from the Crow Tribe reservation in Montana to
\nthe port in Humboldt.<\/p>\n
This After <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A lumber mill in North Fork Lumber Company<\/a> in Korbel is owned and operated by Frank Schmidbauer. Granted, most of the Meanwhile, the official designation<\/a><\/u> of burning biomass as a carbon-neutral <\/p>\n >>> <\/p>\n Sea But Considering The For <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Offshore On The Redwood <\/p>\n >>> <\/p>\n Timber companies, The health of the This North Coast The <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cal-Fire has One proposed idea Will such reform <\/p>\n >>> <\/p>\n California’s Cullenward Cullenward <\/p>\n >>> <\/p>\n Links<\/p>\n Tribal Operating The California
\ndecision probably resulted from complaints put to the STB about a
\nnational slowdown in coal deliveries that some industries see as a
\nthreat to the power grid even though coal has been playing a smaller
\nrole in power production. According to this article from a rail industry periodical<\/a>,
\nthe problem at the heart of many supply chain issues can be traced to
\na shortage of train crews. However, the NCRC aims to export
\ncoal overseas, precisely because domestic markets for coal are
\ndeclining. A very similar scheme has targeted Cherry Point in
\nWashington.<\/p>\n
\nreferring to this new federal development as “the worst case
\nscenario” in a message to his constituents, Senator McGuire reassured everyone that California legislation SB 307<\/a>
\nwill stop any new train proposals in its tracks. Here is a website
\nfor joining the resistance<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/data\/000\/667\/689\/original\/old_railroad.jpg\")
photo courtesy of Lost Coast Outpost<\/em><\/p>\n
\nKorbel hopes to build a biomass electricity plant<\/strong>. It has
\nsolicited letters of support from 5th District Supervisor Steve
\nMadrone and Redwood Coast Energy Authority in hopes of procuring a
\ngrant to fund a feasibility study.<\/p>\n
\nCurrently, its mill waste is trucked to the plant in Anderson, also
\nowned by Schmidbauer. So the issue of how to deal with mill waste is
\nphrased as “how do you want this wood burned–locally or
\ntransported by carbon-spewing diesel truck to Redding?” The
\naspiration to do something less polluting and less carbon-intensive
\nnever even makes it to the table.<\/p>\n
\neco-friendly alternatives–such as gasification or nanocellulose
\ntechnology–are more expensive than your typical co-generation plant. Composting<\/a>, however, is an inexpensive method of converting
\nmill waste to something useful though it doesn’t produce electricity.<\/p>\n
\nclimate solution is responsible for clear-cutting in many parts of
\nthe world while making the problem of climate change even worse.<\/p>\n
\n<<<<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nlevel rise will not catch us by surprise.<\/strong>
\nMultiple county planning agencies and state agencies have studied it,
\nplus we’re lucky to have the brain power of the university. Cal Poly
\nHumboldt started the collaborative Sea Level Rise Initiative four
\nyears ago that has brought together numerous organizations, including
\ntribes, academics and nonprofit groups. Its Osher Lifelong Learning
\nInstitute (OLLI) convenes a SLR group every month, led by Jerry Rhode
\nand Aldaron Laird, who was one of the first people to study and map
\nSLR. The land around Humboldt Bay is the most extensively studied
\nbecause it is subsiding as the sea rises. Consequently, two feet of
\nSLR can be expected by 2050 and an additional foot twenty years
\nlater.<\/p>\n
\njust because we’ve been watching the sea approach doesn’t mean we’re prepared<\/a>.
\nHumboldt County’s Grand Jury of 2022 has identified twelve different
\nmajor problems that must be fixed before 2050–such as sections of
\nHighway 101 and 255, the Humboldt Bay Power station and its nuclear
\ndump, 7 wastewater lift stations, 10.5 miles of sewer lines and 30
\nelectrical transmission towers. Read the report for the full list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nhow long it takes to plan and build any projects along the California
\ncoast, we need to start now with first the requisite studies and the
\npermits–a single project could require permits from ten different
\nagencies–and then the actual building. The most challenging
\ncomplication is that many of these needed projects cannot happen
\nindependently of other projects because the area around Humboldt Bay
\nis one large unit divided into six sections. Changes within one
\nsection will affect the other sections.<\/p>\n
\nGrand Jury Report focused mostly on problems of permitting and
\nfunding. Applying to the California Coastal Commission was described
\nas complicated, contradictory, and slow. This is a problem because
\nthe CCC guards the gate for almost everything here on the coast.
\nFunding is also a challenge for a small, rural county competing for a
\nfinite pot of state money.<\/p>\n
\nthe most thorough and detailed report on the forecasted impacts of
\nSLR here in Humboldt County, read Aldaron Laird’s Vulnerability Assessment<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/data\/000\/667\/690\/original\/Aldaron's_photo.jpg\")
photo courtesy of Aldaron Laird<\/em><\/p>\n
\nwind developments sped up during the month of May<\/strong>.
\nThe Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released on May 5<\/a>
\nits final environmental assessment of the Humboldt Wind Energy Area.
\nIts finding of “no significant impact” is necessary for the
\nnext steps towards selling leases. However, this verdict is a
\ngeneralized assessment of the 207 square mile area. Each proposed
\nwind project within that area will need to complete its own specific
\nenvironmental review.<\/p>\n
\nthe 24th the Board of Supervisors directed staff<\/a>
\nto work with community stakeholders on the development of local
\nsupply chains necessary for building the turbines and to explore how
\nto prepare the local workforce. With this same aim in mind they
\nauthorized the County Administrative Officer to submit letters of
\nsupport and requests for funding.<\/p>\n
\nU.S. Department of the Interior
\n<\/u>announced
\non the 26th
\nthat it will publish a Proposed Sale Notice on the last day of May to
\nopen lease areas off the California coast for building offshore wind
\nfarms. The public will have sixty days to comment.<\/p>\n
\nCoast Energy Authority has sought to emphasize community control and
\nbenefits for Humboldt county. A Journal article<\/a>
\nreferred to “potential stipulations that would give preference
\nto bidders who pursue community benefit agreements with surrounding
\ncommunities . . .” That sounds a little iffy, but one thing for
\nsure is that these developments far outstrip Humboldt’s picture.
\nAccording to Humboldt’s
\ndraft Climate Action Plan, RCEA is positioned for only 40 MW
\nof wind power–at least
\nat first. However, many different community stakeholders are working
\ntogether towards facilitating offshore wind development, protecting
\nour environment, and getting the best deal we can. Floating offshore
\nwind technology may unlock a vast amount of clean energy desperately
\nneeded to curb climate change.<\/p>\n
\n<<<<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nhousing developers, and conservationists have long admired the McKay
\nForest<\/strong> bordering the southeast side of Eureka. The
\nconservationists gained a thousand acres in 2014 when Green Diamond
\nsold them to the city of Eureka. An additional 197 acres was acquired in 2020<\/a>. Green Diamond retains ownership of almost 6,000 acres of
\nforest in the area.<\/p>\n
\nMcKay Community forest will be managed for water quality of the Ryan
\nCreek watershed, coho salmon, northern spotted owl and other
\ncreatures. It’s a working forest, meaning that timber harvesting will
\noccur, based on the same ecological management principles that are
\npracticed by the Arcata Community Forest. These principles are
\ndetailed in the recently released Forest Stewardship Plan<\/a>.
\nMost of the trees in the McKay Community forest are less than fifty
\nyears old.<\/p>\n
\nJournal article<\/a> from 2009 gives some interesting history of
\nthe McKay Community forest, including the roots of the contentious
\nNorth McKay Ranch subdivision that the Board of Supervisors recently
\napproved.<\/p>\n
\ncounty also released the trails plan, which seeks to fulfill the
\nrecreational desires of the public. Visitors are not officially welcome
\nyet in the Community Forest, but it’s a fairly popular destination
\nall the same. The Eco-News Report<\/a>
\nof April 30 gives a good rundown on the current situation with Stevie
\nLuther and Hank Seeman of the Humboldt county Public Works.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/data\/000\/668\/125\/original\/mcKay.jpg\")
photo courtesy of Dana Utman<\/em><\/p>\n
\noffered several compromises to tree defenders<\/strong> at Jackson State
\nDemonstration Forest, including protection of Gemini Tree<\/a>, a huge
\nhundred year-old redwood that had been slated for the chopping block.
\nOther large second-growth redwoods within the Caspar 500 Timber
\nHarvest Plan area that measure more than four feet in diameter at
\nbreast height would be protected. No such guarantees are currently
\npromised for future THPs. However, the entire JDSF management plan
\nwill be re-written four years early, giving the public a sooner than
\nplanned opportunity to try to influence the forest’s future.<\/p>\n
\nfor future management of JSDF is based on the idea of Cal Poly
\nHumboldt’s professor, Steve Sillet, the well-known champion of
\nredwoods and other tall trees. He and partner Marie Antoine have
\nsuggested that all managed forests should preserve<\/a> some of the
\nbiggest and most vigorous trees of the forest as a way of promoting
\noverall health and sequestration. Cal-Fire is proposing two of these
\nElite Trees per acre.<\/p>\n
\nsuffice to win over the hearts and minds of the protesters? Many of
\nthem want a moratorium on logging<\/a> until the management plan is
\nrewritten to make carbon sequestration the top priority.<\/p>\n
\n<<<
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nclimate strategy is floundering<\/strong>,
\naccording to Danny Cullenward, a PhD energy economist and policy
\ndirector of Carbon Plan. His persuasive
\nanalysis of the
\nCalifornia Air Resources Board’s 2022 Scoping Plan can be read here<\/a>.
\nThe Scoping Plan is the progress report made every five years on how
\nwell the state is on track to achieve the climate goals set out in SB
\n32. Not well at all is the short answer. Right now California’s pace
\nof emission reductions would have to triple in order to meet the 2030
\ndeadline of 40% below 1990 level of emissions.<\/p>\n
\nfound a
\nhuge
\naccounting error that threw off all four of the outlined scenarios by
\n23 tCO2e. It assumed that California’s land sector would sequester a
\nnet 15 million tCO2e annually; however, by CARB’s own calculations in
\na different part of the plan, our land sector actually emits about 8
\nmillion tCO2e per year.<\/p>\n
\nis also dubious about the planned reliance on carbon dioxide removal<\/a>
\n[CDR] technologies, to hit our 2045 goal. These young, expensive
\ntechnologies may or may not work. Preventing the emissions in the
\nfirst place would be much more reliable.<\/p>\n
\n<<<<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nactivists determined that reservations won’t be left out <\/strong>of
\nthe energy revolution.
\nListen to Cool Solutions. https:\/\/coolsolutions.libsyn.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\ntidal energy facility in Nova Scotia bodes well<\/strong> for the rest of
\nus coastal dwellers. https:\/\/theenergymix.com\/2022\/05\/17\/floating-tidal-project-linked-to-nova-scotia-grid-in-canadian-first\/?utm<\/a><\/p>\n
\nextraction of lithium exacts a heavy toll.<\/strong> How can we do this
\nbetter? https:\/\/capitalandmain.com\/will-lithium-save-the-imperial-valley<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhits 100% clean, renewable energy<\/strong>–for
\n15 minutes! Go, California! https:\/\/electrek.co\/2022\/05\/02\/california-runs-on-100-clean-energy-for-the-first-time-with-solar-dominating\/<\/a><\/p>\n