The California Coastal Commission is set to hear the City of Eureka’s request to formally toss an abandoned plan to rezone the Balloon Track — the plan that once aimed for the property to become the Home Depot-anchored Marina Center development.In a report, Commission staff recommended the body that regulates land use along the coast finally deny the 2011-era application that would have amended the city’s local coastal plan.The effort, which Eureka voters supported in a 2010 ballot measure, would have rezoned the 43-acre property to support commercial, office, residential and open space uses.But it sat lingering at the Commission, which must approve zoning changes in the coastal area before they can take effect, for nearly 13 years, with the official status sitting at “incomplete and inactive.”The city hopes that if the application is officially denied next week, the path would clear for future planning of the site which hasn’t been in use since the 1980s.The Eureka City Council, with support from property owner Security National, voted to withdraw the Coastal Commission application back in November. Commission staff instead are recommending that it be officially denied, for procedural purposes. The Commission says the proposed changes don’t meet requirements in the Coastal Act.Keep Reading
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced a step toward leasing areas for offshore oil and gas drilling in California this week, by launching an associated environmental process.BOEM announced Thursday the department would prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for lease sales in northern, central and southern California.A soon-to-be-released statement will primarily concern sales planned for 2027 in central and southern California, according to BOEM.A Northern California lease sale is proposed for 2029, according to a BOEM document.This is a California-specific part of a broader effort by the Trump Administration to open lease areas in federal waters across the country for sale to oil and gas companies, with an aim to restore domestic energy production.The notice for leases in southern and central California will be published Friday in the Federal Register, which opens a 30-day public scoping period, according to BOEM.During this period, “BOEM invites input from tribal, state, and local governments, stakeholders, and the public. Comments will help identify key issues, reasonable alternatives, and potential mitigation measures for consideration in the programmatic environmental impact statement,” the BOEM press release said.Matt Simmons, attorney for the Arcata-based Environmental Protection Information Center, which is opposed to offshore drilling, argued any environmental considerations by the federal government on drilling will be “sorely lacking.”“The Trump EPA has very partisanly and very openly talked about how they want to deregulate,” he said.Despite EPIC’s skepticism the feds will undertake a robust environmental review, the organization is urging the public to comment on the environmental effects of offshore drilling in California.“This is the part of the process where you tell the EPA what they need to consider in their draft, before they write the draft,” explained Simmons.Public comment information can be found at: www.boem.gov/CA-OGPEISRead More
Seven years after publicly announcing plans for a huge land-based fish production facility on the Samoa Peninsula, Nordic Aquafarms quietly abandoned the project altogether.Last month, Nordic CEO Charles Hostlund submitted paperwork to formally dissolve the company’s California-based affiliate. The move came almost exactly a year after Nordic Aquafarms dropped plans for a similar fish factory in Belfast, Maine.Reached via email, Humboldt Bay Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelsen confirmed that the company has bailed on Humboldt County.“We are aware that Nordic no longer intends to pursue a project on the Samoa Peninsula and are working with Nordic and the County for the orderly wind-down of the project,” Mikkelsen wrote in a reply email.Keep Reading
EPA, Trump announced ‘the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,’ eliminating legal underpinnings for greenhouse gas emissions standards This week, the Trump administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that they would eliminate what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin characterized as “the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion.’” In a press conference Thursday, Zeldin and President Trump announced that they would eliminate “both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond,” a move they characterized as “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”That 2009 Endangerment Finding is a scientific determination about the hazardousness of greenhouse gas emissions. It has undergirded the legal framework for the U.S.’s climate policy and the ways in which the federal government has regulated greenhouse gas emissions from — and established emissions standards for — vehicles and fossil fuel companies since 2010 under the EPA’s authority established in the Clean Air Act.North Coast leaders respond“At its most basic level, this decision by the Trump administration is an attempt to (greenhouse) gaslight the public on the dangers imposed by climate change,” Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa) told the Times-Standard by email midday Friday. “Eliminating the endangerment finding reverses years of hard-earned progress — based on science — at a time when we are already teetering on the point of no return. This is yet another Trump policy meant to line the pockets of his friends and family members, while pushing the costs of fires, floods, and other climate disasters onto the public.”Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who serves as the Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, issued a statement condemning the elimination of the finding.Huffman called the decision “a bailout for Big Oil billionaires, plain and simple” and said that “Trump’s proven he’ll sell out our clean air and with it, every American, if the price is right for Big Oil.”“While families are losing their homes to wildfires, burying loved ones after catastrophic storms and watching their insurance premiums explode, the Trump administration is giving billionaire polluters a free pass to make it all worse,” Huffman’s statement reads. “Their answer is to rip up one of our most fundamental protections against climate pollution just so Big Oil can keep profiting while the planet burns.“The fossil fuel industry spent decades lying to the public, dodging accountability, and dumping the cost of climate destruction onto taxpayers. Now they’re being rewarded with a full repeal of the Endangerment Finding. Every court that reviewed this protection upheld it. The science is beyond dispute. But none of that matters to Trump when his donors come calling.”Huffman statement continues: “This will mean dirtier air, higher health care costs, higher energy costs, and undoubtedly cost American lives. It’s corruption. It’s cowardice. And it’s a betrayal of every American family who deserves clean air, a livable future and a government that doesn’t bow to oil tycoons.“There will be accountability for the climate crisis that was caused, covered up and dramatically worsened by Big Oil. But that imperative now falls to the courts, litigants, states and members of Congress with the integrity to put the interests of the public and the planet above Big Oil’s bottom line.”Keep Reading
Following a federal proposal to open oil and gas drilling along California’s coastline, an ordinance is in the works to prohibit using Humboldt County harbor district land to support the endeavor.The proposed ordinance prevents the use of property owned by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District for storing, handling or staging oil or gas produced by offshore drilling.“It’s in reaction to announcements to open federal waters to offshore oil drilling, which the harbor district has no jurisdiction over. But we do have jurisdiction over activities within the bay,” and district-owned property, said Commissioner Stephen Kullmann.The measure is the latest move in a push by local governments in opposition to a drilling plan unveiled late last year. The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors and Arcata’s City Council have each decried the proposal, a draft of which plans for one lease area off the coast of Northern California.Kullmann said the ordinance is solely intended to prevent using harbor district property for offshore drilling, particularly as the district plans for an offshore wind heavy lift marine terminal in Humboldt Bay, which could be used by fossil fuel companies.In a meeting Thursday evening, the ordinance was ultimately unanimously continued to an undetermined future date.Humboldt County is working on an onshore facilities ordinance that would limit these activities, with plans to later embed it as a zoning change in the coastal plan. Harbor officials did not want to hinder the effort, said Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelsen. Staff were directed to coordinate with the county.Commissioners emphasized Thursday that Ordinance No. 21 would not apply to the fueling facility in the bay or businesses that handle oil in day-to-day operations.Keep Reading
