The Eureka City Council took steps toward preventing offshore drilling support from being located in Eureka on Tuesday night, directing staff to come back with a resolution and work on changes to the local coastal program update.City Manager Miles Slattery explained that “What staff is recommending, and wanting to get direction upon from council on is to, in the interim, do …. what the Humboldt County has done … bring a resolution back for council’s consideration about the opposition for offshore oil drilling, and then incorporate into our ongoing update to our local coastal program some amendments to the coastal dependent industrial zoning district to prohibit those types of uses in those in that zoning district.”He added that changes to the local coastal program would allow the city to regulate access to the port. He noted that staff aims to have proposed changes to the council by the end of the year.“We plan on getting it to the planning commission, likely sometime this summer, and then go through that process and bring it to council, and then after that, it needs to go to the Coastal Commission for certification,” Slattery said.Public comment was primarily supportive of the city’s efforts to prevent offshore drilling infrastructure from accessing city property.“The first Earth Day was celebrated after an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that destroyed ecosystems and communities and beaches for many years afterward,” said Matt Simmons, an attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center, based in Arcata.“And so the fact that there’s this big federal push now to restart offshore oil drilling off the coast of California, starting south of us, but including Northern California, is truly terrifying.” He noted that EPIC supports both the resolution and changes to the local coastal program.“One thing I wanted to add is that while we were talking about the local coastal program and potential extractive industries, that we should be on the lookout for another industry that the current federal administration is supporting, (which) is offshore mining,” he said. So this is where you take minerals out of the deep sea, you scoop them up and you bring them back to shore, and then you have to dump all the stuff that you dredged off of the bottom of the ocean floor and sift out the little tiny bits of precious metal that you find there. They have proposed projects in Guam and Alaska, but there are precious metal sulfide deposits off the coast of California as well.”Jennifer Kalt with Humboldt Waterkeeper offered similar thoughts.“What you have control over is those onshore support facilities within the city of Eureka,” she said. “And so we strongly support both the resolution and moving forward with the LCP update and working with the Coastal Commission, which is working with other jurisdictions, including Humboldt County, to do the same thing.”Councilmember Kati Moulton added that many in the county oppose any offshore drilling efforts.“I attended the meeting on Jan. 18 at the Wharfinger building with groups like EPIC and Humboldt Waterkeeper, and it was standing room only. It drew a crowd from across the county. It got our congressman here to talk about it, and there was widespread opposition to offshore drilling in general, but especially here on our pristine North Coast,” Moulton said. She drew on her personal experience.Keep Reading
