Here along the rugged North Coast of California, there’s little to suggest that Humboldt Bay, with its eelgrass, oysters and osprey nests, will soon become a launchpad for one of the most ambitious clean energy projects in state history: a hub for floating offshore wind.The plan is for major private players to erect hundreds of wind turbines in the bay — each rising as high as L.A.’s tallest skyscrapers — then tow them out to the ocean.Some experts believe the wind project is critical to California’s goal of 100% carbon neutrality by 2045 and represents a key climate change solution. The state has a target of 25 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by that year — enough to power about 25 million homes — and nearly all of it would come from five lease areas in federal waters near Humboldt and Morro bays.Yet the technology for wind power that floats — as opposed to standard towers permanently attached to the sea floor — is just emerging, and has never been attempted in waters as deep as the Pacific off Northern California.It will require innovative engineering even as the state contends with objections from local residents and a federal administration strikingly hostile to offshore wind. President Trump canceled nearly half-a-billion dollars in federal funds for Humboldt Bay’s port project, and has repeatedly tried to block wind projects along the East Coast.The project is still in its early stages, so most of the action is with the Humboldt Bay Harbor District, which must transform its historic logging port before any work begins out on the ocean.The plans for the terminal include new wharves, cranes and barges for the assembly of hundreds of wind turbines. Some locals say they’re worried about how the project will transform the area and its fragile estuary.California must also contend with a federal government antagonistic toward offshore wind. The Trump administration last year canceled nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for Humboldt Bay’s port project, describing offshore wind as “doomed.”Funding remains a concern. Local officials will have to replace the loss of $427 million in federal grants. A California climate bond approved by voters in 2024 carved out $475 million for offshore wind development, but there is stiff competition for that money.Private investors could be hesitant to put billions into an industry that relies so heavily on the whims of whomever is in the White House, said Arne Jacobson, director of the Schatz Energy Research Center at California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt.“It needs to be a partnership between the state, the federal government and the private sector to be able to do those kinds of projects,” Jacobson said. “And if one of those three doesn’t want to do it, it’s not here.”Humboldt Bay and the neighboring town of Eureka are home to aquaculture businesses, fisheries, environmental justice organizations, local tribes and many other residents and stakeholders whose opinions on the project differ.A recent survey from Oregon State University and the Schatz Energy Research Center found 37% of Humboldt residents in favor of offshore wind, 44% unsure and 19% opposed.Eureka has a long history of boom-and-bust cycles — ranging from gold to lumber to marijuana — and some communities are still reeling from the fallout from those industries.“There are a lot of people who say we are going to be the sacrifice zone again,” said Jennifer Kalt, executive director of the Humboldt Bay Waterkeeper, an environmental nonprofit. “This whole community is dealing with the ramifications of what was left behind from all that mess.”A draft environmental report is expected next year, and it will include plans to address potential harm to the ecosystem. Kalt worries some species, such as the eelgrass, will be destroyed by the regular dredging required to maintain a water depth of 40 feet to accommodate the ships for the new terminal.The biggest immediate impact is likely to fall on the approximately 300 residents of Samoa, a town that sits on the tiny spit of land that protects the bay. The windswept community is home to historic mill houses and a new low-income housing complex right next to where the turbine components will be stacked and assembled.The 1,000-foot turbines will tower over these homes as they are being erected. Some locals worry about noise, light and air pollution during what could be a decade of construction.Keep Reading
On January 10, 1854, a Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal Company was incorporated for the purpose of taking the Water of Mad River in a Canal in order to open a communication between Mad River and a certain Slough well known to the Subscribers & leading into Humboldt Bay for the purpose of floating timber from Mad River into Humboldt Bay & for such other purposes as the same may be deemed practicable and profitable.By December of the same year the proposed canal was completed, and at that time it was thought that “the canal will take almost the entire stream and as there is considerable fall along the line it will become the permanent bed.”Curiously enough, no contemporary account of the construction or description of the canal could be found, albeit with the aid of an extant map of the times, plus some later descriptions, a composite approximation is feasible. As was the case with the proposed Eel River canal, the area where the river and the bay were separated by the shortest distance was chosen for the site, the declared intent of the builders being to divert the Mad River via the canal and a “certain Slough well known to the Subscribers and leading into Humboldt.”The slough in question was the present day Mad River Slough, the northwesternmost of the bay sloughs, which at its extremity came to within approximately one half mile of the Mad River at a location nearly one mile upstream from where it flowed into the ocean. We can find no reliable information on the dimensions of the canal, and can only speculate that given the intended purpose of floating logs and the relatively low capitalization a rather shallow (say six feet at the most) and narrow (perhaps double its depth, or twelve feet) would seem reasonable.Originally printed in the March-April 1986 and May-June 1986 issues of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society.Keep Reading
It’s been a difficult start to the year in our corner of far Northern California, with record tidal flooding that inundated more than 40 homes in King Salmon Jan. 4-6, the same weekend as the fire in downtown Arcata. Just over a year prior on Dec. 5, 2024, our community experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake and tsunami warning — a stark reminder of the seismic risks our region faces. To the east, huge wildfires return almost annually, with the August Complex and Slater fires in 2020 burning through communities in Trinity and Siskiyou counties, killing three people and destroying hundreds of homes.While our geographic location has always placed us at risk of disasters, climate change will only make things worse, bringing sea-level rise and increased coastal flooding, wildfires of larger size and severity, and greater potential for extreme weather events.We are two faculty members from Cal Poly Humboldt who research community aspects of natural resource issues. Because of recent events, we have been documenting how disaster response and recovery does and does not work in our region. We hope to share some of what we have learned here.The general public may assume that after a disaster the government will provide relief and support. We might imagine that after a disaster teams of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers flock to a site to assist and Congress grants millions or billions of dollars to support recovery. The truth is that federal or state assistance following a disaster is rare in our region. Federal and state emergency declarations require that the disaster meet certain thresholds, often related to the financial costs of damage. Due to our rural location and comparatively lower property values, these thresholds, particularly at the federal level, are difficult to meet. If there is no emergency declaration, then the individual and public assistance programs offered by FEMA are not available to survivors.For example, the 2022 Rio Dell earthquake that severely damaged 25 percent of the city’s housing stock and caused $35 million in damage to the county did not meet the threshold for a federal declaration. Because housing and communities are so remote and dispersed in many of the wildfire-impacted communities in our region, very few fires meet FEMA’s threshold for assistance. The 2017 Helena Fire in Trinity County burned 72 homes in the town of Junction City, but was not declared a disaster. Federal thresholds would have required more than 400 homes to burn.Keep Reading
The truckloads of dirt just kept coming. Day after day, neighbors watched as one semi-truck after another came chugging up Humboldt Hill hauling open-top trailers loaded with soil. The drivers would downshift as their rigs crested the hill, groaned past the McMansions along London Drive and navigated the little dogleg-right onto Blue Spruce Drive.After a few months, Humboldt County’s code enforcement office started receiving complaints about this activity.“For the past two weeks my neighbors and I have observed between 400 and 500 full size dump trucks (from many different companies including Zabel, Kernan and many others) travel down London Avenue and deposit their load at the end of Blue Tree Ct.,” says a Sept. 15, 2025, complaint, which the Outpost obtained through a Public Records Act request. “I just want to be sure that if permits for a massive project like this were required, that they were obtained.”Permits were required, as it turned out, but had not been obtained.The following week, Code Enforcement Investigator Sara Quenell emailed her boss, Chief Building Official Keith Ingersoll.“I just spoke with a neighbor who is concerned about what she said is ‘hundreds’ of dump trucks taking loads of fill to the end of Blue Spruce Drive, Eureka,” Quenell wrote. (Blue Spruce Drive and Blue Tree Court often get mixed up. The latter is only a few hundred feet long, and the three newly built houses on Blue Tree Court all have Blue Spruce Drive addresses.)Keep Reading https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2026/mar/20/duncan-property-grading-permit-wiyot/
“Light pollution can actually impact wildlife's entire life cycles because it can disrupt hormonal balances. And that has this like cascading effect into their sleep cycles. Their reproduction cycles, etc.. And light pollution can impact a migratory birds ability to even undertake, migration along migration route,” said Sylvia van Royen GIS and Policy Analyst for Humboldt Waterkeeper.Humboldt Waterkeeper has been on the frontlines in the local movement to reduce light pollution. Lightbulb brightness and hue restrictions are important aspects of these policies.Van Royen says that an easy way to reduce light pollution on a personal level is to use motion detecting sensors and warm lighting 1100 lumens or less.Read more and watch the interview
