In January, the coastal California town of Moss Landing witnessed the most destructive battery fire in U.S. history. Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed SB 283, a law designed to prevent a repeat of the disaster by strengthening statewide fire safety standards for grid battery installations.Batteries have become an integral part of California’s push to clean up its electricity system. But the Moss Landing conflagration jolted the state as it burned for several days, provoked evacuations of surrounding communities, and destroyed an old power-plant hall that electricity company Vistra had packed full of lithium-ion batteries in 2020. That disaster has since become a symbol of the apparent risks of adopting large-scale batteries, popping up in conversations about proposed battery projects around the country.In the years since Moss Landing came online, though, the grid battery industry has moved on from that type of design. These days, most every project places batteries in individual containers spaced out across an open field, which minimizes the chances of a fire spreading between them.Even with those advances in grid battery designs, state Sen. John Laird saw an opportunity to tighten state requirements in light of what happened in January, and he authored SB 283 to do just that. The state enhanced battery safety rules in response to the Moss Landing fire. The industry is on board, hoping better standards will reassure the public.Keep Reading
"Sharktober?” my friend asked. I’d just told him about this column I’m writing.“Yes, Sharktober,” I repeated.“Shark … tober?” he said again, drawing the syllables out as if to ensure he was saying the word properly.“Yes!” I confirmed once more.We stared at each other for a moment, then it dawned on me: He doesn’t know about Sharktober.I shall now state the obvious: Sharktober is a mashing together of the words “shark” and “October,” and a term that came about because West Coast shark encounters are more likely in late summer and fall. This is borne out by Shark Research Committee statistics, which note a dramatic uptick in attacks during August, September and October — 63 percent of recorded occurrences happened during those months.Now you know.Another friend recently reminisced, after reading last week’s column on Scott Stephens (“Sharktober Part 2,” Oct. 12), how after the attack, a dude had been hanging out in the hospital parking lot trying to sneak in a six-pack of Great White beer to give to Scott. You’d be forgiven for thinking, “Wow, what poor taste,” but surfers are kind of sick in the head — again, I state the obvious — and Northern Californian surfers especially so. It’s not exactly sane behavior to tug a thick neoprene skin over your bare ass on a beach shrouded in fog just so you can go paddle out into cold water and big waves.Which brings me back to gallows humor. We know cracking jokes about stressful or scary situations helps us poor humans cope with such things. So it’s no surprise when Sharktober rolls around and, even as everyone is tensed up over the increased likelihood of an attack, the humor ramps up along with the swell. In addition to other cute nicknames, like “the man in the gray suit,” great white sharks are known as “the landlord” and to get hit by one equates to “paying the rent.” Because most of us, regardless of where we were born and as comfortable as we might be in the water, understand that we will never be the true locals in the ocean. That designation belongs to the dolphins, seals, sea lions, sharks and all the creatures to whom the ocean truly belongs. (For the record, I find sea lions very scary and have been stink-eyed out of the water by them more than once and, also, they can run faster than us on land.)Keep Reading
Lighting regulations for unincorporated portions of the county were approved by the board of supervisors in a 3-2 vote on Aug. 19.Now covering inland areas, the guidelines were influenced by recommendations from DarkSky International, an advocacy group dedicated to combating light pollution. An accompanying coastal version still needs approval from the California Coastal Commission to go into effect.Under the dark sky ordinance, new exterior lights in residential areas can be a maximum of 1100 lumens — a brightness measure equivalent to a 75-watt bulb — and 3200 lumens in commercial zones. It also adds restrictions on light spillage onto other properties and motion sensor lights.Sylvia van Royen, Humboldt Waterkeeper’s GIS and policy analyst, created a map on the spread of light pollution in Humboldt County and documented that Eureka’s reaches 24 miles off the coast from its brightest point. Each population area in the region creates its own cascading emanations, she says, resulting in the fragmentation of natural environments — including national forests — that can confuse wildlife.“They kind of make this connected blob of sky glows,” van Royen said. “If you think about it, if you were a bird and you were trying to fly through the dark areas, now those are disconnected from each other. And they have to fly through this, but then, when they fly through the brighter light, they might get disoriented.”Van Royen has been combing through studies on light pollution to help educate local residents on the importance of regulating the brightness and temperature of lighting, with Humboldt Waterkeeper collaborating with DarkSky International and area businesses to get the word out about their findings.“Because it can disrupt our circadian rhythms, it kind of throws off our natural cycles of when we’re eating and sleeping,” van Royen said. “And that can have an effect on our health by contributing to insomnia, depression, obesity, we can lose our night vision.”When a person is looking at a bright light, she says, it is more difficult to see things outside of the light’s range. In situations like construction work happening at night, this can have dangerous consequences, van Royen says, pointing to case studies where DarkSky International collaborated with projects around the world to mitigate the effects.Read the Article
The Trump administration may be doing its darnedest to kneecap the nation’s burgeoning offshore wind industry, but California remains bullish on the renewable energy sector.On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission (CEC) awarded an $18,250,000 grant to the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District to advance the design of the district’s planned Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal.That represents just a drop in the fiscal bucket compared to the $435 million in federal funding that the feds recently yanked away from the Harbor District, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy suggesting that money should instead go towards “revitalizing America’s maritime industry.”But Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelsen recently told the Outpost that the agency is moving “full speed ahead” on plans to develop a new industrial terminal on the Samoa Peninsula designed specifically to facilitate development of floating offshore wind projects.This latest CEC grant, which was first announced in March but not officially awarded until this week, is part of the commission’s Waterfront Facility Improvement Program.“These funds will advance the Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project through expanded technical studies, further examination of mitigation measures for community and environmental impacts, and expands our robust community engagement, ensuring equitable development of the terminal project,” Mikkelsen said in an email to the Outpost.Read More
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors today took a stand against offshore oil drilling and deep sea mining, though it was hardly unanimous.Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson brought forward a draft resolution to the board for approval. In introducing it he argued that it’s important to reiterate opposition to these disruptive and polluting industries given President Donald Trump’s recent signing of an executive order to expand offshore oil drilling.As noted in yesterday’s meeting preview, former President Joe Biden withdrew 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development, effectively banning new drilling along U.S. coastlines. However, Trump’s order repealed that move, and U.S. District Court Judge James Cain later ruled that the Biden administration had exceeded its authority.Wilson noted that Humboldt County has previously taken a stand against offshore oil drilling and deep sea mining. He asked his colleagues to reiterate that position and to join like-minded local governments in an endeavor called “the Local Government Outer Continental Shelf Coordination Program and Coalition,” which aims to streamline engagement with the federal government.Wilson said the resolution “speaks for itself,” but First District Supervisor Rex Bohn questioned the need for such a measure.“There hasn’t been anything done in over 50 years off the coast, right?” he said. (Wilson countered that there are still active derricks down south.) Bohn went on to address offshore wind development, questioning whether fastening cables to the ocean floor would be contrary to any stance against seabed mining. Wilson said they’re “pretty different technologies,” noting that mining is extractive, but Bohn remained skeptical.Read More
