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2/23/15

Federal biologists will study whether more critical habitat could benefit an endangered group of killer whales that roams the ocean off the Pacific Northwest, from Puget Sound down to northern California.

Wildlife conservation advocates last year petitioned NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Service, seeking critical habitat designation for the whales’ winter foraging range off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California. Documents related to the process are compiled here.

The original critical habitat designation covers about 2,500 square miles in Puget Sound, but new research shows the importance of the winter feeding areas in offshore areas.

Currently, only 81 killer whales remain in the Southern Resident population.

“Killer whales are at a crossroads, and protecting their foraging habitat along the West Coast will be essential to their recovery,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The whales travel extensively along the West Coast during the winter and early spring, regularly congregating near coastal rivers to feed on migrating salmon. The Center’s petition sought to protect these areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California as critical habitat.

“Killer whales need new habitat protections to prevent ocean pollution and noise that can interfere with their ability to locate prey. While the Fisheries Service’s announcement is an important step forward, time is of the essence, and those new habitat protections are needed now,” said Sakashita.

Human activities in and near coastal waters threaten these whales by reducing salmon numbers, generating toxic pollution and increasing ocean noise, which disrupts the orcas’ ability to communicate and locate prey.

Critical habitat designations prevent the federal government from undertaking or approving activities that reduce an area’s ability to support an endangered species. Studies show that species with designated critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be recovering as those without it.

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2/24/15

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors completed straw voting on the last remaining policies as part of the continuing General Plan Update process Monday, with the final items addressing issues relating to water resources and open space.

While completing the policy review portion of the process, the board still has to review several other sections of the General Plan, including the draft environmental impact statement and land use maps. The board is currently scheduled to finish the General Plan Update in late 2016.

The board began Monday’s meeting by revisiting the previously discussed topic of community separation.

The topic is defined in the draft General Plan as “open space areas between urban development areas that separate and preserve unique identities of the county’s cities and communities.”

The board straw voted on a set of policies, standards and a goal relating to community separation, with one of the standards identifying where the community separation areas are located. Two areas made the list after the vote — the McKay Tract Community Forest and forested hillside area in the McKinleyville Community Plan, which separates McKinleyville from the Fieldbrook-Glendale area. Many attendees, along with 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace, wanted the open space area between Eureka and Arcata to also be included.

“While I appreciate that there is language that will help to implement that portion of the McKinleyville Community Plan, it’s not adding anything additional in other places where I have heard concerns from the community,” Lovelace said. “I think there is a lot more included in that concept than the two pieces that we’re talking about here.”

Fifth District Supervisor Ryan Sundberg said that excluding that area from the list will not cause it to be “zoned in such a way where you can’t tell when you go from one place to another.”

“We do not have this massive building and growth in Humboldt County. I think we lost people in the last census,” Sundberg said. “... It’s not a problem. We’re trying to fix problems that aren’t problems. I think that’s the fundamental difference between the two sides of this debate.”

Tina Christensen of the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights said that several structures in the area between Eureka and Arcata have a substandard water supply, and that the designation would hinder development to fix that issue.

“If there is a house on it, that house has a right to be there,” she said.

Sundberg said the designation of an area does not stop development.

“Community separator zones makes it so you have to conform to certain criteria, which makes it harder and more expensive. It doesn’t stop it though,” he said.

Others like Northcoast Environmental Center Executive Director Dan Ehresman said that he supports 2nd District Supervisor and board Chairwoman Estelle Fennell’s idea of allowing community members to weigh in on the topic at the upcoming land use mapping meetings.

“It is an incremental conversion of our open space land between our communities that I think is the problem,” Ehresman said. “I think it’s only fair to allow those community members to weigh in on that again.”

The board straw voted 4-1 — with Lovelace dissenting — to approve the standard with only the McKay Community Forest and McKinleyville forested hill being included on the community separation area list. Sundberg said that he is open to discussing whether there are more community separators that should be added.

“I don’t see this as being locked in, where we can’t change it at the end,” he said.

Community members will be able to address community separators at the upcoming mapping meetings starting in April.

The board also straw voted unanimously to approve a Water Resources Element implementation measure that calls for the board to “(p)repare an ordinance to provide enforcement capabilities for unpermitted development within critical watershed areas if the development impacts water resources” and “(w) ork with the State Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Game to address illegal water diversions and over-subscribed water right allocations.”

The original language, as recommended by the county planning commission, called for the ordinance to “provide increased enforcement capabilities,” but some supervisors had concerns that the word increased would call for more staffing and thus exceed the county’s financial capabilities.

Blue Lake resident Kent Sawatzky said he was “dismayed” at the recommendation, stating that the county has repeatedly expressed its concern over unpermitted development and its impacts on watersheds.

“Now we’re not willing to put any teeth into water at all,” he said.

Sundberg disagreed, stating that the change allows staff to determine what is feasible and what is not.

“I don’t think it’s taking teeth out of anything,” he said. “We’ve provided that latitude with the changes here.”

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Two proposals for expanding shellfish production in North Humboldt Bay are currently under review by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation, and Conservation District, which is serving as Lead Agency for environmental review.

Both projects will require permits from the California Coastal Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, and Regional Water Quality Control Board. Resources agencies will also weigh in, including the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and National Marine Fisheries Service. State and federal agencies have No Net Loss policies for eelgrass due to its importance to many species of fish and wildlife. 

Eelgrass is also thought to buffer the effects of ocean acidification, which lowers pH during upwelling events, interfering with marine organisms’ ability to form shells. Indeed, low pH of sea water has been causing major problems for oyster producers in Washington and Oregon for years.

Coast Seafoods Permit Renewal and Expansion Project: Coast Seafoods, the largest oyster grower in Humboldt Bay, is proposing to expand its footprint from 296 acres to 910 acres. The Initial Study seeks input on environmental impacts that need to be addressed in the CEQA process. Comments are due Feb. 23 Feb. 27. The Initial Study is available HERE.
 

The Mariculture Expansion Pre-Permitting Project: The Harbor District proposes to add 550 acres of production, primarily for oysters, but also for edible seaweed and Manila clams. The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) is also out for public review and comment, and is posted HERE.

A public hearing will be held on March 4 at the Harbor District conference room on Woodley Island. Written comments are due March 12.

Humboldt Baykeeper and the Northcoast Environmental Center are reviewing these proposals and will comment on the need to avoid or mitigate impacts to eelgrass, shorebirds, migratory waterfowl such as black brant, recreation, and cumulative effects of both proposed projects.

2/14/15



Harbor commissioners voted at a packed Thursday night meeting to allow a mining corporation three months to further pursue leasing a location at the Samoa pulp mill site.



The US Mine Corporation originally proposed a six-month exclusive right to negotiate with the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District for some of the facilities at the pulp mill site, but after a rush of responses and concerns raised by a maximum-capacity crowd at the meeting the commissioners decided on a compromise.



“We thought it would be more appropriate to do three months, and then we could either move forward or move on,” Commissioner Richard Marks said.



Commissioners Aaron Newman, Mike Wilson, Patrick Higgins and Marks voted 4-0 in favor of giving US Mine a three-month exclusive negotiation period in exchange for $5,000. Commissioner Greg Dale was absent.



The period will be an opportunity for US Mine to put together more specific details when it comes to the corporation’s potential plan for an ore extraction facility and the process, Marks said. 


The corporation hopes to lease buildings and some yard space at the old pulp mill site, ship ore from mines up and down the West Coast, extract the precious metals inside the buildings and make precast cement products with what’s left of the ore combined with other aggregate, US Mine Corp general manager Guy Reed said at the meeting.

The proposal stirred community concerns, with those present inquiring about the chemicals used during the process, the potential for air, land and water pollution, as well as compatibility with other industries who already are or could potentially lease the site instead of or along with the mining corporation.

“It really concerns me to have this type of corporation come in,” Brenna Schlagenhauf of Hog Island Oyster Company said. “I just really question what the compatibility is with growing food and a very strong fishing industry in an area ... to have a company that is looking at using chemicals and using toxins.”

Schlagenhauf is also concerned about the $5,000 investment, which several speakers referred to as “a drop in the bucket” tying up the right to negotiate.

Many members of the public also questioned the logic of bringing industrial gold processing to a peninsula that the harbor district just spent the past two years cleaning up.

Reed and US Mine Corp President and CEO Scott Docktor said they were unable to answer all of the specific questions with the resources at hand.

Many of the concerns raised Thursday stemmed from a lack of information, Reed said in an interview after the meeting. For example, a common concern raised by community members was that cyanide would be brought to the bayside site. However, while cyanide is one way to extract gold from ore, it’s not the only option.

“We haven’t decide on that particular process,” Reed said. “Let’s just say that if that ends up being a deal-breaker, there are other options for us.”

While the US Mine Corporation “believes that the cyanide process that we are proposing is quite safe,” because of the modern equipment and methods used, the corporation could avoid using cyanide at the pulp mill site, he said.

Instead, they could process the ore to the point where the gold is contained in concentrate and then transport it to a different location to finish the process, Reed said.

This would allow them to reduce the weight of the ore to one percent to five percent of the total tonnage brought into Eureka by ship, he said.

The amount of ore that the company hopes to bring into the harbor each year is about 100,000 tons, Reed said. It’s also estimated that the mining operation would bring 30 to 50 jobs to the area.

The three-month period will be sufficient time for US Mine Corp officials to weigh their options and enter negotiations with the California Coastal Commission and the many other agencies that they will have to work with during the process, Reed said.

Three months from now the harbor district will also know a lot more and be better suited to make a decision, district Executive Director Jack Crider said.

“They have lots of different options and I think that the three-month period will give them a chance to vet out some of those options and see if we can craft it into some sort of lease,” Crider said.

In the meantime, Crider plans to do additional research and visit a similar facility so he can see the plan in action.

“We need to understand the type of chemicals they would bring on site, the volumes of the chemical they would bring on site — how the process actually works,” Crider said.

Local consulting attorney Ralph Faust said that while he sympathized with the harbor district in regard to the need for tenants and the economic benefit that the applicants would provide, he doubted that the project would be able to overcome many hurdles, including the California Coastal Act.

“The question you have to face, and the sooner the better, is ‘Is there any likelihood at the end of the day that this an approvable project?’” he said.

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