Ned Forsyth
North Group Chair

The City of Eureka's Waterfront Drive extension proposal was rebuffed by the California Coastal Commission recently. Executive Director Peter Douglas said in a letter to City Manager Mike Tyson, "we respectfully urge the city not to expend any additional public resources in pursuit of it." According to local media reports, however, City staff will continue to study the project and alternatives to it, using existing grant funding.

In Del Norte County, Sierra Club is an amicus on the side of the federal agencies in a lawsuit being brought Pacific Shores property owners, who are seeking to establish breaching levels of Lake Earl at levels far below adequate for a healthy ecosystem.

Members' efforts to achieve proper land-use planning along the banks of the Smith River continue. A recent hike along the Smith served to highlight some abuses.

Elk Valley Rancheria is planning to build a large casino-hotel-restaurant complex on the 200-acre Martin Ranch property near Crescent City. After initial negative comments, the original plan for an 18-hole golf course, destroying or impairing 8 acres of wetlands, was dropped. The comment period for the draft EIS ended November 28.

Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District's new Humboldt Bay Management Plan is moving through the CEQA process. Bay advocates have long been concerned that the District overemphasizes industrial development, shipping, and other "traditional" revenue-generating ideas, as exemplified in the recent $370,000 "Harbor Revitalization Plan."

At the September 2005 Coastal Commission meeting in Eureka, Sierra Club members, Humboldt Surfriders, EPIC, and others were successful in stopping a proposed low-cost dredge-spoils dumping operation in the surf zone on Samoa Peninsula. After hearing testimony, the Commission ordered more testing of sediments for dioxins before proceeding. Environmentalists want these dredge spoils to be transported to the so-called Humboldt Open Ocean Disposal Site, or HOODS.

The North Group is a Charter Member of the new Humboldt Bay Trails Trust.

In September, a majority of Humboldt County supervisors directed the County Department of Public works to develop an implementation plan for Option 3 of the Draft Clam and Moonstone Beach Management Plan, the compromise option that would close (with a very few exceptions) Clam Beach to motor vehicles from March through September. Your letters to the supervisors made all the difference! We must continue to keep the pressure on, because the motorheads will not give up easily. But we are encouraged.

The new Clam Beach Management Plan went before the Board of Supervisors in September, who sent the plan back to Public Works for "more revisions," after failing to adopt County staff's compromise proposal to close the beach to vehicles during the summer snowy plover nesting season.

The North Group Outings program continues to offer a wide array of choices.

Do plan to attend a North Group ExCom meeting in Eureka soon. Your help is needed!