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Local News 08 24 26 · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:05
  Speaker B: Welcome to the KMUD News. I'm your news Director April Lewis and I'm glad to be with you for this broadcast. In this episode we have stories about a meeting in Eureka on the Potter Valley Project and Humboldt county is urged to drop potentially onerous draft low impact camping rolls. But first some local alerts and updates. This is KMUD. Starting off with road info from Caltrans. Roadworks along Highway 101 in Southern Humboldt are continuing, including ramp closures. Here's the latest info. The Avenue of the Giants south entrance northbound off ramp near Phillipsville will be closed from 6am to to 6pm on Tuesday, Aug. 25 and Wednesday, Aug. 26. The Wiatt southbound off ramp will be closed from 6am to 6pm beginning Wednesday, Aug. 26 until drainage work is complete. The Salmon Creek Road off ramps will be closed intermittently on Tuesday, August 25th. There is other road work, including current lane closures along this section of Highway 101. Expect some delays from the California Department of Public Health the California Department of Public Health is seeing the highest levels of West Nile virus activity in five years. As of August 14, they have reported 30 human cases of West Nile virus in California, including three fatalities from 13 counties. That is higher than the five year average number of human cases typically reported by this point in the year. Every year in the United States, West Nile virus activity typically increases across the country during the summer months into fall. According to the CDC, West Nile virus cases have been reported in numerous US states. In 2026, signs of West Nile virus activity have been detected in 32 California counties through surveillance of mosquitoes, dead birds, sentinel chickens and horses. The percentage of dead birds and mosquito samples testing positive are also above the five year average. To date, over 24% of dead birds identified through surveillance have tested positive compared to the five year average of 13%. Currently, eight out of 1,000 mosquitoes are testing positive for West Nile virus compared to the 5 year average of 5 out of 1000. West Nile Virus is influenced by many factors including climate, the number and types of birds and mosquitoes in an area, and the level of West Nile virus immunity in birds. Infected mosquitoes transmit West Nile virus to humans and animals through their bites. While the risk of serious illness for most people is low, some individuals can develop serious neurological diseases. Risk Factors include being 60 years of age and older, having diabetes, hypertension or chronic kidney disease, or being on medication that suppresses your immune system. People who take medications that weaken their immune system should talk with their doctor about their risk for serious illness from West Nile virus and take extra care from the Humboldt County Drug task force. On August 18th, Humboldt County Drug Task Force agents served a search warrant on on Javier Akim Ruiz Keyes and his residence in the 1700 block of Myrtle Avenue in Eureka along with a storage unit in Arcata register to Ruiz Keys. Agents detained Ruiz Keyes without incident and located a large amount of nitrous oxide whippets, approximately 12 and a half grams of cocaine, one gram of methamphetamine, 77 ecstasy pills, a digital scale, ammunition and a loaded stolen firearm. Agents then traveled to a storage unit in Arcata that was in Ruiz keys name and located 80 lorazepam and a firearm with the serial number removed. Ruiz Keyes was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility where he was booked on the following possession of a controlled substance while armed, possession of cocaine for sales, possession of cocaine, felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, committing a felony while on release from jail, buy and receiving stolen property, tampering with ID marks on a firearm and willful disobedience of court. Ruiz Keyes was also found to have an active felony warrant from the Trinity County Sheriff's Office. Upon further investigation, agents recovered evidence showing Ruiz Keyes actively involved in human trafficking, pimping and pandering of multiple victims throughout Humboldt County. Following this discovery, Ruiz Keyes was charged with the human trafficking, pimping and pandering from The Eureka Police Department today, August 24th at approximately 9:30am A Eureka Police Department officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle associated with Gordon Briggs, 46 years old, of Eureka, who was known to have an outstanding felony warrant. Briggs failed to yield to the traffic stop and fled from the area. Briggs drove southbound on Broadway at an excessive speed and made multiple attempts to evade pursuing officers. The pursuit continued until Briggs stopped in the area of the 900 block of Fernbridge Drive. He then fled the vehicle on foot. Officers pursued Briggs and took him into custody without further incident. During a search of the vehicle, officers located ammunition. Briggs was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility and booked for felony evading a peace officer, felony evasion while driving the wrong way, possession of ammunition by a prohibited person and an outstanding felony warrant from PGE Pacific Gas and Electric company is hosting an interactive virtual town hall for customers in the north coast region on Wednesday, Aug. 26 from 5:30 to 6:30pm to share updates on the wildfire safety work taking place in the north coast response to recent wildfire risk, local engagements and resources available to support customers during the virtual town hall. Customers will have the opportunity to ask questions, share feedback and connect with local PGE leaders, including North Coast Regional Vice President Dave Canney. The event can be accessed through PGE's website@PGE.com webinars to access American Sign Language interpretation of the event. Attendees can join through the online link and follow the instructions in the chat and up next Our main stories this is KMUD News. Initial review of a new county ordinance allowing property owners to host campsites has drawn some feedback on the degree of restrictions. Daniel Mintz reports.
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  Speaker C: Enabled by recent state law, Humboldt county is in the process of allowing paid camping on private properties, and early feedback discourages restrictions. The state law, AB518, significantly reduces the permitting costs of what's described as low impact camping. Counties can choose to draft ordinances allowing the use, and Humboldt County's planning commission began a review process with an Aug. 20 workshop. Public commenters and commissioners agreed that overregulation could defeat the purpose of making it easier to host camping. In a presentation to the commission, county planner Megan Acevedo described some of the requirements the county has in a draft version of an ordinance.
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  Speaker D: We considered property owner's residency in the July draft we had required the property owner to live on site. We also considered the property manager's availability. We also required that the property manager to live on site and be available on site 24 7. We've also added a limitation of only allowing up to 50% of sites to have RVs, and the reasoning for that was to ensure that this is low impact. We've also added a maximum occupancy of of six campers per campsite. We've also added the requirement for a Good Neighbor guide and this is to ensure neighborhood compatibility. We considered water source and requirements for that. We have campsite siting criteria.
• 9:43
  Speaker C: There's also a requirement that campsites must be within a pre existing disturbed area as of January 1, 2026, and if they're not, a biological study has to be done to see if a special permit is required. Generators are prohibited. Access roads have to be classified as at least category three. And in response to comments from the Garberville Fire Protection District, sites with fire pits have to be inspected and approved by the district. The county's Environmental Health Division is working with planning staff on allowing portable toilets. Commissioner Peggy o' Neill had doubts about the plethora of rules.
• 10:26
  Speaker E: You know you're not going to make a lot of money on these given that you can't have more than nine or, you know, maybe three or nine or whatever and you're charging 40 to $60 a night for them. So you can't put all these expensive requirements. These are just small scale operations to help a property owner or a business owner. Add just a little more money to the, you know, pay their property taxes basically is all you're going to get out of it.
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  Speaker C: Noting that Acevedo's presentation included a photo of a couple camping on the coast, Commissioner Todd Fulton questioned a cell phone service requirement, saying some of our most beautiful landscapes in Humboldt county, where people would come and want to do one of these campsites, have no service. Fulton also noted a requirement to pay hotel bed taxes on and described the biological study requirement as another form of taxing, adding that the over regulation of this entire thing is absurd. Similar feedback was given during a public comment period. Representatives of the county's Libertarian Party and Farm Bureau described the rules as onerous and burdensome and too costly to make hosting campsites viable. Other speakers advised against requiring property owners to live on site and described the rules as overreaching and arduous. Commissioners were receptive to the feedback, including Commissioner Noah Levy.
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  Speaker F: I do think that we just have to reconcile the fact that this is these are supposed to be pretty low impact operations. They're going to only bring a little bit of additional revenue, most likely at the scale that we're talking about. And I'd like to sort of air in this case, which was not my position going into the cannabis ordinance, that we that we really start with the kind of closer to the minimum regulations that we think may be needed and add them based on experience. The one place that I would be most concerned about a truly bad consequence of this, as you've noted, Director Ford is fired.
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  Speaker C: Planning Director John Ford had described the cell phone service requirement as important for reporting fires and Levy agreed, saying he's not so clear that I want to be as hands off about that as I probably would be about a number of other things. The workshop was continued to a date uncertain to allow staff to develop another draft version In Eureka for CAMUD News, this is Daniel Mentz.
• 13:07
  Speaker B: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as ferc, is holding two scoping sessions in Eureka on the proposed decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project. KMUD News reports the Potter Valley Project and its associated Scott and Cape Horn dams have been a contentious topic for years. In the past, these dams have helped with water diversions to Mendocino and Sonoma and with power production. However, the project is no longer economically feasible and fails to meet seismic standards. The Potter Valley Project is slated for removal. That process is ongoing and includes support from project owner PGE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as ferc. In recent months, two Southern California water municipalities, the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, have explored purchasing the project. The Trump administration has supported efforts to stop dam removal. However, FERC and other parties involved have maintained that they are continuing with decommissioning the project. As part of that process, FERC is holding scoping meetings as part of its review of the decommissioning. Previously, meetings had been held in Ukiah, but now Humboldt county residents will get a chance on September 15th and 16th in Eureka to comment on dam removal and project decommissioning. KMUD News spoke with Alicia Hayman, executive director of environmental advocacy group Friends of the Eel river, to learn more of what to expect at the upcoming Eureka FERC meetings and what her organization hopes for FERC's decommissioning process and the role of public input.
• 14:57
  Speaker G: The scoping meetings that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is holding on September 15th and 16th in Eureka are part of the regular regulatory process for the NEPA analysis, the National Environmental Policy act analysis that's going to happen around dam removal. So in one sense, they are just kind of a regular part of what you would expect to see in a process like this, normal, you know, civic engagement for this regulatory process. But we are experiencing a really unusual turn of events with the Eel river dams in in the attempts by Southern California water agencies and allies of the Trump administration to take over the project and keep them in place and probably bankrupt all of the farmers in the northern part of the Russian River. And so right now is a really, really important time for us to show that our community has a united front and is supportive of dam removal and the current proposal. Before FERC for dam removal.
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  Speaker B: Friends of the Eel River Executive Director Alicia Heyman also spoke on some opposition to the project and the importance of upcoming local meetings.
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  Speaker G: People who live in the Eel Basin stand to benefit from dam removal because it's going to make for a healthier ecosystem. There is very little opposition to dam removal within the Eel Basin. And, you know, while there is some opposition in other communities, it's not as much as one would think. Like, the folks who are voicing that opposition are much louder than than their numbers. The folks voicing opposition to dam removal in other communities are very loud about it, but they're not very numerous. And it is important that there are local meetings in person meetings to make it easier for folks who live in the Eel Basin or who live in Humboldt county and benefit from, you know, healthy watershed to be able to give that input to ferc. And you know, we think it's, we're really pleased that we're seeing these meetings here in Eureka because driving all the way to Ukiah is just not feasible for a lot of people. And there's, to be honest, not a whole lot of spaces, a lot of venues to hold such a meeting between Eureka and Ukiah. So Eureka was kind of the next best option, I think, that FERC was able to secure.
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  Speaker B: Uniquely. FERC is not giving any public presentation at their Eureka scoping hearings. Residents are going to give comments to the agency in a one on one fashion. In part due to this meeting setup, Friends of the Eel will be holding a rally and information session before the first meeting in Eureka.
• 17:56
  Speaker G: I would love it if FERC were giving a presentation about what they're including in their analysis and, you know, helping to orient people with the project before receiving comments. It is kind of unusual that they're not doing that, which is why on September 15, we're actually asking folks to gather at the warfinger building at 5pm an hour before the hearing begins, because we're going to have a small rally there and have some speakers talking about the project, have some information for folks to read and listen to and really just try to help orient people and organize folks before we give our comments. It is, yeah, it is unusual that they're not giving a presentation. It is also unusual that the comments are happening one on one in a private setting. But I do, you know, I do believe that FERC staff are, are being honest with me when they have told me that they did this to make it easier for people to give comments and to make it less intimidating. So anyone who has a fear of public speaking or is worried that they're going to say something wildly unpopular doesn't need to have those worries in this setting.
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  Speaker B: Alicia also spoke on what exactly the public should be focused on during their comments, which is FERC's scoping notice.
• 19:13
  Speaker G: The prompt really is the scoping notice and you can find that linked on eelriver.org on our website where you can also find suggested talking points and other information about the dams and the project. But you know, in the scoping notice, the FERC says that they're really not going to consider anything other other than dam removal. They say they're not, they're not going to consider any alternatives that include keeping Scott Dam in place because of the seismic issues. They're not going to include any alternatives that consider a federal government takeover because they haven't seen any real motion in that direction, nor do they think Congress would be capable of, you know, getting it together enough to make such an action happen. And then they outline in the scoping notice a variety of issues that they're already aware of that they're going to be considering in their environmental analysis. So that's a good document for, for people to read ahead of time. But if you don't have the time to do that, it's okay to just tell FERC about why you support PGE's proposal for DAM removal and why you believe that dam removal is in the broad public interest.
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  Speaker B: Friends of the Eel River Executive Director Alicia Heyman also remarked that recent efforts to stop the Potter Valley Project decommissioning from Southern California water districts are unlikely to be the last time economic opportunists look to change the project's future.
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  Speaker G: I don't think that we've seen the last from the Elsnore Valley Municipal Water District, nor from the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency that the latter of those two Alphabet soups is actually a major investor in the Sites Reservoir. And their representative told FERC at the Ukiah hearings that Scott dam is only 37 miles away from Sites Reservoir. And, and they said that, I think, to make a very, you know, bold assertion that they are looking to the Eel river to help fill Sites Reservoir when, when or if that project is ultimately built. And so I, I do think that there are some, you know, really long term ambitions that these water agencies have that we need to be really wary of. One of the documents that we uncovered in our Public Records act request to the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District is a kind of a fact sheet that talks about how all the studies that PG&E and FERC, you know, this like, relatively conservative, like energy regulatory Agency, that all of the studies they've done are inaccurate or wrong or misleading. And so Elsinore needs a sum of over $80 million to do all these studies that are going to give them the real information about the dams. And so we, you know, we're not certain where they're thinking they're going to get that money from, but if they think that they're going to be getting public funding to do studies that have already been done by, you know, state and federal agencies, that's, that's ludicrous. But they clearly are seeing this project as a money making endeavor. And, you know, when. When people have dollar signs in their eyes, I think we need to be kind of concerned that they're going to continue pursuing those opportunities.
• 22:37
  Speaker B: Lastly, we spoke with Alicia on the new Eel Russian facility, or nerf, which would replace the current Potter Valley project and include some seasonal water diversions. She spoke positively on the rules set out for future diversions and also the involvement of local tribes on the subject
• 22:57
  Speaker G: of the future diversions, which we refer to often as the nerf, the new Eel Russian facility. So the NERF diversions coming to the arrangement for those diversions was a long, long negotiation process. And like any negotiation process that ends in a compromise, every party is a little bit unhappy with it. Now, Friends of the Eel river was not actually a party to those negotiations. And when we learned the details of the, you know, the boundaries and the rules for when water will be diverted, of course we would like to see it be a little bit less water diverted. But we do feel that the. The rules that were developed by the technical team who's actually employed by the Round Valley Indian Tribes, we do think that those rules are going to be protective of habitat and flows in the Eel, and. And there could be times when there's very little water diverted from the Eel into the Russian in drought years, for example, because of those rules. So we feel pretty confident that those are going to be protective. And of course, there's adaptive management rules built into that agreement so that if it turns out that the diversion boundaries were a little too generous and it is causing problems in the Eel, then there are options built into the agreement to modify the diversion rules. And we feel pretty confident that with entities like the Round Valley Indian Tribes and Humboldt county and Caltrout and Trout Unlimited leading this process for the Eel and being involved in monitoring those diversions, we feel like we've got some good leaders at the helm, for sure.
• 24:45
  Speaker B: If you would like to comment at the FERC scoping session in Eureka concerning the decommissioning of the Potter Valley project, you'll have two opportunities. The first is Tuesday, September 15th, from 6 to 8pm and the second, the following morning, Wednesday, September 16th, from 9 to 11am Both sessions will be at the Warfinger Building at 1 Marina Way in Eureka. You can find the scoping document at ferc.gov under ferc.gov Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project. Reporting for KMUD, I'm April Lewis. A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration's ban on processing visas from 75 countries. Suzanne Potter reports many families are hoping
• 25:53
  Speaker A: to be reunited with loved ones in the United States after a federal judge struck down the Trump administration's ban on processing visas from 75 countries. The state Department issued the ban in January, arguing that a pause was necessary to ensure the new immigrants don't depend on social services programs. Attorney Susan Welber is with the Legal Aid Society, one of six legal service providers that represented plaintiffs in the case. She says most legal immigrants are joining family in the US or have an existing job offer, so they aren't at risk of becoming a public charge.
• 26:27
  Speaker H: This is a fiction and the court recognized that the ban was basically just discrimination on the basis of nationality.
• 26:39
  Speaker A: The judge ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority and that the policy is contrary to the law, which requires visa requests to be considered on a case by case basis. 85% of the countries on the list are majority non white. The ban does not apply to tourist visas. David Kaine is an attorney at the Western center on Law and Poverty. A co counsel for the plaintiffs. He believes the policy is racist and has caused significant suffering.
• 27:08
  Speaker H: One of our plaintiffs is a US Citizen, and their spouse and their US Citizen infant child are stuck in Guatemala. That means that the child has not been able to access medical care that they need and even possibly needed surgeries.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: So far, there's no word on whether the Trump administration will appeal this ruling. The National Immigration Law center estimates that hundreds of thousands of families across the world are affected by the ban. For California News Service, I'm Suzanne Potter.
• 27:37
  Speaker B: That's all for our news broadcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our rotation of broadcast engineers Dennis Marr, Katie Phillips, Bianna Federico, Michael McCaskill, Larry Lashley and Javier Rodriguez. Also thanks to our reporter for this broadcast, Daniel Mintz. KMUD news is now on streaming platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can download our stories and newscasts for offline listening. You can also follow us on social mediamudnews, including Facebook and Instagram. Do you have issues important to you that deserve more attention? Other stories we're missing or that you're curious about? You can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or send an email to newsema.org Redwood Community Radio, Inc. Is funded by Press Forward, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more at PressForward News. Redwood Community Radio acknowledges that its transmitter sites are located on the unceded territory of the Sinkion, Wailaki, Wiat, Wilka and Kato people. We honor ancestors past, present and emerging, and acknowledge the ongoing cultural, spiritual and physical connection that these tribes have to the region. I'm April Lewis. Stay tuned in.