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Local News 09 18 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. This show is jam packed and we're going straight into our main stories. This episode includes stories on school busing issues in Bridgeville, Eureka moving towards data center regulation, the Forest Bioeconomy Symposium and this week's sports report. This is KMUD News. The Fortuna Union High School District isn't providing busing to Bridgeville families claiming safety issues on Highway 36 due to the Grizzly Creek slide. But area parents and students are skeptical came on news reports as the new school year has gotten underway for many students in Humboldt County, Bridgeville families are dealing with a difficult situation when it comes to transporting their students. With the rural community on the east side of the Grizzly Creek Slide area on Highway 36, bus service has been non existent. Why bus service is not occurring has turned into a heated argument between community members and in the Fortuna Union High School District, especially with the District Superintendent Clint Duwe. In an email to KMOD News, Superintendent Dewey stated the route to Bridgeville was canceled because of the stability of the slide at Grizzly Creek. While the road is technically open, it is inherently dangerous to run a bus through that area on a daily basis. I have communicated that with families on more than one occasion. I have spoken with Caltrans District 1 folks and they concur that my decision was reasonable and best given the situation, that the slide could come down at any time, end quote. KMUD News then reached out to Caltrans District 1 for further comment and they relayed the following statement. Caltrans staff have discussed conditions at the Route 36 slide with the superintendent and many other members of the community. We were essentially asked if the slide area had zero risk. Nobody can characterize travel along any roadway, particularly an active slide area, as having zero risk when Route 36 is open. However, it means our staff have determined that current conditions support public travel with traffic control monitoring and stabilization measures in place. We continue to monitor conditions and traffic is held or the highway is closed when conditions do not support safe passage. End quote. The issue of the missing bus route from Bridgeville was discussed at length during the September 8th Fortuna Union High School District Board meeting. Public comments were at times heated and it was clear that many district parents do not understand Superintendent Dewey's reluctance to allow buses into Bridgeville. Audio from the meeting is courtesy of Cal Poly journalism student Tim Smith.
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  Speaker C: Hi, my name is Lynn Javier and I live up to 36 and I don't know a lot of these kids that should be down here and not having to do something else and their parents not being able to make the money that they make. Because of your decision, sir, I apologize and I'll say to you first, I'm sorry for your loss. Obviously, you've lost somebody off the 36 and this is a scary thing for you. But there's an emotional thing I hear. It's not common sense rationalization. One person, God bless his soul, got hurt at the very beginning of this unstable slide when it happened a year ago or more. One person. There's not been any other person getting hurt on that slide in over a year. So this ban on this kid getting into school is just inhumane and a very selfish thing for you to be doing right now. You're hurting a lot of people in the community. You're not just the people that are up in Bridgeville.
• 4:14
  Speaker B: Later, at the Fortuna Union High School District board meeting, a district student greatly impacted by the lack of bus service to Bridgeville spoke about the difficulties she is experiencing.
• 4:26
  Speaker D: My name is Marlo Pounson, and I am one of the very students being affected by this slide right about now. My major deal here, I would love to go to Fortuna. I went to Fortuna for the past week. It was wonderful. I am in the marching band now. I haven't been in a uniform for an entire year because I had to skip out my whole year doing independent study, which is a whole other year of COVID learning for me. I'm not fabulous at math, but I'm worse now because I couldn't get the tutoring help that I needed. I couldn't talk to a teacher, and then I would send a message and I wouldn't get a response within months. I have been affected by this deeply, mentally and physically. This is a real toll on me. This is my senior year here. This is the year I want to finish out on because I missed out on my whole junior year. It's really mentally draining on me. I'm extremely depressed at everything going on. I see the strain on my parents and my neighbors and everyone else coming here.
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  Speaker B: Fortuna Superintendent Clint Dewey then showed attendees aerial footage of the Grizzly Slide area on Highway 36. When with his interpretation of the situation.
• 5:42
  Speaker E: This is the most recent aerial view of the drone footage of that slide area along Highway 36. I will say that when I look at this from an objective point of view, when you look at it from the ground, you can still see very large boulder stumps and trees hovering above the roadway with an attempt at a catchment barrier down below. I do not think that looking at it from the ground does it the same justice as you would see from the drone footage, which actually shows the slide pretty much directly above the roadway. So this is when I look at this raises great concern to me.
• 6:15
  Speaker B: Discussion by the Fortuna Union High School District Board consisted mostly of a proposal to potentially reimburse parents for mileage that may not be enough for Bridgeville families, as stated by John Poundstone in an interview with KMUD News this week. John is the father of the student who spoke at the Fortuna Union High School District Board meeting.
• 6:39
  Speaker F: It's just gotten ridiculous and on top of everything else, the financial is killing us. I am selling things that I have purchased over the last 25 years just to get gas money to get the kids to high school and back. On top of that, I drive them in. They had to switch from a regular school to a finished school which is at the same place I drive in in the morning, get them there at 7:30 and I sit for four and a half hours because I can't afford to drive back and then drive again. So I'm losing a day, five days a week. But this is the only way I can get them an education. And you know, as I explained at the meeting, for a lot of kids this may be the last bit of education that they get.
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  Speaker B: Reporting for kmud, I'm April Lewis. The Eureka City Council's early steps towards controlling data center development focus on size and location. Daniel Mintz reports.
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  Speaker G: Eureka has begun movements toward regulating data centers, with the City Council open to allowing smaller ones. The city is in the midst of a 45 day moratorium on data center applications and it will soon be extended as staff works on rules allowing smaller data centers in industrial zoned areas. At the Sept. 15 council meeting, city Development Services Director Kristen Kenyon described how data centers differ from other land uses and why they need to be regulated separately.
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  Speaker H: They're similar to industrial warehouses in looks, they're large buildings with limited employees, and they are similar to utilities and behavior in terms of needing major electrical infrastructure and continuous operation and cooling and energy backup systems. But they are different from both. Their primary activity is computing. Another reason we should regulate them separately is because their impacts can be unusual, especially as they become larger in scale. Data centers demand large continuous electrical loads and potentially large amounts of water for cooling. The concentration of electric equipment, batteries and backup power raises public safety considerations. Cooling and power equipment can operate around the clock, creating noise impacts Reliance on backup fossil fuel generators can create air quality and greenhouse gas emission impacts. Data centers can also involve very large, relatively blank buildings with few employees, raising built form concerns.
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  Speaker G: During a lightly attended public comment period, Jen Kalt of Humboldt Waterkeeper brought up the additional concern of data center wastewater discharge. An option allowing smaller data centers got council support with council member Scott Bauer flagging jobs elimination and power use issues.
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  Speaker I: There's 4,000 operating data centers in the United States, eight times as many as China, and I think about it a lot. I've been reading the articles about AI, and one of the main reasons for all these data centers is to eliminate a lot of jobs. And that's not the business that we're in as a city, I believe. I'm thinking option two, small data centers. I recognize that there are needs. You know, we have server farms, we have businesses. You know, there are needs for computing power. Yet I don't see the need for a large data center, especially given our constraints with power.
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  Speaker G: Council members are also concerned about fire hazards and the size and design of data center buildings. They supported the option that would allow smaller data centers in industrial areas. Most of the city's industrial zoned properties are in the coastal zone, so its local coastal plan, or lcp, will have to be amended. The city's next steps toward data center regulation were described in this exchange between Kenyon and City Manager Myles Slattery.
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  Speaker H: What I'm going to bring back is the potential for smaller data centers in industrial zoning districts for council to weigh in on more and then eventually vote on. Most of our industrial land is in the coastal zone. That'll come back as part of the LCP update. And then we have a tiny hinge industrial area in the inland zone. So it's going to take more than the 45 days, though. So the next thing that will happen is we'll have a hearing on extending the moratorium.
• 11:40
  Speaker J: So, yeah, and I think the intent will be to try and incorporate while we won't do it by code, but an allowance for smaller ones as a part of that moratorium, Correct? Yeah. So we'll come back in two weeks with the modification of the moratorium based on this discussion today.
• 11:57
  Speaker G: But it'll take a while for Director
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  Speaker J: Kenyon to get the inland code update and even longer for the lcp.
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  Speaker G: During the discussion, Slattery was asked about a recent inquiry by a data center developer. He said the inquiry process didn't go very far and quote, they were just kicking the tires in Eureka. For KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.
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  Speaker B: The Forest Bioeconomy symposium will bring together community, industry, policymakers, investors and researchers to build a forest stewardship bioeconomy that reduces wildfire risk while creating economic and community benefits. KMOd News reports.
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  Speaker A: Our region's forests are in trouble. Decades of shifting management from heavy logging to almost none at all have left a lot of north coast forest land overcrowded and primed to burn. The small trees, limbs and brush that pile up on the forest floor are exactly what wildfires feed on. But what if that same material, instead of being a liability, became the raw ingredient for a whole new local economy? That's the idea driving the Forest Bioeconomy symposium coming to Lolita later this month. I sat down with Kristy Prescott, executive director of the Forest WRX alliance, to
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  Speaker K: find out more Past management of our forests. And over harvesting down to, you know, the pendulum swings to very limited active management has created a situation when where we have unhealthy forests that are overstocked and ripe for catastrophic wildfire. So we're looking at ways that we can basically turn low value materials from the forest, small trees and tops and limbs of trees. And really that forest stewardship bioeconomy is how we turn wildfire risk into opportunities to catalyze community and forest resilience by turning low value materials that currently cost so much to harvest, remove or burn in our forest. The work that's needed to be done to thin the forest, improve the health, make our forest more resilient to increasing climate temperatures, wind events, et cetera. But really there's not enough grant money available to fund the work needed at the scale and pace we need to do this work. So the bioeconomy is essentially how can we take innovation, workforce development programs, entrepreneurship, policy, the resources of our north coast, the culture, the values, and come together as a community of people to transform these low value residuals into high value products that society needs. And one of the areas we're focused on is disaster resistant building materials that are created with green chemistry, meaning non toxic chemistry. And that will help our communities be more resistant to the threats of wildfire as we continue to experience that while also sequestering the carbon that's in those forest materials into our built environment so we can work towards decarbonizing our environment.
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  Speaker A: I asked her why the timing of this event is no accident.
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  Speaker K: This is the first time that the task force which meets quarterly has come to the north coast. And so we really wanted to take the opportunity to engage these policymakers, heads of agencies, both federal and state
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  Speaker F: to
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  Speaker K: show them what we're working on on the north coast, give them a sense of opportunities up here and show them how we can be not only a resource for developing this forest bioeconomy on the north coast, but as a resource for the whole state.
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  Speaker A: That task force meeting happens October 1st. So DeForest WRX alliance scheduled their symposium right beforehand, September 29th and 30th at the same venue in Lolita. On the first day, attendees will head out on three concurrent field trips, giving state and federal policymakers and the public a firsthand look at what's already happening on the ground here, starting with tribal forestry.
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  Speaker K: So we'll be out at Hoopah Valley learning about their nursery, their commercial prospects there, and also looking at their old large log mill as they are considering what other opportunities might be on the horizon to invest in new forest product manufacturing. So our second field trip is the innovation Pipeline. So we'll be looking at some of the programs that have been under development that were funded through the California Jobs First Catalyst Fund planning grant that has supported a cross sector group and coming together to engage the Unified University on designing new programs in climate tech, natural resource management and traditional ecological knowledge. So that is resulting in new construction technology proposal and biomaterial development proposals. And then our last but not least is going out to Humboldt Mendocino Redwood Company Lands to understand how an industrial timberland manager is really able to make their business pencil by accessing a diversity of markets from traditional markets like lumber to more innovative markets such as different types of carbon credits and payment for ecosystem service markets. So really exploring new conservation finance concepts and how this plays out for forest
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  Speaker A: management economics with landowners, tribal leaders, researchers and public officials all in the same room. I asked her what she's hoping happens between them.
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  Speaker K: So this symposium is about bringing all of these segments of the community together, including our elected officials and policymakers, impact investors and philanthropies to understand what it is we're working on here, where we
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  Speaker F: want to go with it, what the
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  Speaker K: vision is and how they relate to it, how they may benefit from it or interact in it, and what their role would be in it. So it's about aligning our vision and then really coming together in the afternoon to explore.
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  Speaker A: And this isn't just theoretical. She says attendees will see real products in action.
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  Speaker K: We've invited four companies to share some of these innovative wood products that people can get a sense of really what we're talking about. It's not an abstract idea, but here's some concrete products and examples and companies who are actually in pilot scale production are already selling on the commercial market.
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  Speaker A: At the heart of it, she says, this comes down to people.
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  Speaker K: I think it's about facilitating relationships across our community and the different segments and sectors because it's not, we're not going to solve this any one segment of our community. It's going to take us working together, an alignment of a shared vision and our values to care for the land and each other. So we're really looking at creating a virtuous cycle of reinvestments in our communities and in the landscape.
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  Speaker A: So who exactly is this symposium for?
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  Speaker K: So this symposium is really designed to engage the broad community from landowners, students, people who live in our rural and remote communities or those who live in Eureka to learn more about the opportunities on the horizon and and what this looks like so we have a better shared understanding.
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  Speaker A: And for anyone worried about cost being a barrier.
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  Speaker K: So we do have scholarships available and you can go to www.forestwrx.org symposium and if you scroll down on that front page, you'll see a scholarships header there and there's a short form to fill out just so we can track who's getting the scholarship. But yes, we definitely want our community to engage and not be left out of this important conversation and work due to financial barriers. So please avail yourself of that opportunity. If you are available and interested in coming, we'd love to have you.
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  Speaker A: The Forest BioEconomy symposium runs September 29th and 30th at the Tish Non Community center in lolita. Registration closes September 21st at the end of the day and scholarships are available for anyone concerned about cost. You can sign up or learn more at www.forestwrx.org symposium. Reporting for K Mun News, I'm Bridget Carstense.
• 21:52
  Speaker B: Here's Ray Hamel with this week's KMUD News Sports Report.
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  Speaker L: The Eureka Loggers ended a long losing streak in football over the weekend and they did so in thrilling fashion. Hello and welcome to this week's KMUD News Sports Report. I'm Ray hamel with humboldt sports.com we'll have more on the Loggers big week in just a moment as we take a look at all of the big local sports stories of the week, including a look back at all of last weekend's high school football action, as well as a look ahead to this weekend's games. Why it's been a great start to the season for College of the Redwoods football and some local high school girls golf updates. But first up, it was a week the Eureka Loggers won't easily forget. On Friday night, Eureka hosted Marshfield High School out of Coos Bay, Oregon at the Redwood bowl and posted their first win since opening weekend of last year. The Loggers trailed by eight in the dying seconds and Marshfield had the ball, but incredibly the Pirates opted to run the ball instead of taking a knee and and running at the clock and a fumble on the play was recovered by Eureka's Scotty Brogan who returned it to the Marshfield five yard line. A few moments later, Eureka's Tyler Johnston scored a touchdown to pull the home team within two and a Bryson Burns two point conversion run would tie the game and force the extra period. After winning the toss and deferring, the Loggers defense held the Marshfield offense on a fourth and goal from just inches out. A few minutes later, Burns scored the game winning touchdown to secure a 33:27 victory and end an 11 game losing streak. The win lifted the Loggers to 12 on the season. Four other local teams were also in action on Friday. The Ferndale Wildcats got the day's action underway with what is believed to be the program's first ever Friday afternoon showdown hosting Santa Ines and after a tight first half during which neither team was able to take control, the Wildcats began to pull away after the interval. They would win 27. 0, posting a ninth shutout in their last 12 regular season games and improving to 2. 0 on the season. Last Friday night, however, wasn't as kind to the rest of the HDNL teams in action Fresh off a dominating opening weekend win over California School for the Deaf, the South Fork Cubs traveled to Hayfork to play a Timber Jacks team that had not lost a game since the fall of 2022 and the home team continued their remarkable run, stretching their winning streak to 40 straight games with a 24:22 victory. The Timber Jacks started strong and led 24:8 at halftime, but the Cubs would come storming back scoring 14 unanswered points in the second half to pull within two. However, that was as close as they would get and the home team held on late for the win. With the loss, The Cubs dropped to 1 1. The Del Norte warriors and Fortuna Huskies were also in action on Friday night. Del Norte traveled to play West Valley and lost 14. 8, dropping to 03 on the season for the first time since 2010. The Huskies hosted a quality Ukiah team and the visitors continued their impressive start to the season with a 2713 win, improving to 3 0. The loss was the first of the year for Fortuna, which rushed for more than 300 yards in the game but dropped to 2:1. The local high school action continued with two more games on Saturday. In the afternoon, the Saint Bernards Crusaders turned in a much improved performance from their season opener against St. Vincent de Paul the previous weekend. After turning the ball over six times against St Vincent, the Crusaders did not have a single turnover and won comfortably 35:18 to go to 2:0. Later on Saturday, the Mckinleyville Panthers made the short trip to the Redwood bowl to play neighbor and rival Arcata and shut out the Tigers 27 0. With the win, the Panthers improved to 30 for the first time since 1989. The Mac defence has been particularly impressive through the early season and has given up just two touchdowns in the opening three games. The shutout loss was the second straight for Arcata which dropped to 02 and is yet to score any points this fall. The local high school season continues this weekend with four games on Friday and Saturday. On Friday night, South Fork hosts Elite out of Vallejo in eight player football and Ferndale travels to play Fall River On Saturday afternoon, the Hoopa warriors will try to make it two straight wins when they play at Archie Williams High School in Marin County. The warriors are coming off a bye after a 286 win at Healdsburg two weeks ago. Also on Saturday afternoon, the Arcata Tigers will try to get their first win of the year when they play at St. Vincent de Paul. Del Norte, Fortuna, Eureka and Mckinleyville all have byes this week in Mendocino County. Fort Bragg dropped to 12 with a 3422 loss to St. Helena last weekend. The Timberwolves will try to get back to winning ways, but when they host Lower Lake on Friday night, the Willits Wolverines, who are 02 and had a bye last week, will also try to get back to winning ways when they host St. Helena on Friday night. In local college football. Meanwhile, it's been a very good start to the season for College of the Redwoods and that continued to be the case. On Saturday, the Corsairs traveled to play Sacramento City College and came away with a hard fought 37:34 win in the double overtime, improving to 3:0. Redwoods took its first lead of the afternoon in overtime. With the win, CR moved up three spots in the state coaches poll to number 18. The Corsairs will be back on the north coast this weekend when they host Foothill in the first of two straight home games at the Redwood Bowl. That game will take place on Saturday afternoon. With kickoff set for 1pm and rounding out another busy week in local sports, it was a good week for some local high school girls golfers. On Monday, the HTNL girls travel to Baywood Golf and Country Club in Arcata for the second of seven rounds of league competition, with McKinleyville's Ingrid Monaghan pacing the field for the second straight week. Monaghan won by four strokes, carting a round of 92, with Del North's Jaylee Keeling placing second. The league golfers will be back in action at Fortuna on Monday. And that's this week's KMWOOD News Sports Report. Until next time, I'm Ray hamel with humboldt sports.com that's all for our news broadcast.
• 28:21
  Speaker B: 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 reporters for this broadcast, Daniel Mintz and Ray Hamel, and thanks to our assistant director, Bridget Karstensen. KMOD 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? Are there stories we're missing that you're curious about? You can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or send an email to newsameod.org Redwood Community Radio, Inc. Is funded by Press Ford, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more at PressForward News. Railway community Radio acknowledges that its transmitter sites are located on the unceded territory of the Sinkyon, 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.