Posted on April 1, 2019
‘If we want to fix this problem, we need to work together’
Major ongoing shoaling problems in Humboldt Bay left the Humboldt Bay Harbor Working Group casting about for solutions at the citizen group’s meeting today at the Samoa Cookhouse.
Parts of the bay are experiencing high levels of shoaling — sediment buildup that shallows the water, putting boats at the mercy of large waves. Leroy Zerlang, a Samoa shipyard owner and the featured speaker at the Working Group’s monthly lunch, said there currently isn’t enough local money to dredge the harbor.
“If we want to fix this problem, we need to work together,” he said. “Instead of the engineers dredging where they think needs to be dredged, they need to talk to us and find out where it needs to be dredged.”
There aren’t many engineers either, Zerlang said, adding that there wasn’t much communication between the Army Corps of Engineers and local harbor officials over how the bay should be dredged.
Still, Zerlang, a man with a half-dozen harbor-related jobs and roles, said “crying wolf” — or calling an emergency every time the harbor shoals up — will eventually diminish the amount of outside help the harbor receives.
The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District called for a state of emergency in February due to increased shoaling halfway across the channel in the North Bay, a portion known as “Rock and Roll Alley.”
Depths in that area had shrunk to 13.5 feet, making for “life-threatening conditions,” Harbor District executive director Larry Oetker said.
It would take $2.5 million to fully dredge the harbor, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study. The corps is willing to put up exactly half the money for the project if local groups fund the other half.
Meanwhile, erosion has vanished a number of areas surrounding the harbor, Zerlang said. A road between the Fairhaven area and U.S. Coast Guard Station Humboldt Bay has been completely eroded, while a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers outfall structure in the bay has become exposed.
There simply isn’t enough money to address the concerns, Zerlang said. Ideally, money to dredge the harbor would come from the shipping industry, but ships won’t arrive because the harbor hasn’t been dredged, he pointed out.
“There are a lot of bigger boats that should be coming here and spending money,” he said, “but they’re going to Reedsport (in Oregon). You’re losing income for the local economy.”
Marian Brady, a former Eureka City Council member and one-time Harbor District candidate, echoed Zerlang’s concerns.
“We’re at the point where we’ve got no ships coming in!” Brady said. “This is serious.”
If the corps does dredge the harbor this year, it would need to start near the summer months, when there are no longer storms that silt over the harbor.
Several attendees at the Working Group lunch pointed to Humboldt Bay’s “safe haven” status. In the event of national emergency, the U.S. Department of Defense could turn to the port for resources and travel — a status that should make the bay eligible for federal dollars, the attendees said.
But Humboldt Bay’s harbor bar, a sediment deposit near the entrance of the bay, makes it difficult for ships to cross. This is especially true at Humboldt Bay, where high shoaling often makes the bar particularly hazardous.
As is often the case at Working Group meetings, those who spoke focused on the near future with tones of qualified hope.
“People will come — if they can get across the bar,” Zerlang told the Working Group members.
“If they can get across the bar,” a few members echoed back doggedly.
Source: times-standard.com
