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Hi Friends,
Thank you all for bidding in our virtual auction last month. We met our fundraising goal and are so grateful for all your support.
Today is National Dam Safety Awareness Day. It's a time to reflect on the innately hazardous structures in many of our watersheds, and the institutions we trust to maintain these aging structures. According to the Association of Dam Safety Officials, there are 16,500 High Hazard Potential dams in the United States. High Hazard dams are those which are likely to result in fatalities during a failure, like PG&E's Scott dam on the Eel River.
Please take a moment today to review our research and concerns about dam safety at the Potter Valley Project on the Eel River. Underscoring all the issues with seismic stability, aging infrastructure, active landslides, and poor sediment management, is the fact that much of PG&E's dam safety evaluations are classified information unavailable to the public.
Many of you have likely read the news by now that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) issued a long-awaited decision on the future of the Great Redwood Trail. See below for details about what the decision from the STB means and what we expect to see in the next month or two from entities attempting to take the right-of-way from the public.
In other news, the California Fish and Game Commission has finally published its decision to list northern California summer steelhead as endangered. You can see the final listing decision, just posted on May 6, as well as our initial petition from 2018 and other documentation here.
And finally, we still have a ticket available for one lucky volunteer to join us at the last-ever Kate Wolf Music Festival this summer. See below for details.
For the fish,
Alicia Hamann
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No Coal In Humboldt Update
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 The filing just published on May 17 by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) includes a few important decisions. First, the STB ruled that two segments of the line, one around the Samoa peninsula and one connecting Arcata to Blue Lake, have been previously abandoned and are no longer part of the legal right-of-way.
This is good news for the Samoa segment - it cuts off access to a dock that could be retrofitted as a potential coal export facility, but bad news for the segment from Arcata the Blue Lake and the future of the Annie and Mary Trail. The Lost Coast Outpost provides some excellent coverage of the issue here.
The second decision from the STB filing was to go ahead and allow Offers of Financial Assistance (OFAs), which would allow railroad entities to take the right of way from the public. Entities must first submit a formal notice of intent to file OFAs, which are due today! We'll know by tomorrow if the Skunk Train and the Wyoming LLC representing the coal industry have filed their notices. If they have, OFAs will be due June 20. If they have backed down, railbanking will be complete June 19 and we can celebrate the future Great Redwood Trail. You can read more from the Press Democrat here. Stay tuned!
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Volunteer with us at Kate Wolf Festival
Join us at the last-ever Kate Wolf Music Festival in Laytonville to raise awareness about Eel River dam removal and our other work protecting the Eel and its fisheries. We have one ticket to the now sold-out show.
Volunteers must be available to help set up and take down the booth on Wednesday June 22 and Sunday June 26. You must also commit to helping in the booth at least 4 hours each day Thursday - Sunday.
Volunteers must be fully vaccinated and provide proof upon entry to the festival grounds.
Please contact us at foer@eelriver.org to learn more.
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EcoNews Report:
Coal Trains Inch Forward with Surface Transportation Board Decision
Two weeks ago, the federal Surface Transportation Board made some important decisions about the future of trails in our region. Tune in to hear about the latest developments including what’s in store for the Annie and Mary Trail and what comes next in determining the future for the Great Redwood Trail. Will it be a spectacular 300-mile trail connecting communities from San Francisco to Humboldt Bay, or will rail entities succeed in taking the right-of-way from the public and using it to poison our future?
Learn more at No Coal In Humboldt.
Click here to listen.
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