Wind Energy Project’s Environmental Impact Documents Open for Public Comment
Wind Turbines [photo by Jeff Kubina from Columbia, Maryland via WikiCommons]
The Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Humboldt Wind
Energy Project is now available for review. Humboldt Wind, LLC
submitted an application to Humboldt County for a conditional use
permit to construct and operate the proposed project, a wind energy
generation facility. Public comment on this document is invited for a
45-day period extending from April 15- June 5. More information on the
project is provided below.Project location: The project site is approximately 20 miles south of
Eureka, roughly 12 miles southeast of the city of Fortuna and 22 miles
north of the community of Garberville and is bisected by U.S. Highway
101. The town of Scotia is adjacent to the northern edge of the
project site.Project description: The proposed project consists of a maximum of 60
wind turbine generators (WTGs) and associated infrastructure with a
nameplate generating capacity (theoretical maximum energy generation)
of up to 155 MW. This project has the potential to power 60,000 homes
simultaneously.The project site is approximately 2,218-acres and would contain all of
the turbines, as well as associated infrastructure. The project
boundaries have been defined based on a 1,000-foot-wide corridor
centered on the representative locations of WTGs; a 200-foot-wide
corridor centered on project roadways, the electrical collection line,
and the generation transmission line (gen-tie); and a 500-foot-wide
buffer around proposed staging areas, temporary impact areas, and the
project substation. The exact footprint of individual WTGs within the
project site would be determined during final engineering design but
would generally be placed along Monument and Bear River ridges.
Turbine heights could reach up to 600 feet tall, with a rotor diameter
of 492 feet. The environmental impact analysis in this DEIR is based
on a maximum number of WTGs that may be placed within the boundaries
of the project site. The assumptions developed for this analysis
support a conservative approach to project planning and environmental
review, as they represent a maximum level of potential development.In addition to the wind turbines and transformers, the project
includes ancillary facilities such as temporary staging areas, access
roads, 34.5-kilovolt (kV) collection lines (referred to in this EIR as
the “collection system”), operations and maintenance (O&M) facility, a
substation, a modified utility switchyard, and a 115 kV gen-tie along
Shively Ridge.A portion of the gen-tie would cross the Eel River; this portion would
be constructed underground. The project’s point of interconnection
with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) transmission grid
would be PG&E’s Bridgeville Substation. PG&E is a public utility that
sells energy in the California utility market, which is operated by
the California Independent System Operator.The project would include the following components, which are
discussed in detail in “Project Description”:Up to 60 turbines (capable of generating 2–5 MW of electricity each)
erected on tubular steel towers set on concrete foundations, as well
as the associated turbine pads, temporary staging areas, and
transformers; construction of access roads; an up to 25-mile, 115 kV
gen-tie, including an underground crossing of the Eel River, following
Shively Ridge and ultimately connecting to the existing PG&E
transmission system; a project substation located on-site; an
underground electrical collection system linking turbines to each
other and to the project substation; an underground communication
system (fiber optic cable) adjacent to the collection system; a
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system between each
turbine and the substation and between the project substation and the
Bridgeville Substation to monitor and control project output and the
transmission of energy into the system; an up to 5-acre O&M facility,
including an operations building, a parking area, and an outdoor
storage area with perimeter fencing; a 10-acre temporary staging area
and a construction trailer and parking area located within the O&M
facility; a component offloading location at Fields Landing; two
temporary bypasses off U.S. 101 (Hookton Overpass and 12th Street
Bypass) for transporting oversize loads; up to six permanent
meteorological towers; three 5-acre, temporary staging areas
distributed throughout the project site, one of which would include
one temporary cement batch plant on Monument Ridge; and up to 17 miles
of new 24-foot access roads.List of Significant Environmental Effects: The Draft EIR identifies
significant impacts in the following California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) environmental issue areas: aesthetics and visual resources,
air quality; biological resources; cultural resources; hazards and
hazardous materials; hydrology and water quality, noise and vibration;
and transportation and circulation, tribal cultural resources and
wildfire. As described in the EIR many of these impacts can be fully
mitigated but some cannot, and they would remain significant and
unavoidable.Address where copy of Draft EIR is available:
The Draft EIR and other project materials are now available for public
review and download on the County of Humboldt’s website at
https://humboldtgov.org/2408/Humboldt-Wind-Energy-Project Printed copies of the document are available for public review at the
following locations during normal business hours:Humboldt County Public Library – Rio Dell Branch
715 Wildwood Avenue
Rio Dell, CA 95562
Humboldt County Public Library – Ferndale
807 Main Street
Ferndale, CA 95536
Humboldt County Library – Eureka
1313 3rd Street
Eureka, CA 95501
Scotia Community Services District
400 Church Street
Scotia, CA 95565
The Multi- Generational Center
2280 Newburg Road
Fortuna, CA 95540
County of Humboldt Planning and Building Department
3015 H Street
Eureka, CA 95501
Should a member of the public require a printed copy of the document
one may be purchased at the individual’s expense, at Scrapper’s Edge,
728 4th Street, Eureka, CA 95501.Public review period for the Draft EIR: April 15, 2019 to June 5, 2019
All comments on the Draft EIR must be received by the County no later
than 5:00pm on June 5, 2019 to be considered. Pursuant to Section
15088a of the CEQA Guidelines, late comments will be considered only
at the County’s discretion.Comments must be directed to:
Humboldt Wind Energy Project Planner
County of Humboldt Planning Department
3015 H Street
Eureka, CA 95501
View the July 31, 2018 Notice of Preparation of a Draft Environmental
Impact Report and August 2nd, 2018 Press Release at:
https://humboldtgov.org/2408/Humboldt-Wind-Energy-Project
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
Umm, undercrossing of the Eel river. Good luck with that. That sounds like the death of this project, hope they have another plan… Earth First and Environmentist won’t stand for this disturbance of our local watershed.
Tunneling under the Eel will not be a big deal. Chopping up endangered species will be.
How about all the birds they kill?
“The results of the assessment indicated that the project would take approximately one marbled murrelet every 3 years, or 10.43 marbled murrelets over the 30-year life of the project.”
What about other species? Will the site be monitored to determine if this estimate was accurate? Are mechanisms in place to decommission the project if the windmills kill to many birds?
We can probably reduce carbon emission by just as much if we synchronize traffic lights throughout Eureka and or create a bypass to avoid stop-in-go traffic. Other cities have done so.
Who will profit by selling this energy to the people?
Do you know that 1BILLION birds are killed each year by WINDOWS, & another BILLION by feral cats.
And another billion by house cats
You really think someone can count how many birds domestic cats kill?
Did you count them all? Logic people. C’mon.
Aside from the fact, the blades on these things turn so slowly you have birds perching on them!
Windows didn’t go out and hunt them down and kill them. The dumb bastards flew right into them and killed themselves.
A private equity firm Energy Capital Partners
Umm, under crossing of the Eel river. Good luck with that. That sounds like the death of this project, hope they have another plan… Earth First and Environmentalist won’t stand for this disturbance of our local watershed.
🕯First great article Kelley very informative and great links. I for one are for it . Looks like work and the possibility for expansion,which is good and bad. But I see jobs.
To date, the Altamont wind project has killed 2000 Golden Eagles. Wind does not pencil out based on cost of materials and maintenance. Bad idea.
>”… has killed 2000 Golden Eagles”
Hmmm… Fact check. Ok… so it looks like maybe 500+- eagles over XX years.
With 2,000+- raptors of half (or so) dozen species.
Also the Altamont area has 2,500 turbines… over a huge area.
The Humboldt county site has 60.
BTW: This is one of the proposed systems for reducing large bird deaths:
https://youtu.be/_vLd1h-JFPo
Who is this Bozo? 😉
Notice how slowly the rotors are spinning in the video? In reality, rotor tip speed might be 180 mph. Bye bye, birdie.
For your edification:
https://www.eagles.org/take-action/wind-turbine-fatalities/
From the article;
“An even more alarming fact is that the data on the number of deaths is gathered by paid consultants to the wind industry. That’s the fox guarding the chicken house. At the infamous Altamont Wind Resource Area alone, more than 2,000 Golden Eagles have been killed by the wind turbines there.”
Unless the windmills are completely bird friendly and come with fire extinquishing safety features, I, for one, am not interested.
This has been being pushed on us for decades now, and they still insist on the bird killing, fan flying, fan frying oldie models. Get real.
one design, that proves people have been actively working on creating safer models despite the politics that might be trying to dump their investments on the public.
https://offgridworld.com/bladeless-bird-friendly-wind-turbine/
So can we apply this logic to pets and buildings? Feral and free-roaming cats kill about 10 billion birds/small mammals each year in the US. Buildings kill another 1 billion+ birds. Global warming has the potential to kill billions more and drive species to extinction. Let’s kill all the cats and tear down all the buildings. Or at least replace all the glass with bricks.
Maybe look at relative cost/benefit ratios?
Your logic is to add to the problem by not creating safer products? Thank you for sharing your most deepest profound thoughts with us.
Are you opposed to windows? They kill one billion birds each year in America
Solutions for windows do exist you know. For instance, bird stickers, curtains, uv tints, etc
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=window+stickers+to+prevent+bird+strikes&ia=products
Good idea but needs a grate that would have to be periodically cleaned. Birds would get sucked in and chopped up.
There is always room for improvements, I agree. Hopefully they’ve worked out the kinks and are diligently seeking constructive criticism and other input on any and all of the ‘futuristic’ mandated products.
Look into human health impact of the massive wind farms in the Midwest.
Resonance gone wild. We are resonant beings and these things have been shown to adversely affect humans. ..let alone the birds
You’re right, there have been many documented cases, plus, of course the multitudes of anecdotal. Maybe an inventor can invent a frequency blocker?
The truth is that humans do not know the effect of extracting energy from wind any more than we knew the effect of extracting energy from water flow until we built hundreds of dams. We now see wind as least harmful but will series of wind farms create be like dams and create different environments on their leaward sides? Will it change the ecology? Certainly it will. But how much and in what ways. For all the angry posturing, no one knows.
Come on now people!!
We all know now that WINDMILLS CAUSE CANCER!!!
And. If there is no wind at night we can’t watch TV! …..Right??!???
There have been too many videos of turbines on fire in the news to belittle people’s concerns. There is no reason for snark.
A
🕯Come on guys feed them squirrels in that head and get lite burning. If you live in house especially in a community when it was being built most likely someone or some group was up arms about the harm it does to one thing or another, and after a few years wala your house. 🖖
This could be a disaster in the making for Humboldt county. I have followed the Ocotillo Wind project in So-Cali. WoW, there are many problems with these windfarms. Research people who have had to live with these far from perfected machines, IMO.
EDS to the extreme
I like it. Better than dams, nuclear, incinerators, fossil fuel based systems or manufacture-heavy, battery-heavey solar (Solar might be better later with more technological improvements). Less pollution.
Some of these systems, especially the newer ones I’d suspect, have a sort of brake on the turbines so they don’t turn too fast.
Personally I think they’re also surprisingly beautiful if spaced well.
~fossil fuel. Really?
.
Enjoy the freedom of an Eagle
Free Eagle Tour to Bear River Ridge in the Cape Mendocino Grasslands Important Bird Area high above the Eel River.
Saturday April 20, 2019
9:45 AM: Meet outside of the Arcata Community Center
10:00 AM: Carpool to Bear River Ridge via Rio Dell
10:30 AM: Stop at Rio Dell public library to meet additional participants; go to the Ridge
2:00 PM: Arrive back in Arcata
Happy Camper Redwood Tours is graciously providing comfy seats to the first 10 people in the van. Additional participants will be encouraged to carpool.
This enthusiastic group will venture up to the sweeping ridges amongst the clouds just south of Humboldt Bay. Launching from Arcata, and picking up the Ridges above Scotia, the tour will take us to high elevations where observers can follow Golden Eagles and other raptors as they ply the thermals and hunt for prey. A multitude of migratory and resident species of birds and other wildlife await discovery.
Please bring binoculars and spotting scopes, if you have them. Please also bring lunch and water as we will be in the wildlands for about two hours.
Send questions to: [email protected]
Free Eagle Tour to Bear River Ridge in the Cape Mendocino Grasslands Important Bird Area high above the Eel River.
Saturday April 20, 2019
9:45 AM: Meet outside of the Arcata Community Center
10:00 AM: Carpool to Bear River Ridge via Rio Dell
10:30 AM: Stop at Rio Dell public library to meet additional participants; go to the Ridge
2:00 PM: Arrive back in Arcata
Happy Camper Redwood Tours is graciously providing comfy seats to the first 10 people in the van. Additional participants will be encouraged to carpool.
Enjoy the freedom of an Eagle.
This enthusiastic group will venture up to the sweeping ridges amongst the clouds just south of Humboldt Bay. Launching from Arcata, and picking up the Ridges above Scotia, the tour will take us to high elevations where observers can follow Golden Eagles and other raptors as they ply the thermals and hunt for prey. A multitude of migratory and resident species of birds and other wildlife await discovery.
Please bring binoculars and spotting scopes, if you have them. Please also bring lunch and water as we will be in the wildlands for about two hours.
Send questions to: [email protected]
This is the equation for saving the environment with 8 billion humans. There is no saving the environment.
🕯There is a way and believe it or not this is one of them. Think of having to clean a dead bird after it’s been cooking on a solar panel for awhile. Everything has its ups and downs at the beginning.
Hopefully, the first ones to ‘go’, will be those who know how to maintain and run all the dangerous to the planet things? Have fun with your ‘inherited’ planet. It should only take a few thousand years to clear out the radiation and grow some form of plant life.
Be careful what you wish for. May ‘all’ the resources be yours and yours alone. bwahahaaha
~is there hope that the myth of over population and “Wind Energy” good, good, is justified with some evidence for the repetitive in-our-face diatribe?
Part of the solution, or . . .
The ones on Maui are so beautiful! I can’t wait to see them beautify Humboldt….
Why? So people can keep facebooking and playing video games and using hair dryers? We will destroy everything so we can keep consuming- that is our mission, our destiny and we are not stopping. We are just finding more and more ways to grind the natural world into pieces for our egos and our false pride. See what white man has done to Maui (yes, I am white). It’s a crying shame.
Yup, the white man has certainly created more than other races but then others would have certainly stepped up to fill in the gap if it hadn’t been white people first. Breeders always win and non breeders always lose. Aggressive people always win and pacific people always lose. Find a way to make that not true or stop pretending that noticing the results is superior to not noticing them because so far the noticing has only changed the who the winners and losers are, not the winning and losing.
Wouldn’t Gandhi’s movement in India be a rather large example of non warlike ways of winning over warlike people?
And how did that work out? Oh yes… Almost a century of Pakistan/ Indian war after Partition plus constant Hindu/Muslim conflicts in India who, unlike Pakistan with their blasphemy laws and outright suppression of other religions, has tried being multicultural. No. As usual the names of the “warlike” have changed but not the warring.
>”Why? So people can keep facebooking and playing video games and using hair dryers?”
Hmmm… are you using a computer to write/or read this ???
Imagine the amount of public comment about an issue like this as compared to the importance about public comment about 5G technology and what it represents lol. A lot of my life is over but you people better wake up about your children and your grandchildren ..
There’s no public input about 5G. Last weekend the power was off here in Carlotta Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7 am to 7:30 pm – from the Post Office to the old Martin & Shirley’s. “Replace Transmission Poles” supposedly. However, there’s no new poles to be seen. Many of the existing poles are now leaning due to the weight of the big (6″ diameter?), black cable strung from one pole to the next. At the Yeager Creek bridge, by the Post Office, the lines are so heavy they are hanging just lower than the top of the bridge.
Speaking of being hit by birds: had a turkey vulture fly perpendicular to the direction I was traveling and since I was going 65mph upon impact it almost went right through the windshield except safety glass prevented that. Instead, the windshield spider webbed and collapsed inward but did not break and kill me! The turkey vulture flew away. Had to drive to get help with my head stuck out the side window so I could see as there was no cell reception in that area. Cars were honking for me to get out of their way!
-morale of this story: shit happens!
It’s a horrible idea! The visual impacts alone are devastating (600 foot towers!), not to mention the stream crossings, increased wildfire danger and all the earthwork associated with building a highway up the mountain. It’s basically the same project Shell Energy proposed some years ago behind the Victorian Village (Ferndale). That community rightly shut it down. Now Rex Bone is advocating for the project above Rio Dell and Scotia, partly because he knows his Ferndale friends would shoot it down again. Not in their backyard. Rio Dell, Scotia, Ferndale and Fortuna, hell the entire County should all be opposed.
What’s crazy is the power that would be generated will be sent to the valley. Which begs the question “Why build it in one of the most pristine, visually stunning areas of the State only to send the energy out of the area?” Build it over in the valley! The talked about off-shore (20+/- miles) wind project is by far a superior alternative.
Sam..by the way, you are absolutely right about 5G!
~it’s distraction. Expensive, look-over-here, distraction. Insulting to anyone with seven or more functioning brain cells. A bunch of shysters sitting around in an office leased from “The County”
https://nordic.businessinsider.com/after-all-the-money-poured-into-wind-energy-denmark-admits-its-too-expensive-2016-5/ MAY, 2016
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/06/09/delingpole-epic-renewables-fail-as-solar-crashes-and-wind-refuses-to-blow/ JUNE 2018