Humboldt Bay as a green port

More depressing,out of touch talk of a pipe dream by special interests.

There is no economic incentive for shipping to locate to Humboldt Bay. No direct rali east. No economic means to restore the "TRACKS OUT OF SERVICE" to the south. It's over. End of story. Move on or move to a train town. Try Truckee.

San Diego, Seattle, and Philadelphia all have existing infrastructure to move imports and exports to their respective ports. Humboldt doesn't.
Game over

It is interesting that Pete Oringer would write such an article. I sit on the same HBHRCD Economic Development Committee as Pete. Over the past several months we have held forums on shipping, tourism and light industrial potential for the bay.

Container shipping will not happen. Even the ports with all the infrastructure we are lacking are scrambling to make ends meet. The outlook for west coast ports is bleak even when there is an economic recovery. Shippers are looking for direct water routes to the midwest and east coast. The current effort to add a larger canal in Panama will provide just that. In addition the new Prince Rupert port with a direct main line rail connection to Chicago has also pulled containers destined for Oakland, L.A. and Long Beach.

Don Leonard (former director of the Visitors Bureau) was quite blunt in his presentation saying cruise ships will likely never make Humboldt a port of call.

Short sea or container on barge might have a chance but is quite different than a container port as Hauser envisions.

Kudos to Pete Oringer for always being an activist supporter of economic growth for Humboldt County. We so badly need ways to provide jobs that will encourage our young people not to seek employment away from this beautiful and healthy scene.

I love when people compare Humboldt to other areas that have 10 to 100 times the population. How can you seriously compare Humboldt Bay to San Diego?
San Diego's population is 100 times greater!!
More likely to compare Humboldt to Coos Bay.

Same goes for the size of Humboldt Bay. Harbor District says second largest bay on west coast yet it is a tenth the size of S.F. Bay.

how about green as in kayaks, canoes, rowing boats only and not to exclude what is left of the fishing fleet.

How does Don Leonard know what cruise ships will do? I've taken several cruises that stopped in small cities that weren't as pretty or interesting a Eureka.

Yea this is a issue that is pretty much dead.

You gotta spend money to make money. And people do not understand that (well they don't want to shell the money out). The port could be made to a small container port, stowing containers on the old flat mill areas. San Diego and SF get impacted very easy, as does Seattle. But if you do containers, you gotta ship them efficently, and that is not trucks.

So along with the port refurbishment, the rail line need to be repaired. There are several quarries that would love to have the rails too. But the city of Petaluma would fight us tooth and nail since the line runs dead center through the city. And they have the money to win.

Till then the port is just good to have a boat for the 2nd home write off, and throw on a couple outrigger for the commercial boat write off.

In the near future Humboldt Bay will be THE major port on the west coast with container ships going to distant lands loaded with our number one export and no rail will be needed. Can you guess what that product is...

Tweakers?

I have no problem with keeping the harbor reasonably clean. Yes there are also opposing forces at work. Making the harbor deeper for large commercial ships on a regular basis vs the greenies.

I doubt it will happen any time soon if ever. The cost would be extreme and by the time if it should happen the cost will be ridiculous due to inflation.

I do not see where the harbor of today is any big part of our economic health. It gets used for very small financial income.

Too many politicians have made too many promises and many times put "spin" on why the promises have not happened. A lot of voters either do not care or do not do their research prior to voting. So those who are elected just keep earning a wage without ever accomplishing much of anything.

I for one research and basically have come to a point where any in office now or in the future will also keep the status quo. Nothing.

Good luck!