‘Facelift’ of Humboldt Bay’s north, south jetties begins

Jared Huffman lauds work of harbor district, Army Corps

August 19, 2020

The north and south jetties at the entrance of Humboldt Bay are getting a facelift after four decades of relentless battering from the North Pacific Ocean.

“Over these last 40 years, these jetties have performed remarkably well and they held up admirably to the continuous onslaught of the ocean,” said Peter Mull, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager. “Inevitably though the sea never grows tired and all works of man meant to pacify her will eventually need a bit of a facelift.”

Working together, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District were able to make the restoration of the jetty a reality, said Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) at the kick-off event for the Humboldt Jetty Repair Project on Tuesday.

“The harbor district is always working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Corps,” Huffman said. “Every single time we’ve had to call on them including sometimes when it looked like this harbor was simply going to shut down, they’ve come through. It hasn’t always been easy. They’ve had to move assets around.”

Though Huffman added he’s learned a lot about how those assets are distributed and was hoping to get a dedicated dredge for the West Coast.

Maintaining the jetty is essential to protecting the economic vitality of the harbor, Mull said, which was echoed by Gary Rynearson, of Green Diamond, who said he appreciated the support for Green Diamond’s chip export dock there.

Humboldt Bay is the only deepwater port between San Francisco and Coos Bay and the second-largest enclosed bay in California, said harbor district Commissioner Stephen Kullman.

“Shipping continues to be an important part of the economy of the area, as are our commercial and recreational fishing fleets,” Kullman said. “The Bay is an important port of refuge for ships at sea.”

The project is expected to take two years and will essentially rebuild the entire jetty, which should last another 30 to 40 years, using stones from a quarry on Liscom Hill just outside Blue Lake, said Larry Oetker, executive director of the harbor district.

“They have to meet a certain hardness,” Oetker said. “You know, because they get beat up. Imagine if you had sandstone or something, the waves come in and then the rocks just erode.”

It’ll be rebuilt at the same height because of stringent regulations set by the California Coastal Commission, which regulates land use along the state coastline, that allows “you to rebuild what you already have, but you can’t make it any bigger,” Oetker said.


By:  Sonia Waraich
Source: The Times-Standard