Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the KMUD News. I'm your news Director April Lewis and I'm glad to be with you for this broadcast.
In this episode we have stories on Alexandre Farms downgrading their certification and news from yesterday's Humboldt Board of Supervisors meeting. This is KMUD News.
Starting off with a programming note about this broadcast.
Due to our interview with the Department of Cannabis Control and attendance at their event this afternoon, this broadcast was compiled on the morning of Wednesday, June 24th.
We'll be back with our usual news broadcast including up to date local updates and alerts tomorrow.
We still have some very interesting and particularly in depth reporting to share with you on this show.
As of this broadcast recording, we know of an earthquake with serious impacts in Mendocino county this morning and also additional smaller aftershocks. A 5.6 magnitude earthquake was reported just after 8am near Willits, leaving thousands of PGE customers currently without power, including most of the Willits area.
Some radio communications, including kzyx, are not currently operational.
We will update you as we learn more, both with alerts and on our next broadcast. And now to our stories for this episode. This is KMOD News.
Humboldt County Supervisors were updated on an effort to coordinate wildfire resilience efforts with significant state grant investment in southern Humboldt. Daniel Mintz reports.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: A statewide program to coordinate wildfire resiliency is active in Humboldt county, including some major efforts in southern Humboldt. At its June 23 meeting, the county's Board of Supervisors got an update on Humboldt's participation in the Wildfire County Coordinator Team program.
Humboldt's team is made up of staff from the county's Department of Public Works, Natural Resources Division and the County Resource Conservation District.
The program began in 2021 with three state grant awards and the funding has been extended through October 2027, according to a written staff report. The goal of the program is to educate, encourage and develop countywide community collaboration and coordination among wildfire mitigation groups.
Southern Humboldt represents a significant part of the effort, Jill Demers of the Resource Conservation District said. The district has $30 million of grant funding for a forest health and wildfire resilience program alone, she said. Among the areas where landscape scale projects are being done is southern Humboldt.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: We were able to then leverage several implementation grants, being the North Coast Resource Partnership's Cal Fire Forest Health Pilot for a little under a million dollars, a new forest health grant that was awarded not long ago of about $5.3 million.
The planning grants we were able to leverage to get environmental compliance covering about 45,000 acres of land. So again, large project, large scale, and the implementation funding to date is really only treating about 3,000 acres of it. So you can see that the project need and the cost right now are really high.
And we are actively looking for ways to continue to work with the community to steward this, this kind of work and without having to bring in tens of millions of dollars.
But again, we are happy to do so to get even more acres treated. This is a grant that is a U.S.
forest Service grant, a community Wildfire Defense grant. And it requires an active CWPP and it requires it to be active within the last. Updated in the last 10 years. So while the timeline is a little flexible from the state level, it's still getting that 2019 plan done in the next couple of years will be really critical so that the county can keep on leveraging these kind of grant funds. This is just one award that we've received from this grant funding source. And this is almost $10 million award again for Southern Humboldt.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: The community Wildfire Defense grant is further explained here by Demers.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: This is the final grant I'll speak about in the Southern Humboldt area. This is a community Wildfire defense grant. Again treatment of about 2,000 acres, about 100 homes, those roadside fuel reduction projects and shaded fuel breaks. Additionally those prescribed fire projects, leveraging the PBA and other partnerships, those are really critical for long term maintenance, environmental compliance and future planning support, as well as education and outreach. I'll note that there are a lot of organizations involved with this. Even though this is an award to the rcd, this grant wouldn't be possible or really any of the grants without the Southern Humboldt partners, who are just very numerous, really active and engaged community.
Really a lot of folks that have offered access to their land for planning and implementation and then a lot of folks with a lot of volunteer time professional resources to make this work happen. With Southern Humboldt and then also with
[00:05:35] Speaker B: the Fire Safe Council, some outside the box thinking was advanced by Supervisor Rex Bone, who vouched for property tax breaks to homeowners who do wildfire protection work on their properties.
Supervisor Steve Madrone acknowledged that the county would have to get state support on doing that, but said incentivizing wildfire work is key to avoiding impacts.
[00:05:59] Speaker D: We have always been leaders with our community wildfire protection plan and other kinds of things being out in front of the curve there. And I absolutely agree with what Supervisor Von was saying is, is there a way to engage more incentives, you know, because we'll never have enough grant money to do all the work we need to do.
But there is a huge amount of money in the private sector, right? There's more money in the private sector than there is in the public sector. Always will be.
So when we can leverage the private sector investment now we're really starting to expand tremendously. And I think the whole idea of a property tax reduction for doing fuel reduction work or even roadside vegetation maintenance is a very worthy concept and I applaud Supervisor Bone for suggesting it. I think, you know, it obviously has to happen at the state level. It's beyond all of our pay grades because property taxes are governed by the state.
But we would be saving money hand over fist to put tax credits or property tax reductions out in front in the equation compared to the cost of, of the August complex or any number of other fires we can point to. And the cost of that not only in, you know, loss of forest and habitat and everything else, but lives, you know, and property.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Cybele Emmett of the DPW's Natural Resources Division highlighted capacity building such as creating new firewise community groups.
She said the Wildfire county coordinator team works with the county's Fire Safe Council as the program works on, quote, building a lot of energy around working with our communities to become more wildfire resilient in Eureka for KMUD News, this is Daniel Metz.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Alexandre Farms fights to secure private records and animal cruelty case. Ryan Hudson reports.
[00:08:01] Speaker E: You've probably seen the name maybe at the North Coast Co Op in Eureka, maybe at Whole Foods.
A2A2 Milk Organic Cream Top kefir yogurt eggs.
The label says local, it says organic, it says humane.
And for a lot of people in Humboldt county, that label means something. But right now, the company behind that label, Alexander Family Farm, is fighting a civil lawsuit in Humboldt County Superior Court.
A lawsuit that alleges what happened to the animals on that farm is something very different from what the label promises.
What you're about to hear is based on court records, a federal investigative file and a year long investigation conducted by the animal welfare nonprofit for Farm Forward, the findings of which were first published by the Atlantic magazine in April of 2024.
Some of what's in those records is difficult to hear.
Still, it's a matter of public record and it's happening right here on the Lost coast from Ferndale to Crescent City on farms owned and managed by the Alexander family Farm Enterprise.
Theirs is not a small operation.
It is one of the largest organic dairy producers in the United States.
The farm has multiple locations from Del Norte county to Ferndale.
Its products are sold at major grocery chains in all 50 states.
Co founders Blake and Stephanie Alexander have built a public image around the idea that their farm does things differently and ethically.
Their website says, we prioritize transparency in everything we do.
Blake Alexander has spoken publicly about his commitment to animal care. He has described regenerative farming as farming in harmony with nature, in the way God intended.
The farm was the first certified regenerative dairy in the United States.
It has carried certifications from multiple organic and humane labeling programs.
In December of 2025, while a civil lawsuit against the farm was actively proceeding in Humboldt County Superior Court, Blake Alexander stood at a podium at the USDA press event in Washington, D.C. alongside him were USDA Secretary Brooke Rawlins and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of HHS.
The occasion was the announcement of a $700 million federal program to promote regenerative farming.
Alexander Family Farm was there as the face of that movement.
First, the lawsuit In September of 2024, a Sacramento based nonprofit called Legal Impact for Chickens filed a civil lawsuit against Alexander Family Farm in Humboldt County Superior Court.
The organization uses civil courts to enforce California's existing animal welfare laws.
The lawsuit grew out of an investigation that had been underway for months led by the nonprofit Farm Forward, working with the Atlantic magazine.
That investigation included whistleblower interviews, hundreds of videos and photographs and and firsthand observation of conditions.
What they documented and what the civil complaint alleges is specific.
According to the complaint, Alexander workers routinely poured table salt directly into the eyes of sick cows, not occasionally, but routinely.
According to the lawsuit, this practice was carried out hundreds of times across multiple farm locations when a cow developed eye cancer, a common condition in dairy cattle. The response described by whistleblowers former staff members was not veterinary treatment. It was not euthanasia. It was a piece of old denim clothing sewn into an eye patch and then glued over the animal's eye. That cow would then be sent to auction. According to the complaint, a Farm Forward representative was present at the Humboldt Auction yard in Fortuna when one such animal, referred to in court documents as COW 13039, was sold to a bidder.
A veterinarian who reviewed the footage of the scene concluded the animal likely had cancer, that its eye had bulged, ruptured, become infected, and according to the complaint, that that the eye patch itself had made things worse.
The lawsuit alleges the pattern went further than individual animals.
In 2019, according to the complaint, Alexander ran out of hay.
The lawsuit attributes this to the farm stocking more animals than it could feed and to the farm's failure to pay for grain. When the feed truck finally arrived after several days without food, roughly 800 hungry cattle rushed toward it. They piled onto one another in a stampede. More than 40 animals died in that incident.
Around 20 others suffered severe injuries, according to the complaint.
In a separate incident, the lawsuit alleges that approximately 80 pregnant cows were so malnourished that they could not give birth.
According to the complaint, Alexander's staff had to kill all 80 heifers and all 80 of their unborn calves.
The complaint describes other alleged practices in detail.
So many cows died at Alexander Farm, the lawsuit alleges that the farm sometimes maintained pits containing 60 to 70 decomposing animal carcasses at a time.
According to the complaint, living cows were grazing in the same fields where their herdmates bodies were decomposing.
In their formal legal response, the farm's attorneys filed what is called a general denial, a response that states, in effect, we disagree with all of it without offering a specific alternative account of what has happened.
Along with that blanket denial, the farm's legal team raised 23 affirmative defenses, legal arguments that, if accepted by the judge, could end the case before a jury ever hears the evidence.
Asserting affirmative defenses is a routine step in civil defense procedure.
Federal regulations governing the USDA's National Organic Program are explicit.
Those certifications can create pressures for farmers.
An organic livestock operation cannot sell, label or represent as organic any animal or product derived from that animal if that animal has been treated with antibiotics.
The rule exists to prevent antibiotic overuse and to ensure that customers get what the label promises.
But in practice, that rule puts a farmer in a difficult position.
If a dairy cow gets sick and the most effective treatment is an antibiotic, administering it means that an animal loses their organic status and the premium price that comes with it.
Every time a cow is treated, the farm loses money, the lawsuit claims. Alexander resolved that tension by simply not treating sick animals, keeping them in the herd, milking them when possible, and then selling them at auction when they could no longer produce.
Federal organic rules are explicit on this point as well. An operation must not withhold medical treatment from a sick animal in order to preserve its organic status. Euthanasia must be available for animals in pain, the lawsuit alleges. Alexander violated both of those requirements.
After Farm Forward's investigation was published, certification bodies took notice. The Regenerative Organic alliance condemned Alexander's wrongdoings and suspended the farm certification.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals removed Alexander products from its consumer guide, Certified Humane temporarily dropped Alexander from its list.
The Northeast Organic Dairy Producers alliance, an industry organization that had previously featured a promotional piece on Alexander, publicly called the documentation of abuse devastating.
As of early 2026, Alexander Family Farm had begun using a newer certification mark, one described by Farm Forward as significantly weaker but than the certifications the farm previously carried.
That same mark is also used by Butterball and Foster Farms.
Here's where the story takes a turn that is difficult to ignore.
Before Blake Alexander ever took the podium at the USDA press event in December of 2025, and before he stood alongside the Agriculture Secretary and described regenerative farming as farming in harmony with nature, a federal investigation conducted through the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Services, prompted by Farm Forward's documentation, substantiated multiple allegations against the farm. The investigators described what they found as systematic failures.
The violations Alexander admitted to as part of a resulting two year settlement program are specific and they echo almost directly what the civil lawsuit alleges.
Alexander admitted to dragging cows using hip clamping machinery, removing horns without pain relief, cutting a teat from a cow suffering from mastitis, spraying a diesel fuel mixture on live animals to repel flies, allowing animals to go without feed and animals dying from trampling.
Those are not allegations from activists.
Those are admissions to the federal investigators by Alexander Family Farm itself.
Rather than facing penalties, the farm entered into a two year settlement program requiring additional oversight.
The USDA required Alexander to change practices, train staff and hire an animal welfare consultant.
And then, approximately one year later, the USDA invited Blake Alexander to stand at a press conference promoting regenerative farming as a national model.
The civil lawsuit locally has now survived multiple attempts to shut it down.
Alexander's attorneys made an early motion to have the entire case dismissed, arguing that legal impact for chickens lacked the legal authority to bring this kind of lawsuit at all.
That motion was denied.
The farm's legal team then took the unusual step of petitioning the California Court of Appeals directly asking the Appeal Court to order the Humboldt County Superior Court to dismiss the case.
The Court of Appeal denied that request as well. The case was then returned to Humboldt county, where it remains working its way through the litigation process.
The fight has now shifted to the evidence gathering phase, and it has become its own battle.
Legal Impact for Chickens served five subpoenas on government agencies.
Those agencies included the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, County Code Enforcement, County Department of Health and Human Services, the Del Norte County Sheriff's Office and the Del Norte County Code Enforcement.
None of those agencies attempted to block the subpoena requests.
The only party that fought to keep those government records secret was Alexander Family Farm.
The farm's attorneys argued that the records were not relevant, that the lawsuit had no legal basis to proceed, and that internal government files were protected by privilege.
In May of this year, Judge Timothy Canning rejected each of those arguments and ordered all five agencies to produce their records.
However, June brought a split result. Judge Canning sided with Alexander Family Farm on two separate evidence motions.
More than 500 pages of auction yard records produced by the Petaluma Livestock Auction Yard and the Humboldt Auction Yard in Fortuna were designated confidential.
Alexander's attorneys had argued those records contained proprietary business information.
Judge Canning agreed.
The same day, the court ordered Legal Impact for Chickens to provide more complete answers to formal questions submitted by Alexander's legal team. Those two rulings marked the farm's first courtroom wins in this litigation, but they did not address the underlying questions or the underlying allegations in the formal complaint. The question of whether the farm's cattle were systematically abused or not remains before the court.
What the government agency records contain, whether they corroborate the whistleblower accounts or reveal what law enforcement already knew about conditions at this farm, is not yet known.
Aline Anello, president of Legal Impact for Chickens, offered this statement to redheaded companies aren't above the law.
California has laws against animal cruelty. We intend to make sure that Alexander Family Farm follows those laws.
Alexander Family Farm's attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
For KMUD News and Red Headed Black Belt, I'm Ryan Hutson.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Marco Rubio visits Gulf allies to ease concerns over the Iran deal Here's the story from our friends at kpfa.
[00:23:17] Speaker F: The Trump administration announced Sunday that it come to terms with Iran on an agreement to end the conflict the US and Israel started on February 28th with Iran. Over the course of the four month long war, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases in several Gulf countries.
Rubio told reporters at the airport that Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without charging tolls for vessels to pass through the important waterway, which the Iranians have claimed recently.
[00:23:51] Speaker G: We know what they agreed to. I don't know why they have to say the things they say. Whatever their internal or domestic politics is, I guess they'll navigate it. But we know what they agreed to do and now they'll either do it or they won't.
And if they do, the process moves forward and if they don't, the president will have some decisions to make.
[00:24:07] Speaker F: President Trump has threatened to restart hostilities if Iran violates the agreement. It's still unclear if the deal requires Iran to open its nuclear sites up to inspection.
Gulf countries have been nervous about a nuclear armed Iran on their doorstep. Rubio said he's in the region to hear them out.
[00:24:27] Speaker G: We want to hear, we want to hear their thoughts, especially in the aftermath of this weekend in Switzerland and make sure that their views are taken into account. Every decision that we make because they're our partners.
[00:24:36] Speaker F: A $300 billion investment fund in Iran is reportedly being discussed in talks with the country.
Rubio said that it will depend on Iran's compliance with the deal. Whether they receive that it's a part of what's discussed.
[00:24:51] Speaker G: That could happen if Iran makes a decision, if its leadership makes a decision that they want to be a country instead of a revolutionary movement that exports terror, they're going to have an opportunity to do incredible things in Iran. I'm not promising you that that's the choice they're going to make. I'm saying if that's the choice that they make, then there will be opportunities. And those opportunities could include investment. As you've seen, other countries in this region benefit from investment from foreign direct investment.
[00:25:15] Speaker F: Countries in the region have also long been concerned about Iran's support for proxies that have infiltrated parts of the Middle east and helped destabilize the region.
Rubio said negotiations include demands that Iran halt that support.
[00:25:31] Speaker G: A careful reading of the MOU will see that when you talk about, for example, a complete and end of hostilities in the entire region, well, that's not possible. You can't have the end of hostilities and conflicts in the region as long as Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq and are participating in terrorism like Hamas did and like Hezbollah did.
[00:25:50] Speaker F: Rubio said the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon will be negotiated separately between Israel and Lebanon. Rubio says the US and its allies are bringing pressure to bear on Iran, however, to end its funding for Hezbollah. For KPFA News, I'm Max Pringle.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: That's all for our news broadcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our rotation of broadcast engineers, Dennis Mar, Katie Phillips, Bianna Federico, Michael McCaskill, Larry Lashley and Javier Rodriguez.
Also thanks to our reporters for this broadcast, Ryan Hudson and Daniel Mintz.
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I'm April Lewis. Stay tuned. In.
