Several Acres of Cannabis Approved on Eastern Humboldt Parcel

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Humboldt County's Planning Commission has approved a package of cannabis cultivation permits that span multiple acres on a single parcel east of bridgeville. At its January 15th meeting, the Commission approved four cultivation permits totaling about five and a half acres on an 812 acre parcel accessed by Highway 36 in Larabee Valley in eastern Humboldt. The permits were considered as an overall project and all of them consist of outdoor cultivation, 4 acres of it new, along with ancillary nurseries. Senior planner Steven Santos described the irrigation, water storage and power elements of the four permits. [00:00:44] Speaker B: We have approximately 56,000 square feet of existing outdoor commercial cannabis and four acres of new outdoor commercial cannabis. Proposed total estimated annual water is 4.6 million gallons sourced from three existing ponds and one proposed rainwater catchment pond, as well as five existing and permitted groundwater wells. All of the wells were evaluated by a geologist who determined that they're all hydrologically disconnected. The overall water storage consists of 4.3 million gallons in ponds and an additional 402,000 gallons in existing and proposed hard tanks. Processing on site, including trimming and packaging, is proposed for the existing cultivation, and processing off site at a licensed facility is proposed for the new cultivation. Power is to be provided by a combination of solar and PG and E, with generators reserved for emergency backup. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Only the four farms in the project package are approved under conditional use permits, plus an additional permit for restoration work in one of the cultivation areas. There was no public comment during the hearing and only one written comment was received. The federal Bureau of Land Management has property adjacent to a corner of the parcel and the day before the meeting submitted a letter on its concerns about proximity of cultivation to its property and to northern spotted owl habitat, potential use of BLM access easements and cannabis being illegal under federal law. But Santos said the cultivation areas are far from the BLM property boundary and owl habitat and BLM easements won't be used for access. There was some discussion about use of wells as there's concern about over pumping. Planning Director John Ford described the challenges of determining hydrology. [00:02:46] Speaker C: One of the struggles that we've had in dealing with cannabis in general is how to begin to grapple with the fact that our groundwater sources are discontinuous, they're fragmented, they're extremely hard to map. There's only a few actual basins in the county that are acknowledged, and so I understand the idea of over pumping and the danger of that. But I would also offer that what we're trying to do is look and use a reasonable standard of whether or not proximity, depth of well elevation of water bodies in the area would cause the ability for it to even be connected or to pull from that source. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Eric Sordal, the applicant for two of the permits for existing cultivation responded to over pumping concerns saying his wells weren't activated prior to doing a hydrology report. [00:03:52] Speaker D: I just wanted to clarify the well issue. When we did the hydrologic studies before we were able to use those wells we had to get that study done. So it wasn't the wells weren't pumped or over pumped. They were never used until that report was done. And exactly kind of how Mr. Ford was saying with the geology of the well drillings and the different layers that the well report said in in the well report everything like from the how far the creek and geology that all goes into that report but I just wanted to really make sure you know that you knew that it wasn't overpowering pumped and it wasn't used prior to that report being done. [00:04:36] Speaker A: The commission unanimously approved each of the permits in Eureka. For KMUD News this is Daniel Mintz.