Measure A will harm the environment
For 21 years, I've been working on land and water conservation in Humboldt County and other parts of California. From 2002 through 2014, I worked for Sanctuary Forest as we developed strategies for water conservation and streamflow restoration in the Mattole River watershed that have now been imitated all over the state. Since 2003, I've served on the board of directors of EPIC, which has been at the forefront of forest and watershed protection both locally and statewide for nearly half a century. And for the past decade, alongside my work as a land and water conservation consultant locally and in six other NorCal counties, I've served on the Humboldt County Planning Commission.
So I've been involved since the very beginning of our county's efforts to create and refine the regulatory system that governs cannabis cultivation in our county. And on that basis, I am officially calling BS on the notion that Measure A will have a net benefit in protecting Humboldt's watersheds.
I'm convinced it will do the opposite. It will set back and undermine our efforts to ensure that cannabis in Humboldt is as environment-friendly as possible.
I believe the process we followed in developing our ordinances — which involved dozens of public meetings, hundreds of individual comments, and extensive consultation with all of the public trust agencies who protect our resources — led us to create a system that works well most of the time, and has succeeded in mitigating most impacts that cannabis cultivation can have on streamflows, water quality, wildlife, and neighborhoods. The fact that the state modeled the more protective parts of its rules for cannabis on the ordinances developed in Humboldt underscores this point.
The ordinances are not perfect. But where they needed improvement, our Planning Commission and staff in the Planning & Building Department have developed policies that impose even stricter conditions on applicants than what the ordinances require. For example, any well used for cannabis irrigation must have a hydrogeological study to ensure it will not have a negative effect on nearby wells, springs or streams. Also, all farms are being required to transition to renewable power over the next two years, and to install enough water storage to ensure no impact on streamflows even in drought years.
However, Measure A prohibits any new “structure” from being added to any farm over 10,000 square feet of cultivation area — which means most farms in the county. And the meaning of “structure” in county code is well established. It includes both water tanks and solar panels, not to mention worker housing or septic systems. All of these are new structures that would be prohibited for any farm cultivating over 10,000 square feet, despite the fact that all are intended to mitigate environmental and neighborhood impacts. This means that Measure A would actually prevent the environmental upgrades many farms are legally committed to doing, as conditions of their permits, and which many other farms wish to do even if they don't have to.
The drafters of the Initiative insist this was not their intention. But what they intended to achieve, and what they believe it means, actually doesn't matter. It is the job of county staff (and potentially the courts) to interpret and apply this Initiative as it is written, in the context of other statutory language. I encourage anyone who wishes to understand the impacts of Measure A to read the Planning Department's impartial analysis of it from June 2023.
Meanwhile, Humboldt cannabis farmers are trying to compete in a statewide market while contending with environmental regulations which no other cannabis producer in the state faces. Cannabis farmers in Humboldt are already under stricter rules on water use than anyone else in the county or, actually, in the entire state. There is literally no other water user in California that I am aware of who has to meet standards as stringent as those that cannabis cultivators in Humboldt County must meet. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it, but I haven't yet.
If it passes, Measure A will fix in stone a convoluted set of policies, 32 pages long and drafted without public input, that will be impossible to change except by another referendum. I urge you to vote No on Measure A so that we can continue to use a true public process — with full community involvement, expert input, and compromise among stakeholders — to further improve cannabis regulation in Humboldt County.