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MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello and welcome to Free Speech with CR. I'm your host, Molly Blakemore and I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: Molly, it's great to be with you after the whole month away. Gosh, I miss you so much with our conversations. Now, we are here today with a special guest. And you may know him, but why don't you introduce yourselves to our guests.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Sure, I'm Chris Mikkelsen, local boy, currently the executive director of the Port of Humboldt Bay.

KEITH FLAMER: Chris when we were just beginning our conversation, I had no idea how connected you are to CR or your family is to former employees but also this area. Tell us a little bit about your background.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Sure. Well, I was born here in 1971. I'm very proud to say I come from a long legacy Roman Catholic family here in the community. We're Italian. So we take that with great pride. Don't let the Danish last name fool you. But yeah, I grew up really on the waters of Humboldt Bay and never knew I was going to be running the port.

Our family owns a home. Still own it today a block off the water. That was my grandparents' home, my Zio Gino's home growing up. [INAUDIBLE] and her family lived there at one point in time. And so the waters of Humboldt Bay were a big deal for us. My family was in the timber business, and so I grew up-- well, the lumber business, I should say. So I grew up in a lumber mill and let's see, Cutten Elementary School, Winship Junior High School, Eureka High School, barely graduated. A little story about high school. When I went into high school, I think I was 3 foot 9 inches tall, and I had a top locker.

KEITH FLAMER: I get it.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So how could you do well, then?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Well, you traded with the guy who had the bottom locker.

KEITH FLAMER: There you go, OK.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Anyways, he and I are still friends today. But barely passed high school and then went on to CR, fortunately.

KEITH FLAMER: Wow, what a great story!

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But a long history, a lot of family here. What did your family do on the water, you said?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Sure, my great grandparents, Angelo and Vittoria Casagrande, had a bakery. It was called a humble bakery, a wood fired bakery. And that was what sustained our family on my maternal side for quite a period of time. And many years later, after the bakery shuttered, after our grandfather passed away, our Zio Gino opened a liquor store up front, Casagrande bottle shop. It was on the corner of 2nd and I.

Most of us in our generation remember it as Has Beans coffee, which it was in the late '80s, early '90s. And behind that, there was a bar and restaurant called the Alley Cat Bar & Grill because there's an alley immediately adjacent there. It was, as they say, a watering hole for a number of folks that was right down from the courthouse so people would come down there. There was Italian dinner served, of course, a bar and then dancing. And a lot of our childhood was just growing up down there spending time with Zio Gino, walking the waterfront.

As a kid, I remember being able to go out on some of the boats. We knew a lot of the fishermen and so we were able to after school go to my grandmother's house. We'd go down and see Zio Gino and go out on a couple of the boats. And so we would troll out a little ways in the Humboldt Bay, and then they would bring the boats together and they'd literally throw us over onto the other boat. And then we would come in, dock up, and go in for the night.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Sounds like a lot of fun.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It was remarkable.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, it must be a lot of change since then that you've seen in Old Town and on the waterfront and now you're the harbor executive director.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Who would have thunk?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, that's a lot of change, a lot of growth. So what's the main changes that you can tell us lately?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Great investment. You look at what people have done to restore what once was. There are a number of families who've made incredible investment in downtown Old Town Eureka and done it in remarkable ways. If you think of the restoration of some of the various buildings, I don't want to name all their names, but for respect for each one of them. But their names and plaques were on a number of the buildings.

And you look at the period architecture that was restored, those are responsibilities to make that investment, bring those buildings back, and then maintain them for decades to come. And some of the more notable fixtures down there is, for example, the Hotel Vance. I think we all know the Vance, probably one of the most beautiful buildings and down to Old Town and the Vance annex, which is that part just to the left of the main building.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is that where your grandmother's bakery was?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: No, they were up a couple blocks on the corner of 2nd and I. Vance is on 2nd and G. And then down a little farther, there's some smaller areas. There's where the Roy's Club Italian dinners was. That's a bit of a restoration and some new modern construction. And then kitty corner to that and up by the Romano Gabriel sculpture, what we called the Old Town Bar & Grill. But it was actually the Healy Brothers Building.

And that's something that a very committed local family did a lot of investment and restoration in. They're not only beautiful, they're restored for modern day function. But a lot of the historic history is present both in things such as the architectural details. But a lot of the materials is preserved and used in the reconstruction. So it's a pretty remarkable commitment.

And I like that people are continuing to invest in what I like to say was my childhood playground. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful commitment. And you don't get that anywhere else around. Humboldt County you can have a brand new structure and a 200-year-old structure right by one another. So yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So we hear a lot about the boom and bust economy of Humboldt County. And a lot of that had to do with the harbor and the water and getting the lumber out of here and then the fisheries and the fishermen. And so right now, I think people are thinking like, what's the new economy for Humboldt County? And what would you say about the harbor and the Bay and the plans for that, and how that can contribute to maybe another boom in the County?

KEITH FLAMER: So what's next?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Well, I'm not a fortune teller, so we don't truly know. It's no secret that we're working on development and around the Port. People hear about the heavy lift multi-purpose marine terminal.

KEITH FLAMER: Can you talk a little bit about that as well?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Absolutely, yeah, we will. I think before we go too deep into the topic, we also have to recognize what exists today as economies in our history. So everything we do has to be focused on preserving all of the access for fishermen. It has to be very focused on our support of water quality. Aquaculture is huge in Humboldt Bay. We're the largest nursery exporter of shellfish products, and we do more than supply the state of California. We do multiple states and there's now international distribution in the products.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is that more than the oysters? Is that other shellfish?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Oysters and clams.

KEITH FLAMER: I didn't know about clams.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: We're the largest Manila clams producer, bar none.

KEITH FLAMER: I didn't know that.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: And there's two large farms that are doing Manila clams right now. There's a new nursery that just started up in Mad River Slough, and then there's a large flupsy operation that's a floating upwelling system, which is at the former LP pulp mill. And then, of course, we have Hog Island doing their oysters. Taylor Mariculture is doing Manila clams right now but can culture oysters and other shellfish nursery.

So there are a lot of operations there and there's many others. We have Humboldt Bay oysters, Aqua-Rodeo farms, and North Bay is another group. The Steiner family. And so as we look at development there, we have to consider all that, but also maintaining the true history of our water, which are sovereign waters. And the cultural resources which sit-in and around Humboldt Bay, both in our shorelines, in the uplands, as well as what history may have yet to be discovered in the water.

And so as we look at development, we have to look at it with a very mindful eye. And responsibility one is considering what exists or what existed before we add to that. So really what the district targeted on in back in about 2014, I believe it was before my time with the district, was finding blighted properties in and around Humboldt Bay. Acquiring them for economic redevelopment. So one of the acquisitions was the former LP pulp mill. That was shuttered in the middle of the night. A company that owned it just disappeared.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Where's that, in Samoa or?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It's on the Samoa Peninsula with one LP pulp drive. So it's about halfway down the Peninsula and getting all the hazardous materials out of there, beginning the project of restoration of the buildings, but also the land. And so these sites are targeted Brownfield sites. The US EPA lists these as targeted Brownfield sites, which means they're potentially or they're known to be dirty with either toxins, dioxins, prior chemical spills, maybe building materials that were used, paints, adhesives.

And so step one with all of these projects is to really do the appropriate assessment and start to clean up those lands. And we've had a good track record with US EPA region 9, which is the region out here in restoring quite a few of these lands. But there's a lot more work to go. And that economic development spurs that. And as we get these properties ready and we get them clean, then people will come in and make the investment to grow them into things such as potentially a multi-purpose marine terminal.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So that is the site that they had proposed that for?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: From the pulp mill North to about the Samoa bridge. It's about 220 acres in total. A portion of that is mitigation. A portion of that will be used, of course, for the operational footprint, about 160 acres when fully built. And then you have your roads and access ways.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Who's doing all of the assessment and the cleanup? Would that be local?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Yeah, so that's the harbor district.

KEITH FLAMER: Which is yours.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: We apply for grants through the federal government, in this case, US EPA. Currently, we're operating under a community wide assessment grant, which is a $500,000 award that allows us to do modern phase ones. When I use the term modern, that means they're timely. They're recent.

From that, we use that material to study it well, look at the history of what was uncovered in those documents, and form a sampling and analysis plan where we go out, we test the soils, we see what we may be dealing with. And that is how we move forward to the phase 2 or the cleanup phases of the project.

There are no dioxins in and around Humboldt Bay. There's no dioxins in our land. A little personal testimony. I grew up in a lumber mill. My parents owned a mill and we had a teepee burner. We had all the solvents that treat wood and the wax and chemicals you put on there. Our whole family worked in the mill.

And in my household of five, my mother, my father, and my three brothers, I'm the only person who hasn't been treated for or died of cancer. So I know that these sites are dirty. And so that's a little-- working on these it's not selfish. It's just an outward expression of an inward commitment to do a little bit better.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And do we know whether it's leaching into the Bay any of these chemicals?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It's assumed, but we don't truly have all the data on it or I haven't experienced those studies yet. But I think that's the purpose of advancing assessment of these lands is to see what we actually are dealing with.

KEITH FLAMER: So what's a timeline for assessment?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: So the good news is the draft phase I reports are ready. There are a couple of parcels that weren't included because that property owner may use their own programs to assess those sites. But those draft assessments are under review with our technical experts right now. Once we bring those forward, we'll publish them and move on to the next step, which is really developing a sampling and analysis plan.

KEITH FLAMER: And then, what's the step after that?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Cleanup.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And then who does the cleanup? Are there local companies that can do the cleanup or--

KEITH FLAMER: Or just the EPA does this?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: EPA funds a lot of it but local landowners may be participating in it, historical landowners. We use the term cradle to grave when we talk about environmental things, especially contamination. But more often than not, we apply for cleanup funds through the US EPA, and they help support the cleanup efforts.

Whether or not we develop the land, we have a responsibility to clean up and restore our land, make it healthy again, and make the water healthy. And that also helps with the health of the community. And remember, this is adjacent a community that people have lived for a couple of centuries now.

KEITH FLAMER: So how involved are the tribes in the conversation as well as cleanup? So really, how transparent are we going to be?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I think transparency needs to be absolute and that's always what we strive for. Tribal consultation is done in two forms. It's done in what we call AB 52, which is mandatory tribal consultation. It's a very private and sacred process. But I would like to see the district move towards a more recurring government-to-government consultation. So when we meet with cities, we meet with services, districts. We meet with the County.

We have a recurring what we call a 2 by 2. Two elected officials from each group plus city leadership or in our case, the executive director, meet and discuss upcoming projects, challenges, opportunities, concerns in and around our communities. And so it would be nice to be able to do that on a recurring basis with tribal government and go a step further.

We shouldn't only be consulting when it's required of us. We should be consulting at all levels. And so I do hope to do that. A lot of those outcomes, however, those aren't things that we would share that would be tribal historical knowledge and information. So we treat that sacred as such.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: I guess I'm coming from a selfish place of thinking of CR and jobs and what kind of jobs our students can get in all of these efforts. And so when I'm really asking about do local people do, I'm talking about the actual cleanup or the scientists gathering the information and doing the analysis and then actually doing the cleanup. Are you getting students from Cal Poly Humboldt or are you getting--

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: We do. So there are a number of firms that are out there some of our local engineering firms, and they are well staffed with local graduates. Typically, these are folks with the four or six year level or either bachelor or master's students. In some cases, we have PhD and scientists who've done a number of additional graduate studies in different forms of education. But those are the people that are helping us on the technical studies and the technical review.

From a cleanup standpoint, yes. When we go out to bid, local contractors are giving preference. And keep in mind that jobs are created from the date that we make an application to work on a project through the award of that application. The organizing of the data when the phase ones are conducted, the sampling, all of the pre-construction work that's done, the laboratory testing. We have a local lab that we can test at. Some of it has to be sent out of the area because we don't have all the capabilities. And then ultimately the cleanup work.

The heavy lift Marine Terminal project should it proceed has a project labor agreement that gives preference to locals, to enrolled tribal members, to local high school and college graduates, to people living within a certain distance of the project site. Our contracts as well that we issue always give local preference.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So those jobs would be-- so local contractors just people who would build your house would also be doing the cleanup?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Could be, yeah. There are contractors that hold a multitude of licenses. Typically, your home builder wouldn't be doing your cleanup, but if they have construction equipment and they have those skill sets, oftentimes a large scale contractor will hire a number of subs. That's the great thing when you come through the trades.

And as a college, a community college, that's so focused on the trades the CR is, the facet and the multi-level of skills that you get from CR it's pretty remarkable. I barely graduated high school. We joked about that a little earlier today. If it wasn't for CliffsNotes and a Betamax, I probably wouldn't have graduated.

KEITH FLAMER: I remember all those so it's OK.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I had to read the book called The Grapes of Wrath in order to graduate, and I was like, that book sounds terrible.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: That's my favorite book.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Why would I read that?

KEITH FLAMER: Of course, it is, Molly.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I ran to the fireplace bookshop, which was an old-- local family had a bookshop in the Eureka mall or WinCo and all that is now. That was our regional mall at the time. And on my way home, there was a store that rented Betamax. It was called Knowles TV and Appliance and rented the video. And I thought, if I can memorize the CliffsNotes and watch the video enough times, I'll go and I'll pass the darn class. We know it's a remarkable story. It's one of my favorites as well.

KEITH FLAMER: But it's a great movie with Jimmy Stewart but I got it. Go ahead.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: And I think Henry Fonda-- it is a wonderful movie. I remember the grandfather being there and it was nickel candies, and the two little kids were looking at the candy. He was buying a loaf of bread to sustain the family. And he asked the storekeeper, are those nickel candies, sir? And the guy looks at Henry Fonda and he looks down at the children he says, no, those are penny candies or something along. I might not have it right, but it was a remarkable human moment right there.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: One of my favorite lines in the book is if you ever need anything, ask a poor person.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Because they'll be the first--

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Resourcefulness.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And also generosity because they know what it's like so.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I don't want to dominate the-- oh, sorry.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Sorry, I was going to say we digress so--

KEITH FLAMER: That's OK.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I was saying about not doing well in school and it was when I went to CR that really I found my way because, well, I was put on academic probation and offered the ability to be dismissed from the college. I ended up getting a job with the college as a district work study, and I worked originally in the job placement office in the Career Center. But then I ended up working in cooperative education, which was a work experience program. And through that I was introduced to all the applied technologies instructors.

Maybe it was industrial technology. I forget what-- the names changed a few times over the years, but I was able to go into the diesel lab. I was able to go into the electronics lab and the machine lab and the construction program and the woodworking. And even though I wasn't an enrolled student and all of that, I was part of the culture and the people that worked there, and that got me into the trades.

So really, the trades was the education that I received, and it's because of CR and what we had in the high schools, the Humboldt regional occupational program. So I think you are, you asked a question earlier, you're providing those jobs. It's your students that are coming out and going there, even if they're matriculating to the larger universities. Most of us are born from College of the Redwoods.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And we have a lot of students who just come for some skills and don't graduate and get good jobs. And we love to see that, too. I mean, of course, we'd always like to see them graduate, but certificates and--

KEITH FLAMER: I want to see them get jobs.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Just scaling up for jobs for sure.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Our retirement plan-- my wife and I when we retire, we're going to go to college and get our degrees.

KEITH FLAMER: And do what?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Just get a degree. I love to be a school teacher. I'd love to get a credential and be able to maybe teach in my latter years. And I think the thing I look forward to the most is meeting out there on the stoop after class and eating our sandwich together. I think that's going to be remarkable. And I really look forward to that.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: That's great.

KEITH FLAMER: So now as we talk about jobs moving forward, what type of jobs should CR focus on as we move into our future?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Gosh, I'm a big believer of the trades. I think that's where it's at.

KEITH FLAMER: What type of trades, because that's such a broad term. But in CR does so many things in trades. And it takes a while for a college to turn a ship. And so the longer we have an on-ramp to where you think we should be headed, I think the better. So if you had a crystal ball.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It's construction jobs. It really is. We're at a point in time where we built so much out over such a period of time, as the economics boomed and people grew and families were growing and generationally, people needed more and wanted more. And we got into this big retail trade economy. Everything we've built is aging. Our infrastructure is aging, our buildings are aging, and they need critical recurring maintenance.

And even if you're going to lay concrete, it starts with a carpenter. Somebody has to be able to frame up the forms. And once you lay that down, if you're going to make a parking lot and build a fence, you need a carpenter. Maybe that carpenter works with metal and not wood. So you need a welder.

KEITH FLAMER: Good, which we've invested in.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: And if I have a storm water system, I need an underground guy. And many of those people are also doing plumbing. So it's all of those traits. Oh, wait a minute, I need street lights, and I have to connect to the power grid. Now I need an electrician, and then somebody has to pay the books. So I need a bookkeeper. And somebody's got to be teaching these people how to cook because they get pretty hungry at lunchtime. And they want to go to the cantina and have a little something to eat. It really is all those trades.

KEITH FLAMER: It's all of them.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: And we need support and mentorship in our mental health too, which I don't know that that's a trade. But sometimes we can't just go to work and turn the switch on all the time. It's important to have someone to talk to and somebody to mentor us and a little bit of guidance. So I think the relationships there at the college-- I look back on the guidance counselors that I had and it was remarkable.

They were a safe place that I could go when I was a little-- I was carrying too much, or I thought I could do more. They were our gatekeepers and I have a counselor from that school, Ellen Koebner, who's still a friend today who I had met as an 18-year-old. And I'm sure he was a little younger in his career then, too. And he's still a really remarkable pillar in my life today.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, he's a great human. I love him. He's a great guy.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: He is. And I've been in scouts with Alan and I've shot guns with Alan and he's an all around just good human.

KEITH FLAMER: He's a good human.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: But if nothing else, it's his hand on your shoulder that says, I care about you. That matters. And so having that--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: I think a mentor is very important for success for sure.

KEITH FLAMER: Are there any other faculty or staff that comes to mind for you as someone who puts you and where you want to be?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Maybe I'll turn that around. I wanted to get re-involved with College of the Redwoods when I first started following you. And I think it's the-- truthfully, I think it's the commitment. I started reading your my word piece or your pieces in the paper. And I think--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Education matters.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Yep, yep. And I think a big part of why I want to go back and get my education is I feel it's now safe, I feel welcome. And there's that commitment and that connection that's been made between whoever's leading the university or the college and the community. Because when I'm 18 years old, that's really scary. I have to apply. I have to be accepted. I have to hit all these milestones.

But as a grown up, I can have a peer-to-peer relationship with my advisors, with our teachers. But that has to be built, that open communication and that welcoming has to be built. So I turn it around to the college. I think you all have done a remarkable job.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Thank you.

KEITH FLAMER: Well, we worked very hard at that.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Well, the results are there. I mean, what a powerful thing! I love wearing a Redwoods sweatshirt. It's one of my favorite things to put on. It's looking pretty tattered. But I know at Christmas time I'll get a new one. Every couple of years when I open one of those presents, it's the new Redwoods sweatshirt.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, we love hearing--

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: The kids know dad loves that one.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: We do love hearing that. I love the fact that you feel more or you feel welcome there. I mean, I think that is one of the biggest messages is that, education is for everybody, and we're there to meet you where you are. And I put on our website 100% acceptance rate. So that's really just about all of you.

KEITH FLAMER: We turn no one away.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And your whole person and meet you where you are. So thank you for that. I do want to talk about-- what is it? The heavy lift.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: A humble, heavy lift, multi-purpose marine terminal.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And so I think people in their minds have that very connected to wind energy. And can you talk about that a little bit?

KEITH FLAMER: Sure.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Because we all know that wind is a little bit up in the air right now. No pun intended.

KEITH FLAMER: Nicely done. Nicely done, Molly.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But the future of wind is blowing in the wind, I guess.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: We are blowing in the wind. There's no doubt about it. It is a real challenging time in wind. One of my calls prior to coming here was talking about how we continue to keep people engaged in the industry. Offshore wind was the catalyst for really looking at Redwood Marine Terminal 1, as we call it. And how could it be redeveloped to be a heavy lift, world class, purpose built, first of its kind Marine Terminal.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: What does that mean to be a heavy lift?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: So heavy lift is really what this terminal is about. And we know it has to be multi-purpose because whether or not we get into wind, one industry does not sustain a marine terminal. We can't just have it sit vacant, especially at the cost of building these things.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Even if wind was up and going, you would still need something else.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Periodically, yes. Because it's not just a constant rotation until more lease areas open up and there's more wind demand, meaning more windmills goes out. There has to be other uses that go across that wharf. And so to build that infrastructure, to build that workforce, we've got to keep it active. But as to your question, the heavy lift marine terminal has a very large bearing capacity.

So we say that things have a pound per foot presence as we push down on the ground or on whatever it sits on. And so the wharf is something around the magnitude of 6,000 PSF, which is extremely heavy lift, very high bearing capacity. Then the field or the uplands which are compacted gravel-- they're not paved, they're actually compacted gravel because they're constantly having to be compacted, it's somewhere around 3,000 PSF. So this is a very specific, very dense-- can hold some of the heaviest equipment. And originally, we designed this project to be multi-purpose, but with the primary use being predominantly wind.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Because we got to half a billion for that.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: The first phase-- phase I was $1 billion down 850 million. That was when we received the $425 million federal grant.

KEITH FLAMER: For half of it.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: And a commitment from a private marine terminal developer. And as we further developed the project, we know now we're probably at 2 billion. And as the industry has changed and we've all learned more, we probably will have to do more in Humboldt. So for example, those little yellow triangles we're all familiar with seeing, those are called floaters.

And those floaters are going to have to be built here. We thought we would buy them or-- excuse me, have somebody else who would produce them. They'd tow them up here exactly. But now, it looks like we're going to have to do that because the port readiness plan, other ports just haven't gotten ready to do that.

So that takes $1 billion project and turns it into a larger project, a billion and a half. And then, OK, if we're going to do that, we have to have places to stage all that material. So it grows a little more. And all of a sudden with inflation and now we've got a little longer time frame in the industry, we're probably at a couple billion dollars.

KEITH FLAMER: So then if we have to build our own, what type of infrastructure do we need to be able to do that work?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: All of the above. Number one, we have to be able to have the land. The good news is we have it. But we have to have energy before we have wind energy, because we have to be able to run a factory. And the bulk of this is going to be electric. We have a green terminal strategy that says, to the degree possible, we will be carbon neutral day one. And that means using things that are electric. We know we won't be able to go all electric day one, but right now the capacity in our local grid system is under 20 megawatts.

KEITH FLAMER: How much I'm sorry?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Under 20 megawatts out of the Peninsula is available capacity at last check with the utility. And we know we need a minimum of about 11 for phase I. And then it grows from there. And as new technologies come online and we continually use that initiative to go fully green, we have to have more and more power demand. Hopefully, at some point they'll be deployment and that energy is coming onshore. But right now that's one of the limitations.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Deployment of the wind farm.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Excuse me, of wind energy, correct. So a lot of moving pieces there. We also have to have a supply chain that can bring these materials in. So we have to build ships. We have to have the proper ships that can handle the size of cargo. Bring them in there. We have to have tug vessels that can maneuver our building ships that would be coming in not now, but perhaps.

I think if we ever did ships in Humboldt Bay, it would be probably partial whole assembly. So it'd be panel assembly and then we'd send it to somebody for example, NASSCO or General Dynamics in San Diego. They don't have the real estate in the laydown area, but there's nothing that says we couldn't do some of that here.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: That's very interesting.

KEITH FLAMER: So how far out do you think we all are for phase 1? And I'm going to ask you today. So in your best estimation.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: As folks who are in it all the time, probably another five years before we really are at a point in time where we know that we're headed to construction or not. We as a harbor district have funding to complete a draft environmental document early next year. So this fall, we'll bring out an updated project description to reintroduce the project to the community. That project description at last check is about 45 pages. So it's quite extensive.

And we'll go through what's known as a scoping meeting or a notice of preparation. And that really is going to kick off the draft environmental review document. And so if we come into spring of next year and that draft document gets published, we start getting all of the comments, we respond to the community's comments, we could finalize it sometime next year. We have a grant that says we should finalize it by June of 2027. We're hoping to work with our funding group and do the FAA and a grant that we'll be commencing very soon.

KEITH FLAMER: So about a year from now.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Yeah. And so then we have to get all of our permits to go to construction, and we'd have to have the industry ready. We know we need to build it about three years prior to the industry being ready. So if it was to come online, the earliest it could come online right now is about eight years from now.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: The wind energy.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Just the initial construction of floaters. That's just having the port ready. So the answer is probably a decade from now when you start lining all that up. And that's if everything continues on the pace that it is today.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Which is a big if.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: But we have new legislation being proposed. Senator Padilla has come out and said, look, this has been approved. We need to give these lease areas an opportunity with another developer who may want to use them and stick in there. We're in a really good spot with Vineyard Wind because Vineyard Wind is a fully renewables company. They don't have a tie back to oil per se.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Because they are paying a lot of these companies who were first investing in wind to instead invest in--

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: The administration that is going back to natural gas is the hook right now, back to the petroleum industry.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So Vineyard doesn't have an interest in that because they don't come from that and they don't have the capacity to do that.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It appears that is correct.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So are they still in the mix?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: They still correspond with us daily. I've spent more than an hour today in communication with them, both in a group and individually. We don't speak for the wind energy developers. Of course, they have to speak for themselves. But it feels like they definitely are continuing to stay committed and engaging on a very recurring basis. And they've probably put an incredibly earnest amount of money forward and effort. And they have kept the bulk of their staff together and others haven't.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And I have a friend who works for Vineyard on the East Coast. And he drives the boats that take all the gear and all the people and all of the equipment out to the wind farm. And then they're 24 hours a day on the boats because there's just so much going on all the time out there. It really sustains a lot of jobs.

He was saying that we would just be really stupid not to invite something like that into our community because of the number of jobs that it creates. So that was very interesting for me. And what's special about our bay? Because I know that-- a lot of people probably want these big projects and off the shore of California and elsewhere. So why is Humboldt Bay so--

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Geographic. We're in the right geographic spot. The bulk of the wind resource is just due South of us directly off our shore. And then it all moves to the North. So that really puts us in a wonderful spot. We have no arrow restrictions, so we have the ability to tow these massive tall units out because there's no bridges in the way.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, I see.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: There's code of federal regulation that still has to be written to allow that to occur. But those are two really key things that happen for us. We also have the ability to service offshore lease areas South of us, because the tow South is much easier than the tow North because of prevailing winds. And we have the ability to support up in the North. So we do have this really unique geography.

But probably one of the most unique things is we have available land that's suited for development. It's zoned appropriately. Yes, there has to be some zoning modifications for some of the buildings and accessories that will go with it.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And this is on Samoa?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: The Samoa Peninsula. If you looked from the Samoa bridge down to the big smokestack, you see that whole tract of land is where this will be built.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, I see.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: It's very large scale. You can measure it in miles. But we also have to remember we're building this right next to a community. And well, that was once a lumber town. And you worked in the lumber mill and you lived next door. Many people have bought that as their single family home now or we have multifamily housing. We have a lot of people who are out there in transitional housing or multifamily housing. We have a school out there.

So the question is, how do we make this work for all parties? And then immediately across the water is Tuluwat Island, which has incredibly strong cultural significance to the Wiyot people. And if you'll allow me, these are sovereign waters. And so there's a lot of work that's left to be done. And so when we say we've got to get this right, it doesn't criticize projects of the past. But we talk about boom and bust.

And I think if we're going to have community members, if we're going to have cultural resources and folks are going to look at this and say, hey, we have fisheries and aquaculture, I don't want to rank who the most affected parties are. But if they're going to work with the community to build something out that creates this once in however many decade, century, lifetime opportunity, it's going to come with a continued consultation. It's not only what happens today, it's what happens during construction, it's what happens during operation, and then what the plan is to sustain it long term. So all of a sudden we're not back to a blighted industrial site 50 years from now.

KEITH FLAMER: So Chris, I hear what you said and what you're saying. My question, where are the barriers to having this dream come alive for you? What are the roadblocks? What do we have to do as a community to offset all those barriers to make sure that we realize what the community needs long term?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: Sacrifice, sad to say, but there's going to be sacrifice made. I mean, imagine if you were living next door to this and you're going to have noise pollution 24/7. Imagine if you are looking at your heritage and your culture and you have an 1,100 foot modern marvel towering over your land. Imagine if you are a producer of food that we consume in Humboldt Bay, and there may be things that are drummed up in the Bay that have been dormant for decades, but yet we have to dredge millions of cubic yards of material, and we stir something up unintentionally. Or what if somebody comes in here and does wrong by our community?

And so we're going to have to consider the sacrifice we make and what the gain is and really evaluate that and underwrite it to make sure it's for the right reason. And we need dollars and cents. We need dollars and cents to build this, which means investors have to have a return on their investment. And so when those people come in here, what can they do to help? SEQUA mitigates what happens to the environment. It doesn't mitigate necessarily what happens to the next door neighbors quality of life. That's not an environmental issue.

So we have community benefit programs or community benefit agreements where we have off-site improvements, things we can do to replace things that may be taken. And if we don't know, let's just say we don't know that these effects will happen but there's concern. We can always put a program in place that says, OK, let's insure around that.

If it does in year 11, for example, this is how we're going to handle it then. And this is how we're going to be able to handle it because we've a sustaining plan that allows us to take that action. Or day one, this is the effect. So prior to operation, these improvements were built to take care of that.

KEITH FLAMER: So have you already started having those conversations with the affected entities?

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: We have community engagement meetings that happen recur every month. Tomorrow morning at 7:30, I meet with a group which is a steering committee for residents for the town of Samoa specifically, which is one of the three communities on the Peninsula. We are re-engaging with tribal government because during a project pause when we lost our federal funding, there was not a lot of forward progress.

And we want to respect everybody's calendars and time. But I think we have an incredible amount of work to do there and to reintroduce ourselves to the project and reintroduce sometimes new councils and new chairs. And really make sure our community is fully aware of where we're going and what we're doing. In an ultimate world, the other thing we need is a little more time.

The world's operating at this crazy pace and as consumers and people that dwell around the land, we want so much right now. And we may need to pace ourselves and understand that we still have this wonderful opportunity, but we can't hit go until we get it right. And if we leave a whole sector out, then we didn't get it right.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: That's very interesting because I was going to ask you how far back did losing the federal funding put us. But actually, maybe you're saying we actually needed that time anyway. So silver lining maybe that now we can really take our time and plan it out.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: I think, it's easy when people say, how would you handle this or so and so did this. And we need to punish them. And I always say, I haven't been chosen as a judge. I'm not going to do that. And yet, we're making judgment for others when we build these massive projects.

KEITH FLAMER: Absolutely.

CHRIS MIKKELSEN: So it's a little stretch in how I just examine that. But we are making decisions for others. And so I would like more time for that consultation to occur. I'd like more time for that engagement. I mean, been quoted multiple times for saying that. When people ask me, is the harbor district still moving forward with this project? Yes, we are. But remember, we're bringing an environmental document forward as a lead agency to be reviewed by the Board of Commissioners, and they will make the decision whether or not the project goes forward.

It isn't my job to advocate for it or to speak out against it. It's my job to direct a team and consultants to do the work necessary to make the findings, to bring forward environmental document. And one big part of that is the community engagement piece. We're also a public trust agency so we operate under the public trust doctrine. We get our authority as a center from the state lands commission, through the California harbors and navigation code.

And one of the key things about being a public trust agency is engagement with all parties. And you have to do that without judgment, which is very difficult for a lot of folks to do. And so that's why that meeting has to be constant recurring, constant recurring. I know it sounds a little oxymoronic, constant recurring, but I'm just saying we're meeting all the time. These are recurring meetings. But every day something comes out of those or somebody wants to go a little further.