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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/fight-of-the-river-people/Content?oid=19878127">https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/fight-of-the-river-people/Content?oid=19878127</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Fight of the River People</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Thadeus Greenson - March 4, 2021<br></div>
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<p>
It was a Friday in late August when four jet boats made
their way up the Klamath River under a cloudless blue sky. The boats
carried three tribal chairs. From the Karuk Tribe, there was Russell
"Buster" Attebery, who'd found pride as a boy catching salmon from the
river and bringing them home to his family, and later come to believe
some tribal youth's troubles — from suicides to substance use — could be
traced back to their never having had that opportunity, growing up
alongside a river now choked with algae and diminishing fish
populations. There was Joseph James from the Yurok Tribe, who'd come to
see the river's declining health as a "slow strangulation" of his people
— "river people" — who have lived along its banks and relied on its
salmon as the bedrock of their diet since time immemorial. And there was
Don Gentry, recently elected to a third term as the upriver Klamath
Tribes' chair, whose people hadn't seen salmon and steelhead swimming in
their ancestral territory in a generation.
</p>
<p>
There were others on the boats, too. People like Craig
Tucker, an environmentalist who promised himself in school he'd never
waste his career fighting for quixotic causes, yet had now come to spend
two decades working on Klamath dam removal. There was Frankie Joe
Myers, who'd come of age amid the fight to undam the river and was now
in the thick of it as the Yurok Tribe's vice chair.
</p>
<p>
But the trip up the Klamath that day in August wasn't
really about any of the people who'd made undamming the river a central
part of their life's work, it was about about making a case to two men
who'd never set eyes on the river before but held its future in their
hands.
</p>
<p>
Weeks earlier, after a Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission ruling had derailed a hard-fought 2016 agreement to remove
the four hydroelectric dams choking the lower Klamath River, Myers and
James had issued a plea. While PacifiCorp, the electric company that
owns and operates the dams, was publicly musing about walking away from
the agreements, Myers and James decided to appeal directly to Berkshire
Hathaway, the holding company run by Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's
most successful and famous investor, which had acquired PacifiCorp for
more than $5 billion back in 2005.
</p>
<p>
In a meticulously worded email to Berkshire Hathaway
Energy Vice Chair Greg Abel, who's believed by many to be the
89-year-old Buffett's successor, Myers said he and James invited one of
the world's most powerful men to simply come see the river, sit and
talk. Abel accepted and soon he and Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO
William Fehrman were sitting on a jet boat headed upriver.
</p>
<p>
It's hard to overstate the stakes that day on the
river. Activists and officials alike had long believed the best chance
to fundamentally change the dam-removal conversation was to get
Berkshire engaged, a step the company seemed entirely unwilling to take,
a core tenet of its company ethos being not to interfere in the
operations of its subsidiaries. Yet here sat Abel and Fehrman, the
Klamath wind in their hair.
</p>
<p>
Tribal officials had worked hard to keep word of the
visit close, concerned an ill-timed protest or demonstration could
jeopardize this show of good faith. They'd mapped out the day carefully
to showcase the Klamath's beauty and potential, planning to give the
executives a meandering tour of family fishing holes and camps on the
river until eventually landing where Blue Creek enters the Klamath — a
scenic spot filled with biological diversity and spiritual significance
for the Yurok Tribe — where they'd lunch on traditional salmon cooked on
sticks over an open flame. But as the boats rounded a sweeping bend in
the river, it became instantly clear some had other plans. A floating
blockade — a few boats and dugout canoes, with large nets stretched
across the river — came into view, dotted with signs calling for the
river's undamming, some punctuated by red fists.
</p>
<p>
Myers, who said he'd personally assured Berkshire
representatives they would be safe coming to Klamath, said his heart
quickened a bit when he saw the blockade, unsure what was to follow.
</p>
<p>
"It was risky," Myers said. "There were a few moments
when I was like, 'I have a couple of the richest men in the country on a
jet boat and I don't know what [the protesters] were going to do.' ...
Everyone in the boats felt very vulnerable."
</p>
<p>
The blockade, which comprised a couple dozen of the
Klamath River's most ardent activists, ordered the jet boats to stop.
Then, the activists took turns addressing the representatives of one of
the world's most powerful companies.
</p>
<p>
One of them presented the men with a plastic jug of
water pulled from behind one of the dams, where the water is choked with
bright green algae and pressed them to open the jug and smell the toxic
brew. Another noted that an entire generation of water protectors had
been raised in this fight under the oppressive weight of a sick river.
Jon Luke Gensaw pulled off his COVID-19 facial covering, telling the men
to take a good look at his face.
</p>
<p>
"If this doesn't end, you're going to see more of us,"
he said. "I want you to remember my face because you'll see me again."
</p>
<p>
Chook-Chook Hillman, who joined the effort to remove
the dams when he was a teenager and whose dad would take him to the
meetings with upriver irrigators and ranchers that led to the 2010 dam
removal agreement that died in Congress, started by asking his son to
present the executives with a gift.
</p>
<p>
"Thank you — very kind," one of them can be heard to stammer in a recording of the exchange.
</p>
<div>
<p><span></span> <a href="https://media2.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/original/19878124/news1-02-4c0ab5e3c936180e.jpg" rel="contentImg_gal-19878127" title="Berkshire Hathaway executives talk to Klamath Justice Coalition activists who stopped them on a trip to the river. - MAHLIJA FLORENDO"><img src="https://media2.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/blog/19878124/news1-02-4c0ab5e3c936180e.jpg?cb=1614874373" alt="Berkshire Hathaway executives talk to Klamath Justice Coalition activists who stopped them on a trip to the river. - MAHLIJA FLORENDO" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="189" height="405"></a></p><ul><li>
Mahlija Florendo
</li><li>
Berkshire Hathaway executives talk to Klamath
Justice Coalition activists who stopped them on a trip to the river.
</li></ul>
</div>
<p>
The gift, Hillman later told the men, was a small white
flag affixed to a wooden stick. Hillman said he and his fellow water
protectors would be waiting when the executives and tribal officials
returned downriver. If they waved the flag, it would be a sign that an
agreement had been restored. But if not, Hillman warned, Berkshire
Hathaway should brace for protests like it had never seen.
</p>
<p>
"If you guys ain't waiving that flag when you're coming down the river — it's on," he said.
</p>
<p>
Annelia Hillman told the executives that the health of
the river is their responsibility — their problem — and one that's going
to effect their children and grandchildren, their futures.
</p>
<p>
"It's affecting you, too," she said. "Don't think this
is an Indian problem. It's your fucking problem, too."
</p>
<p>
After a tense 15 or so minutes, the blockade moved to
the side and the boats headed on. When they came back down again some
hours later, Hillman said no one aboard would make eye contact with him
or the other water protectors.
</p>
<p>
The flag was nowhere to be seen.
</p>
<p>
<b>About six weeks</b> before that day on the river,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had issued a ruling that put
the groundbreaking dam removal deal — itself a resuscitation of a more
ambitious deal reached in 2010 that was dependent on Congressional
approval that withered on the vine — in serious jeopardy.
</p>
<p>
Under the terms of the 2016 deal, the Klamath River
Renewal Corporation had asked FERC to transfer the licenses of the four
dams to a newly created nonprofit, which would then oversee and assume
liability for the removal process, allowing PacifiCorp to step away
cleanly. The dams would then be removed using $450 million already
raised for the purpose — $200 million from PacifiCorp ratepayers and
$250 million in water bonds authorized by California's Proposition 1.
</p>
<p>
But FERC ruled the company couldn't simply walk away
from the dams it built and the situation it had created, and would need
to remain attached to the dams as their co-licensee until their removal.
</p>
<p>
Regina Chichizola, the policy director at Save
California's Salmon who has been involved in Klamath dam removal and
other watershed restoration efforts for more than a decade, said she had
mixed emotions watching the FERC hearing. On the one hand, she said,
she personally understood the ruling and why a private company shouldn't
be allowed to permanently alter a river for profit and then simply walk
away. She also knew it would mean trouble.
</p>
<p>
"I know how PacifiCorp is and I knew they would demand
more because they always demand more," Chichizola said.
</p>
<p>
Within days of the ruling, PacifiCorp began publicly
hedging, saying it had undercut some of the main "customer protections"
that had brought the company to the table for the deal. This was a
foundational shift, it held, and the deal would need to be
re-negotiated.
</p>
<p>
But any sizeable delay would cut sharply against the
chances of reaching a new accord and seeing the dams removed, as the pot
of money for the project was unlikely to grow and cost projections
would escalate with every month or year that passed.
</p>
<p>
In the days that followed FERC's ruling, pockets of dam
removal stakeholders met quietly, plotting paths forward. Chook-Chook
Hillman said he and a handful of longtime river advocates got together
on the banks of the Klamath with a whiteboard and started brainstorming.
Chichizola held conference calls with environmental groups and other
stakeholders. Tucker and tribal leaders pondered their next move. And
North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman readied to throw all his weight as a
member of Congress at the problem.
</p>
<p>
They all settled on a single target for what would be a
months-long, multi-pronged campaign the likes of which the Klamath had
never seen: Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett.
</p>
<p>
Since Berkshire purchased PacifiCorp back in 2005, many
dam removal advocates had felt Buffett was the key to getting the
company on board. He wasn't simply one of the world's richest man, but
the Oracle of Omaha, an almost mythical business figure famed for
down-home sensibilities and philanthropy.
</p>
<p>
Advocates had long sought to turn his attention to the
Klamath. For consecutive years, Tucker had bought up as many tickets as
possible to Buffett's annual shareholders' meetings — known by some as
the "Woodstock of capitalism" — schmoozy affairs more focused on
symposiums and cocktail parties than balance sheets. They'd successfully
bombarded question and answer periods with Buffett with inquiries on
the Klamath, staged die-ins in front of black tie events and even had
Native women flood a cocktail party at a diamond store wearing
traditional regalia to talk to revelers about the Klamath and what it
means to them.
</p>
<p>
"I have no idea how somebody like Warren Buffett
thinks," Tucker said of the rationale for the approach. "It's hard for
me to put myself in the shoes [of someone] who has more money than God.
But I do know he's 90 and I do know he has Native grandchildren. These
shareholder meetings of Berkshire Hathaway are big parties. There's not
that much business but a lot of cocktail parties. And I don't think he
wants them to be dominated by talk of the plight of Native people."
</p>
<p>
But publicly anyway, none of these efforts seemed to
get through to the man who'd built an empire at least on the image that
he purchased good companies and let them operate as they saw fit.
</p>
<p>
This time had to be different. And the effort also had
to break through amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which made mass
demonstrations — and even traditional organizing strategies — dangerous
and impractical.
</p>
<p>
On the banks of the river, Hillman and other Klamath
Justice Coalition members decided they would use personal connections to
write heartfelt letters appealing to people close to Buffett.
</p>
<p>
Chichizola and others, meanwhile, plotted a massive
social media push. They found Gates scholars willing to post messages in
support of dam removal, hoping to catch the ear of Bill Gates, a
longtime friend of Buffett's. And they'd work toward a large scale day
of action that would feature an online event as well as on-the-ground
protests.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Myers and James got to work on their letter
to Abel, the man many expect to succeed Buffett at the helm of Berkshire
Hathaway and its quarter of a trillion dollars in annual revenue,
imploring him to come see the Klamath River and its people for himself.
</p>
<p>
<b>Ten days prior</b> to the blockade on the river,
Huffman convened a special virtual hearing of his Water, Oceans and
Wildlife Subcommittee on dam removal and Klamath River conditions. The
hearing featured tribal leaders who spoke of the river's importance to
their people; environmental scientists who detailed its dire condition
and the dams' impacts on water quality and fish populations; and North
Coast State Sen. Mike McGuire and State Water Resources Control Board
Chair Joaquin Esquivel, both of whom indicated the state had taken a
light hand with permitting PacifiCorp's Klamath dams — a practice that
would end should the company walk away from the deals.
</p>
<p>
Berkshire Hathaway sent to the forum PacifiCorp Vice
President Scott Bolton, whom Huffman, an environmental lawyer prior to
entering politics, seemed to relish questioning.
</p>
<div>
<p><span>click to enlarge</span>
<a href="https://media1.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/original/19878125/news1-03-aaf23434cdeca491.jpg" rel="contentImg_gal-19878127" title="Chris Weinstein, a GIS and drone operator for the Karuk Tribe, holds a jar full of Microcystis cyanobacteria from the Copco Reservoir on the Klamath River. The algae produces a carcinogenic liver toxin called microcystin, which is harmful to humans and animals, including salmon. - STORMY STAATS">
<img src="https://media1.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/blog/19878125/news1-03-aaf23434cdeca491.jpg?cb=1614888882" alt="Chris Weinstein, a GIS and drone operator for the Karuk Tribe, holds a jar full of Microcystis cyanobacteria from the Copco Reservoir on the Klamath River. The algae produces a carcinogenic liver toxin called microcystin, which is harmful to humans and animals, including salmon. - STORMY STAATS" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="405" height="271">
</a></p><ul><li>
Stormy Staats
</li><li>
Chris Weinstein, a GIS and drone operator for the
Karuk Tribe, holds a jar full of Microcystis cyanobacteria from the
Copco Reservoir on the Klamath River. The algae produces a carcinogenic
liver toxin called microcystin, which is harmful to humans and animals,
including salmon.
</li></ul>
</div>
<p>
"Mr. Bolton, I think it's pretty clear that you and
PacifiCorp are at a crossroads," he said. "You have a choice. The river
is dying. The fishery is dying. Your dam is causing a toxic
concentration of algae that's the worst in the world. ... But you're not
powerless to protect your ratepayers. We can work shoulder to shoulder,
get this done on time and on budget, or you can blow this thing up."
</p>
<p>
The comment struck back to something Huffman said in
his opening statement, laying the Klamath River's future squarely at
Buffett's feet.
</p>
<p>
"Warren Buffett has the chance to be a hero in Indian
country," he said. "Or he has the potential to be remembered as someone
who perpetuated a grave injustice just to make a little more money."
</p>
<p>
The ensuing weeks would see a bevy of action. Huffman
introduced legislation that would have essentially given downriver
tribes a voice in FERC's re-licensing processes, ensuring they would be
unpleasant affairs for PacifiCorp moving forward.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, as Chichizola and others pushed toward the
day of action in October, protests began to pop up — in San Diego, where
PacifiCorp was pursuing a power deal, at the company's headquarters in
Oregon and elsewhere — and Klamath hashtags began to trend.
</p>
<p>
"One of the things I like to stress when talking about
the story is how every single part was in play," said Chichizola, adding
that scientists argued the scientific case for dam removal, politicians
played politics, tribal leaders negotiated and coordinated, and a
community of activists — many who'd grown up in this effort — organized
and rallied.
</p>
<p>
When the day of action arrived, it was massive, with
COVID-19 adapted protests in 11 cities — and in front of Buffett's home —
7,000 people attending a live online forum and 10,000 signing petitions
calling for dam removal. Multiple national Native rights groups joined
the social media push and #undamtheklamath began trending on multiple
social media platforms. Meanwhile, a coalition took out a full-page
advertisement in <i>USA Today</i> calling for dam removal and casting it as a social justice issue.
</p>
<p>
Tucker said he's simply never seen anything like it.
</p>
<p>
"We had protests popping up all over the place that we
didn't really organize and that's what you want — that's a grassroots
movement right there," he said.
</p>
<p>
<b>It's hard to pinpoint</b> the moment it happened —
whether it was on the river that day, Huffman's grilling of Bolton, the
scores of heartfelt testimonials on the day of action — but something
moved and Berkshire came to the table. (Berkshire Hathaway, through a
spokesperson, "declined the opportunity" to be interviewed for this
story.)
</p>
<p>
But when the company did decide to take PacifiCorp's
position at the negotiating table, stakeholders say everything changed.
Myers, the Yurok Tribe's vice chair, said Fehrman, Berkshire Hathaway
Energy's CEO, stepped in as the company's lead negotiator and took a
granular approach to understanding the agreement, the dam removal
process and potential liabilities involved.
</p>
<p>
Over the course of about a week, a core negotiating
team formed, with Fehrman representing Berkshire, Myers representing the
Yurok Tribe and Tucker there for the Karuk Tribe, as well as Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality Director Richard Whitman and
California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham.
Because everyone's schedules were packed, the only time they could find
to meet were early mornings and weekends, but Myers said no one flinched
and the group began meeting three or four times a week, with
participants often joining the video conferences from their homes.
</p>
<p>
"It did bring a certain amount of closeness to these
meetings," Myers said. "The first hour of everyone's day, people are
pretty straightforward with who they are. You get to see people in their
homes getting their first cups of coffee. There's some real humility
there."
</p>
<p>
Tucker said Berkshire wanted to be walked through every
aspect of the plan in fine detail, how construction would work and a
detailed breakdown of the budget, the insurance plan and liability
concerns.
</p>
<div>
<p><span>click to enlarge</span>
<a href="https://media1.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/original/19878126/news1-04-cc335f6d66a7514b.jpg" rel="contentImg_gal-19878127" title="Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO William Fehrman smells a bottle of toxic algae pulled from above one of the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River while speaking to protesters at a blockade on Aug. 28, 2020. - SAMMY GENSAW">
<img src="https://media1.fdncms.com/northcoast/imager/u/blog/19878126/news1-04-cc335f6d66a7514b.jpg?cb=1614874569" alt="Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO William Fehrman smells a bottle of toxic algae pulled from above one of the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River while speaking to protesters at a blockade on Aug. 28, 2020. - SAMMY GENSAW" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="405" height="270">
</a></p><ul><li>
Sammy Gensaw
</li><li>
Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO William Fehrman
smells a bottle of toxic algae pulled from above one of the four
hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River while speaking to protesters at a
blockade on Aug. 28, 2020.
</li></ul>
</div>
<p>
"We're talking about removing four large dams — this is
on the scale of demolishing skyscrapers or decommissioning giant power
plants," Tucker said. "But they committed to being open-minded and said,
'OK, you keep telling us this is buttoned up, so let's go through it
again.' Once we went through it, they were like, 'Wow, the Klamath River
Renewal Corporation has it together.' ... We kind of watched the
realization of the company that this wasn't just some pipe dream. This
was well-thought-out and well-managed."
</p>
<p>
It was another shift. "And," Tucker continued, "once
they decided they were going to go for it, everything changed. Every
interaction with the company was all of a sudden, they are clearly 100
percent committed to dam removal."
</p>
<p>
Ultimately, the parties agreed PacifiCorp, California
and Oregon would pledge another $45 million in contingency funds to
account for cost overruns or liabilities and that Berkshire would agree
to a three-way split of any liabilities or overruns beyond that moving
forward. But a significant hurdle still remained: Berkshire wanted
another entity to take over PacifiCorp's status as co-licensee on the
dams through the removal process. Oregon agreed to sign into the role.
But the deal needed California to do so, too.
</p>
<p>
Myers said Bonham had done a "phenomenal job"
throughout the negotiations but indicated this kind of decision was
beyond him. The tribes would need to talk directly with Gov. Gavin
Newsom.
</p>
<p>
When tribal representatives met with Newsom in
Sacramento, Myers said he knew the stakes couldn't be higher. His
approach, he said, was not to vouch for the science or the economics of
the project — others had done that for years. Instead, he said, the goal
of the day was to really show Newsom what this agreement would mean to
tribal people.
</p>
<p>
"It was our role to really say, 'This is worth it,' and
to speak to the 150-plus years of pretty horrific negotiations with
California," Myers said. "When you look at the gold rush in California,
when you look at the timber barons in California, the commercial fleets
of California, the mission system in California, there is an atrocity
built on an atrocity built on the graves of our people. This is the
world's fifth largest economy because it's built on the resources of the
Indigenous people of California. ... This is our land and we're still
here."
</p>
<p>
After the group finished making its case to the governor and
the meeting was wrapping up, Myers said he offered a last push:
"California has a huge debt to Indian people and dam removal does not
repay that debt by a long shot. But it's a good down payment."
</p>
<p>
Newsom, Myers said, responded: "California is all in
and we're never going to stop until the dams come out."
</p>
<p>
<b>In late October</b> and early November, word crept
into activist circles that negotiations with Berkshire were going well,
that there was progress. But it was hard to believe.
</p>
<p>
"I was still tepid," said Hillman. I'd heard there was
another agreement in principle. Well, I remembered the other agreements
in principle. We were hearing that there's an agreement, that the states
are involved. That sounds good. But other agreements have sounded good
as well."
</p>
<p>
It was mid-November when word began circulating that a
press conference was in the works when Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown,
Berkshire Hathaway and the Yurok and Karuk tribes would announce a new
deal had been reached. But most interviewed for this story recall a
singular moment when this agreement felt not just real but substantively
different than its predecessors — a draft press release began to
circulate and in it was a quote from Buffett himself. And the quote
didn't talk about ratepayers. It talked about the good of Native people.
</p>
<p>
"I recognize the importance of Klamath dam removal and
river restoration for tribal people in the Klamath Basin," Buffett said.
"We appreciate and respect our tribal partners for their collaboration
in forging an agreement that delivers an exceptional outcome for the
river, as well as future generations. Working together from this
historic moment, we can complete the project and remove these dams."
</p>
<p>
For Hillman, who once fasted for 10 days in preparation
for a meeting with Buffett only to be turned away, the moment was
profound.
</p>
<p>
"It hit me a lot harder than I thought it was going to,
for his words not to be about ratepayers but about restorative
justice," he said. "That day did feel a lot different than it ever has.
People say we've been here before but I'm saying, 'Not here.' We haven't
been here, where the states and the company and Fish and Wildlife are
talking about restorative justice. Those statements are hard to walk
back. It sure does feel different."
</p>
<p>
Last month, the KRRC filed the new agreement with FERC
for approval and, this time, the consensus is it will be approved
without issue, having checked all the boxes the regulatory agency laid
out with its prior ruling, laying the path for dam removal to begin in
2023. Hillman said he's heard Berkshire Hathaway representatives have
been meeting with FERC staff to make sure everything is in order, noting
that he and other advocates were repeatedly denied such meetings.
</p>
<p>
"That makes me happy on the one hand but just angry on
the other," he said. "We've always known that if the big wigs decide
they want to do something as a corporation in America, they do it. They
could have done this the whole time."
</p>
<p>
But they didn't. Repeatedly. So what, after years of
pushing and angling, finally brought Buffett to the Klamath table?
Everyone interviewed for this story said it's impossible to pinpoint any
one thing, as changing economics and political sentiments coupled with
stalwart generational activism all created a perfect storm. But if there
was a tipping point, Myers and Tucker said it was likely that moment on
the Klamath when a group of Native people seeking justice for their
river refused to let Berkshire Hathaway executives pass.
</p>
<p>
"At the end of the day," Tucker recalled, "I was like,
'I'm not sure that went the way we wanted it to.' The tribal activists
became a little confrontational and I thought in the moment, 'Oh, no.'
But what I thought was things going off the rails and all our best laid
plans starting to go awry I think was serendipitous. It created
opportunities for interactions that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
</p>
<p>
"No one sells the Klamath better than the people who
live there," Tucker continued. "People's entire adult lives have been
spent fighting these dams. My child is 16 years old and that's all he's
ever known that I do. And I think there's a lot of Native kids who have
grown up, and that's all they know their parents do. ... We are
committed. And it's generational. If something happens to me, something
happens to Frankie (Myers), something happens to whoever, there's a
generation of young people who will step in to fill our shoes. I think
Berkshire finally understood that."
</p>
<p>
<i>Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the</i> Journal<i>'s news editor. Reach him at 442-1400, extension 321, or </i><i><a href="mailto:thad@northcoastjournal.com" target="_blank">thad@northcoastjournal.com</a></i><i>. Follow him on Twitter @thadeusgreenson.</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>The Community Voices Coalition is a project funded
by Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation to
support local journalism. This story was produced by the</i> North Coast Journal <i>newsroom with full editorial independence and control.</i>
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