Humboldt Bay Harbor District to seek public input on offshore wind terminal

Humboldt Bay residents still have a chance to shape the offshore wind heavy-lift terminal planned for the Samoa Peninsula, but the window is narrowing. The Humboldt Bay Harbor District’s Community Advisory Committee will hold a public meeting in Arcata on June 24 to gather input on next steps, including the environmental documents now being prepared for the project. The district says the session is meant to bring technical speakers, a panel of experts and stations where people can talk directly with engineers and environmental scientists before the draft environmental impact report moves ahead.

What is at stake is not just a port project on paper. The Harbor District says the terminal would redevelop about 180 acres on the Samoa Peninsula into a multipurpose heavy-lift marine terminal that could serve offshore wind as well as other coastal-dependent industries. For Humboldt Bay, that raises the central local tradeoff: industrial investment and jobs tied to port development versus impacts on bay use, traffic, noise and the working waterfront around Samoa and Eureka.

The project has been years in the making. Planning began in 2020, after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management identified the Humboldt Wind Energy Area offshore. BOEM says that area begins about 21 miles offshore Eureka and stretches roughly 28 miles north to south and 14 miles east to west. The agency completed its environmental review for future offshore wind leasing there in 2022, and two lease areas 20 to 30 miles west of Humboldt Bay were provisionally leased later that year to private developers.

The Harbor District later teamed with Crowley Wind Services, which said it would negotiate to lease and develop the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal and support floating offshore wind platforms through heavy cargo vessels, crewing and marshalling. That partnership ultimately fell apart after allegations involving company leadership and pushback from tribal leaders, and the relationship expired without a lease. The district says it invited 10 Tribal governments to consult on the project in June 2023, before its CEQA process began, and that seven accepted the invitation.

Federal money and federal politics have kept shifting around the project. The Harbor District says the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a $426.7 million award on Jan. 23, 2024, for the terminal at the Redwood Marine Terminal site on the Samoa Peninsula. Its project page says federal offshore wind goals call for 30 gigawatts by 2030 and more than 110 gigawatts by 2050, while California’s targets are 5 gigawatts by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045. Even after President Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 aimed at blocking new offshore wind development, the district has continued environmental review and planning.

That makes the June 24 meeting one of the few remaining points where residents, fishermen and nearby businesses can press their concerns before the district advances the next round of environmental work. For now, the biggest decisions still on the table are how the terminal is shaped, how its impacts are handled and whether Samoa becomes a new industrial hub on Humboldt Bay.