Paying my Respects in the Emerald Triangle

Jerry Beckett and Peggy Blair shared the Patricks Point biker/hiker campground with me. He’s 72 and she’s 70, so they’re an inspiration to me to keep riding. They have crossed the country twice on bikes, and are heading down the Pacific coast. They are blogging at http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=Sh&page_id=391567&v=1d.

Agate Beach at Patricks Point State Park

An inquisitive gull, waiting for a handout

Michael Welch, a man among men, at home

Michael welch is the longtime Senior Editor of Home Power magazine, and the moderator of the RE-Wrenches email technical forum for solar installers, a group in which I have been active for fourteen years. He is also a man with whom I have found an easy and genuine man-to-man heart-based connection.

I spent one night at Michael’s off-grid cabin home in the forest, and I found that I wanted to spend more time with this man, and sad to ride on. One of the consequences of this travel is that I meet many people and have a lot of short, genuine but superficial encounters and conversations with them. It’s pleasant, but I miss the deeper conversations, the personal connections of trusted friends. That connection has always come easily with Michael, and it was hard to leave behind. This was the first time we had spent time together unencumbered by the demands of a solar conference or similar event.

Michael has worked with the Redwood Alliance since the early 1980s. The Alliance was formed to shut down the Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant, keep it shut down, and then eventually prevent the $94M he cost of the shutdown from being passed on to the ratepayers. The plant was the first fully commercial nuclear power plant in the US, commissioned in 1963, and had many design and safety flaws, including an earthquake fault and no containment building. After being shut down for refueling in 1976, the plant never reopened, due in large part to the Alliance’s work. Now, the carcass has been almost completely removed from the land. Eventually all that will be left will be the guarded pool of spent plutonium fuel, which has a radioactive half-life of 240,000 years -essentially, in human terms it must be guarded forever on site. Quite a legacy of failure, beginning with the false claims that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter”.

Dave Katz in his barn with one of his inverter collections

Dave at home in Arcata

I looked up and contacted Dave And Anne Katz inn Arcata. This was a personal need: this area is where the PV industry got its start, although few other than the old-timers in the now-huge industry know this. The marijuana growers were the original customer base, with remote land, ready cash in the fall, no utilities and a desire for privacy. David founded Alternative Energy Engineering – AEE Solar – in 1979 and served the market, about 3,000 off grid homesteads, for years. He has always been spoken of in terms of kindness and respect, and as part of this trip, I simply wanted to pay my respects.

He and his wife Anne also totally walk the talk. His original off grid home is rented, although he maintains space and a guest bedroom there, and they live in Arcata. They have enough grid-intertied PV to have allowed them to add an electric hot tub, electric dryer, and a Nissan Leaf electric car, and still come out $700/year ahead in payments from the utility.

Anne Katz at home.

Anne is a nurturer and caregiver, always watching out for the well being of others. We had a long evening conversation the night I stayed at their home that was very satisfying to the need for deeper connection. She and David have one of those marriages that few achieve, totally accepting of each other. It’s joyous to be around them.

Harvest time in the Emerald Triangle

As I rode today, at least half a dozen times I thought I distinctly smelled marijuana – not the familiar smell of the smoke, but the pungent aroma of the green plant in bloom. I camped the night in an RV park – more on that later. When the RV park manager came by, I asked about this, as I had also smelled it several times in the campground. He waved his arm toward a nearby border fence and said they’re trimming over there, and that the year’s harvest was in full swing. The trimming and drying were all around, barely concealed behind a buffer of trees.

Pot is almost legal in California, and this area has been the prime growing area for the US for decades, since the back-to-the-land movement of the early 1970s. It all works under the structure of medical marijuana, and the law has been developed and interpreted sufficiently to allow a person to make a decent living as a grower. One good plant can bring in $2-3,000. It’s well understood, including by all of the “authorities”, that this is the source of the local economy. It brings billions into the area, generally always in cash, and the money stays and circulates in the area.

Of course, while it’s legal in two states and quart-legal in California and some others, it remains Class One illegal under federal law, and that creates some problems. You can’t pay income tax on earnings from growing and selling a plant classified as harmful as heroin. I learned that the two long-time auto dealerships in Garberville had to shut their doors. There are lots of late-model 4wd pickups on the streets, all paid for with cash. The IRS came to these dealers and demanded their sale records, in order to chase growers who hadn’t paid taxes on their earnings. The growers then bought their new vehicles down in the Bay Area where their IRS anonymity was more assured.

David shared another similar story. Several tribes in the area have casinos, and the slot machines pay about 93% return. It’s not unusual to see people sitting at the dollar slots, putting dollar after dollar in the machines, including all of the money won as jackpots. Gambling winnings are taxable, and a winner gets a 1099-misc. tax form with the winnings. The gambling jackpot is this form, which allows the growers to show evidence of legitimate income.

It’s a crazy system. I was shown a small growing operation; I won’t identify where, of course. The growers were scrambling to protect the mature and delicate flowering plants from the weight and possible undesirable mold from today’s recent rains, the first of the season.

Jamie Yet Again!

Jamie at the Scotia Inn, with Kasia, the waitress there

Once again I ran into Jamie running along the road. This time it was between Fortuna and Rio Dell, running along with his gear. He was tired. It was late in the day, and he would end up having run about 45 miles this day, the same distance I had ridden from Arcata. We both stopped in Scotia at the old hotel, as Jamie heard it was an Irish pub, which he was dearly missing. It was, but had just closed. The bartender went inside and brought us both beers, on the house – word of Jamie’s run had reached him ahead. We each had our beer, and Kasia, the waitress, got her picture taken with each of us.

We shared a $15 site at Safford’s RV Park, a private campground. This was an old park, built in a redwood old-growth forest of stumps. One had even been turned into a.cottage of sorts. Cute, but no match for the tree it replaced.

The following morning, he was interviewed and recorded running for the Eureka television evening news. Jamie wants publicity for his fundraising, so this was a good development.