Rotary Club of Eureka, California

August 8, 2011
Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka

Pledge:  Bruce Emad
Invocation:  Dan Heinen

Visiting Rotarians:  Harry Sharp of Santa Rosa was introduced by Sally Arnot.

Student Guests:  None Today

Exchange Students:  Imogene Carson, one of our outbound exchange students for 2011-2012, is packed and ready to head to Kolbu, Norway tomorrow morning.  She has established a blog, www.imogeneacarson.blogspot.com, if you would like to follow her adventures over the next school year.  Imogene was a guest of Nancy Dean.

Guests of Rotarians:  Carlton Nielsen introduced Brad Gibson of Rockport Healthcare.  Jay Reed’s guest was Mike McElroy from Aalfs, Evans & Company.

Birthdays & Anniversaries:  Today was Pat Folkins’ birthday.  In honor of such, President Pierson presented him with a birthday hammer from the folks at the “Big Hammer,” complete with a red bow.  Other birthday folks who all managed to sit at the front table included Dave Dillon and Rick Littlefield.  Anniversaries this week include the Greg and Laura Williston, Matthew Owen and Virginia Bass and Dave and Carol Dillon.  The Dillons are celebrating 61 years of marriage!

Announcements:  Next week at 11:30am, the Membership Committee will meet at the Wharfinger building in the Yacht Club room.  Please feel free to attend if you are a red-badger and need to complete your required meeting or just feel like hanging out with Steve Justus and John Bradley. 

The Foundation Super Seminar will be held on August 13^th at the County Office of Education located at 901 Myrtle Avenue in Eureka. Click here for more information.  President Pierson is expecting a good turnout, so let’s make him look good!

August 27^th is our rafting adventure on the Trinity River with Bigfoot Rafting Company.  Click here for more information or contact Keith Crossley or Mike Cunningham at 707.441.1111.

Red-badgers….what’s taking so long?  Hurry up and get your requirements completed so you can get your blue badge.  President Pierson called out a few red-badgers who need to complete their requirements, but thankfully missed calling on a few of us in the back!

Recognitions:  President Pierson is on a roll with a heavily laden fine collection for his first 6 weeks of leadership.  Watch out, he has spies everywhere!  HA HA!

Sally Arnot- $145 of your fun week in Hawaii with 11 members of your family, including your new 8 month old granddaughter.

John Ash-  $145 for helping Rotaract with the kayak storage facility on Woodley Island and for North Coast Dance’s tribute to Romano Gabriel, including a cast member playing the part of your wife.  Also, we hear you’ve been busy designing housing units for the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria.  By the way, John mentioned that if anyone is interested in hanging out with the Rotaract gals, they meet on Monday nights at the Winespot at 3^rd and F Streets in Eureka. 

Burt Campton stood up and advised that on behalf of all the past presidents, they would be fining President Pierson for building said homes at Bear River….$145! 

Not missing a beat, President Pierson then asked PP Campton to pony up $145 for providing the electrical materials installed on that same project.  $435 isn’t a bad total for just one project!

Dennis Hunter-  So we hear the local GOP selected you as the 2011 Republican of the Year.  Congratulations and you owe us $145.

Dean Christiansen-  Although we in the community are most grateful for Coast Central Credit Union's Community Investment Program, it’s your two weeks in Scotland at an international credit union world council conference that will cost you $145.  CCCU’s dedication to providing much-needed grants in our community have recently included a $22,000 backup generator to provide life-saving measures in Trinity County, $8,000 for a medical transport vehicle and $20,000 to the North Coast Honor Flight.  Thank you, CCCU!

Dale Warmuth-  Congratulations for being good and not eating those wonderful cookies your mother brings for the customers at work.  $100 to you (and your parents) for 50 years in business at Leon’s Car Care Center and extending your working hours from 7:30am to 5:15pm.  Working commuters everywhere thank you!

Greg Foster-  Steve Justus was nice enough to agree to complete a phone survey last week on local political issues.  He was asked whether or not he would vote for you in your bid for County Supervisor.  Since you verified that this was a nice rumor, but not true, your pocketbook is safe….for now.

Raffle:  John Fullerton & Jim Howard….thanks for donating your earnings to Backpacks for Kids!

Program:  Allison Talbot, Government Relations Representative for PG&E in Humboldt & Mendocino Counties, introduced Paul Roller.  Paul is the Site Director and Nuclear Plan Manager for the Humboldt Bay Generating Station in King Salmon.  Besides the decommissioning of the former nuclear power plant, PG&E has been working locally with Humboldt State University through the Schatz Energy Research Center and on a project to support the projected influx of electric vehicles in our area in the not-so-distant future.  They have also been working with Greg Foster on a broadband redundancy project.  In an effort to keep the general public abreast of happenings with our local power generation facility, PG&E will be holding an open house and tours of the Humboldt Bay Generating Station on August 20^th. 

The decommissioning of the former nuclear power plant is a process that will take seven years from start of finish.  Phases of the process include infrastructure and planning, removal of large components, removal of small and medium components, removal of the nuclear reactor, building demolition & site remediation.  The overall project was started in 2009 and won’t be completed until 2015.

Mr. Roller presented the group with a very visual presentation of the before, during and after photos of the project.  It was particularly interesting to note the intense planning that has gone into the encapsulation of the spent fuel assemblies and how PG&E has planned for a truly worst case scenario in our seismically active area.  Rather than thinking in terms of just Richter Scale magnitude, as most of us do when talking about earthquakes, PG&E measures vulnerability in terms of g-force strength; that is, the amount of gravitational pull associated with a particular movement, in this case, earthquakes or tsunamis.  PG&E designed this facility’s containment site on a hill, 44 feet above sea level, and is projected to be able to withstand a g-force event of 1.3g horizontal and 1.6g vertical.  For those of us who don’t have a PhD in a geological science field, that means this facility is specifically designed to withstand a force three times GREATER than that Japan experienced earlier this year.  He noted that the fault lines that would primarily affect this area include those in the Cascadia Subduction zone and specifically, the Little Salmon Fault at the south end of Humboldt Bay.  The hill on the plant site is also the primary evacuation point for residents of King Salmon, who could have as little as two minutes warning to evacuate.  PG&E will be participating in a community tsunami evacuation drill in case “the big one” ever hits our coastline.  The canisters stored in the hill are encased in six inches of stainless steel, then 40 tons of carbon steel, and are finally sealed with a 26,000 pound lid.  There are no reasons to be concerned about public safety, he stated.  These are the only structures in Humboldt County built to specifically withstand g-force pull up to those levels stated previously.

The pieces of the former plant are being hauled by truck to an area in Utah for disposal.  Parts of the units are being used for replacement parts, while all the copper is being recycled.  It was interesting to note that throughout the entire project to date, there have been no injuries, or even first aid claims!  A few answers to audience questions included the hardest part of the project (the asbestos containment and abatement) and that the storage site would be able to persevere through both a large tsunami and the sea level increase due to global warming.

He summed up his presentation by sharing PG&E’s Decommission Vision:  “To establish a benchmark for future nuclear power plant decommissioning.”  Considering we’ve had guests from France, Spain, Russia and England visit the site over the past six months to visit this literally groundbreaking project, I’d say they are doing a great job.

President Pierson ended the meeting at 1:30pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Stacy Lane