1) The community saga of the fishing boat stuck in the shallows at South Salmon Creek Beach off the Sonoma County coast has taken a tragic turn. A full week after the 57-foot boat from San Francisco, named Aleutian Storm, ran aground on the way to the Bodega Bay harbor during a crabbing mission — despite repeated attempts to pull it back out to sea, and glimmers of hope along the way — our local Coast Guard station called off the operation Friday, ahead of the incoming storm. And last night, “the boat was torn apart” in the wild waves, says Bodega-based photographer Jerry Dodrill, who’s been hanging around and helping for days — meanwhile documenting the whole ordeal. The Press Democrat reported Friday: “Listing toward the ocean and battered so repeatedly by waves that a large gash has appeared on its starboard side, in the wheelhouse and through the deck, the 57-ton fishing vessel is now so weighted down with water and sand, and its structural integrity so compromised, that federal officials determined it no longer could be moved. The incident now shifts out of federal jurisdiction and becomes the responsibility of vessel Capt. Chris Fox, his insurers and their contractors to arrange for salvage operations under the oversight of California State Parks, which owns the beach.” To facilitate that, state park officials decided to close the beach to the public. “The operation will require the use of heavy equipment and will require a large safety buffer for the operators,” park officials said. “The closure will include all State Park lands from Salmon Creek extending south to Mussel Point.” The mission to save the boat over the past week became a real community affair, involving dozens of local volunteers — including photographers drawn by the spectacle, crews sent by response agencies, environmentalists concerned about the 1,500 pounds of diesel fuel reported to be on board, and local fishermen whose hearts went out to this San Francisco fishing crew watching their livelihood viscerally beaten down by ocean waves. In the words of Dick Ogg, a “veteran fisherman who is president of the Bodega Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association” and spoke to the PD: “If you lost your house, if you lost your means of making a living, all of that is similar to what’s happening. Chris works so hard. He’s such a good person and it’s just devastating to see something like this happen.” And photographer Jerry Dodrill wrote on Facebook last Wednesday: “There are so many moving parts to this story, beyond the simple circumstances how the boat ended up on the beach, or that it is in a marine protected area that is also a much loved state park, in a spot that is critical habitat for endangered Snowy Plover that is currently in nesting season. There are politics, agencies, fishing communities, loss of property, livelihoods, and the human tragedy of watching a beautiful dream come unraveled.” As for the environmental aspect: Crews and volunteers have reportedly been combing the beach for debris, and the government agencies involved say they’ve been monitoring the potential hazmat situation throughout. According to the PD, a small amount of the boat’s fuel “leaked from a compromised tank” at one point, and crews were able to extract another small amount. “A biologist with State Parks monitored the beach throughout the week and checked several birds but found none fouled by oil,” the paper reported. But it seems like it’s been an ongoing struggle — and I’m not sure what happened to the fuel when the boat tore apart last night. I’ll keep you posted. (Source: Cal Spill Watch & KRON4 & Jerry Dodrill Photography & Jerry Dodrill Photography via Facebook & Sonoma Sheriff via Facebook & North Bay Bohemian & Press Democrat; paywall)

Who even is Sebastopol without any big apple-squishing warehouses? We’re about to find out. The last remaining “commercial apple processing facility” left in town — the last in the whole county, in fact — is moving up to the City of Sunnyside in Washington state next year, where it’s cheaper to do business, KRCB news radio and the Sonoma County Gazette are reporting. The apple company we’re losing is century-old Manzana Products, whose giant brick plant you may have spotted along Green Valley Road. “For Manzana, the company that’s helped keep Sebastopol’s famous Gravenstein apple alive, their 103rd year in business will be their last in Graton,” KRCB reports. More from the Gazette: “The company cited dwindling local apple production and the high cost of transporting apples from Washington state to produce its apple cider, apple sauce and apple cider vinegar. According to Manzana Products CEO Andy Kay, the company currently trucks the majority of its apples from Washington. ‘We can no longer bear the costs to transport 80 percent of our apples,’ Kay said, adding that one-fourth of what the company currently pays for apples is purely for transportation cost. In addition, Kay noted the high cost of doing business in California is eating into the company’s bottom line. ‘Business in California, especially in Sebastopol, is expensive,’ Kay said. ‘The cost of inflation and labor availability is making it difficult to stay here.'” All logistics aside, the Gazette reports, company leaders also recognizes the “lasting impact” their move will have on the community. Kay tells the paper: “Manzana is part of Sonoma County’s rich agricultural history. Many of our employees are descendants of or related to multiple generations of family members who worked at Manzana.” To soften the blow, Manzana’s owners have reportedly offered their 180 employees the option to move to Washington and work for them there instead. They’ve also agreed to keep buying apples from local growers through 2029, so they have time to find other buyers. (Source: KRCB & Sonoma County Gazette)

Judging by three fat subpoenas that federal investigators just handed to Napa County government officials, the feds seem to suspect something majorly fishy has been going on within the county. TBH I’m having trouble parsing through all the legal jargon, but from what I can tell, the FBI and federal prosecutors are looking for inside info on the Upper Valley Waste Management Agency, which handles trash disposal for most of the upper Napa Valley and oversees the beleaguered Clover Flat landfill outside Calistoga (long plagued by accusations of crappy working conditions and bad environmental practices); a plan to revamp the county’s airport for private planes; and dozens of other county dealings with powerful local businesses, people and entities — including top wineries, sports moguls and a mysterious LLC reportedly involved in making a controversial land deal for one county supervisor’s family. Local wine-industry reporter W. Blake Gray, who has some great insight into this whole thing on his “wine-searcher” blog, writes: “The subpoena about the dump is the most detailed and, unlike the other two, it was sent to the Napa County Public Works Department. It appears to be more about the process of awarding the contract than about the dump itself. The contract was reviewed in 2020 by the county after a series of mishaps, including the dump catching fire 13 times in eight years, the release of contaminated water into a Napa River tributary, and mishandling of radioactive waste leading to a worker being hospitalized.” And the San Francisco Chronicle reports: “The reason for the federal action is not known, but many of the wineries and vintners named in the subpoena have links to or have donated money to Alfredo Pedroza, an embattled politician who was at the center of a vineyard development controversy. The subpoena orders a representative of the county to appear before a federal grand jury in San Francisco Wednesday, and demands that it produce ‘any and all documents’ related to 40 individuals, businesses and entities — a list that includes some of the most elite names in the Napa Valley wine world.” The Napa Valley Register notes that “all three subpoenas mention federal grand juries,” and explains that a grand jury’s “principal function is to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain federal offense within the venue of the district court.” Also: “A federal grand jury decides whether a person or persons should be indicted for an alleged federal crime and stand trial. It doesn’t determine guilt or innocence, but rather probable cause.” When a reporter from the Register asked a county spokeswoman whether the county has “reason to think it is the subject of federal investigations,” she answered: “Napa County is only the holder of information regarding the three federal subpoenas.” So take all that for what you will! (Source: Wine-Searcher & North Bay Bohemian & Napa Valley Register & SF Chronicle & Press Democrat & Press Democrat; paywall)

In the last issue of the newsletter, you might have seen a photo of the large fishing boat that got stuck on the beach at Salmon Creek, along the Sonoma County coast, in the wee hours Saturday morning. The whole crew was rescued in a huge operation involving three agencies — the California Highway Patrol air division, the Sonoma County Fire District and the U.S. Coast Guard — before the sun even had a chance to rise. But dealing with the boat itself has turned into a much longer-term ordeal — one that may also now be threatening the local ecosystem, given that around 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel are on board. As of last night, the “58-foot, 57-ton steel vessel” was still stranded, according to the Press Democrat. Enhancing all this nautical drama is the fact that the boat’s name is literally “Aleutian Storm.” Jonny Jackson, that Indigenous crab fisherman in Bodega Bay who I mentioned few newsletters ago, posted on social media Saturday night: “Help is needed to get this boat back in the ocean where it belongs. Anyone that can meet at 6-730 in Bodega with a shovel to help dig out a channel so boats can pull her back out, please help. To be clear, this is not our boat, but This is someone’s livelihood and appreciation will be shown in some free crab to anyone that can help.” The next afternoon, he gave a defeated update: “Unfortunately no glory today even with 60 people coming out to help, the tow line broke twice. It was hard to see it happen as you can tell before the line broke it was coming.” A rep for the Coast Guard tells the Press Democrat that crews made three attempts to tow the Aleutian out to open water on Sunday and Monday — all of which failed. So by yesterday, they instead started focusing on pumping the fuel out of the beached boat during low tide. It’s now “listing profoundly to one side, with waves crashing over the side, making it dangerous to board,” the PD reports — but the boat “moves less at low tide, offering an opportunity for salvage crews to locate the fuel tanks and begin vacuuming diesel to receptacles on the beach.” Coast Guard officials say they’re planning on heading back out first thing again Wednesday to remove more fuel. Then, once “the risk of pollution is resolved,” they can finally start talking about how to get the actual boat out of there. (Source: Sonoma County Fire District via Facebook & Pacific Native Fisheries via Facebook & Mike McGuire via Facebook & Sonoma Magazine & Press Democrat; paywall)

We’ve got some more local mountain lion content for you today, cause let’s be honest — it’s irresistible. In what I cannot 100 percent guarantee is not a sneaky guerrilla ad for the Ring home-security camera, a new Ring video provided to the Sonoma Index-Tribune shows a well-known local cat strolling confidently through a front yard in the Sonoma Valley neighborhood of Boyes Hill, early on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday. The Tribune reports that Phil Jensen, the guy who lives there and owns the Ring camera, is calling the lion “Queen of Boyes Hill.” More from the paper: “In the video, two bulbs of light come eerily closer toward Jensen’s door until light from his home reveals them to be the eyes of a large mountain lion. The mountain lion then turns right and saunters off into the night. The mountain lion was identified as P4 from the Living with Lions project by Audubon Canyon Ranch. The Sonoma Valley feline is a 12- to-13-year-old female that lives in the rugged hill east of Highway 12.” (Source: Sonoma Index-Tribune; paywall)