News and Events
Mattole River at Petrolia, August 20, 2008

6.0 Magnitude Earthquake hits 35 miles WNW of Petrolia

Posted 02/04/2010
USGS shakemap 2-4-10 12:20PM
A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit at about 12:20pm Feb. 4, 2010, 34.7 miles West-Northwest of the Petrolia California shore, at a depth of about about 6.9 miles.

The rolling & shaking quake was felt for about 15 seconds in Petrolia, and as far as 275 miles away in San Francisco CA, . People in Eureka CA felt some shaking, but reported no damage around town. Additionally, no injuries have yet been reported as a result of the quake.

Earthquakes with a magnitude between 6.0 and 6.9 on the Richter scale are considered to be “strong” and can be destructive in areas up to 100 miles across in populated areas.

“The magnitude is such that a tsunami is not expected,” the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin.

MRC Receives Grant to Study New Markets for Mattole Forests

Posted 01/22/2010
Humboldt County Seal
On Tuesday Jan. 19, 2010, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors approved a $16,000 Headwaters Fund grant to the Mattole Restoration Council to pay for a study that will look at how forest land owners can capitalize on forest-based businesses; such as light touch logging, medium scale milling, fuel wood production, wood-to-energy projects, and the sale of carbon credits into the emerging climate change mitigation market.

At the meeting, Wild & Working Lands program director Seth Zuckerman described how the market study proposal would dovetail with the MRC's permit streamlining program for light-touch forestry (PTEIR Program Timberland Environmental Impact Report).

Rex Rathbun in Memoriam

Posted 01/11/2010
Rex Rathbun 1920-2010Rex Rathbun, 1920 - 2010

Rex Rathbun, one of the founders of the Mattole Restoration Council, passed away on Sunday, January 10. 

Rex represented the Mill Creek Watershed Conservancy on the MRC's board of directors through the late '90s and was a dogged advocate for the preservation of the Mill Creek Forest, a grove including 220 acres of old-growth that was purchased from Eel River Sawmills and added to the public domain in 1999.