#30 Do You Understand What's Happening?

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING?


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Kim standing across Highway 101 from Warbler's treesit

I decided to make that my sign’s message for the day because, as I’ve said before, I’m just learning, and I’m trying. What about everyone who isn’t even trying?

I finally downloaded two parts of the long Environmental Impact Report from 2006. Volume 1 is 112 pages.  It has this useful map (the left side here is south) showing the current route of 101, and the red line is the Bypass route going east through Little Lake Valley. I also downloaded Appendix G “Final Alternatives Analysis” which is 148 pages long. These documents are located at the CalTrans website: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1projects/willits/reports.feir.htm

 I have yet to dip into the other 3 volumes and multiple appendices (bet you can’t wait to hear about Appendices A-F!). Like the Bypass, I plan to wade through the swamp of information, but since the Bypass will take 6 years, so might I. Knowing that many of my readers want the facts, ma’am, I share two paragraphs from “Section 1.6 Potential Impacts,” enticing harbingers of what is to come. Please read (more photos to come if you promise to read first):

The primary environmental impacts associated with the proposed bypass project consist of temporary and/or permanent impacts to biological resources (see Sections 3.7 and 3.17). Among the biological resources that would be affected are sensitive plant communities and habitats (including wetlands, riparian woodlands, oak woodlands, and Baker’s meadow foam habitat), as well as federal and state wildlife species that are listed as rare, proposed, threatened, or endangered (including three federally listed salmonid species, the Northern spotted owl, and the Pacific fisher).

The potential for permanent and/or temporary impacts have been investigated for the following areas of concern: Geology and Soils (Section 3.2); Community Cohesion (Sections 3.3 and 3.18.1); Farmland (Section 3.4); Water Quality (Sections 3.5 and 3.18.2); Floodplain (Section 3.6); Cultural Resources (Section 3.8); Hazardous Materials (Sections 3.9 and 3.18.5); Visual Resources (Section 3.10); Noise (Section 3.11 and 3.18.3); Air Quality (Sections 3.12 and 3.18.4); and Growth Inducement (Section 3.16).

Are you still with me? Or did you cheat and skim? If you can’t get through just two paragraphs of this stuff, how do you expect all the residents of Willits to read and understand the messages in hundreds of pages of this environmental analysis?

From just these two paragraphs, I take away the following ideas:

1) The environmental impacts are potentially substantial, including impacts on “sensitive plant communities” and on the salmon we hope to keep running in our creeks; and

2) The list of “areas of concern” to think about are so numerous that most people don’t even want to begin thinking about them, such as the nature of our soils in the valley and what that means when CalTrans will drill their 55,000 holes 85 feet deep to pump the water out of our wetlands, or the impact of hazardous materials in the construction of the Bypass, or what the extraction of gravel for the production of cement for the Bypass at Outlet Creek will do to Outlet Creek and the Eel River, for which Outlet Creek is a tributary.

Men with chain saws just doing their job

Mostly, we don’t want to think about it. We just want to get our paychecks, like all the truly hard working police officers, chain saw operators, and CalTrans engineers, the fence builders and truck drivers, who are happy to reap the benefits of the $300 million dollar project. I get that.

When I encountered these three men who had just been cutting down trees, they told me, “This is private property.”

I said, “I’m just taking pictures of these beautiful trees while we still have them,” including this one that will be gone soon. In my congenial and sincere way, I asked, “Do you live in Willits?”

 

One replied, “Yes, we do.”

“Good!” I called out, and I meant it, adding, “I’m glad some folks in Willits are receiving the benefit of the work.” Because the reality is that many of the folks driving the trucks and doing the other work don’t come from Willits. (In my fantasy life as a reporter on this job I’ll go get stats on who in Willits is benefiting economically from the $300 million CalTrans payouts.)  I always remember the guy who stopped by the tree sit and told me he was in favor of the Bypass because, he said, “My son needs work.” I do understand the press for a paycheck.

Nevertheless, last Friday I held a sign that said, “THE JOBS WILL DISAPPEAR, THE DESTRUCTION WILL STAY.”

So while I’m trying to make sense of the economic and environmental factors here, I’m asking lots of questions. I learned that the reason the alternative railroad route was not accepted is because it was only going to be a two-lane road, and CalTrans requires a four-lane route for the ultimate bypass. However, CalTrans now plans a two-lane route through the valley, aviaduct route raised on stilts above the wetlands. So why is the proposed Bypass allowed to be two lanes, but the already existing, unused railroad route that would be two lanes was not allowed? Well, the two-lane Bypass that CalTrans plans to build is supposed to be expanded “one day” to four, which makes it permissible to build just two now.

Does that make sense to you? I mean, really, this stuff is dizzying.

Meanwhile, at a truly dizzying speed, one oak forest comes down. I have not even had time to look at the mile beyond Warbler’s tree sit that has also been decimated—perhaps for my next post.  I leave you with as much of a photo essay as my little point-and-shoot camera can provide focused just on the land around Warbler’s tree sit where I’ve been hanging out two or three times a week for two months. I go out as much as my work schedule allows. One guy flipped me off from the highway screaming, “Get a job!” I actually do have a job, as do most of the folks I meet out there, who come at the end of the work day or on the weekend to stand witness for the trees and for Warbler who still sits in her tree.

In fact, Warbler is now on a fast, seeking to pressure CalTrans to rescind their onslaught (see the SOLLV website for an update: http://www.savelittlelakevalley.org/2013/04/01/hunger-strike-demands/



Tree sitter called Falcon in his nest, west side of 101

 



5th Tree sitter in tree to left; CalTrans woman on right

Now four other tree sitters have joined her throughout the remaining forest.  

Protestors at tent site on west side of HW 101 Friday

I’m sure it’s hard to imagine all this activity. No image can capture what it feels like to see tree after tree being eaten up for a purpose that appears negligibly rational. I need a video to show that.

But here (left) is an image taken high up the hill across from Warbler’s tree sit on Friday showing the tent allowed the protestors just off Highway 101. We used to be across the street where police officers now prevent us from getting to Warbler’s tree.

 

Trees down around Warbler on Monday

And here (right) is that same hillside today, Monday, three days later, with the trees down around Warbler’s ponderosa pine. This image of Warbler in her platform shows she is much more exposed. 

I like this photo below of my friend Alex standing by the roadside as it represents the loneliness I sometimes feel standing there by myself, holding a sign, getting flipped off for every 5 waves and honks I get, just meditating on the meaning of it all.

 

Today I was joined for a little while by a family of three. Amelia (right) had visited Warbler before and was distressed to see the trees coming down, the bulldozers hauling them away—it is rather like seeing a body dragged off if you actually love trees and might even be thinking about the 300 species that make their homes in an oak forest. Amelia wasn’t thinking about the 300 species, but when she arrived, she said, “I feel sad!” Her parents and I had found some bitter irony in all the police cars guarding a woman in a tree and the sign that pointed out more irony in having an army of police protecting a building project (below). Amelia told us, “It’s not funny!”And she was right.
It’s midnight, and my job requires that I do sleep. I will return to dredging up the history and future of the Bypass anon, as well as return to the forests that graced the entrance to Willits—already I use the past tense.

But still we rise. I begin to engage utter strangers in Willits to ask, “What do you think?” Theresa at the Laundromat said, “Thank you for asking! I’m anguished over the Bypass, but it’s so hard to talk about.” A woman at the toystore launched into a tirade against the Bypass, but admitted she wasn’t doing anything about it. A Channel 3 TV poll registered 70% against the Bypass.

When will the silent majority be heard? When we have enough facts out there floating in what’s left of the wetlands?