#35 We'll Give Up When We See the Whites of Their Eyes

Crane in moonlight (Photo: Ree Slocum)

        "The trees are gone. It's over," the CHP officer told me as he was forcing me and the other protestors off the dying wetland where we were trespassing on the huge swath of former wetlands that Caltrans contractors are draining of its water for the Willits bypass.
        I don't believe it's over yet. Neither do the rest of us who pretend to understand what's at stake for the future of the Little Lake Valley watershed, the quality of life for Willits residents, and the economics of a waste of money.


Will Parrish on Wickdrain Driver (Photo: Steve Everhard)

        Certainly, Will Parrish also intends for this struggle not to be over yet. He has been 50 feet up a wickdrain driver for the last six days, continuing to protest what these machines are doing, pushing 55,000 plastic tubes into the wetlands to drain it of water. (See video.)
        Right now, the CHP are refusing to let supporters get water and food to Will.

Photo: Ree Slocum

Several people were arrested on Saturday night in the act of bringing supplies. One police officer cut the rope to the bucket that Will was going to haul up, and then proceeded to arrest him.

This brief KGO TV report on Monday, June 24th, explains the situation.

This protest and set of arrests in the last in a series. Here is a YouTube video of the protest on May 13th, where one protester "locked down" to a piece of equipment.

On May 19th, five others were arrested as part of a "Hands Around the Wetlands" protest at the wickdraining site, the protest I took part in and where I was told to give up, now that 2000 trees have been sacrificed to the proposed cement river replacing the wetlands (see this YouTube film of it). This KGO report video shows both that action and the recent court battle was produced by KGO on Friday, June 21.

The court battle involved the convergence in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, June 21st, of the lawyers making a case against the Willits bypass, the defendants--the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Caltrans--and 30 Willits residents (including me). The appeal was heard by Judge Jeff White in a hugely complex case that (to over simplify) brought charges against the Army Corps and Caltrans for failure to create adequate measures for the mitigation of the environmental damage they will do to Little Lake Valley. We have now to wait for the judge's opinion.

We aren't ready to say that this 4 lane bypass is the best way to resolve a 10 (20 minutes in holiday traffic) delay on the road....

Hands Around the Wickdrained Wetlands (Photo: Steve Eberhard)