#44 The Trials of Caltrans On Trial

Will Parrish in crane by moonlight July 2013

     While the Caltrans Willits Bypass builders and supporters are surely hoping the protestors will just shut up and go away, bypass protestors hope that the heinous acts of Maltrans will not escape notice or go unpunished.

Native American Site Destruction
     That includes the destruction of an indigenous Pomo heritage site that Caltrans desecrated by dumping 3 feet of fill on top of the site in the mismanagement of the bypass planning. In mid-October, the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution supporting the Sherwood Valley Rancheria in their grievance against Caltrans and seeking to prevent further construction and funding for the bypass project. (The link connects to more information on this topic in an essay written by Will Parrish at the Save Our Little Lake Valley.)

The Mitigation Budget Debacle
     Also hitting the news stands in our hinterlands is the recent revelation that Caltrans budgeted a mere $12.7 million to mitigate the damage they are doing to the wetlands, creeks, forests, and critters as part of their 4-lane, 6-mile Freeway for the Few. The mitigation work includes tasks such as erosion control, replanting, and control of herbicides. However, the bids that came in started at $39 million from contractors prepared to do the massive mitigation work. (Connect here to an article by Linda Williams in The Willits News, Oct. 25.) Caltrans does not have the money to pay them. Shouldn't they be forced to stop until they do--if they ever will?
      This budgeting discrepancy follows on a September report from the Water Quality Control Board finding 140 problems with the way Caltrans has handled the bypass in relation. Again, shouldn't they be forced to stop? But no one seems to make the leviathan halt.
     How can we trust the supposedly expert engineering outfit of Caltrans, with its environmental report on how it will clean up its mess and restore sensitive wetlands when it has so grossly underestimated what it says it will do? It reminds me of those bolts in the Bay Bridge that Caltrans wrongly engineered.

Will Parrish’s Trial in the Ukiah County Courthouse starting November 12

Will Parrish in the Crane

       Also in the news is the upcoming trial of Will Parrish. He was the young man who spent 12 days 50’ high in a crane that was used to pummel plastic “wicks” 85 feet deep into 40 acres of wetlands. For many millennia, these wetlands have been the water collection site for six creeks that flow into Little Lake Valley, a feeding ground for elk and the spawning waters for three kinds of salmon. Yet in a mere few months, Caltrans is destroying this precious wetland.


Will lived on this tiny platform
for nearly 2 weeks

     When Will was arrested, he decided that he would put Caltrans on trial. He and his lawyer, Omar Figueroa, will be using the opportunity to bring to the public the ways that Caltrans has, with impunity, violated their own contracts relating to mitigation efforts and their desecration of the Pomo archaeological site and more.

Will Parrish

    However, Will is being charge with multiple felony counts, one for each day that he was in the crane. And Caltrans is also slapping him with $500,000 in restitution fees for the work that they were not able to do with their expensive machinery and highly paid contractors during the days he was using the crane himself.

Restitution?!
         The fact that peaceful protestors engaged in civil disobedience could have to pay for the damage they have done to the company that they are objecting to is a new twist on civil disobedience. Imagine if all those involved in the Birmingham Bus Boycott had to pay back the bus company for the money the bus business lost when their customers decided to walk for miles over more than a year rather than take a bus that forced them to sit in the back. Remember the businesses in South Africa that started hurting when American investors stopped investing in South Africa in order to force South Africa to stop its heinous use of apartheid. What if they required American investors to pay them back for profit lost? Really?
        Obviously, the profit gained by Caltrans contractors is for a cause seen as quite reasonable by the bypass promoters and acceptors (as was slavery and segregation in their times). The "m-f-ing" environmentalists (as we are called) are the ones who are the problem in this scenario. The climate change that is increasingly in the news and that we see as deeply connected to the destruction of this little valley’s micro-climate is mere poppycock to Caltrans engineers and their chainsaw wielding, bulldozer driving supporters. How do we convince the deniers otherwise?

Caltrans "Insular Culture"

You can see the big difference between the huge swath of
land required for 4 lanes compared to 2.

       Caltrans’ “insular culture” is finally catching attention. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier has authored two bills to create more vigilance over Caltrans accountability. In a recent radio program aired on our local station, the senator and our local Caltrans watch expert, Rich Estabrook, discussed  how Caltrans convinced local authorities in and around Willits that a 4-lane freeway was the answer to our traffic “congestion.”
         As you may recall from my earlier posts, we only have 8000 cars leaving and entering Willits to the north on an average daily basis. It was pure manipulation using technical terms, such as Level of Service C, that allowed Caltrans to make people believe that their way is the only way.
         We are still working to have them reduce the northern interchange from 4 lanes to 2 and thus enormously reduce the impact on the wetlands at that northern end of our valley.
          Stay tuned for what is to come of Will’s trial and the effort to bring the corruption, the shortsighted science, and the harmful mismanagement to light.