Caltrans’ plans to widen and “straighten” Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park, home of the Avenue of the Giants, has not been taken off the table, despite huge public opposition and a budget crisis facing California. The one piece of good news is that their bulldozers and other earth-moving and root-carving euquipment have been fairly quiet in that area, but local residents have not!
There have been two rallies, two action camps, two lawsuits and lots of other noise directed at decision-makers recently, and there is action you can take. Please keep reading.
Our previous update alerted you of the upcoming demonstrations: Feb 7 at Caltrans District 1 headquarters in Eureka and Feb. 21 in Garberville’s Town Square. This update directs you to reports of those actions. We will continue to announce these actions, but oftentimes there is not a lot of lead time for people to travel from the Bay Area. Links to organizing groups are below.
One easy action you can take is to dash off a letter or email to Gov. Jerry Brown. As he wrestles with budgetary matters, rescinding the highway 101 project through Richardson Grove is one easy way to save millions of state dollars and save old growth forests. Contact Gov. Brown at
State Capitol Building, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
You can email him by going to this link: http://gov.ca.gov/m_contact.php
Urge him to Cut Wasteful CALTRANS Project and Save Richardson Grove State Park, and remind him of the controversial nature of this project. Ancient trees are unlikely to survive the proposed carving up of their root systems, and it is wrong to sacrifice any ancient redwoods at all for the sake of not making larger trucks traversing highway 101 slow down through tight curves in the road. In fact, those larger trucks already travel that section of highway via exemptions granted them by the state, making this boondoggle project unecessary.
Stay tuned for notices of more actions you can participate in, including court dates for the 2 lawsuits filed by EPIC, the Center for Biological Diversity and others. Check out these links:
coverage in Humboldt’s Northcoast Journal:
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/blogthing/2011/02/07/richardson-grove-protesters-rally-eureka-caltrans-/
a good blog with many links:
http://saverichardsongrove.blogspot.com/
2 video clips of the actions:
The KPFA Evening News (Weekend), for February 6, 2011
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/67379
Information on EPIC’s website: http://www.wildcalifornia.org/
Info about actions: Richardson Grove Action Now: (707) 602-7551 OR rgroveactionnow@gmail.com
Please let us know if you can help us update website material so people can find Richardson Grove news, and if you can help with production of new postcards to be sent to Gov. Brown.