Update!

Things are really starting to warm up in the new year! We expect
the final Environmental Impact Report to be released in March,
2010.

Here is what has been accomplished to date:

- over 2,000 postcards containing comments opposing the project
have been delivered to CALTRANS and the California Transportation
Commission;
- the Center for Biological Diversity has entered the fray and
circulated an online petition to its mailing list (see below for
the results);
- research has been done on the effects of STAA (federal size
truck) access into the County including increased green house
gases, big box development and impact on local roads;
- research has been done on alternatives to diesel truck
transportation including sustainable port development.

Should any of you on this general mailing list wish to be active in
this effort to oppose this project please contact me. Other ways
for you to help would be to write letters to the editors of our
local papers and letters to the Board of Supervisors. It is the
County through its Economic Development Division that is behind
the push for this project.

The economic justification for this project was established by an
online survey of businesses in Humboldt and Del Norte counties
which generated 19 responses. The Headwaters Fund gave the
County's Economic Development Division a $50,000 grant to promote
the project, part of which paid for the survey. 14 of these
responders then provided economic data on a confidential basis (so
no one could validate it) and a professor at Chico state generated
the Gallo Report which is supposed to justify the $5.5 million
dollar project. Does this make sense to you? Does this justify
disturbing the ecology of a supposedly protected State Park?

Soon a billboard will be visible one mile north of Standish-Hickey
Park with our message to Save Richardson Grove and an image by a
local artist. We would love to generate television and radio
spots. Financial assistance would be appreciated. Please check
our web site at www.saverichardsongrove.org to donate if you can.


With best regards for a peaceful new year.

Barbara


--Redwood Saviors or Cyber Criminals? Center Supporters Update Democracy--

5,100 of the Center for Biological Diversity's supporters love the
redwoods so much they deluged the California Department of
Transportation with emails complaining of the agency's plan to
slice a road through the gorgeous Richardson Grove in the state's
remote North Coast.

Rather than responding to the public's concern, the Department of
Transportation called the State Police Cyber Crime Division to
report that they were under attack by hostile forces. Apparently
interacting with the public was "diverting" the agency from its
real job -- chopping down forests and paving the wilderness. A
crime if there ever was one.

A police investigation determined that the agency was suffering
from an acute case of citizen involvement, to which there is no
cure.