Marked Old Growth Trees in Richardson Grove! What are the white paint dots?

On June 10th, 2010, we noticed these giant freshly marked trees during a tour of CalTrans' proposed R.I.P (Richardson Grove "Improvement" Project) for the participants of the "Families in the Forest" event. The tour involved the northernmost area of Richardson Grove State Park where Caltrans wants to widen Highway 101. The property is known as "Singing Trees":



















The trees were marked with white paint dots -without the property owners knowledge. Presumably, the dots where painted on the large trees by Caltrans during a survey one week before we discovered the mysterious markings. However, Kim Floyd, the Caltrans project manager for the R.I.P has denied any knowledge of the freshly marked trees. Here are more photos, that include the Caltrans orange markers that have been present for quite some time. (Note that Highway 101 is uphill from the photographer's position, and the recently white-dotted ancient trees are between the orange markers and Highway 101.)



















What do the white paint dots mean?

Could they be marking the location for future construction of a retaining wall- through the Singing Trees property - as part of the proposed CalTrans road widening project through Richardson Grove?

Could they be designation an equipment staging area for the proposed CalTrans project?

Could the white paint dots be indicative of a vehicle detour planned by CalTrans for its proposed project?


Any way we think about it, it doesn't seem good. Road construction usually requires retaining walls, equipment staging areas, and vehicle detours. Does CalTrans think their gonna take out those huge ancient trees (in addition to the ones whose roots they want to "pave over") to accomplish their plan?

Some people have suggested, "Maybe CalTrans is marking the trees that would NOT be cut or destroyed." But, we all know, that is not how things work.

Perhaps more of us should contact Kim Floyd, the Project Manager, and inquire about the white paint dots on the big awesome trees. Here's her CalTrans phone number and email:

Kim Floyd
Phone: (707) 441-5739, TTY 711
Kim_Floyd@dot.ca.gov

These trees are white dotted, too!


























NO WIDENING THE HIGHWAY THROUGH RICHARDSON GROVE!
NO MORE CRACKING OPEN THE REDWOOD CURTAIN!

Great stuff!

Listen to the EPIC Environmental Show from 7 p.m on 6-22-10 at the KMUD.org archives!

With:
-Jan Bramlett Lost Profits or Lost Paradise
-Rogers Dark Trucks are Coming & Corporate King and Queen,
-Joanne Rand Richardson Grove Song Sing to the Redwoods
-Jefferson's RG song and message
-Ron Ward poem about redwoods,
-Aliana's lovely message & welcome artists.
-other interesting callers.
-Poem: Redwoods Last Stand, by Clinton Codding

Click here and enjoy the show. And don't forget to support KMUD community radio!

Suit says Highway 101 plan threatens redwoods

Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Saturday, June 19, 2010

A coalition of environmental groups and individuals filed a lawsuit this week in San Francisco challenging a plan by the California Department of Transportation to widen a highway through an ancient redwood grove.

The widening of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park in Humboldt County would pave over and sever the roots of 87 old-growth redwood trees, according to the suit filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court.

"We've got arborists and foresters who will say the paving over and cutting of the roots will put the ancient redwoods at risk," said Peter Galvin, the conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case. "This is a very delicate ecosystem. Though the ancient redwoods won't be cut down, they will be killed as a result of this project."

Rest of article

Families in the Forest Thank You!

"Families in the Forest"

Community Camp out with Old Growth Redwoods in

Richardson Grove State Park

Dawn Redwood Group Camp

June 6-10

Thanks to all who could make it out to Richardson Grove State park last week. We saw a variety of wildlife, and listened to the redwoods upper canopy, sway and squeak, in the coastal winds/ I led guided walks on redwood root ecology, and we examined firsthand how redwoods respond to damage. We studied Caltrans FEIR construction maps, including what trees are proposed to be removed, what trees are proposed to endure root damage, and areas proposed to be cut, filled, and paved. We offered information to the public and displayed a 3D topographic map of Richardson Grove, built by my father. We watched the sun rise, shimmer, and set over the Eel River for five days. We saw shooting stars, sang songs around the campfire, and with permission from residents at the Over Packer's Resort, we painted a rock garden at the south-bound entrance of the grove. Although the event was publicized on MUD radio, the Independent newspaper, and flyers were distributed in Redway, Garberville, Eureka, Arcata, and Trinidad, attendance was low. Donations are still happily accepted and much appreciated. For more information email kellykaraba@hotmail.com

Henry Devoy and Family in Richardson Grove c. 1924

(Donated grove to State Parks)

Richardson Grove Rocks!

Interpretive Walk

Famous Wind Fall Tree with Remarkable root system in Richardson Grove

Richardson Grove Rocks!

Western Tanager

Interpretive Walk
Famous Wind Fall Tree root system

Redwood root system

Families in the Forest-

Old Growth Redwood Opsrey

Yuma

Myotis-

Brown Bat

Yellow Legged Frog

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

Source: Ground Zero(Richardson Grove State Park)

Great shootin' Kim ;)

You gotta love the Earth First! Journal...

Call to Action
Stop A Highway Project Through the Redwood Curtain
By Jeffrey "Muskrat" Musgrave

Traveling North on Highway 101 from San Francisco, you come to a rare and extraordinary place. The "Redwood Curtain" is located just north of the Humboldt/Mendocino County line, where Redwood Highway 101 winds through a spectacular grove of ancient coast Redwoods as you pass through Richardson Grove State Park. This area is unique for many reasons, as the redwoods that line the highway form a "curtain", or natural barrier that creates a narrow point of access along the coast.

Millennial redwoods line both sides of the highway as it passes through Richardson Grove State Park. Only 3% of our ancient redwood forests remain, and since stands of old growth are seldom found outside state and national parks, these trees have value beyond description. This forest is a part of the rare sizable stands of old growth redwoods remaining in the southern section of the redwood coast, and is crucial habitat for endangered species such as the Marbled Murrelet and Northern Spotted Owl.

The California State Highway Agency (CalTrans) plans to realign this historic section of narrow highway to allow longer semi-trucks to pass through the Redwood Curtain, a $10 million project for a two mile section of scenic Redwood Highway 101. Opponents see the project as an unnecessary and costly plan that would damage these irreplaceable ancient trees, and also threaten to the local small businesses and unique community. The area just north of Richardson Grove State Park was damaged by a highway bypass project in the mid-1960's, when CalTrans (back then titled Dept. of Public Works) created a four-lane bypass around the scenic strip of old growth coast redwoods known as the Avenue of the Giants. Ground water that fed the trees was diverted into culverts, and the dried out Redwood tops that Judi Bari dubbed the "Avenue of Spiketops" are obvious to travelers on Highway 101.

Rest of Article

We are not alone...

We must stop Caltrans!

Here are just a few groups fighting the Caltrans steamroller plowing through what is left of our beloved wild places...

Thank you for sharing these Kim :)

Caltrans fails to study effects of new freeway bridge runoff on San Joaquin River Restoration

Posted by Tom Lang in FresnoAquarium on Mar 9th, 2010 | one response

There are too many issues surrounding the Caltrans plan to widen Highway 99 from Ashlan Avenue in Fresno to Avenue 7 in Madera County to cover in just one blog post. This is the third and last in a series of posts that document the Island Park Six-Lane Project and offer my views on the substantial negative impacts this project will have on our nonprofit 501(c)3 Fresno Aquarium project and my beloved hometown since 1979…

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Citizens Win Case Against Destructive Hayward Freeway

Written by Administrator

Thursday, 02 August 2001

Citizens Win Case Against Destructive Hayward Freeway August 23, 2001 Hayward Area Planning Assn. and Citizens for Alternative Transportation Solutions win case against destructive bypass project. On August 22, 2001, an Alameda County judged prohibited ACTA from spending sales tax money on the Hayward Route 238 Bypass project.

Read more

NAST caught in state budget process, but wins mitigation for Highway 50 expansion

by Karen Jacques, published on March 3, 2009 at 5:20PM

As everyone who reads the news or watches TV knows, California’s budget process has been a disaster. This is not too surprising considering the state of the economy, the fact that it takes a two-thirds majority to pass the budget, and the inability of the Democrats and Republicans to work together on anything. But what was surprising was that a recent transportation lawsuit won by Sacramento neighborhood and environmental groups was unexpectedly caught up in the middle of it.

Read more

Families in the Forest

A Family-Style Campout with the Ancient Redwoods in Richardson Grove State Park.

JUNE 6-10

Dawn Redwood Group Camp

Guided Nature Walks

Arts and Crafts

Poster Painting

River Swimming

Jam Circle

Games

Kids Activities

Hiking

Community Kitchen Area

Letter signing to Caltrans and Govenor

Schedule of Events TBA

Stay 1-5 days

$20 Adult Donation

Kids 12+under Free

RSVP: kak61@humboldt.edu

Space is Limited

Maximum Group Site Occupancy: 50

To learn more about Families in the Old Growth Redwood Forest visit;

http://www.redwoodecology.org/

Memorial Day weekend Defense Camp

Last week-end we had the benefit of a Richardson Grove defense camp. A bunch of us grabbed our coffees after the Friday Peace Vigil and caravanned down behind the first wave of NoHum activists. We were in time to help set up the common tent against the wind that funneled down powerfully through the valley of the Eel. We faced a great expanse of grassy flat just a few hundred yards up from the original stage area of Reggaes on the River. This “beach on the river” was bigger than those from my Santa Monica/Venice Beach days and just as public. It suggests the spectacle of Richardson Grove on the River.

The common tent was put up against the higher flat on which were built a couple homes attached to French’s Camp’s little business district. The defense camp’s kitchen area was behind a row of sheltering trees on the southern side of the access road off the highway. Not far away was the landing that was used to beach the Reggae Uprising flotilla. For the “Emerald Nation” this spot is, you might say, part of the Homeland.

It was good to draw a line in the sand Memorial Day weekend. The spontaneity and purposeful confusion seemed pure Earth First and the action instigators were in fact old veterans. Importantly, the action is an explicit reminder that, “October deadline” or not, cutting the trees might be done earlier and separately from the actual road widening. Caltrans probably can’t strike with the merciless rapidity of your average logging corporation but that’s no excuse to skip the necessary tasks of keeping up ongoing surveillance for signs of Caltrans-like activities, linked to phone trees and affinity groups capable of being called up quickly.

Some of us had a chance to be part of a conversation with one of the Park cops who, jingle jangle weaponry aside, was friendly and open. The Park was full (except of course for the almost 200 sites closed by the state that were situated across the river.) It seemed apparent - given similar numbers of site closures up the road at Humboldt State Park - that the parks were packed and well booked up. No wonder then that CalTrans has indicated a work schedule coming after the tourist season “in autumn”.

The event lasted through Sunday night. I came in time for dinner Saturday night and there were still 20 people hanging out together. A half dozen or so were leaving as I arrived with another supporter. That jives with estimates of 30 plus participants throughout the day of walking and talking, preparing for the day when the walk and the talk get on the same page.

Such was, and is, the drill. “Save Richardson Grove” on the internet is the site to watch as other links are being created. This isn’t the time to wait around for organizers. Work from where you are. The Grove is worth a global focus. For one, this thoughtless atrocity breaks the treaty we made with the trees to compensate for the postwar II cutting of the rest of the forest. The logged off wood went into the suburban explosion via the automobile fueled literally by our global control of oil production. The expansion of the highway in the Grove is the last link in the Federal Highway system - an Eisenhower era imperial symbol that rivals the Pentagon in its magical importance to the Military/Industrial/Congressional complex.
The expansion is also part Business Bubble building – you know: the deeper port, cheaper goods on bigger trucks, bigger goods on cheaper trucks - all the fantasies of the anything to make a buck crowd. This worship of money at all costs is bubbling away in the gulf but focusing locally on the Grove has unearthed my otherwise buried sense of urgency. Time’s up. Paul Endishere 923 4488 Box 162 Piercy 95587