Willits Bypass “Crane-Sitter” Resupplied in Stealth Climb

A protester perched atop a wick drain stitcher being used to build the US 101 highyway bypass in Willits, CA, 28 June 2013

A protester perched atop a wick drain stitcher being used to build the US 101 highyway bypass in Willits, CA, 28 June 2013

A mysterious climber ascended Caltrans equipment on the Willits Bypass Project Wednesday evening in order to resupply a protester who has been perched 50 feet up in the air on a construction tower for a week.

Last week, 31-year-old Ukiah resident Will Parrish climbed one of the two pieces of Caltrans equipment used to install wick drains at the site in order to stall work in the Mendocino County highway construction zone.

Fellow activists argue that Parrish has been denied food and water, while authorities state that Parrish is free to leave the tower for food and water and that protesters attempting to bring him supplies are trespassing on Caltrans property.

On Saturday evening, 45 protesters attempted to send supplies up to Parrish in a bucket. According to Earth First!, CHP officers cut the rope and arrested six individuals. According to CHP, four individuals were arrested.

On Wednesday, a second person climbed the second wick drain tower. Jamie Chevalier, a spokeswoman with Redwood Nation Earth First!, said the mystery climber was “like a ninja.”

”He climbed the tower in full daylight with CHP everywhere,” she said. “Then after around six hours he managed to traverse a line over to the other tower 60 feet away for supplies and vanished into the night.”

Chevelier estimated that the entire event took place between 5 p.m. and midnight. She said the supply line is still in place and has a 5,000 pound breaking

strength.

District 1 Caltrans Public Information Officer Phil Frisbie Jr. confirmed that Parrish had been resupplied and said Caltrans personnel are not at the site that late at night.

”He was gone by the morning,” Frisbie said of the resupplier.

Frisbie said the machinery cannot operate with the protesters on it and that protests over four months have directly cost taxpayers $1.2 million by causing delays.

Campaigners build dual carriageway on Osborne’s doorstep

Osborne's roads

Sunday 23 June

Osborne's roads

Sunday 23 June

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (photojournalist Adrian Arbib) or from alamy: http://tinyurl.com/k25d5tm

CAMPAIGNERS BUILD DUAL CARRIAGEWAY ON OSBORNE’S DOORSTEP IN SPENDING REVIEW PROTEST
Money for new roads bad for jobs, countryside and climate say campaigners

12 noon, Sunday 23 June: Anti-road campaigners have built a 50m long dual carriageway next to Chancellor George Osborne’s country retreat this morning, in a protest against the expected funding for new roads in this Wednesday’s (26 June) 2013 Spending Review [2].

Twenty people rolled-out the 8m x 50m road in the grounds of Crag Hall in the Peak District National Park this morning and used giant eight-foot letters to spell out the words “NO NEW ROADS”. Photos are available from photojournalist Adrian Arbib [3].

Osborne moved into “a two-storey building near Crag Hall, a sprawling £4million country estate which is owned by his long-term family friend Lord Derby” earlier this year; “lunches most Sundays” at the nearby Crag Inn pub; and has been a guest at falconry events at the Hall [4]. Reportedly, he “often talks about how brilliant it is to come to the country and enjoy some peace and quiet” [4].

Osborne's roads

The campaigners – who include an artist, a teacher, a physicist and at least four grandmothers – travelled from Hastings, where peaceful protests against the £100m Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) have already led to 30 arrests and attracted national media attention [5]. The BHLR is the ‘first and the worst’ of over 200 new road-building projects that the Chancellor, Big Business and local councils are currently pushing throughout England and Wales [6]. Mr Osborne is believed to have pressured the Department for Transport (DfT) into funding the BHLR as a test case for Britain’s largest road-building programme in 25 years.

Karl Horton, a spokesperson for the Combe Haven Defenders, one of the groups involved in today’s action, said: “George Osborne is building a pointless and destructive road to nowhere on our doorstep – and is planning to build scores more on other people’s – so today we’ve come and built one on his. His obsession with building new roads is bad for jobs, bad for our countryside and bad for our warming climate. It can – and will – be met with sustained peaceful resistance.”

A “National Rally Against Road Building”, backed by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the RSPB, will be taking place in Crowhurst, on the route of the BHLR, on Saturday 13 July [7].

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (Adrian Arbib).

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] For background see the Campaign for Better Transport’s briefing ‘What the spending review could mean for transport’, http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/traffic/what_the_spending_review_means_for_transport
[3] www.arbib.org; tel 07711 090 544
[4] ‘Final nail in your coffin: Chancellor moves into new home as UK stripped of AAA rating’, Sunday Mirror, 24 February 2013, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-bungling-chancellor-moves-1728026
[5] https://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/
[6] See http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/roads-to-nowhere/map for an online map of the proposals. For background see the Campaign for Better Transport’s October 2012 briefing ‘Going backwards: the new roads programme’: http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report. The latter lists 191 projects (more have come to light since then), conservatively costed at £30bn, including 76 bypasses, 56 widened roads, 48 link roads and 9 bridges and tunnels. It also notes that ‘Many of the roads would affect areas protected for conservation, landscape and heritage reasons … incl[uding] three National Parks, the National Wetland of the Norfolk Broads and at least seven Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).
[7] http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/roadsrally2013

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (Adrian Arbib).

Osborne's roads

Police Cut off Willits Protester from Food and Water

Crowd of supporters marches onto wetlands destruction site to resupply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

23rd June 2013, This incident occurred on the third day that Red-Tailed Hawk has been perched on a stitcher, blocking Willits bypass construction and protecting critical wetlands.

Crowd of supporters marches onto wetlands destruction site to resupply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

Saturday evening around 45 supporters of Red-Tailed Hawk’s occupation of a wick drain “stitching machine” converged on the site in what was precious wetlands in the path of CalTrans’ freeway project. Supporters walked onto the site unopposed until they reached CHP squad cars, when two officers emerged and tried to call a halt to the march. Supporters from Willits, Ukiah and beyond proceeded on the the stitcher in which Red-Tailed Hawk is perched. When he lowered a supply rope, they tried to attach bundles of food and water. CHP officers repelled the attempt three times, cutting the rope in the process.

With press on hand protestors quietly sat and reasoned with the officers to allow resupply to Red-Tailed Hawk, who has no food and very little water left. The officers refused and refused as well to reveal whether they were under orders to starve him until he descends.

 

Police prevented supplies from being sent up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

Police forcibly prevented supporters from sending food and water up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

redtailhawk3

..and then cut his supply line.

When CHP reinforcements arrived, Sgt A. Mesa ordered protesters to leave the site and immediately grabbed Sara Grusky as she was complying with the order. Her daughter Thea Grusky-Foley and Naomi Wagner allowed themselves to be arrested in solidarity. Matt Caldwell, who had attempted to attach buckets to the line, was also arrested.

redtailhawk4redtailhawk5

The evening ended at Willits Police Station, where Sara and Thea, who had walked away after being handcuffed, talked by phone to press and Sheriff Tom Allman amidst a crowd of supporters. They surrendered to an angry Sgt. Mesa after calling in their whereabouts to the CHP.

All four arrestees are currently at Mendocino County Jail, awaiting booking.  Red-Tailed Hawk is still without water and food and needs all the support we can give him.

The Fuel Nightmare Continues

It’s as if the universe is trying to tell us something, isn’t it?

It’s as if the universe is trying to tell us something, isn’t it?

First, a disastrous month that saw at least 15 separate oil spills worldwide, nearly all of them in North America. That month also saw an oil barge catch fire after a collision, and the publication of a study implicating fracking as a cause of earthquakes.

Now at least 600 gallons have spilled from an Enbridge oil pumping station near Viking, Minnesota.Two fuel barges carrying a natural gas derivative have exploded and are still burning on the Alabama River. And new reports strongly suggest that tar sands from Exxon’s Pegasus Pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas have seeped into Lake Conway and are heading toward the Arkansas River.

Disasters like these bring the real costs of fossil fuels into sharp focus, because we can imagine ourselves affected by them. But the truth is, disasters like these are part of everyday life for the people and other beings living in areas where fossil fuels are extracted—or any other industrial materials, from copper for solar panels to coltan for cell phones.

If you wouldn’t want oil spilling into your back yard, if you wouldn’t want a strip mine ripping open a hole behind your house and poisoning your water, then it’s time to admit that the economic system founded on consuming these materials has got to go. We’ll never have justice or sustainability if we base one group’s “high standard of living” on the dislocation and destruction of others.

 

Odd Alliance of Anarchists & Farmers Takes on French Gov’t in Airport Battle 16th April

They hurl sticks, stones and gasoline bombs. They have spent brutal winter months fortifying muddy encampments. And now they’re ready to ramp up their fight against the prime minister and his pet project — a massive new airport in western France.

An unlikely alliance of anarchists and beret-wearing farmers is creating a headache for President Francois Hollande’s beleaguered government by mounting an escalating Occupy Wall Street-style battle that has delayed construction on the ambitious airport near the city of Nantes for months. The conflict has flared anew at a particularly tricky time for the Socialist government, amid a growing scandal over tax-dodging revelations that forced the budget minister to resign, and ever-worsening news about the French economy.

A protest held over the weekend is likely to trigger a new round of demonstrations like those that drew thousands of protesters to the remote woodlands of Brittany in the fall. In those earlier protests, heavily armored riot police battled young anarchists and farmers, causing injuries on both sides. On Monday, similar clashes erupted, with three demonstrators injured, according to the radicals’ website.

The fight has brought together odd bedfellows: Local farmers who represent traditional French conservative values are collaborating with anarchists, radical eco-feminists and drifters from around Europe — who see the anti-airport movement as a flashpoint against globalization and capitalism. Environmentalists and the far-left Green Party also oppose the airport, arguing that it will bring pollution.

The clash has been particularly damaging for Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Nantes’ longtime mayor and the airport’s highest-profile champion. He and the project’s supporters say the airport will attract business at a time when France sorely needs an economic boost and job creation. The Aeroport du Grand Ouest is intended to replace the existing Nantes Atlantique airport, with runways able to handle larger aircraft such as the A380 superjumbo and room to expand from 4.5 million passengers a year at the open to 9 million in the longer term.

With an approval rating at historic lows, Ayrault’s leverage to push through the project is shrinking. Meanwhile the opponents’ threat to remobilize is leading to new fears of violent clashes.

Protesters have spent months illegally occupying the site of the planned Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport, which is set to start operating in 2017. In November, more than 500 riot police tried to remove thousands of squatters in the wooded area near this village 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Nantes. Protesters responded by hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails. Police fired back with tear gas in clashes that dominated the national news.

For the farmers, it’s all about protecting the land.

“This will be a runway,” says Sylvain Fresneau, gesturing toward the two-story house built by his grandfather and the dairy farm that has been in his family for five generations.

Fresneau and his cousin Dominique are among the local farmers who are holding out, refusing to sell up and clear off the land where they have lived and worked their entire lives. Sylvain’s 88 cows produce 550,000 liters (580,000 quarts) of milk a year. “Since January,” Fresneau says, “we are squatters and so are the cows.”

While some local farmers have accepted buyouts from Vinci, the giant construction firm that was selected to build and run the airport, the Fresneaus and many of their neighbors have fought the project for years.

“It’s not a question of money,” Sylvain Fresneau says. “You can’t put a price on five generations of peasants. It’s my duty not to accept that money from any builder.”

He says his 80-year-old father was one of the first to resist the airport project when the idea surfaced 40 years ago. Long-mothballed, the airport plan gained fresh impetus when Ayrault’s Socialist Party came to power nationally in the late 1990s. The plan then wound its way through a slow and torturously complex process of studies, commissions and advisory committees.

Although Sylvain Fresneau claims the farmers “could make one call and block Nantes with our tractors in half a day,” the reality is that the farmers alone could not have delayed the project as long as they have without help from a surprising quarter: the mainly 20-something radicals who call themselves “ZADists.”

Their name derives from the French acronym for “development zone,” the generic name given to the area where the airport is to be built. The ZADists have delighted in appropriating the acronym for their own use, but with various new takes: Zone To Defend, or Zone of Definitive Autonomy, among others.

Since 2009, the activists have been occupying the fields where the airport is to be built. Some squat in abandoned farmhouses or homes opened up to them by locals who refuse to sell. Others spent the winter in ingeniously constructed cabins set up deep in the wooded and muddy scrubland outside the village.

“Without the ZADists we wouldn’t have kept the land,” admits Sylvain Fresneau.

Up to several hundred ZADists live on the site at any given time. Police control access to the zone with checkpoints at road crossings, but the ZADists avoid them by simply cutting across fields to their campsites.

ZADists have also built their own fortifications, ramshackle assemblages of wood, wire, mattresses and hay bales. The entrance is controlled by ZADists who cover their faces with scarves and hoods, not only to ward off the cold but also to hide their identities from the police posted at the road crossing barely 100 yards (meters) away.

Clashes between the two sides are common. On a recent visit, ZADists who all identified themselves by the pseudonym “Camille” described an expedition the night before in which they succeeded in splashing some police with paint, traces of which were still visible on the road.

For the farmers, the fight is mostly a matter of keeping their land. The ZADists, on the other hand, say they have wider, loftier goals. “Against the Airport … and its World” is one of the slogans spray-painted on signs around the zone.

Some of the ZADists have taken part in anti-globalization and Occupy movements across Europe. They see the movement to support the farmers of Notre-Dame-des-Landes as an extension of their goal of “learning to live together, cultivate the land, and increase our autonomy from the capitalist system,” as their website explains.

“It’s a bit utopian, but sometimes you need some utopia,” said Dominique Fresneau. The farmers’ appreciation for the ZADists’ energy and the attention they’ve brought to their fight against the airport is mixed with bemusement at some of their radical positions.

At meetings between the two groups of allies, Fresneau admitted that “we clash” sometimes. But more often they find ways to work together. Some farmers have used their tractors to set up a protective barricade around one of the encampments. A ZADist who was also a graduate student in agricultural studies helped a farmer complete a geological survey of his land. Farmers bring in food and building supplies for the ZADists.

In early April, a commission set up by Ayrault to try to calm the debate over the airport delivered its report. It recommended further evaluation of the cost of expanding the Nantes Atlantique airport instead of building a new one at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, and suggested that additional noise, traffic and environmental studies be carried out.

The government welcomed the commission’s report, saying it underscored the need for the new airport. Opponents, meanwhile, said that on the contrary it bolstered their case that the new airport should be scrapped. In any event, the activists said, all the new studies will delay the start of work on the airport, likely pushing back its opening from the originally planned 2017 date.

Ecologists went as far as to cry victory.

“As it stands, carrying out all the recommendations called for in these reports amounts to a ‘mission impossible’ and postpone the project indefinitely,” the Green Party said in a statement.

Meanwhile in the fields around Notre-Dame-des-Landes, farmers and activists are not going away.

Their next action is Saturday, when they plan a day of planting, clearing and repair work at their camp across the site of the future airport.

Earth First! Summer Gathering: 7th-11th August 2013

This year's the Summer Gathering will be in the Hastings area near the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road campaign. It will run from the evening of Wednesday 7th August and finish on Sunday 11th August.

 

This year's the Summer Gathering will be in the Hastings area near the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road campaign. It will run from the evening of Wednesday 7th August and finish on Sunday 11th August.

 

The Earth First! Summer Gathering takes place each year to provide a space in which the radical ecology movement can share skills and plan for future campaigns and actions. Anyone who is interested in ecological direct action will have a valuable part to play and is welcome to come to this family friendly gathering. If you've not been to an Earth First! Gathering before and are thinking about it, please do come, we are a very friendly, welcoming bunch and would love to have you get involved

 

Programme: Workshops, skill sharing and planning action, plus low-impact living without leaders. Meet people, learn skills.

Transport/location: exact location will be announced 2 weeks before gathering on website.

Cost: £20-£30 from each person to cover all costs except food. (If you really can't afford this, please come anyway and give what you can).

Food: Delicious vegan food will be available, and meal tickets will be on sale at the gathering.

What to bring: Everyone will be camping so bring a tent, sleeping bag etc.

If you have any particular accommodation, access or dietary needs please tell us asap but at least two weeks in advance so we can plan suitable facilities. There will be a small amount of living vehicular space if booked in advance, on a first come first served basis.

 

Contact: summergathering-at-earthfirst.org.uk

http://efgathering.weebly.com

“Cancel Keystone Pipeline:” Largest Climate Protest in U.S. History

Between 35,000 and 50,000 people rallied in Washington, DC on Sunday, Feb 17th in the largest global warming protest in U.S. history. The primary demand: ditch the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Between 35,000 and 50,000 people rallied in Washington, DC on Sunday, Feb 17th in the largest global warming protest in U.S. history. The primary demand: ditch the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Read some testimonials here from women who traveled to DC to protest the pipeline.

Meanwhile, in spite of vague promises to take action to avert catastrophic global warming, Obama’s administration is gearing up for a big fracking push to accelerate natural gas mining.

Decoy Pond camp evicted but the campaign continues! (31 Jan)

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erected on the path of the planned Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) – was finally evicted yesterday (Wednesday 30 Jan).

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erected on the path of the planned Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) – was finally evicted yesterday (Wednesday 30 Jan).

In the end it took scores of security, bailiffs and police three days to evict all of the climbers – not to mention tunnelers, people in tripods and folk locked-on on the ground! Denied food, water and medicine by East Sussex County Council, the activists in the trees also had to contend with torrential rain and gusts of wind of up to 54mph (Met Office figure for nearby Battle)! See below for photos and films from yesterday (30 Jan). In total, 9 people were arrested, and the CHD is now helping to assist those charged, as they go through the court process.

After 48 days of continuous protest (with 28 arrests) some of those involved will probably now be taking a short but much needed rest. Nonetheless, the Campaign continues, with four activists in Court this morning (Thursday 31 Jan), more news expected from the High Court on Friday, the “Grannies’ Dinghy” action in the Valley this Saturday (2 February), and an opportunity for opponents of the Road to get together to form groups and plan future activities, this Sunday (3 February: 4-6pm, The Roomz, 33-35 Western Road, St Leonards on Sea, TN37 6DJ).

Many more activities and projects are also in the pipeline, so please sign the Pledge / like us on Facebook / follow us on Twitter (@combe_haven) / send a donation (use the PayPal buttons on this site or send a cheque) and stay posted for more news on Phase 2. A luta continua!

Day 48 (30 Jan): Decoy Pond Camp eviction continues!

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day reported as campaigner removed from tree.]

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day reported as campaigner removed from tree.]

30 Jan: Day 48 of the current phase of Combe Haven protests has begun with activists still in the trees at Decoy Pond Camp (see here for maps and directions). The eviction continues! East Sussex County Council are still insisting that no food, water, blankets or medicines be allowed up to the people high-up in the trees, who faced gusts of wind of up to 54mph last night.

Meanwhile, local grandmothers are mobilising to bring inflatable dinghies to the flooded valley ths Saturday (2 February) for an aquatic demonstration of their support for the peaceful protests.

Five people were arrested yesterday, bringing the total number of arrests so far to 26. All have now been released: one was cautioned, and the remaining four have been charged.

As we noted at the time of the eviction of “Base Camp”: This is only the end of the beginning for the protests against the Bexhill Hastings Link Road (BHLR)!

If you can’t make it down to the Valley this week then please sign the Pledge / like us on Facebook / follow us on Twitter (@combe_haven) / send a donation (use the PayPal buttons on this site or send a cheque) and stay posted for news on Phase 2!

Two short films from yesterday’s eviction:

*******************************************

Press Information Note
Combe Haven Defenders [1]
30 January 2013

EVICTION OF HASTINGS ANTI-ROAD CAMP ENTERS THIRD DAY
Local grandmothers to show support with “Grannies’ Dinghy” action this Saturday (2 Feb)

30 January, 8.15am: At least four activists are still in the treetops of the third [2] anti-road camp along the route of the proposed Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) this morning, as local grandmothers mobilise to bring inflatable dinghies to the flooded valley ths Saturday (2 February) for an aquatic demonstration of their support for the peaceful protests.

Campaigners are currently peacefully resisting the eviction of the Camp, which is located just west of Upper Wilting Farm in Crowhurst (TN38 8EG) [3]. East Sussex Council have denied food and water to the protesters – who have faced heavy rain and gusts of up to 54mph, fifty-feet up in the trees – since Monday morning [4].

Local grandmothers will be assembling with inflatable dinghies at 12.45pm this Saturday (2 February) at the Plough Inn in Crowhurst (TN33 9AW), from where they plan to mount an aquatic demonstration against the Road in the nearby flooded fields – fields through which the Road is supposed to pass [5]. An earlier action (“Grannies’ Tree”) was reproduced in both the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

The £100m Road project is one of over forty “zombie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resuscitated as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-building programme in 25 years [6,7].

Seven people have been arrested since Monday, including Natalie Hynde, daughter of pop singer Chrissie Hynde [4]. The peaceful protests against the Road– which have now been running continuously for 48 days, with 26 arrests – have seized national attention over the past seven weeks [8].

Adrian Hopkins of the Combe Haven Defenders said: “Resistance has been growing to this awful scheme as each day passes and more people become inspired by the action so far taken to protect the beautiful Combe Haven valley. This is only the beginning of a sustained campaign of peaceful resistance to this environmentally disastrous white-elephant project.”

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first camp was established on 21 December. Two other camps along the route, ‘Three Oaks’ and ‘Adams Farm’, have already been evicted, on 14 Jan and 16-17 Jan respectively, resulting in seven arrests.
[3] For maps and directions see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[4] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/29-jan-escc-still-denying-food-blankets-to-activists-facing-44mph-gusts/
[5] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/sat-19-jan-grannies-photoshoot-2/
[6] See ‘Controversial ‘zombie roads’ scheme to be resuscitated’, Guardian, 10 October 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[7] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report
[8] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/

Treesit in California Against CalTrans Bypass

A coalition of environmental groups staged a protest Monday morning along Highway 101 to protest the construction of the highway bypass around Willits.

Dozens of protestors from Earth First! joined with a newly formed Willits group called Save our Little Lake Valley in an effort to stop the planned tree cutting along the bypass footprint. In addition to picket signs, a local woman is now living on a platform nestled in top of one of the trees slated for removal. Picketers on the ground vowed to support her tree sitting protest for as long as it takes.

“CalTrans did not cut today, it was definitely a victory,” says organizer Sarah Grusky of Save our Little Lake Valley. “We plan to hold vigils as often as possible to keep a lookout.”

CalTrans has been working for the past few weeks, placing markers along the project right of way preparing for the contractor to begin work. The first significant work scheduled for the contractor is to cut the trees along the bypass route to prevent migratory birds from nesting in them. Tree cutting is expected to start within two to three weeks according to CalTrans spokesman Phil Frisbie.

CalTrans awarded the $108 million construction project to the partnership of DeSilva Gates Construction and Flatiron West Incorporated late last year with the expectation most of the heavy construction work would not start until 2013 after the seasonal rains subsided.

A lawsuit filed by The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Willits Environmental Center and the Environmental Protection Information Center in May 2012 is seeking to delay the project until a more thorough examination of alternatives is conducted. The California Farm Bureau joined the lawsuit in August 2012. In November a federal judge denied the groups’ request for an injunction aimed at stopping construction until the lawsuit issues were settled. The trial date is scheduled for June 7.

While the courts settle the overall legality of CalTrans bypass design, some area activists are concerned about the damage being done in the meantime. Protestors brought informational signs and held them up to wave at travelers along the east side of Highway 101 south of Walker Road aimed at stopping any construction through peaceful protest.

“Caltrans has not considered the many other viable and sensible solutions to Willlits’ traffic problems developed by the people,” said Warbler, a Little Lake Valley farmer occupying the tree. “This Bypass will not improve local traffic and will create no permanent jobs, but it will permanently scar the Little Lake Valley. The Army Corp of Engineers is mandated to choose the least harmful alternative and the Bypass as planned isn’t it.”

Warbler is 24-years-old and has been living and working in the Willits valley for the past four years. This is her first tree sit. She volunteered for this role when planning for the protests began last year. She received tree climbing instructions from Cascadia Forest Defenders who also helped her get settled into the tree located at the south end of the new planned bypass not far from the current Highway 101. She has tarps to protect herself from rain and two sleeping bags to keep warm.

When asked how long she planned to stay in the tree she said, “that depends on CalTrans and local authorities.”