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.”