Karen Pickett

Caltrans has been pushing ahead with attempts to start work on their hugely destructive boondoggle highway project in Mendocino County as they bring heavy equipment into the Willits Bypass planned site, and protesters in their way have been arrested . Their work is starting with the cutting of an oak woodland, with many old, mature trees that should be protected under the Migratory Bird Act during nesting season. Last Thursday (3-21) and again on Tuesday (3-26) activists showed up on the Caltans work site to witness and to stand in the way of tree felling. Eight people were arrested late …

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Local opposition is rising as activists, including a tree-sitter, keep vigil on the construction site of Caltrans companion project to the Richardson Grove highway “realignment”project (on hold for now due to stellar legal work). The Caltrans Bypass project in Willits, as outlined in earlier alerts, would drain and destroy significant wetlands and take down an oak woodland used as nesting habitat for migratory birds.  Caltrans has been trying to literally bulldoze their way through federal and state regulations, bringing activists to sit down in front of heavy equipment, call in state wildlife agency biologists, and maintain a presence that has …

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Update from the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters As readers of these posts know, a Caltrans project related to the Richardson Grove highway project (on hold for the moment) through what we believe are Caltrans’ ultimate goals (an I-5 size highway up the coast) is starting up in Willits. On the start-up date for the Willits Bypass project through sensitive wetlands and significant oak woodlands, Earth First! and local activists turned out to oppose the project in a successful rally on the site. A tree-sit was launched, and as a result, Caltrans did not work all of last week, after …

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Willits Bypass Update Caltrans Work Set to Start End of January 2013 We last updated you in November re. this Caltrans boondoggle project in Mendocino County that would affect significant wetlands, an oak woodland, salmon and steelhead habitat and endangered plant species. Now, after delays and false starts, construction on the Willits Bypass is officially set to begin Jan. 28, 2013. Caltrans has received their last remaining permits from the Water Quality Board and State Fish and Wildlife Departments, giving them the green light to “top” and limb oaks, remove vegetation in the Bypass footprint and punch a haul road …

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! We hope this is a good year for wild places everywhere and all of our fellow species!  Take action to make it so. With Maxxam gone, other timber companies threaten integrity of Headwaters Forest Reserve Thirteen years after the historic transfer of the largest groves of ancient redwoods left on Maxxam/Pacific Lumber’s ravaged land to public hands and protection as Headwaters Forest Reserve, other companies in the mold of Maxxam/PL are nipping at the edges of that precious forest.  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has done a stand up job over the last decade to protect and …

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You haven’t heard from us for a while. Email alerts from the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters have gotten scarcer–in large part because of the change in ownership of the redwoods on the formerly Pacific Lumber land–now Humboldt Redwood Company. Our agenda is evolving…but one aspect of our work remains the same: our role in the offshoot group Friends of Headwaters Reserve and our monitoring of the management of the part of the redwood forest that was preserved and passed into public hands via the 1999 Headwaters Deal. We are now planning some exciting field trips that we would like …

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