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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Maybe our local North Coast Journal could take some lessons from this author.

Great article Matt!

In Humboldt County, It’s Redwoods Versus the Phantom Wall-Mart


Drive north from San Francisco for a few hours, and the 101 will gradually melt into a slim road between giant sequoia trees. You've found your way to Richardson Grove State Park, where you can see thousand-year-old redwoods, the South Fork Eel River, and lots of campgrounds, but you won't see any big box stores.

That's thanks, at least in part, to the narrowness of the 101. With a speed limit of 35 miles per hour, most tractor-trailers are banned from the park. This has helped keep sprawl to a minimum, but some Humboldt officials have long complained that it isolates the county and limits commerce.

In response to the politicians, Caltrans spent about a decade working on the Richardson Grove Improvement Project, which culminated this May in a Final Environmental Impact Report.

As described, Caltrans' project would widen the highway and eliminate detours for trucks, shortening the trip from Oakland to Eureka from 725 miles to 279.

And that's where things get controversial.

Rest of article

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a side of the issue the Journal and proponents of the plan don't even want to address, because...majority over money speaking...it would fail miserably in a vote of the general public.

Heraldo said...

As described, Caltrans' project would widen the highway and eliminate detours for trucks, shortening the trip from Oakland to Eureka from 725 miles to 279.

This is obviously absurd.

Jeff Muskrat said...

725 miles to 279?

Agreed! But apparently, it's on the FEIR:
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/07/20/in-humboldt-county-its-redwoods-versus-the-phantom-wall-mart/

"Jeffrey W. Baker

I was skeptical of the 729 mile
figure but it does appear in the EIR (as 725 miles actually). It seems that even US-199 is no good as a truck route and the trucks have to go all the way through SR-42, which is indeed about 725 miles one way from Oakland. I suppose it would be pointless to mention that Humboldt has its very own deep water cargo facility.

July 20, 2010 at 9:51 pm"


The FEIR is obviously full of holes and contradictions. Many of the listed trees are off in regards to DBH measurements. Some affected and removal trees are not even even listed and multiple trees are miscatagorized(ie. listing a redwood as a big leaf maple).

But what else can we expect from this bureaucracy? But I'd also expect Caltrans to have had a watertight FEIR, especially after the fuss about the DEIR.

Shouldn't be much trouble for legal to shut this project down...