From TUC Radio’s Going Home series: On January 18, 2013 the British Guardian reported that tree sitters had gone up to stop a road project they say “will be expensive, unnecessary and ineffective at tackling congestion and cut through beautiful wetlands” in the south of England. Ten days later and unaware of each other, in Northern California, tree sitters went up in the former logging town of Willits, protesting a four lane bypass that will be expensive, unnecessary and ineffective at tackling congestion and cut through the treasured wetland of Little Lake Valley. Both groups are part of a growing effort to scale down fossil fueled construction and transportation in a global effort to reverse climate change.
The escalation to direct action in Willis comes after a quarter century of efforts to use the regulatory agencies, the Environmental Impact Report, and the mitigation process to prevent or at least downscale the project. The Willits Environmental Center was a major contributor to the Bypass actually dying twice, first in 2007 when bond-funding was denied, then in 2011 when the Army Corps of Engineers refused to give Caltrans, the CA Department of Transportation, their permit to destroy the wetlands and headwaters of five salmon streams. When behind the scenes congressional pressure forced the beginning of work on the Bypass in March 2013, legal action to stop that work was initiated and denied. Finally the Willits Environmental Center, the Sierra Club and others sued under the clean water act. As of this recording on July 1st, 2013, the case has been heard but not yet decided.
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