SAN FRANCISCO— Conservation groups and Humboldt residents have appealed a California court’s dismissal of a legal challenge to the Richardson Grove Project. The Highway 101 realignment project would accommodate oversized commercial trucks while cutting into the sensitive root networks of old-growth redwoods, harming Richardson Grove State Park’s iconic trees.
“The court misread the state’s environmental protection law, which tells agencies like Caltrans that they can’t simply ignore the risks of paving over redwood groves,” said Ross Middlemiss, an attorney for the coalition. “We’re committed to protecting theseancient trees and we’re confident the law is on our side.”
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, Friends of Del Norte, and community members filed a legal challenge in 2023 in Humboldt County Superior Court. The latest appeal filed in the First District Court of Appeal on Friday alleges the project violates the California Environmental Quality Act.
“For nearly two decades Caltrans has been pushing an unpopular project that was never needed and causes a world of harm to California’s famous trees,” said Peter Galvin, director of programs at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It doesn’t make any sense to waste taxpayer money on a project that serves no purpose but causes irreparable harm.”
Richardson Grove State Park is home to one of the last protected stands of accessible old-growth redwoods in the world, with some trees as old as 3,000 years. “Peer reviewed studies show that harming the root system of old-growth redwoods harms the trees themselves. This is common sense. But from the beginning of the project, Caltrans has denied this basic fact,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC. “Caltrans knows that they can’t admit that the project will shorten the lives of ancient redwoods in a state park — because the public would not stand for this.”
The coalition is represented by Ross Middlemiss and Stuart Gross of Gross Klein PC.
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