The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council Joins EPIC in Calling For a Halt to Richardson Grove Project
Richardson Grove [Photo from Caltrans]
On May 7th, 2021 the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council (Sinkyone Council) and the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) sent a letter requesting that Caltrans halt the Richardson Grove Improvement Project (the project). The letter, which you can read here, outlines the cultural significance of Richardson Grove and the old-growth redwood trees to the Sinkyone People and other Tribes of the region.
To the Sinkyone People, Gááhs-tcho (Redwood Tree) is a special relative whom they were taught to never harm. “As Indigenous Peoples, our responsibility is to respect and care for places like the Grove because of their inherent sacredness and importance within the larger Gááhs-tcho temperate rainforest of this region and beyond. The Grove is an irreplaceable part of the cultural landscape and identity of the Sinkyone People,” asserts Mary Norris who is Chairwoman at the Cahto Tribe of Laytonville Rancheria, the Tribal community situated closest to the Grove today.
The Sinkyone Council’s commitment to defending nature and supporting revitalization of Tribal traditional lifeways and relationships with cultural landscapes and seascapes is guided by the long continuum of Tribal presence in places like the Grove. The Council has a long track record of demanding state and federal agency compliance with cultural protection laws. Agencies have legal requirements to protect Tribal cultural heritage and values, and to prevent harmful impacts to Tribes’ cultural properties and ways of life, including cultural places. This principle is underscored by Sinkyone Council Chairwoman Priscilla Hunter, who asserts “Caltrans has a duty to honor and uphold protection for cultural places such as the Grove.”
Richardson Grove is one of only a few remaining ancient redwood groves, a critical part of the surviving 2% old-growth redwood still standing. Tribal members maintain cultural relationship with the Grove as an important place for the continuation of traditional ways of life, as Sinkyone ancestors for millennia did. For these and other reasons, it is vitally important that the Grove be accorded sufficient protections that in turn will ensure Indigenous Sinkyone cultural heritage and lifeways are respected and protected.
EPIC has long opposed the project because of its negative impacts to old-growth redwoods and our belief that alternative solutions are available. We are proud to stand alongside the Sinkyone Council in continuing to call for this project to be abandoned.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
I agree. The trees are sacred, and, if people can’t grasp that Native Americans feel this way, then it is just too bad…
Many things are culturally significant, to Native Americans, and, many of these things are also considered to be sacred!
Build a road, a big road, linking the two 4-lane sections, North and South of Richardson Grove, just like it should have been, many years ago. Otherwise, send the Rigs over 299, via 5. Easy!
It’s a State Park, start acting like it’s valuable!
Sorry it will cost a few bucks, but the road through Richardson Grove, is fucking dangerous already! With larger rigs, even more dangerous!
Look, build a bypass, just like in Willits! Problem solved.
Quit fighting, Californians, and use the 80 Billion Dollar surplus to:
Bypass Richardson Grove!
Bypass Eureka too, even though it’s not really culturally significant, or important…
Show us a bypass corridor that couldn’t also be claimed as a “cultural resource” by power-tripping tribal entities. Ever see the Cahto doing religious rites on the shoulder of 101 through Richardson Grove? Calling a developed highway corridor a “cultural resource” is a complete prostitution of the idea.
I thought our local Wailaki were the closest tribal community
Leave grove alone, leave the road where it is, my ancestors been traveling that road for decades. I find it entertaining watching out of the area RVers white knuckle their RVs while they navigate the grove. How many rvs does it claim every year. And your right VMG 299 is super speedway to super slab, if you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the fire. People only driving faster and faster all the time, 80 mph is the norm,good luck out there. Get me my antidepressants, I’ve got to hit the open road.
VMG, you said trees are sacred to Native Americans and also that many thins are culturally significant to them. One thing they seem to think is culturally significant is a land free of white people. They constantly say they want to protect their land, but yet their land is littered with casinos (which are not their culture). They want to use US currency and constantly demand more of it. If they want their culture back, they should go back to it all the way. If they aren’t willing to see this than I’m not willing to listen to anything they have to say.
I say cut a few trees and widen the road.
Those casinos tend to be actually operated by Canadian Gambling Corporations, since tribal groups tend to have problems operating te casinos profitably…
Nobody said tribal life is without problems, but if your culture, established over time immemorial, was suddenly destroyed by outsiders, permanently, you might need a few years to reestablish your existence…
Being a racist, is ridiculous, in the face of the cultural invasion and the immigration rates, and, we are talking about building an adequate highway which should have been constructed long ago!
Why did the 101 go through Richardson Grove in the first place? Probably because local businessmen, tourist trap operators and gas-station owners made a big fuss about running the highway around their establishments! Just as in the case of Willits, the locals opposed the modernization of the road because they thought that the locals would lose money!
Bypassing Richardson Grove is far overdue, and allowing more rigs, bigger rigs, to drive through the Grove is about the stupidest idea I have heard in 30 years! They spent hundreds of millions to widen and improve the 299, just a few years ago. Use 299 to run rigs, and until the 101 is properly constructed, end to end, leave big rigs out of the plan!
California needs to fix the roads, ALL the roads! Our highways are a disgrace, and construction is 50 years behind, all over Northern California!
I was very nearly killed, myself, in Richardson Grove, one morning, back in 2016, when a rig dumped a load of crushed cars just in front of me. I witnessed the speeding rig, the unsafe operations, and the bad road in the fog.
Will the 101 kill YOU next?
The casinos are managed by outside companies but the Tribes own them and have the ultimate responsibility for how they operate.
101 went through the grove because it was the most efficient route. Please tell us how tourist traps and gas stations are supposed to open before the road accessing them does. Did someone travel backward through time?
Bypassing the grove is a stupid idea with much more environmental impact than changing the alignment on one corner.
“…the 101…” Dead giveaway for a SoCal transplant.
Nah, I’m born in Berkeley, raised North of Sacramento… I did watch “The OC” once…
You missed the point entirely: But that’s OK, you can learn to read, maybe, next week…
I am assuming there WAS a road before the 4-lane was built North and South of the Grove, and that there was probably SOME silly reason why the 4-lane was never completed…
But, the 101 IS a mess of patched together cow paths and rail beds and such… A silly sort of road, never completed, where the speed limit changes every few feet…
Running traffic through the grove, on into the 2020’s is perfectly crazy, and wanting to destroy 1000 year old trees, what few we still have, in order to run still-bigger rigs through there, is plain stupid.
Build adequate roadways, adequate to 2021 traffic, or just block off the grove at either end, until it’s completed…
There is a reason that people “tree-sit”… It’s to stop their crazy fellow humans from doing still stupider things! People like Thirdeye, above, always think they are right, when they are anything but…
Namaste, Thirdeye, be well…
I’d love to see Eureka bypassed, although I think the cultural argument could be made there too, as for pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
Pontificating, it seems to me that there is nothing on earth that isn’t somehow cultural, or put another way, perceived through the eyes of humans.
A lot of time and energy has been spent on defending the bottleneck at Richardson grove.
A lot of time and energy went into forcing cal trans to building the wimpy bypass at Willits, which will inevitably have to be torn down and expanded in the future as California works towards doubling its population in the next 30 years, insanity!
The real solution, to play angels advocate, is to decommission the interstate highway system all together.
Then we can militarize our jurisdictions borders, and dictate to all who wish to stay a new bioregional tribalism modeled after native tribal systems, minus the heavy dependence on grants to function.
Don’t mind me, more delusion provoked by sun fatigue..
but don’t you just want to change everything sometimes?
I don’t know one person who believes we are on the right path as a species.
Absolute bullshit.
And “they” don’t care one bit that some of us just want to live simple, and aren’t smitten by the drawbacks of the digital age.
Maybe a Native American President could stop the juggernaut, but they’d probably be seduced by power and sell the National forest system to china.
Where are you now Whitney?
We need your songs now more than ever!
Maybe the Native Americans could pay for a highway around the grove?
Ironically enough, isn’t this considered a public safety issue? My grandma could die on that stretch of road, isn’t that all the arguement that is needed in this day and age. “If it saves one life it’s worth it”. I personally know more people who have died from hitting a redwood tree than have died from covid. It kinda seems anti science to not want to make the road safer… hell at this point I’m just going to say I don’t have to wear a mask because it’s against my “culture”
The redwood trees have a long way to go to settle the score.
Grandma shouldn’t be driving through the redwoods if she cant read the speed limit signs or has a medical condition that would cause her to take to many pills to drive. Grandmas need to have a yearly driving exam to maintain safety of everyone else. Go maskless nobody cares except the private property stores that require it, f public health get drunk and drive your grandma and lick some door handles or toilet seats while your at it.
I’ve never understood why people think we should cut down trees that are thousands of years older then us. They only are that big and tourist attracting because they were able to grow. I dont think they will ever be able to get to that size again with all the climate change. In the next thousand years they could all be dead and replaced with holograms of what use to be. Leave the trees alone go around if you cant stand driving 35mph for 3 miles. The whole 101 highway is small and curvy from south of garberville to willits.
Mike is spot on.
Build the improvements to the road through Richardson Grove already, quit fighting. There are no old growth trees being cut, in fact not many trees at all being cut, it is more the alignment of the highway.
Where is EPIC with all the grows going up on Oak woodlands and prairies???? Oak woodlands are found to be just as important and ecologically significant as Old growth. Come on hypocritical environmental groups!!!
We don’t want to increase large truck traffic.
The full size Trailers are already coming here. The only difference is the slightly larger cab. The weight of the trucks will remain unchanged.
EPIC doesn’t want to get crosswise with their donor base, lest they find themselves in the situation of the NEC 10-15 years ago when they pissed off growers with their support for the General Plan update.
Everyone is against this
Not me. Widen or bypass, I don’t care.
And anywhere a native urinated is considered sacred. Maybe they should put a casino where Hartsook used to be.
I agree, guest.
Makes no sense to have an Interstate Freeway with a choke point in the middle that precludes some trucks that could otherwise travel through.
This is obviously a cash cow for epic
and is undoubtedly a big moneymaker.
Realign the Grove or blast 4 lanes on the other side of the river according to the initial plan from Cooks Valley to the Twin Trees Bridge.
Take your pick, I’m sick of this B.S.
Local Tribes should always be consulted, that is clear.
I bet if EPIC wasn’t involved the Tribe could and would offer a solution.
Not me. It’s a slight realignment,
Widen the road already.
I think Thirdeye hit the nose on the head when stated: “EPIC doesn’t want to get crosswise with their donor base, lest they find themselves in the situation of the NEC 10-15 years ago when they pissed off growers with their support for the General Plan update.”
So true, EPIC is just another one of the hypocritical environmental groups, suing who and when they want with no real concern for the environment, just wanting their chump hush money.
Completely quiet on the hundreds of permits being filed at the County Planning Department where mega grows are being permitted in our remote and pristine Oak woodlands and prairies. Oak woodlands that are proven to be more so or equal to old growth when it comes to ecological significance and biodiversity. And yet not one word from EPIC or other local enviro groups on this subject. Meanwhile they whine and sue Cal Trans for the re-alignment of an existing highway for safety. Not one old growth is being cut down by this Cal Trans work.
However, acres and acres of Oak woodlands and prairies are being impacted day in and day out as these permits are approved and development moves forward.
Pathetic!
Creator’s natural order and laws have been disregarded and disrespected for so long to promote the money people’s interests and lifestyle. This will continue until there is nothing to protect. Creator knew this world would become an out of balance world in the name of prosperity and progress. We are all on the highway to hell just like ACDC sings. So all I can say is Creator watches, and I would rather be a protector instead of a hating money worshipping idiot. The world needs a lot more love and a lot less haters.
A stoplight on both ends would solve the problem.
It would have been nice if EPIC put a sentence or two describing the proposed project. I am guessing that the project doesn’t propose the cutting any old growth redwood trees. Fortunately neither of these activist groups are in charge of managing the roadway or the park. The tribes heritage and culture will remain intact. This press release is very emotional and nothing new.
They should just do what they do in Japan and transplant them. Redwoods have a tiny root system.
They wouldn’t even have to move them very far.
Figure it out, and get ‘er done.
No more conflict money for EPIC.
Must be pretty cushy to be they guys raking it in to make sure nothing gets done.
How hard is that?
Everyone they hire just has to have plenty of one kind of tool…
A monkey wrench.