albion

Public Comment Period Extended to October 9 for Albion River Bridge DEIR/DEIS

jimheid Albion Bridge Stewards, Albion River Bridge, Caltrans , ,

Well, well.

At 5:59 pm yesterday, we received an email from Caltrans:

The comment period for the Albion River Bridge Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) and Draft Section 4(f) Evaluation will be extended for another 30 days, ending on October 9, 2024. A virtual public meeting will be scheduled, and details will be released soon.

Our group had already submitted our public comments—54 pages worth—and we know that roughly 200 additional people from around the world (literally!) submitted comments through our comment template system. (If you’re in that group, thank you.)

Now we have another month.

Why the extension?

So why did Caltrans give the public another month to finish its homework?

Only Caltrans knows for sure, but we do know that some people were not properly noticed—that is, notified about the draft environmental impact statement/report and thus given an opportunity to comment. When a person or organization has requested to be noticed and they are not, there’s the potential for legal liability. By extending the deadline, Caltrans may have side-stepped this potential issue.

Why a virtual public meeting?

In teasing at another public meeting—this one via Zoom—Caltrans may again be addressing potential legal issues stemming from its incomplete noticing.

Will the meeting be a repeat of the in-person event held at Whitesboro Grange last month? A rehash of Caltrans’ incomplete and destructive plans, with a few minutes for Q&A? Or will there be a fresh set of doom-and-gloom scenarios about the beautiful, historic—and completely safe—Albion River Bridge?

We’ll see.

What’s next? Continue the fight

Now that we have another month, we have more time to gather signatures in our petition drive and to encourage members of the public to submit comment letters—optionally using our easy templates.

We have an extra month to continue driving home the point that Caltrans’ proposed plans are bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and bad for history. Rest assured, we plan to take advantage of it.

Read Caltrans’ so-called Community Impact Assessment document

jimheid Albion River Bridge, Caltrans , , ,

Buried within Caltrans’ reams of documentation about the Albion River Bridge is a critically important document: the Community Impact Assessment (CIA) document.

One paragraph hits the nail on the head with respect to the potential loss of the historic Albion River Bridge:

For some residents, the project would change their perception of community character due to the local importance of the existing bridge. The bridge is iconic, and some community members feel the existing bridge defines them as a unique coastal community. Replacement of this historic bridge would change their sense of historic character.

There are myriad other reasons to object to Caltrans’ plans, including environmental damage, taking of private property, up to five years of bridge closures, and much more. Our recent post describes more.

The version of the CIA that Caltrans posted weighs in at over 60MB—a pretty big download for residents of a region where fast internet connections aren’t a given.

We compressed it into a more-reasonable size (16MB). You can download it here.

Attend our community meeting and comment workshop

You can learn a lot more about Caltrans’ bad plans at our community meeting at 5:30 pm tomorrow (August 27) at the Mendocino Community Center in Mendocino. Learn more and plan to attend!

Albion River Bridge: Public Meeting August 13

jimheid Uncategorized , , , ,

In its attempt to sell the community on the need to replace the historic Albion River Bridge, Caltrans is holding a public meeting.

When: August 13, 6:00 pm.
Where: Whitesboro Grange, 32510 Navarro Ridge Rd., Albion

Read the Draft Environmental Reports

Caltrans has published the draft environmental reports for the proposed bridge replacement. You can read and download them here.

Tip: Caltrans doesn’t make it easy to retrieve these documents. Here is a direct link to the main document. You can also find supplemental documents at the bottom of this page.

Stay tuned…

We’ll be posting additional details about Caltrans’ unnecessary plans to replace this beautiful, iconic — and structurally sound — bridge in the weeks ahead.

For now, here are a two things to keep in mind.

  • The historic Albion River Bridge is structurally sound and needs only ongoing maintenance (details, video, and independent engineer’s report)
  • Granite Construction, the contracting firm Caltrans has hired to manage this project, has a disturbing track record of violations, everything from fraud to environmental violations. This is not a company that can be trusted to properly manage the sensitive environment at the Albion River.

More soon.