Beavers or Meadowfoam: Widening Highway 149

by Jill Lacefield

The question of whether to protect beavers or meadowfoam when widening Highway 149 took center stage at a recent meeting between the Butte County Association of Governors (BCAG) and CalTrans. County Supervisor Jane Dolan spoke for protection of the beavers, inhabiting a nearby lake; CalTrans project engineer, Winder Bajwa, reminded association members that, unlike the beaver, meadowfoam is an endangered species in need of protection. All were trying to grapple with the soaring costs of expanding the highway, costs that have doubled from a 1991 estimate of $41.5 million to a current estimate of $80.9 million.

Unfortunately, no one spoke to the root of the problem: California's skyrocketing population growth and its gross dependence on the automobile, both of which threaten our environment and health. No one talked about the real issue because, in the face of environmental degradation and out-of-control urban sprawl, most Californians are at a loss for words. After all, how do we even begin to talk about reversing the destructive track we're on, a track that finds us not merely dependent on cars for transportation of people, goods, and services _ but enslaved? And no one talked about the root problem or real solutions because talking about alternative methods of transportation and urban planning is much harder to talk about. These are conversations that require vision, commitment and political risk. These conversations take courage.

Yet, this is what policy makers and elected officials must start talking about, in earnest. Perhaps we start the new conversation by stopping the old one. The Highway 149 dilemma is not about beavers and meadowfoam. No life is expendable and once the environment and its inhabitants are chewed up by asphalt and sprawl, there is no regaining it. The problems of species depletion (the human species included) and environmental degradation are not answered by arguing for one life form over another. They are answered by taking a hard look at how we live.

According to facts co mpiled by the California Futures Network on land use and transportation, we are not faring well. Between 1970 and 1995, the state's population increased from 20 million to 32 million, yet the number of "vehicle miles traveled" (VMT) more than doubled from 103 billion to more than 270 billion miles per year. In other words, in spite of a heightened awareness of the negative impact of cars on our health and environment, Californians' dependence on the automobile out-paced its population growth. In addition, statistics show increasing numbers of drivers spend more than one hour each day in their cars. And, to no one's surprise, 5 of the 10 most congested metropolitan areas are located in California, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and San Bernardino/Riverside. In the Bay Area alone, vehicle hours of delay are projected to grow by 249% by 2020.

While big city congestion is far from Butte County where most residents still enjoy the simple life, our own problems are increasingly apparent. Witness our own sprawl north into vast tracks of untouched landscape and the changing foothills, impacted by house after house, crawling up our pristine ridges. Or try driving across town between 4 and 6 p.m. any work day. The problems are right here, right now.

To begin to truly address these problems and issues such as the widening of Highway 149, we must stop asking the wrong questions and start asking the right ones. It is not a question of whether we save the beaver or endangered meadowfoam; the questions are much bigger: How do we sustain all life and our own liveability? How do we slow population growth and curb our dependency on the automobile? How do we take the difficult, but crucial, steps toward fundamental change in the very way we live in California and throughout the U.S.?

Fortunately, the answers are at hand. State government can create and fund policies that encourage smart land use and transportation planning. Policy makers can focus on incentives for decreasing vehicle miles traveled per capita; for increasing mass transit use, bicycling, and walking; and for promoting "compact urban form" in all cities _ a model that returns to traditional land use patterns, mixing housing, jobs, shopping, and services and supported by mass transit. Indeed, we know much about what needs to be done, but will we do it? Will we elect and empower government officials to take political risks and help reverse course?

We can start by letting BCAG know that neither compromising beaver habitat along Highway 149 nor maneuvering to exempt meadowfoam from protection are acceptable. Instead, we should ask them to dig deep to find long-term solutions that sustain the environment and all life. If we fail to do so, we remain part of the problem and solutions remain only ideas sitting in a file on some bureaucrat's desk. Surely, we can do better than that.

From the Spring 2001 issue of the Environmental News.