Four years after the Great Redwood Trail Act was signed into law, officials fielded questions about work on the planned 320-mile trail, in a town hall hosted by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) on Tuesday night.
McGuire and other officials working to make the trail a reality shared their vision as segments are crossed off and long-range planning is tackled. They described progress on the trail that would be the longest rail-to-trail conversion in the U.S., once completed. McGuire, a long-time proponent of the trail, said one-third of the entire trail has either been completed, is under construction or is in a final planning stage.
“It’s going to traverse through the tallest trees on the planet, some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth, oak-studded golden hills, lush vineyards along two mighty rivers, the Eel and the Russian, and it is going to be a spectacular experience,” he said.
Recent work includes the newly completed stretch of the Humboldt Bay trail connecting Eureka to Arcata, which adds 14 miles to the trail, plus a 1.6-mile segment in Willits and 1.9-mile segment in Ukiah to be completed by next year.
The trail will stretch from the San Francisco Bay to Blue Lake, largely along a rail corridor formerly owned by the North Coast Railroad Authority. A master plan for the trail was released in April 2024.
Elaine Hogan, executive director of the Great Redwood Trail Agency, does not know when the trail will be done.
“I hate to disappoint, but we don’t have a final date yet. We are still in the master planning process,” she said, noting “we have made incredible progress just over the last three years since the Great Redwood Trail Agency took the helm from a bankrupt and dilapidated railroad.”
An undertaking to convert the defunct railway into a trail through railbanking, officials honed into the benefit of the environmental cleanup required — including the removal of several cars currently in the Eel River.
“There’s abandoned rail cars, abandoned rail equipment, tracks, there’s land that has been (degraded). And we’re really focusing on, how do we improve, repair and clean up this legacy that was left by the railroad and make it into a world-class pathway,” said Mary Sackett, chair of the trail agency’s board of directors.
One question touched on 2024 legislation that specifically exempts much of the GRTA work from the California Environmental Quality Act, and how it would be handled to minimize and mitigate environmental and cultural harm.
“The bottom line is that regardless of how any new CEQA exemptions may or may not apply to segments of our trail, our commitment remains the same. Clean up the corridor, protect cultural resources and restore the land in partnership with the people who know and care for it the best,” said Hogan.
With the GRTA most recently approving contracts with People of New Directions in Humboldt County and other groups in Mendocino to address homeless encampments and dumping, officials talked about their approach.
“We are taking a proactive, prevention-first approach to homelessness along those undeveloped segments of the trail, and those are the segments that the Great Redwood Trail Agency manages. So those are trail segments that are not yet developed,” said Hogan.
She said the contracts in Humboldt and Mendocino counties will allow the agency to partner with community based organizations and local businesses to provide regular outreach, case management, referrals and connections to shelter and health care, while keeping the property “clean and safe.”
Officials also spoke on outreach with Native American groups — last year, a collective of people, from groups Indigenous to the Eel River Valley, pointed to the decimation of village and burial sites when the railroad was built, the inability of descendants to access the land, and spoke in opposition to the trail due to the lack of outreach, according to reporting from MendoFever from June 2024.
“Over the past three years, during the master planning process, we’ve reached out directly to more than 30 tribes and tribal organizations. We’ve held dozens of meetings, presentations, and one-on-one conversations that continue and will be ongoing. The collaboration has really led to us getting 13 clear recommendations from tribes that are now built into our master plan,” said Hogan.
She also noted the GRTA would be hiring contractors on ecological restoration, cultural resource monitoring and land stewardship.
The chair of the GRTA board similarly committed to continuing outreach with Indigenous people to the areas set to be turned to trail earlier in the meeting.
They touched on legs of the trail in Humboldt County — Hogan noted Arcata recently put a project out to bid to connect the city from the skate park near Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata out to the Humboldt Bay municipal water district pump stations along West End Road.
As for funding, Hogan said they have operational funding from state support for the next several years, and anticipate applying for grants through Proposition Four.
Further south, officials also presented on the SMART pathway, 39 miles of which are already completed, and another 10 miles are funded for construction.
The full town hall, which contains more details about progress in the south end, can be watched at tinyurl.com/56fs5ka6.
Sage Alexander can be reached at 707-441-0504.
