{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Great Redwood Trail master planning process gearing up","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"December 1, 2021 — Senator Mike McGuire’s dream of a 320-mile Great Redwood Trail from the San Francisco Bay to the Humboldt Bay is a few million dollars closer than ever to becoming a reality. At a town hall on Tuesday night, he exulted over the funds he plans to tap to bring the project to fruition.\r\n“We now have funding to be able to move the Great Redwood Trail forward,” he told listeners, elaborating that this year’s budget act included several items significant to the trail. One, he said, is that it appropriated enough money to pay off the remaining debt from the North Coast Railroad Authority, which owned and operated the northern portion of the railroad to be converted into the trail. Another is $10.5 million to pay for the master planning process, an intricate, years’-long procedure that will lay out the operations and management of the trail.\r\nBut McGuire’s victory laps alternated with bouts of alarm over the coal train, which he assured listeners will never happen, though it must be taken seriously. The application for the outdoor recreational paradise he’s envisioned for years will be in direct competition with an application by out-of-state business interests to revitalize the railroad and run 800 loads of coal per day through the Eel River Canyon and the Humboldt Bay to overseas markets. \r\nMcGuire said that the Eel River Canyon contains some of the most geologically fragile areas in North America, and reminded listeners that there are still train cars in the water from a massive landslide that covered the tracks in 1989. It wasn’t the first time. Shortly after the turn of the last century, McGuire said, “the first day that a train was on it, a massive landslide came down over the tracks.” He said the federal government shut down operations after the 1989 landslide. “You will never see a freight train going north through the Eel River Canyon,” he assured listeners. “You can’t make it work financially.” Still, he worries that the threat of the coal...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}