It seems to me that anyone who has been in the up the Middle Fork and knows anything about geology and construction would know, the only way to fix this human problem is to re-open the railroad. All other ways are too expensive. The alternative is to let “Mother Nature” take it back. If this happens, the damage will be devastating. As the sides of the canyon erode into the river, sediment will begin to choke the river. This will cause unpredictable rises in the river and would threaten to cut off families from one another or worse. Further, this would negatively impact the local flora and fauna as food chains become further disrupted. And guess what…if there are places where a neither a deer or a fish can get through, someone on a bike has no trail either.

If you’d all stop fighting and creating schisms, you’d realize the only chance trains or bikes have of using this corridor is if you guys start working together. This corridor needs more people to take and interest and get educated. If you walking around thinking that trains cause earthquakes, trains are bad for the environment or trains are pies in the sky, wake up! We are talking about cake! And guess what?...You can have it and eat it too! Getting trains to Eureka from Napa can happen. And it would be good for the environment! And it will happen fast, if there is support for it.

So, get along and imagine biking through the middle fork of the Eel along side the train. It can happen, if people make it happen. But if you think you are going to make a bike path without a railroad to bring in equipment and move earth (at a price that anyone in their right mind would agree to), wake up! You are dreaming of pies and they are floating in the sky! And if you think the solution is to give the Middle Fork back to the Earth, you belong in a cabin in the woods. Society is for people who are social and are willing to work with others. And as human beings, we must learn to live with each other and the physical world we live in—our Mother Earth. Rails and Trails is the right thing!

You boys and girls need to play nice and work together!