Speaker 1: Right now, let's say good morning too. California's regional executive
Speaker 1: director for the National Wildlife Federation, Best Pratt, Good morning, Bet.
Speaker 1: Thanks for getting us up early with us today.
Speaker 2: Oh, no problem, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So we're excited because construction for the wildlife crossing over
Speaker 1: the one oh one Freeway in a Gore Hills is
Speaker 1: progressing and entering a new phase today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're really excited. I'm up early, not just for you,
Speaker 2: but we are about to put the first soil on
Speaker 2: the top of the one oh one structure, which to
Speaker 2: me is a really actually emotional milestone because so far
Speaker 2: it's been concrete, twenty six million pounds of concrete for
Speaker 2: that one oh one structure. But this is the first
Speaker 2: kind of natural layer. You know, I can now envision
Speaker 2: a Mountainlin's pop print in it. So getting my hand
Speaker 2: in that soil and being able to toss it on
Speaker 2: the bridge and know that next coming is plants and habitat,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty amazing milestone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, now, Beth, is how much are you going to
Speaker 1: be throwing onto the bridge eventually? You said twenty six
Speaker 1: million tons of concrete? How much dirt's going on there?
Speaker 2: You know, that's a really good question I don't know
Speaker 2: the answer to. But it's a lot. This is this, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot. How's that for scientific? It is a full
Speaker 2: acre of habitat on top of that bridge, and that
Speaker 2: we are actually creating, right, there was nothing there. I
Speaker 2: do know that the top soil is about nine inches
Speaker 2: in height, and then the subsoil, which actually is what
Speaker 2: we'll be tossing on would they start today, it's about
Speaker 2: nine inches, So you're talking about, you know about across
Speaker 2: the entire habitat, you're talking about eighteen inches of soil,
Speaker 2: which is a lot from below that. We have aggregate,
Speaker 2: we have drainage layers. It's it's you know, people ask,
Speaker 2: you know what sometimes why this is taking so long. Well,
Speaker 2: it's not just a bridge for cars. To create an
Speaker 2: ecosystem on top took a lot of engineering, you know,
Speaker 2: such as of waterproofing and drainage layers, so that you
Speaker 2: could pretty much create a habitat.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then once you get all the dirt on there,
Speaker 1: then you're going to be planting things, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is the most fascinating part of
Speaker 2: the whole project. Even though I have a black thumb
Speaker 2: and you wouldn't want me in charge of this. But
Speaker 2: we have a whole native plant nursery operation that literally
Speaker 2: we started like five or six years ago with just
Speaker 2: people coming out gathering samples of like the microbi microbiology
Speaker 2: of the soil of the fungus and started gathering over
Speaker 2: a million hyperlocal seeds that now if you look, are
Speaker 2: now full fledged plants and those will be starting to
Speaker 2: go on in May, Okay.
Speaker 1: And then we're still looking at an opening data when
Speaker 1: it's going to be completed still early next year, is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 2: Sometime in twenty twenty six, the weather did delay us
Speaker 2: a little bit. We had two record rainy springs, which
Speaker 2: unfortunately hit at bad times. When you're poorn, you can't
Speaker 2: have soupy soil doesn't work real well. But we're looking
Speaker 2: at twenty twenty six and what is next is we
Speaker 2: have to relocate there or bury There is a utility
Speaker 2: line in between the freeway and a Gora road and
Speaker 2: those utility lines will be buried, which will actually help
Speaker 2: with fire resiliency. And then we start extending the structure
Speaker 2: over a Goer road and then put the soil on that,
Speaker 2: plants on that and we are open for business and
Speaker 2: probably mid to late twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Okay, how exciting. Okay, So I want to ask you
Speaker 1: a question because we've talked about this before, but just
Speaker 1: you're building this massive crossing. It's an acre in size
Speaker 1: over the freeway, and you and I have talked before
Speaker 1: about if you build it, they will come, meaning that
Speaker 1: if you build this crossing, the wildlife will find it.
Speaker 1: How do they find it because in the grand scope
Speaker 1: of things along the whole freeway, it's a very narrow passage.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and that's actually why they will find it
Speaker 2: or have already found it. We know from the National
Speaker 2: Park Service research, you know, over twenty years of collaring
Speaker 2: mountain lines and bobcats and coyotes and other animals that
Speaker 2: they're trying to cross here. If you look on a
Speaker 2: map like a Google map, you can see that the
Speaker 2: green space funnels right to this location, kind of an
Speaker 2: hour glass shape. It's the last sixteen hundred feet in
Speaker 2: that entire region on the one oh one where there's
Speaker 2: protected open space on both sides. So they're already trying
Speaker 2: to cross here. They just get to the freeway and
Speaker 2: are like uh huh and turn around because I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: I've stood there at two am, and I wouldn't even
Speaker 2: try it. You know, the one on one just never slows.
Speaker 2: But what we what we also do, and we know
Speaker 2: from decades of wildlife crossing science, is we put up
Speaker 2: what we call exclusionary fencing. So there will be fencing
Speaker 2: on about two miles on either side of the freeway
Speaker 2: that actually cuts off their options and leads them to
Speaker 2: it as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh, I love that. Okay, Well, I hope that
Speaker 1: we get to talk to you again soon, Beth. A
Speaker 1: very exciting day. We're a step closer to giving animals
Speaker 1: safe passage and that's big stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, it's hopeful stuff. I think we all need
Speaker 2: hope these days, and to me, this is a hopeful project.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, all right, Thank you. Bet.
Speaker 1: That's California Regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation,
Speaker 1: Beth Pratt.