As you enter Redding, the last of the oak groves will soon be cut down to make way for yet another gas station at the I-5 Churn Creek/Rancho Road. There are currently three gas stations at that intersection, plus a Shell Station and the huge 16-station, 32-pump Costco gas station on the west side of I-5. This one will be on Churn Creek Road where it ends at Rancho Road, next to the S. Bonnyview/Churn Creek offramp. There will also be a Wendy’s on the site.
There are currently 14 oak trees on the lot seven huge and over 24 inches in diameter, the largest blue oak over is 36” dbh and there is a huge multi-branched interior live oak over 48” in diameter. trees on the lot and several smaller ones. The blue oak is most likely over 300 years old
There are also three low retaining walls about 200 feet long that appear to have been cut from stone from a local rock quarry over 100 years ago. One stone has a date of 1870 chiseled in it, but as Redding wasn’t built until 1872 it must have come from elsewhere. The closest quarry is at the intersection of Honeybee and Texas Springs Roads, abandoned to weeds and the elements some 100 years ago.
Unfortunately, Redding’s weak Tree Management Ordinance couldn’t save the trees or provide any mitigation fees for their replacement elsewhere. That was the same for both sides of I-5, the Costco, Churn Creek Market Place, and the Les Schwab Tire store, all formerly beautiful oak woodlands, now paved over without mitigation for the destruction of almost 50 acres of oak woodland.
