Wildlife crossing on schedule; ribbon-cutting set for Dec. 2 Play

On the other side of the hill, construction of the massive earth-moving project next to the freeway at the wildlife crossing is proceeding exactly on schedule — but if there's heavy rain from El Niño, that could muck things up.

Thousands of truckloads of dirt need to be carved out of a hillside north of the freeway, then brought to fill in a canyon on the south side of the freeway. If we get heavy rains and the dirt turns to mud — the dirt is full of clay and silt — it becomes slick and mushy.

Rain can derail the soil compaction process, where crews lay down the soil and then roll a big construction vehicle called a roller to compact it. The engineer there tells the LA Times, "If you're trying to compact a mud puddle, that doesn't work."

The schedule is tight and the scrutiny is on. Right-wing news outlets are making fun of the $114 million Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. The New York Post has fanned flames of criticism on the internet, calling it another example of California government ineptitude — read that Gavin Newsom ineptitude, in their opinion.

Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation is quite happy with the progress of the project. They're selling tickets for its ribbon-cutting party on Dec. 2. The party will be at King Gillette Ranch, about two miles down the canyon from the bridge. Video from the actual ribbon-cutting ceremony will be fed down to the party-goers. They don't want people trampling the fresh vegetation up at the 101.

Tickets are just $10 each, and the money goes to help start up a nationwide wildlife crossing fund to build bridges like this across the country.

The spark plug behind the bridge is Beth Pratt. She and her boss at the National Wildlife Federation, Collin O'Mara, have posted video heralding the event.

"Science is clear — we need connectivity, we need to make sure we're restoring corridors all across the country. We also need entities that can do that. Groups like mine are great at the science and great at raising money for it, but groups that can actually deliver the projects on the ground are in desperate need. There's no one better positioned in the country to help deliver these kinds of projects than the Wildlife Crossing Fund. I'm just so excited about the future, and that's really for us what the ribbon cutting is about — not an end point, but let's do more. We already have a number of projects we're going to be on. Don't want a spoiler alert."

So they're not going to tell us where. Tickets for the ribbon-cutting party are $10 and are available at the website 101wildlifecrossing.org.