As hundreds of mobile homes are removed from the Lake Berryessa shoreline, up to 30 from one Berryessa resort will be trucked north and west to provide shelter for members of the Hoopa tribe in Humboldt County, tribe spokespeople said this week.

The first two donated mobile homes could be hauled this week from Rancho Monticello to the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, west of Redding. On Tuesday tribe members toured the resort where crews are demolishing up to 20 trailers a week — or hauling to nearby landfills.

Two years ago, the Bureau of Reclamation ordered all trailers removed from seven resorts along the Berryessa shoreline. Under the decision, owners have until 2009 to remove more than 1,000 trailers from seven resorts. The federal agency, which manages the reservoir and its shoreline, is evaluating the applications from six bidders to run one or more new resorts at the lake — ones that are unlikely to have mobile home parks along the water’s edge.

The owners of Rancho Monticello have applied.

Rancho Monticello is the biggest of the existing resorts, with close to 500 mobile home and trailer spaces. The owners have until the end of April to remove their property — homes, decks, storage sheds and all, said Paul White, a manager at the family-run resort. As of this week, 330 mobile homes are left, White said.

People who donated their mobile homes to the Hoopa Valley Tribe will be spared the cost of transportation, White said, while thousands of pounds of materials will be diverted from landfills.

Mobile home owners spend up to $6,000 on a demolition crew, said White. They can also hire a transport company for up to $7,000 to haul their mobile home to landfills in Yolo County or near Dixon. Each mobile home that goes to the dump adds 14,000 to 17,000 tons of material.

“It’s a win-win,” said Leonard Masten Jr., vice chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council, as he and two other tribal council members toured the resort Tuesday. With 144 square miles, the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation is California’s largest reservation, with more than 2,600 residents.

The Hoopa will pay $1,800 to $3,000 per unit to transport the homes to the reservation, Masten estimated.

As he took pictures, Alfredo “Billy” Colegrove, a property procurement manager for the Hoopa, said tribe members who lack permanent housing usually live with a relative on the reservation. There are now about 40 families that need help, he said.

“There is such a huge need for affordable housing,” Colegrove said.

Era fading

For White and others, the pain of breaking down Rancho Monticello, where generations of families have come to fish, swim and barbecue since the early 1960s, is never far under the surface.

Looking at one trailer that may go to Humboldt County, White thought of the owner. “This guy sold me my first car,” White said.

Another old trailer was used for the final time last weekend by its owner, an 81-year-old man who came to the lake for 50 years. “This one is kind of funky,” White said to the Hoopa representatives, “but I promised people I’d show it to you.”

Kenneth Hamblin of Concord, who met White when White was a boy, was also at Rancho Monticello, where he has vacationed with his family for decades.

Now 81, Hamblin has tried to save money by demolishing as much of his vacation home as possible.

“I’m crying every day,” said Hamblin, as he and a son-in-law, Curtis Beason, hauled away a barbecue table in a pickup truck. “This is it,” Hamblin added.

Pete Lucero, manager of Lake Berryessa’s Bureau of Reclamation field office, on Tuesday said 800 trailers remain at the resorts. Legal challenges filed after the Bureau of Reclamation issued its plan for the lake remain tangled in courts in California and in Washington D.C.

A challenge by Berryessa for All, a grass-roots organization, is scheduled to be heard in April. The Whites and the owners of three other resorts last week appealed a federal judge’s decision to dismiss their complaint over a variety of issues, including the compensation for improvements built at the resorts over the years.

In the meantime, they wait and the number of trailers dwindles.