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http://www.sacbee.com:80/news/beetoday/newsroom/edit/082698/edit01.html Published Aug. 26, 1998 Sacramento Bee Editorial: High-wire Headwaters: Legislature must pass something or deal dies The Headwaters deal once symbolized a valiant and rare effort by government and industry to preserve the largest stand of private ancient redwoods left in the world and to craft a model plan of sustainable logging for surrounding acreage. Sadly, the Headwaters has degenerated into a game of political chicken. Key Democratic legislators in Sacramento insist on placing conditions on the $130 million in state funds needed to purchase the grove. Maxxam Corp., which owns the Pacific Lumber Co. and the Headwaters, objects. Neither side wishes to blink first. Yet blink they must, and fast, before everybody loses. A series of colossally bad political assumptions has brought the Headwaters deal to the brink of collapse. Things looked far more promising in the spring, when government biologists and the lumber company seemed in general agreement on the stickiest part of the transaction -- the crafting of the sustainable 50-year logging strategy, known as a habitat conservation plan, for 200,000 acres surrounding the Headwaters. Then Maxxam, noted for its hardball negotiating style, began to fight too hard for logging near streams and in wet conditions, to the point that all the biologists couldn't endorse what Maxxam ultimately drafted. This left Maxxam alone in Sacramento, where its high-priced Washington lobbyist and public relations crew apparently had no clue about how to sell the controversial logging plan in this foreign political environment. Precisely which consultant thought that the answer was to put Maxxam's Charles Hurwitz (Mr. Wall Street) and the state Senate's John Burton (Mr. Bombast) in the same room for a negotiating session? The meeting, shall we say, went badly. Communications have been dysfunctional ever since. Democratic legislators made their own blunder by assuming they could defer to environmental groups to write the conditions on how to protect redwoods near streams and ancient stands outside the Headwaters, known as the "lesser cathedrals," in exchange for the $130 million. The Headwaters deal, because it is an appropriation, will require a two-thirds vote. While Hurwitz may have few friends in town, the California forest industry (concerned about conditions on logging near streams) does. The result can too easily become a political stalemate. The last nail on the proverbial coffin would be for the Legislature to decide to do nothing this month and revisit the Headwaters in January, after the lumber company and state and federal agencies have finished work on the 50-year logging plan. By then, there likely will be no deal to discuss. It is too much to ask government agencies and Maxxam to spend thousands more hours crafting hundreds of pages of complex environmental documents on the outside chance that the next Legislature may do something. This Legislature must pass a Headwaters bill. If lawmakers can't resist crafting new protections for streams and ancient redwoods, the measures should at least be based on science and not constituency politics. Leave it up to Gov. Pete Wilson and Hurwitz to say no. Let the Headwaters deal live. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Shellito found the following on the SacBee webpage. --KB ****** Logging protester killed by falling tree, activist group says FORTUNA, Calif. (AP) -- An activist was struck in the head and killed by a falling tree Thursday afternoon while trying to block the logging of ancient redwoods on Pacific Lumber Co. land, Earth First! said. The radical environmental group said David Chain, who uses the nom-de-guerre "Gypsy," was standing among redwoods marked for logging and trying to dissuade tree fellers when he was killed. A fellow protester who fled the scene reported that the impact cracked open Chain's skull, said Earth First! co-founder Daryl Cherney, who said sheriff's deputies told the group he died at the scene. "It's easy to get hit by a tree out there," said Cherney. "Even experienced activists or seasoned people -- it doesn't matter. One time I found myself in a hole and had to scramble out before the tree fell." Pacific Lumber did not return telephone messages seeking comment. The Humboldt County Sheriff's department and the California Department of Forestry confirmed only that they were responding to a logging accident. Earth First! had staged a 12-day protest against the logging of an ancient redwood stand along Grizzly Creek, in a ravine near the mill town of Fortuna, about 300 miles up the coast from San Francisco. Eight of the group's activists had been arrested Wednesday on trespassing charges. Thursday was the first day the group engaged in the more aggressive tactic they call "cat and mouse," putting their bodies in harm's way. The protesters say the logging, on land adjacent to a "lesser cathedral" of centuries-old redwoods purchased under the $495 million Headwaters Agreement, is destroying the protected habitat of the Marbled Murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in the tops of the majestic trees. CALREPORT | SACBEE HOME Copyright c The Associated Press Copyright c The Sacramento Bee ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Plan to log near old redwoods opposed By Patrick Hoge Bee Staff Writer (Published Oct. 30, 1998) Charging that salmon and seabirds would be badly hurt, environmentalists on Thursday assailed the Pacific Lumber Co.'s plan to log around ancient Humboldt County redwood trees that state and federal officials plan to buy for nearly $500 million. An array of environmental advocates at a Sacramento hearing called the plans a bad deal for taxpayers. "As far as I'm concerned, HCP stands for the Headwaters Clear-cut Plan," said Michael Passoff of Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters. He was one of more than 80 people who commented on Pacific Lumber's Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) at the Sacramento Convention Center. Hearings on the plan will continue next Thursday in Oakland and Nov. 11 in Eureka; another was held Tuesday in Culver City. Written comments will be taken until Nov. 16. Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said from his office in Scotia he was not surprised by the criticism. "We anticipated there'd be a crescendo at the end," he said. "They do not want the confrontation to be over." Pacific Lumber's plan must be approved by March 1 so that federal authorization won't expire for $250 million allocated to buy the 7,500-acre Headwaters grove -- about half of which is a virgin stand of redwood trees as much as 2,000 years old. Gov. Pete Wilson last month signed a bill that appropriated $245 million in state money to purchase Headwaters as well as the 904-acre Owl Creek grove. Environmentalists say neither the timber purchase nor Pacific Lumber's harvest plan would benefit wildlife enough to justify giving the company a permit to kill protected species. Both the imperiled marbled murrelet and coho salmon depend on old growth forests, and Pacific Lumber has the largest remaining scattered stands of old growth redwood trees on private land. Critics also say the company should not get a permit because it has often violated forest practice laws. It almost lost its license last year, and has since received even more citations from the state. In addition to the forests the public may buy, Pacific Lumber's harvest plan calls for setting aside 8,500 more acres for 50 years for murrelets. In return, the company would get the right to log 500 acres of its virgin old-growth forest, and about 8,000 acres of previously logged land that has stands of old-growth trees. The plan was developed jointly by officials from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, but neither agency has yet approved it. Phil Detrich, a biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said it is a good plan for the murrelets. "Our goal in this whole negotiation was to preserve the best habitat," Detrich said. "I am pretty much satisfied with the way this plan has been developed so far." Vicki Campbell, the chief negotiator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said her agency will soon issue a biological opinion on the harvest plan's adequacy. But Campbell she wants to see stricter erosion controls and more monitoring of stream conditions. "The deal isn't done yet," she said. Environmentalists charge that the no-cut, 100-foot buffer zones along streams won't be wide enough, and steep areas would be left unstable by clear-cutting. Some at the hearing called the process window dressing, and they don't expect the plan to be significantly changed. About 15 members of the Earth First movement stood with their backs to the panel taking testimony. Most wore white T-shirts saying "No Deal" and "No HCP." BACK TO TODAY'S BEE | BACK TO LOCAL NEWS | SACBEE HOME Copyright c 1998 The Sacramento Bee ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: D.Wheeler in SacBee today http://www.sacbee.com:80/news/beetoday/newsroom/edit/081898/edit04.html Sacramento Bee Letters to the Editor August 18, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUFFERING BRUTALITY TO SAVE ANCIENT REDWOODS (EDITOR'S NOTE: Charles Levendosky, editorial page editor of the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, has a national reputation for First Amendment commentary. DISTRIBUTED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES By CHARLES LEVENDOSKY c. 1997 Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune The use of pepper spray against non-violent demonstrators in Humboldt County has almost eclipsed the reason for their protest --- the logging of old-growth redwoods in California's Headwaters Redwood Forest, near Eureka. Currently there are six groves of ancient redwoods remaining in the 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest. Only two will be protected under the state-federal agreement with the corporation that owns the groves. The Headwaters Deal, as the agreement is called, fragments this rare, ancient forest habitat and allows Pacific Lumber to log more than 50,000 acres of the virgin forest. The company wants to cut all the old-growth redwoods in the other four groves within 15 years. Some of these trees are estimated to be from 1,000 to 3,000 years old. And that's what the demonstrators are protesting. How do you replace a healthy 3,000 year old tree? How do you replace stands of ancient redwoods that have fallen to chainsaws? There aren't many left in the world. Cutting down thousand-year-old redwoods provoked the protest. The lack of a long-term, ecologically responsible forest plan provoked it. Swabbing pepper spray in the eyes of passive demonstrators pricked the conscience of the nation. Television news aired segments of the law enforcement videotape that shows a Humboldt sheriff deputy soak a cotton swab in pepper spray and wipe it across the eyelids of four women sitting on a floor in a circle. Viewers saw the effects of the burning pain --- the cries, the coughing, the shaking. Viewers didn't see the felled redwoods. Twenty-year-old Noel Tendick did see the redwoods. He is another one of the Headwaters protesters who had both his eyes bathed in pepper spray. "I became aware of what a crucial fight it was to save these last beautiful trees. And felt really compelled to be involved," he said in a Nov. 20 interview. On Oct. 3, Tendick and a friend, Mike McCurdy, took their protest to the Bear Creek watershed of the Headwaters Forest. They linked their arms together with metal sleeves through the treads of an unoccupied bulldozer parked by a logging road. At first, Tendick spoke about the incident in a flat, unemotional tone: "The police arrived, dragged Q-tips of pepper spray across our eyes, and when we refused to unlock, gave us full sprays within inches of our faces. And then when we still refused to unlock had to cut us out with grinders." Then he focused on the blast of the pepper spray, "It was a steady stream across both eyes. I could feel them standing very close to me, and the intensity of the spray. I could feel it was coming from a very short distance. "There was immediate burning --- agonizing, sheer pain that I've never experienced anything like before. I cried out." Tendick's voice gathered passion when he reflected on his experience with the Humboldt County sheriff deputies: "When they sprayed us, they gave us this rage and we're sharing that with people. And people who don't even know us are feeling outrage when they see what happens to us. But I just really want them to feel outraged that this forest is being plundered and destroyed. "The greatest hope I can have from this is that our suffering will galvanize people and bring them into this fight --- not only against police brutality, but also against clearcutting one of our last ancient heritages." Tendick is one of the nine protesters who have filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department and the Eureka Police Department. There were three separate incidents in which peaceful demonstrators felt the lash of chemical spray. All the protesters in the lawsuit have felt the lacerating sting of pepper spray as it burned their eyes and stifled their breathing. On Nov. 14, the attorneys for the protesters asked U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to grant a temporary ban on the use of pepper spray against non-violent demonstrators. The judge refused. He said the ban would only be justified if the case were sharply tipped in favor of the protesters. Walker doesn't think it is. He will wait until he hears all the evidence in a full trial. The protesters' lawsuit claims the use of pepper spray was unnecessary and unlawful. And its application constitutes unreasonable use of force with the intent to inflict injury and punishment. On Nov. 1, the FBI began a preliminary investigation into whether the civil rights of the protesters was violated. On Nov. 4, Amnesty International issued a press release calling the use of pepper spray against the peaceful demonstrators "degrading" and "tantamount to torture." California State Attorney General Dan Lungren, in a four-page letter to a state senator dated Nov. 17, wrote an analysis of Humboldt County's unusual use of pepper spray describing it by its active ingredient Oleoresin Capsicum: "The direct swabbing of OC in the eyes of an individual is neither supported nor directly addressed by training. ... both swabbing of OC onto the eyes and the close spraying of OC ... are not accepted police community practices." Humboldt County law enforcement officials have responded to the lawsuit and the national attention by filing an additional charge against the four women demonstrators who had their eyes doused with pepper spray while seated in Rep. Frank Riggs' office in Eureka. This new charge adds to the trespass, interfering with a lawful business, and obstruction of a police officer charges. It specifies that the anti-logging protesters did "maliciously deface, damage, or destroy" property, meaning the rug in Riggs' office. One of the women, when hit with the pain of the pepper spray, involuntarily urinated. And that, according to the district attorney, constitutes a malicious defacing of the rug. And if the police had struck the protesters with their batons and the women bled on the floor, would that too be considered malicious defacement? In the defense of brutality, one becomes absurd. Too bad the public can see that, but Humboldt law enforcement officials cannot. But only a roused public will halt this outrage. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fight over redwoods splinters Humboldt County Published Tuesday, December 2, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News Fight over redwoods splinters Humboldt County BY PATRICK MAY Mercury News Staff Writer EUREKA -- The escalating fight over the redwoods has turned this isolated corner of California inside out. Times are tough. The local economy stinks. Commercial fishing has sunk. And the logging industry, once the proud vessel of local heritage, has been whittled down by dwindling supplies and government rules, fueled in part by an in-your-face save-the-trees movement. That cracking noise rippling through Humboldt County these days is not just falling timber. It's the sound of a community under strain, wrestling over its own splintered soul, breaking apart with the dull distant snap of a Sequoia spine. Even before a nationally publicized pepper-spray face-off between cops and protesters, the tension in Humboldt County could have been cut with a chain saw. Old-timers hate the young interlopers hanging around the Earth First! office on Third Street. Cops hate the press for making them look like big-lumber goons. Loggers hate the federal policy-pushers who make it harder than ever to lay a vertical tree horizontal. ``There's a feeling among residents that for years the federal government has been out to get Humboldt County,'' says Wes Reed, the soft-spoken head of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce. ``And there's just as high a level of frustration with the environmentalists. They say they want to save the redwoods, but they won't be satisfied until they have everything we own. ``People see this as our community and logging as our livelihood,'' he says, ``and it's like, `You're coming in and you're trying to take our livelihood away.' '' Last month, the world got a glimpse into Humboldt's angst, through the peephole of the nightly news: a video of Humboldt sheriff's deputies swabbing pepper spray into the eyes of four young logging protesters. To neutral observers, the clip's equation was clear: Tree-lovers good. Cops bad. What the world did not see were 100 other pieces of the puzzle this Northern California county has become. The incident, taped during the Oct. 16 takeover of the Eureka office of Republican Rep. Frank Riggs, was a flashy excerpt from a subplot far more knotty that the TV image would suggest. ``The world sees a 10-second video, but we've been living with harassment from environmentalists for 10 years, violating our rights to live a peaceful existence,'' says Mary Bullwinkel, spokeswoman for the Pacific Lumber Co. in Scotia. ``Our employees have shown incredible tolerance, but we've had them in our face for years, and they've been getting increasingly aggressive.'' Myriad battle lines Battle lines cover Humboldt like blackberry vines. From the small shops of Arcata to the sawmills of Fortuna, and in the letters to the editor of the Times-Standard, everyone's got their own take on the troubles. Many residents agonize over the loss of their birthright to cut down trees. They're overwhelmed by the loss of their past, but unsure of who their enemy really is. So they settle upon the most visible suspect. ``These environmentalists are out of control,'' says Charles Hansen, who since 1946 has been selling the wire rope loggers use to yank severed redwoods from the forest. ``We get these kids coming in here raising hell, saying they wanna save the last redwood tree. But people don't understand: Redwoods grow like weeds. You cut 'em down, they grow right back. You can't kill the damn stuff.'' Ragtag romantics Many of the protesters are ragtag romantics, middle-class expatriates out to rescue the giant redwoods. They think of the groves as cathedrals. They ``tree-sit'' to thwart chain-saw crews, camping out on platforms they've built 80 feet in the air. They lie down in front of logging trucks, then lock themselves to the drive shaft for hours. They espouse non-violent civil disobedience, but do it with the fervor of a jihad. And having God on your side of the holy war, of course, makes for some grand obstinacy. ``We have to put our bodies on the line,'' says Vernell ``Spring'' Lundberg, a 17-year-old protester pepper-sprayed by police during a Sept. 25 sit-in at Pacific Lumber's headquarters. For environmental activists, including those who march under the banner of Earth First!, the firm's owner and Texas financier Charles Hurwitz is public enemy No. 1. ``We're resisting the beast of America's greed,'' says Lundberg. ``There is violence going on to the forests behind the Redwood Curtain. We're here to draw that violence to us.'' Those are the extremes. In between, tangled up in this polemic net, are working folks who find some logic in both arguments. Stranded in the middle ground, they watch helplessly as the logging industry slowly fades away. Of the 11,000 logging jobs in the mid-1950s, only about 4,000 remain. Those lost jobs aren't just statistics. They are fathers and aunts, bowling partners and the hairdresser's brother-in-law. Steve Morris in Arcata, son of a logger, has spent half his 50 years building up his log-trucking business, only to see it threatened by an uncertain marketplace. He can't plan for the future because nobody knows what future is left in logging. Like others, Morris has come to realize the only way he'll stay in business is if logging interests and the environmental lobby can find common ground and moderation in harvesting techniques. ``Old-time loggers are the best environmentalists of all,'' says Morris, ``because our livelihood has always depended on treating the resource with respect. But now practicality is gone. You have radical factions on each side, and the moderates like us suffer in the middle.'' Another subculture suspended in Humboldt's limbo are the back-to-earthers like Richard Gienger who fled big cities in the '60s for Utopia. Now in their 50s, they, too, see compromise as their last chance to salvage the wooded wonderland that brought them to Humboldt in the first place. They are calling for a new way of cutting trees at a rate that would ensure survival of both forests and logging jobs for decades to come. Gienger and others see Humboldt's dilemma as far more complicated than Earth First! vs. loggers. ``This economy was dead by the end of the '60s, so to blame it on the protesters is simply incorrect. The problem here,'' he says, ``is a shortage of resources, not an overabundance of environmentalists.'' Police officers fed up Finally, there are the cops. Cast into high profile by the pepper-spray video, they've become lightning rods for all kinds of community emotion: from rabid support to begrudged sympathy to outrage by those who feel swabbing chemicals into the eyes of teenage girls was going overboard. ``My officers are fed up with what's happened to us in the media,'' says Eureka Police Chief Arnie Millsap. Although his officers weren't involved in the incident at Riggs' office, Millsap says he has received death threats and his staff has been bombarded by harassing and obscene phone calls and e-mail. ``I've worked hard for years to stop the polarizing effects of protests up here,'' says Millsap, who cites Martin Luther King Jr. as a hero. ``So to have me portrayed in the media as some kind of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal hurts a lot. I have three college degrees and damn it to hell, I am not a redneck and I am not a Neanderthal.'' Reed, from the chamber of commerce, sees some faint signs of hope, regardless of what happens with logging. Young entrepreneurs, especially telecommuters, are moving into town. And Reed has noticed an increase in citizen participation at county meetings. But for the moment, as Humboldt smarts from the nasty national publicity, things seem as dim as the shadows of ancient forests. There is a standoff that won't go away; although President Clinton this month signed legislation that helps set aside part of the Headwaters Forest, large swaths of old-growth redwoods remain vulnerable. Some forest activists advocate teaming up with loggers to fight a common enemy -- outside corporate interests that activists say are dividing the community in their greedy quest for more timber profits. ``The real myth is that there are two opposing factions,'' says Kevin Bundy of Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville. ``Most loggers know their jobs are endangered ultimately by their bosses. The fear is that they'll either be cut or regulated out of a job. It's just a question of when.'' But it's hard to find a logger who buys that. ``If they feel an affinity with me it's an illusion,'' says John Lima, a 51-year-old independent logger from Arcata. ``They may think they've got this big coalition going, that they're friends with us, but we're sure not friends with them.'' So the stalemate continues. Protests keep coming, lawsuits slide like mud through the courts. The cops stand by their use of pepper spray. And a poor county shoulders the costs of keeping things under control. Last week, the Sierra Club jumped into the act and started running anti-Riggs ads on local TV. Gradually, painfully, all sides have been forced to face the facts of Humboldt County: It was always the trees that defined and dignified this place. Now they divide it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- San Jose Mercury News, Wednesday, February 4, 1998 Logger, son plead not guilty in timberland drug case By Paul Rogers One of the largest timberland owners in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties Tuesday pleaded not guilty to drug charges that business partners say could end his controversial logging career. Greg Koppala, 49, of Corralitos, pleaded not guilty to the manufacture of methamphetamine, at a hearing in Santa Cruz County Superior Court. His son, Van Slagle, 19, pleaded not guilty to the same charge, a felony that carries 17 years in prison upon conviction. Two other men, from East Palo Alto and San Jose, who allegedly ran the operation, pleaded guilty to the same charges on Monday. Meanwhile, police released several reports Tuesday indicating that Koppala told Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies - the day of his arrest - that despite the fact that he "handles millions of dollars of timber a year," he recently ran into financial trouble and agreed to allow a methamphetamine lab on his property for three days in exchange for $8,000 cash. "I asked Koppala why he would risk his home, freedom and property for $8,000," said the report, filed by Deputy Steve Christensen. "Koppala said he didn't know why but just said he acted foolishly." After the court hearing, Koppala declined comment. He remains free on bail. Superior Court Judge Robert Attack set his next court appearance for Feb. 11. The drug bust has drawn wide interest throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. Over the past two years a jump in redwood prices, combined with wood shortages in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, has driven loggers from California's north coast into the lush redwood forests of San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties. The new arrivals have more than doubled the rate of cutting, sending logs 250 miles back over the Golden Gate bridge to mills in Mendocino and Humboldt counties. They have also run into a buzz saw of protest from environmentalists and rural homeowners, many of them recent arrivals from Silicon Valley. Among the more prominent timber operators has been Koppala. A native of Eureka, Koppala moved to Santa Cruz County from Sonoma County several years ago and began buying timberland. He now owns roughly 1,300 acres of property grown thick with redwood and Douglas fir, as well as a $600,000 house in the hills above Aptos he purchased in 1996. Koppala's logging projects have ranged from Redwood Estates to Boulder Creek. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors passed an emergency ordinance in September limiting helicopter logging in response to a Koppala plan. In that plan, he won state approval to log steep slopes at Malosky Creek, near Brookdale and to fly the logs out near homes. "I considered it a really reckless application," Said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt. "It said to me that his interest was taking the money and getting out. This wasn't somebody looking at sustainable logging." If he is convicted on the drug charges, Koppala's days as a logger may be numbered. Officials at Eel Rivers Sawmills in Fortuna, near Eureka, said they have bought land and timber partnerships with Koppala for 20 years but now were wary. "If he was convicted we would not do business with him again," said Dennis Scott, an Eel River vice president. "He'd be out of the business. There aren't many companies that would want to deal with him." Prosecutors said that in the criminal case, Judge Attack indicated Monday he might be willing to forgo jail time and instead issue probation to two other men implicated in the case. Leonel Velex, 34, of East Palo Alto and Demetrio Torrez, 35, of San Jose, ran from Koppala's rural wooded property on Rider Road, five miles north of Aptos, on Jan. 20 when sheriff's deputies acting on an anonymous tip raided a working methamphetamine lab there. They later were arrested and pleaded guilty to manufacturing methamphetamine. They remain in Santa Cruz County Jail on $50,000 bail. Sentencing is set for March 4. On Monday, authorities also issued an arrest warrant for Koppala's wife, Sally Slagle, 43, of Corralitos. She remains at large. Police found more than 50 gallons of liquid methamphetamine, valued at $1 million, on Koppala's property, according to Siddhartha Sundaram, assistant Santa Cruz County district attorney. "It's a pretty serious case," said Sundaram. "There are a lot of drugs involved. The quantity would make it consistent with the kind of case in which we'd recommend prison." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published Monday, March 23, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News EDITORIAL The answer depends on what comes with the 7,500 acres of trees in Headwaters forest Is this worth $380 million? LIKE Pauline, the Headwaters redwood forest has been first imperiled by approaching saws, then seemingly saved, then back in danger, while the public has held its breath. The latest turn in the plot promises a happy ending in which ancient redwoods tower in the forest while fish get to swim and birds get to fly, instead of flirting with extinction. Riding to the rescue are tax dollars, 380 million of them. Now the paying public has to ask: Will we get $380 million worth of happiness? The Pacific Lumber Co. owns the Headwaters forest in Humboldt County, and it owns the saws. After arduous negotiations with the company, federal and state representatives reached a deal early in March. The federal government will put up $250 million to buy 7,500 acres of forest, if California puts up $130 million. Also part of the deal is a habitat conservation plan that prescribes how Pacific Lumber may log for the next 50 years on 200,000 additional acres of its land. Pacific Lumber would be able to cut only one of 13 so-called ``lesser cathedral'' old-growth groves on the property, and it would have to maintain certain no-cut buffers along streams. The deal is supported by the Clinton administration and the Department of the Interior; by the Wilson administration and the state Resources Agency; and by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was pivotal in bringing it about. Critics have attacked on two fronts: The deal is unnecessary and it isn't good enough. The Headwaters forest contains thousands of acres of ancient, majestic trees. Many would consider it a travesty to cut them down, but Pacific Lumber and the law do not. The law, however, does shelter endangered species. Headwaters is home to at least two, a bird called the marbled murrelet, which nests in old-growth trees; and coho salmon, in the streams. The Endangered Species Act impedes Pacific Lumber from cutting in old-groves. Whether it prohibits cutting is the $380 million question. If it does, why pay Pacific Lumber anything? Tempting as it is to rely on the Endangered Species Act to save the trees, it's ultimately too risky. Pacific Lumber has filed suit contending that the act's restrictions amount to an illegal seizure of its property. The suit probably does not have a good chance, but it has a chance. If the deal goes through, Pacific Lumber drops the suit. More important, if for whatever reason, murrelets no longer inhabit the groves, the legal basis for saving most of the trees would disappear. So it seems to us that the way to save the trees is to buy the trees, in the way the deal proposes. But there are two different interpretations of what the deal means. Nailing down the right one is essential. Pacific Lumber and the Clinton and Wilson administrations interpret the deal as paying only for the 7,500 acres, with an acceptable habitat conservation plan attached. But this trio apparently sees the habitat conservation plan as being like any other in the standard process for regulating activity on environmentally sensitive land -- that is, it would be subject to changes later. Speaking of the lesser groves, Pacific Lumber President and CEO John Campbell told a legislative panel: ``We agreed to be restricted in our management of these groves until and unless scientific studies indicate that logging will not endanger or jeopardize the continued existence of the marbled murrelet.'' Another point of contention is stream buffers, in which cutting is prohibited, to protect streams from erosion and to keep them shaded. A federal study established the safe buffer width at 300 feet, almost twice the 170 in the plan. State resources officials described the narrower buffer as adequate. State Sen. Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, co-chair of a legislative committee studying the deal, argues that the state should insist it is buying not just 7,500 acres, but also a habitat conservation plan more certain and stringent than usual. The deal should guarantee no cutting in the 12 lesser groves, murrelets or not, and the wide stream buffers. Otherwise, the ending to this melodrama won't be happy enough. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Tuesday, July 14, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Pacific releases logging outline Some activists say Headwaters plan inadequate Associated Press SACRAMENTO -- Pacific Lumber Co. on Monday spelled out its plan to log 200,000 acres of forest, clearing the way for the $380 million purchase of the world's largest privately held stand of ancient redwoods. Environmentalists immediately denounced the plan, saying it does not go far enough to protect wildlife in the Headwaters Forest. Pacific Lumber and federal and state officials, including U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, praised it as a major step forward. The long-awaited Habitat Conservation Plan, written by Pacific Lumber in consultation with government scientists, is a key step in the Headwaters purchase pact. The agreement, brokered by Feinstein in February, calls for the purchase of 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber timber, including 3,000 acres of old-growth redwoods. In exchange, the company, which is owned by Texas financier Charles Hurwitz's Maxxam Corp., agreed to draft a plan that would manage logging and help restore the endangered coho salmon. ``Pacific Lumber, which has been in business for 129 years, is a very significant contributor to the economic well-being of the North Coast and needs to be able to maintain viable, profitable operations,'' company President John Campbell said in a news release. Congress has approved its $250 million share of the deal, but state lawmakers have held up California's $130 million share, saying the deal leaves the coho salmon at risk. The draft of the agreement would permit limited logging within 30 feet of streams where the endangered coho salmon live. Critics, including state Sen. Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, want a buffer zone five times as wide. The logging plan is based on ``sound science'' and would protect the coho salmon, Assistant Commerce Secretary Terry Garcia said. The plan, which is more than 1,000 pages long, will be released today for 90 days of public comment. A permit probably will be issued to Pacific Lumber in 1999, Garcia said. The entire Headwaters agreement faces a March 1 deadline. Environmentalists have mounted a vigorous campaign against the deal, led by Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill, who has lived for six months in a Humboldt County redwood tree. ``This plan is designed to allow immediate destruction of some incredibly important habitat,'' said Kevin Bundy, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Information Center. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED The full text of the report can be viewed at http://www.r1.fws.gov/text/species.html . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Saturday, July 18, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Headwaters Forest plan has politicians at loggerheads Saying it's not enough, Sher holds up agreement BY PAUL ROGERS Mercury News Staff Writer For the past 12 years, environmental activists have chained themselves to trees and hung off the Golden Gate Bridge trying to save the ancient redwoods of Northern California's Headwaters Forest from logging. Yet in perhaps the most important showdown yet, the struggle has moved away >from the TV cameras and the police in riot gear to a new arena: Gov. Pete Wilson's office. And now it's crunch time. A $380 million deal to buy 7,500 acres of the forest from Pacific Lumber Co. of Humboldt County is tangled up in negotiations this weekend among ``The Big Five'' -- Wilson and the top Sacramento lawmakers haggling over the state's budget. One person more than any other is responsible for holding up the redwood deal: state Sen. Byron Sher, D-Redwood City. And environmentalists couldn't be happier. Congress already has approved $250 million for the deal. The remaining $130 million must come from Sacramento. But the deal shortchanges taxpayers and doesn't go far enough to protect salmon streams or old-growth trees, Sher says. So, the 70-year-old Stanford University law professor, widely viewed as the environmental dean of the Legislature, earlier this year succeeded in pulling the state's $130 million share out of the budget, where Wilson wanted it. Instead, Sher wrote a separate bill demanding tougher logging rules across all of Pacific Lumber's remaining 200,000 acres as a condition of receiving the money. But he has found himself caught in a powerful bipartisan squeeze from Wilson -- California's most powerful Republican -- and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- the state's most powerful Democrat -- both of whom painstakingly negotiated the deal with Pacific Lumber owner Charles Hurwitz and now want to see it survive. ``It's high noon for this deal,'' said Carl Pope, national executive director of the Sierra Club. ``Byron Sher is under a tremendous amount of pressure. I'm delighted he has been firm.'' The question now is who will blink. The answer could come any day now. Wilson and the Republicans could go along with Sher and require the tougher standards. That could happen under a scenario where Wilson compromises on Headwaters to win from Democrats his top goal, a cut in the state's car licensing fees. But one risk is that Hurwitz will walk away from the table. Or top Democratic negotiators -- Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Los Angeles -- could abandon Sher, cutting a deal with Wilson that gives them what they want on issues such as education funding. Environmental and timber lobbyists have spent weeks frenetically trying to sway lawmakers. ``Of course I'm nervous,'' said John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber, based in Scotia, near Eureka. ``We've spent over 10 years at this. And now at the 11th hour people are saying it's not enough.'' Sher's bill, said Campbell ``is too restrictive. The company could not remain economically viable.'' Feinstein also says Sher is driving too hard a bargain. ``There have been at least 10 separate efforts to save Headwaters over the last 12 years,'' she said, describing herself as ``incredulous.'' ``Every one of them has failed. This saves virtually more redwood than any other effort I know of.'' If Sher keeps pushing for a stricter deal, she said, that could endanger $250 million in federal money already approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton. Funds coveted ``There are murmurs back here from other senators about what they would like to do with the money instead,'' said Feinstein. ``I can say 100 percent that if this doesn't go through, then the federal money is gone. I feel I've done everything I could over a long period of time to get the best I could. At some point people have to trust that and recognize that.'' Headwaters Forest, 15 miles south of Eureka, is the world's largest privately owned old-growth redwood forest. It has been a flash point of national controversy since 1985, when Hurwitz, chairman of Houston-based Maxxam Inc., acquired Pacific Lumber in a hostile takeover, doubled the rate of logging and threatened to clear-cut Headwaters Grove. After huge protests, Feinstein and other officials reached an agreement with Hurwitz in 1996 to buy 7,500 acres -- about half of it old growth -- for parkland. The deal also requires Pacific Lumber to prepare a ``habitat conservation plan'' for managing its remaining 200,000 acres of forest during the next 50 years. This week, details emerged in a 2,000-page document from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, negotiated with Pacific Lumber. The plan calls for banning logging within 30 feet of endangered salmon streams. By contrast, Sher's bill calls for 170-foot buffer zones. And although the plan would preserve 11 smaller old-growth groves, Sher wants another, Owl Creek. He said he's not scuttling any deal, just representing the taxpayers of California. ``I know that Senator Feinstein has invested a lot in this,'' Sher said. ``She deserves credit for getting the agreement. And she was instrumental in getting the appropriation. ``But I don't believe I was elected by my constituents to rubber-stamp a deal that was made behind closed doors in Washington. The Legislature had no influence over it, and then they say OK, give us $130 million.'' If he were almost any other Senate member, Sher probably would have been steamrollered by now. But on environmental topics, he carries considerable influence. As an assemblyman in 1988, Sher wrote the state's Clean Air Act. In 1989 he wrote the law that required California cities and counties to reduce by 50 percent their trash, through recycling, by 2000. He also has written laws to toughen drinking water standards, monitor acid rain and put scenic rivers off limits to dams. ``We have a responsibility to see if this is a good deal for the state of California,'' said Sher. ``And frankly it has serious flaws in it, particularly in protecting coho salmon.'' So far, Sher appears to be winning. In a key test on Thursday, Republican Cathie Wright of Simi Valley attempted to put the $130 million in Headwaters money back in the budget bill. She was rebuffed by budget conference committee Chairman Mike Thompson, D-Napa. Deal is possible Thompson, who is running for Congress this November to represent the North Coast district that includes Headwaters Forest, signed on two weeks ago as a co-sponsor to Sher's bill. ``Senator Thompson thinks the Sher bill makes the agreement stronger,'' said Ed Matovcik, chief of staff for Thompson. Meanwhile, Wilson's staff hinted on Friday that he may be willing to wheel and deal on Headwaters. ``It has been the administration's preference to pay for the Headwaters agreement out of the general fund,'' said Ron Low, a spokesman for the governor. ``That's the governor's preference. But as to any deals, negotiations are ongoing.'' To approve the funding in any form will require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. If the entire deal collapses, environmentalists will be in court fighting Hurwitz on each timber cutting plan. They say that would be better than the precedent-setting deal. But the company says having the deal fall through would be a disaster. ``I just hope the issue is put to bed,'' said Campbell. ``It's crucial to our 1,500 employees. It will finish a very divisive period on the North Coast. Otherwise, we're back to square one.'' ©1997 - 1998 Mercury Center. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Thursday, July 23, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News EDITORIAL -------------------------------------------------- Opinion The strange case of Headwaters The struggle to save the Headwaters Forest has come to a strange pass. The timber company that owns it -- with the idea of logging it -- favors making it a public forest. The environmentalists most vocal about saving redwoods don't like the deal. The decision lies with the California Legislature, which must decide whether to put up $130 million in state money to match $250 million in federal money to meet the asking price of $380 million. Pacific Lumber, which owns the forest in Humboldt County, will sell 7,500 acres, about half untouched ancient redwood forest and half a buffer of more recent growth. The deal also includes approval of a habitat conservation plan that details how Pacific Lumber will manage 200,000 adjacent acres that it owns. The habitat plan is the hangup, and the hanger-upper in the Legislature is Sen. Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, backed by many environmentalists. So far, Sher has persuaded the Senate not to put the $130 million in the overall budget, where it would be swept along with the tide of eventual budget approval, but to create a separate bill, SB 533. The bill stiffens the habitat conservation plan by widening the no-cutting buffers beside streams and by making absolute, instead of contingent, the preservation of 11 smaller old-growth groves for 50 years. Pacific Lumber says Sher is asking too much. The company is backed by Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who were instrumental in negotiating the deal. Sher is not asking too much. For $380 million, the public should get more than 7,500 acres of trees; it should get a model management plan, or at least a closer approximation of one. The main fear of environmentalists is that the habitat conservation plan now attached to the agreement will set a weak precedent for management of other timber lands. It won't do so officially. But as the first habitat conservation plan for this region, and a highly scrutinized one, the Headwaters plan will be looked to by both government agencies and private landowners in the drafting of future plans. Letting the deal fall through instead is rolling the dice on the fate of the forest. With no deal, the trees remain in the hands of Pacific Lumber. But the dice are loaded. Even if the core Headwaters grove is not purchased by the public, it won't be cut down. The Endangered Species Act almost certainly will prevent the cutting of live trees because of the presence of an endangered species, a bird called the marbled murrelet. In the rest of the forest, logging will be limited near streams, in which live another endangered species, coho salmon. A failed deal will not reflect badly on Wilson and Feinstein. They worked hard in a good cause. But Sher's objections are telling. The best outcome is the purchase of the forest, with the stipulations proposed by Sher. Short of that, California should save the money and pursue other ways to save the forest. ©1997 - 1998 Mercury Center. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: T/S Editorial 9/23/98 "Lessons must be learned after death" David Chain was a person. Some people have already lost sight of that fact. Chain had parents who loved him and friends who enjoyed his company. He was a young idealist who wanted to make the world, in his mind, a better place to live. Certainly nobody can fault him for that. But some have faulted him for dying. He was trespassing on Pacific Lumber Co, land with about eight other Earth First activists when a tree fell on him and killed him. Yes, he shouldn't have been there, but Chain didn't deserve to die, as some callous people who have grown weary of protesters have said. We realize those heartless souls are in the minority and [we] prefer to believe that despite where people stand on the timber issue, everybody thinks like Joe Rogers, a 32-year PL employee, who said: "We need people to pursue causes. But you don't want to hear of anyone losing their life, even if it is for the wrong war or the right war." Rogers brought up another salient point: "No matter where you stand, the loss of someone's life is tragic. But I'm also surprised it already hasn't happened. The guys who work out there lose their lives from time to time." Logging is one of the most dangerous professions in the United States. The limbs from a fallen tree that get hung up in another standing tree are called widow makers for a reason. A 300-pound limb dropping 180 feet with no warning is a recipe for disaster. There are other hazards that loggers face as well - sharp equipment, heavy logs and giant machinery. People who work in the woods - like commercial fishermen and coal miners - face enormous risks and should be thankful every evening when they make it home from work. There's a lesson there for environmental activists. Loggers are trained, skilled and have the benefit of the best equipment - yet loggers are still injured or killed. A logging operation is no place for spectators. Activists know this, yet trespass anyway and take the risk. They think their battle is important enough. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Department says it doesn't have enough staff to go track down trespassers in the forest. So what we're stuck with is a problem with no solution - unless Earth First puts an end to the predicament. The activists in the area near Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park the day of the accident were trying to persuade the loggers to quit cutting trees. The method is called "cat and mouse," which Earth First spokesman Josh Brown described as "engaging [the loggers] in dialogue and asking them not to cut trees." We can't see many loggers laying down their saws and refusing to cut the trees. They have jobs to do. they have families to feed. Judging from the video that Earth First said was taken at the site about 90 minutes before the accident, all the "dialogue" managed to do was upset a logger and cause him to spew a bunch of four-letter words. If earth First must protest, there have to be better methods. There have to be methods that won't get anybody else killed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Friday, October 30, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Scientists fear logging could wipe out coho SACRAMENTO (AP) -- The coho salmon, a bellwether of environmental health, could become extinct in California unless aggressive steps are taken to protect streams from logging in the North Coast, scientists said Thursday. The fish is protected under the Endangered Species Act, but a controversial provision of the $500 million Headwaters Agreement creates an exemption for Pacific Lumber Co. Under the deal, which set aside as a public preserve 7,500 acres of ancient redwoods owned by Pacific Lumber, the company has to apply for an ``incidental take'' permit in order to log on its remaining 200,000 acres. The permit would allow logging even if it resulted in the destruction of some of the 36 federally protected species on the land. Scientists held a news conference to criticize Pacific Lumber's permit application, called the Habitat Conservation Plan. They said the plan includes some sound scientific information, but arrives at faulty conclusions aimed at increasing profits for the Scotia-based company. ``The embarrassment is not in the science. The embarrassment is in the inability to cope with a company who has no regard for the environment,'' said Dr. Michael Fry, a wildlife biologist at the University of California-Davis. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Sunday, November 1, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Evolution of a movement Environmental terrorism contrasts with maturing radicals BY JULIA PRODIS SULEK Mercury News Staff Writer Climbing to the top of a redwood in the far reaches of Northern California last year, Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill defied the lumber company intent upon sawing the tree down. Today, nearly 11 months later, she still hasn't touched ground. The tranquil 24-year-old woman and the 200-foot tree she named ``Luna'' have become symbols of a new generation of Earth First!, the radical environmental group once best known for pounding railroad spikes into trees to break logging saws and pouring sand into bulldozer gas tanks, also known as ``monkeywrenching.'' And while Earth First! has claimed in recent years to be shifting its tactics away from sabotage to civil disobedience such as tree-sitting -- perhaps as a move toward the mainstream -- there are obviously people on the fringes of environmental activism who have been unwilling to change their methods. Two weeks ago arsonists billing themselves as the Earth Liberation Front ignited seven fires at the renowned Vail ski resort in Colorado. The daring, middle-of-the-night fires, set along the 11,220-foot mountaintop, caused $12 million in damage, including the destruction of the landmark Two Elk Lodge. As tactics go, it stands to reason that the move from sabotage to arson is not that distant. But the evolution of the radical environmental movement -- and whether or not the fringes are linked to a moving center -- is shrouded, as if by North Coast fog. With the Vail culprits still on the loose, Colorado Gov. Roy Romer quickly branded the fires environmental terrorism. Maybe so, said Earth First!, but it wasn't them. However, Ron Arnold, director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a property rights activist group in Bellevue, Wash., claims Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front are one and the same. ``The `innocent' mainstreamers very likely are the same people going out and doing the crime,'' Arnold said in an interview. Earth First! dismissed Arnold's view as ``delusional.'' Over the past two decades, Earth First! has transformed itself, said Lacey Phillabaum, a 23-year-old editor of the Earth First! Journal in Eugene, Ore. ``In the '80s, a lot of Earth Firsters were engaged in sabotage as a sort of last resort,'' she said. ``In the 1990s, the trend has been much more . . . to engage in non-violent civil disobedience. Monkeywrenching was the tactic that people thought worked then, and this is the tactic that people see as working now.'' Past incidents Even so, the current decade has witnessed plenty of destruction in the name of the environment, including some spectacular examples in this region. On Earth Day, 1990, an organization calling itself the Earth Night Action Group toppled high-voltage transmission lines coming from the Pacific Gas & Electric plant at Moss Landing and knocked out power to most of Santa Cruz County for two days. Two years ago, a hotel under construction that blocked ocean views near Half Moon Bay was torched. Neighbors cheered, sipped champagne and watched it burn. Neither attack was blamed on Earth First!. But since the earliest days of Earth First!, the group has been divided over the value of sabotage, Phillabaum said. And while monkeywrenching got the most publicity, Earth First! has always been engaged in theatrical acts of civil disobedience. Peg Millett, who at age 44 is one of the oldest Earth Firsters still involved in the movement, has done both. It was her act of sabotage on a summer night in 1989 that caused the first major rift in Earth First! and brought a forced re-examination by the group. Her activism started rather mildly in 1987 when she dressed up in a raccoon suit and blocked a roadway into the north rim of the Grand Canyon. At age 35, she was a disciple of Earth First! founder Dave Foreman, who wrote ``Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching.'' Once she got out of the raccoon suit, Millett said in an interview last week, ``We wanted to do something that went bump in the night.'' New recruit By 1989, she was cutting bolts on ski-lift pylons in northern Arizona and power lines that led to a uranium mine. A new recruit joined her ranks -- a tall, handsome cowboy named Mike Davis who wore boots and an endearing Arizona feed cap. Millett had a thing for cowboys. He took her two-stepping. She took him monkeywrenching. And on June 1, 1989, Millett, Davis and two cohorts put on their black knit caps and drove west of Phoenix to Alamo Lake to cut a power line to a pump station. As Millett played lookout, an FBI flare illuminated the night sky. ``Oh my God, there's someone else here,'' she said. She ran 16 miles through the night and turned herself in the next day. Mike Davis was no cowboy. He was an undercover FBI agent. The sting also netted Foreman, who had given Millett's group $200 for gas and supplies for the Alamo operation. Millett served two years in prison. Foreman pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy and received a delayed sentence. But it was a turning point for Earth First! ``It became foolhardy to be identified as an Earth Firster,'' said Susan Zakin, who wrote ``Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement.'' Under pressure from the FBI, ``Earth First! has splintered into different grandchildren, different pieces,'' Zakin said. ``Some of them have become much more radical, some have become much more practical.'' Still protesting On the practical side, Foreman founded a wilderness conservation group. And another early member, Peter Galvin, co-founded a public policy group in Tucson that uses lawsuits to try to stop environmental degradation. And in the tradition of civil disobedience, Earth Firsters are still linking arms to block roadways. But these days, they bind themselves together with metal sleeves or bike locks to make it more difficult for authorities to pull them apart and haul them away. However, protesters who were chained together at a protest at Pacific Lumber Co. headquarters in Scotia last fall were swabbed in the eyes with pepper spray, and one 24-year-old forest activist was killed in September when a logger felled a tree that struck him in the head, also in Humboldt County. At the extreme is Earth Liberation Front, which took responsibility for five earlier arsons against federal buildings in Washington State and Oregon, as well as the Vail fires. Its members have not identified themselves, but the group has apparently aligned itself with the Animal Liberation Front, best known for throwing paint on fur coats and freeing animals from research laboratories. According to an Animal Liberation Front newsletter, Earth Liberation Front (ELF) got its start after a 1992 Earth First! meeting in England. Frustrated that Earth First! was going too mainstream, more radical activists proposed an underground wing to keep up the sabotage. ``Sadly, this never really happened, as some sections of the movement were trying to link up with the mainstream and saw the elves (ELF) as an embarrassment,'' the undated newsletter said. Undeterred, the more radical group broke off to form Earth Liberation Front as a separate entity, the newsletter version goes. Anonymous members Craig Rosebraugh, who is a member of a group called Liberation Collective in Portland, Ore., said that he doesn't knows a single member of the Earth Liberation Front. But he is their spokesmen, nonetheless. He only hears from them through ``anonymous communiques,'' he said. ``They trust us to put the message out and we do.'' The saboteurs set fire to the lodge, the ski patrol headquarters and four ski lifts at Vail -- one of the country's premier ski resorts -- after a federal judge threw out a lawsuit seeking to block Vail's expansion into 885-acres of national forest land that was also seen as potential habitat for the reintroduction of the lynx. ``What else was there to do?'' Rosebraugh asked. ``People who engage in these actions feel they're taking up where the law left off. If the law is not protecting something you believe is important, very near and dear, there is disillusionment that happens and you find these kinds of things going on.'' Millett no longer holds that view. ``My monkeywrenching days are over,'' she said. Now living in a yurt, Millett said her voice is her latest weapon. ``I sing environmental songs.'' And from a platform in the top of a redwood, Julia ``Butterfly'' Hill continues her vigil. She said she'll come down when the lumber company agrees to spare the tree. In the meantime, she spends her days talking by cellular phone to reporters, writing poetry and -- when the weather permits -- climbing around on Luna. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/local/docs/timber03.htm Published Tuesday, November 3, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Hearings critical to logging plan Headwaters Forest: New environmental safeguards draw conflicting scientific opinions about tree-harvesting's effects on wildlife habitat and fisheries. SCOTIA (AP) -- Federal officials this week begin a final round of hearings on plans for management of Pacific Lumber Co. timberlands critical to a $500 million agreement to buy the Headwaters Forest. National Marine Fisheries Services officials will be in Oakland today to discuss new regulatory requirements that state and federal officials say would be the most stringent imposed on a California timber company. The Scotia company's plans are expected to serve as models for other timber companies facing dwindling log supplies and increased regulatory pressure to protect wildlife habitat and help restore declining fisheries. "The proposed standards go far beyond current requirements and will continue to make the California timber industry by far the most regulated in the nation," said Chris Nance of the California Forestry Association. The Habitat Conservation Plan, which is more than 1,000 pages long, describes expected timber growth and harvest as well as plans to manage recreation, wildlife, fisheries and other resources. The report is one of several required as part of a government agreement to buy the Headwaters Forest and several other old-growth redwood groves. Environmentalists are concerned about the fate of wildlife on Pacific Lumber's 200,000 acres of timber, home to several species included in the Endangered Species Act. In particular, environmentalists say logging on steep slopes prone to landslides could have disastrous consequences for aquatic life in streams below. And the new environmental safeguards proposed for those acres are being dogged by conflicting scientific opinions over the effects of logging on north coast fisheries. State Resources Secretary Doug Wheeler and the Clinton administration have said the standards would provide "dramatic improvements" for fish and wildlife. But a coalition of environmental groups contends the proposed regulations don't go far enough to protect the last 1 percent of wild coho salmon populations. Legislation tripled the width of stream-side protection zones on Pacific Lumber land. But critics say government scientists reacted to pressure by Pacific Lumber and politicians by agreeing to "no cut" buffer zones that are weaker than other scientists say are necessary. Peter Moyle, a coho salmon expert at the University of California-Davis, and Terry Roelofs, a Humboldt State University fisheries expert, said widths of proposed stream-side protection zones along north coast streams need to be at least tripled to offer any chance for coho salmon recovery. Roelofs said even with such drastic steps, it would take decades to improve north coast fisheries. "That's the price we're going to have pay after decades of intensive logging," Moyle said. But government scientists say what those experts propose is unrealistic and potentially devastating to the region's timber industry and communities. "What they propose is not a fair test of the requirements that state and federal agencies must take into account. They're offering a pristine idea of what conditions could be like, but we don't have that luxury," said Jim Gaither, an ecology expert and special assistant to Wheeler. Pacific Lumber standards "far exceed anyone's expectations of what government could accomplish to protect wildlife and fisheries on private lands," Gaither said. Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said environmentalists "don't seem to understand that what they are demanding will put us and every other timber company out of business. Maybe that's what they are really after." The hearings move to Eureka on Nov. 10. The entire Headwaters agreement faces a March 1 deadline. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- published Tuesday, November 10, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Tree deal is tricky Agencies endeavor to meet deadline for Headwaters buy SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A host of state and federal agencies are struggling to find the right way to spend $380 million set aside for the purchase of the Headwaters Forest, witnesses said Monday at a legislative hearing. With a March 1 deadline looming, there is no consensus on how to acquire >from Pacific Lumber Co. the 7,500-acre Headwaters Forest, the world's largest privately held stand of ancient redwoods. The land is to be set aside as a public preserve. "This can't wait until the last minute," said state Sen. Byron Sher, D-Redwood City. "This deal's got to be wrapped up." It remained unclear Monday whether the land 280 miles up the coast from San Francisco will be owned and administered by the state, the federal government or both. The Bureau of Land Management has been designated to handle administration of the Headwaters Forest for the federal government, said David Nawi, a U.S. Interior Department attorney. The California Wildlife Conservation Board, part of the state Resources Agency, is handling California's end of the purchase. The Headwaters agreement is by far the largest and most complex purchase the board has handled, said Assistant Executive Director Jim Sarro. "It's a very short deadline, but we can meet it," Sarro said. The board is considering four purchase options and will present the Legislature with an agreement in February. The simplest of the four -- a direct purchase of the deed -- isn't feasible because there isn't enough time for the board to complete an appraisal required by law, he said. Other options include a grant of state money to the federal government and a court settlement that involves land-for-cash and a dismissal of Pacific Lumber's lawsuits against the state and federal government. Sher, a legislative leader on Headwaters, said he was worried that state lawmakers were being left out of the process as he claimed they were when the Headwaters agreement was first reached two years ago. "I'm concerned we're going to get into the same box where we don't know what's going on," Sher said. "You're asking for disaster if you proceed in talking to federal agencies and keep us out of the loop." Further complicating things, the Headwaters acquisition is linked to logging on Pacific Lumber's remaining 200,000 acres of timber, home to 36 federally protected species. Legislators authorized the Headwaters purchase as the clock ran down on the 1998 session after Pacific Lumber made some last-minute concessions. The company agreed not to log within 100 feet on either side of streams where the threatened coho salmon and other fish swim or within 30 feet of tributaries of those streams. Pacific Lumber said the no-cut zones lock up 12,000 acres of timber. Lawmakers said that part of the Headwaters price tag includes compensating Pacific Lumber for agreeing not to cut near the streams. "We want to get what we pay for," said Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco. Pacific Lumber says the no-cut zones and other logging restrictions represent a "quantum leap" beyond current forest practice rules in California, some of the most restrictive in the nation, and could set the standard for California's $1 billion timber industry. Other timber firms are concerned that Pacific Lumber has made too many concessions and agreed to restrictions other companies could not meet and still stay in business, said John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Wednesday, November 11, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Sanction aids foes of Headwaters deal Pacific Lumber license yanked Damage to forests provokes suspension BY PAUL ROGERS Mercury News Staff Writer In a sharp rebuke to California's most controversial logging company, Gov. Pete Wilson's administration Tuesday suspended the timber operating license of Pacific Lumber Co., which is already under fire for its long-running attempts to log the ancient redwoods of Northern California's Headwaters Forest. The timber-cutting license was suspended for the rest of 1998 because of ``continued violations of the state's forest-practice rules,'' according to state regulators. In the past three years, Pacific Lumber has been cited 128 times by state inspectors -- more than any other large lumber company in the state -- for such offenses as logging too close to fragile streams, constructing shoddy roads and removing redwoods near the nests of the endangered spotted owl. ``This decision is not an easy one to make, considering the effects on employees, but we simply cannot allow these violations to continue,'' said Richard Wilson, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. ``Although we are aware of the potential economic impact of this decision, our primary objective must be to enforce the rules which protect our environment along with the economy.'' The company has five days to appeal. The forestry director then has 10 days to consider the appeal. If he decides to uphold his own ruling, there is no further appeal. Pacific Lumber, based in Scotia, 15 miles south of Eureka, is Humboldt County's largest private employer, with 1,600 workers. Tuesday's announcement will not shut down the 129-year-old company, but it carries two serious consequences. First, it gives environmentalists a legal tool to wield in an almost-certain lawsuit next year to overturn a $495 million public deal to buy 7,500 acres of Headwaters Forest. That deal was reached in September, on the final day of the state Legislature's session. Environmentalists have called the deal a taxpayer giveaway and one that sets a bad precedent because it includes a permit to allow the company to kill endangered species while logging on its remaining lands. Second, it could jar Wall Street investors, who have reacted nervously when the state cracked down on Pacific Lumber, controlled by Houston financier Charles Hurwitz. Company reaction ``We take our responsibility to the forest and to the communities of the North Coast very seriously,'' said John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber. ``As disappointed as we are by the California Department of Forestry's decision, we remain committed to making the changes that are necessary to regain our leadership as a responsible steward of the state's timber resources.'' Campbell said the sanction will cause 180 Pacific Lumber employees to ``cease their work indefinitely.'' Those employees are people who cut down trees -- the timber fallers, haulers and yarders. Already, however, about half the logging on Pacific Lumber's 210,000 acres is done by independent contractors. Because they have their own licenses, those loggers, known as ``gypos,'' will be allowed to continue. Pacific Lumber employees working in the company's massive redwood mills along Highway 101 also will be allowed to keep working. Environmentalists were surprised and elated. ``It's about time,'' said Paul Mason, president of the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) in Garberville. ``Pacific Lumber consistently disregards the law. They break the law in order to maximize their profits.'' In fact, the company has been cited with nine misdemeanor criminal counts since 1996, Mason noted. It has paid fines to courts. And it already was working this year on a so-called ``conditional license,'' which the state issued after suspending its license last year for repeated environmental violations. At least three criminal misdemeanor counts were filed by the Humboldt County district attorney this year and are pending. On Aug. 16, the company was cited for removing second-growth redwood trees along Freshwater Creek in an area that its permit said was off-limits. Then on Oct. 22, the company was cited after workers drove heavy equipment through the stream for a two-week period, causing heavy erosion. Also this fall, Pacific Lumber was cited for logging second-growth redwood too close to spotted owl nests -- into a 500-foot buffer zone that was set by the permit and flagged as off-limits. License renewal The repeated violations will not go unnoticed next month when the Wilson administration decides whether to issue a 1999 license for Pacific Lumber, said Gerald Ahlstrom, chief of the forest-practice program for the state forestry department. ``We do consider the last three years. So virtually everything that's happened will be looked at,'' he said. Ahlstrom also said that last month state forestry officials recommended that the Humboldt County district attorney prosecute Pacific Lumber for unfair business practices. ``Essentially that means that a company has violated the law so much that they have an unfair business advantage over those who have complied with it,'' he said. In such cases, which are civil actions, penalties can soar into the millions of dollars because companies can be forced to return ill-gotten profits. ``We think the penalty could be anybody's guess in this case,'' said Ahlstrom. ``Certainly very high.'' Some environmentalists called the crackdown a last-minute attempt by Wilson officials to keep their jobs after Jan. 4 when new Gov. Gray Davis, endorsed by the Sierra Club, takes office. Ahlstrom denied that allegation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, November 12, 1998 San Jose Mercury News EDITORIAL Pacific Lumber: cutthroat at work The most vilified timber company in California just had its chainsaws taken away for the rest of the year. The California Department of Forestry has suspended the logging license of the Pacific Lumber Co., owner of the Headwaters Forest of ancient redwoods, through which mists and controversy swirl. In reaction, Pacific Lumber seemed contrite. President John Campbell said that the company was ``embarrassed'' by the suspension and will not appeal it. But the company merits no slack. Already, it was operating on a conditional license, which state forestry officials imposed last year. Since then, the department said, the company has committed 16 violations of forestry rules, including cutting too near streams and ignoring a buffer zone for spotted owls. Pacific Lumber announced it would lay off 180 loggers because of the suspension, though logging already was winding down for the winter. Whether there will be a more substantial penalty is to be determined in two upcoming decisions. The Department of Forestry will decide whether to grant Pacific Lumber a license for 1999. More important, the suspension occurs as the state and federal governments are trying to nail down the details of buying the Headwaters Forest from Pacific Lumber. In that deal, the public would pay $495 million for ownership of 9,500 acres of forest and Pacific Lumber's agreement to operate under a ``habitat conservation plan'' on its remaining 200,000 acres. The adequacy of the stipulations in the plan about stream buffers and other environmental protections has been hotly debated. Environmentalists now argue that the violations of forestry rules make Pacific Lumber legally ineligible for a habitat conservation plan. Under a habitat conservation plan, some damage to members of an endangered species is permitted on the grounds that the plan as a whole protects, or even enhances, the prospects for the species. Government lawyers will determine the eligibility. At a minimum, however, the violations show the need for strict state supervision of any agreement. Pacific Lumber has been in the environmental spotlight since it was purchased by corporate financier Charles Hurwitz, and its rate of cutting trees increased dramatically. It knew that the Headwaters deal, which is still not nailed down, focused inordinate attention on the company. It knew that the Department of Forestry already had given it only a conditional license. Yet with so much as stake and so much scrutiny, Pacific Lumber still compiled a record of violations that startled regulators. As they consider a 1999 license and the Headwaters deal, officials should impose requirements for independent monitoring and stiff penalties for violations. Pacific Lumber has demonstrated that it can't be left alone in the woods. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- <http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9845/hsiao.shtml>http://www.villa gevoice.com/columns/9845/hsiao.shtml The Village Voice November 3 - 9, 1998 Press Clips by andrew hsiao The Green Menace It's been a remarkable month for the merchants of "ecoterrorism." In the two weeks since a group calling itself the Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for fires that engulfed a Vail, Colorado, ski resort, dozens of news stories have raised the specter of violent environmentalism, a supposedly growing "movement" of "murderers and arsonists," as an editorial in Saturday's New York Post put it. But to establish the case that the Vail fires are part of a trend, major media outlets elevated some of the anti- environmental movement's most virulent and dubious propagandists to the status of expert— without divulging their political ties. The October 19 fires— seven separate blazes spread along a mile-long ridge on Vail Mountain— destroyed a restaurant, a patrol building, and a picnic shelter, and damaged several lifts. Two days later, a fax purporting to be >from the ELF said the fires had been set "on behalf of the lynx." Environmentalists have been battling the proposed expansion of the ski resort into 885 now-pristine acres of mountain forest, one of the last known habitats of the lynx, and just days before the fires, workers had begun clearing trees. No one was hurt, but the blazes caused some $12 million in damage. Local activists and national environmental groups immediately denounced the arson, and only the Animal Liberation Front, a small group on the fringe of the animal rights movement, would unreservedly defend the ELF. But just as immediately, network news brought us "ecoterrorism." On October 23, CBS This Morning's Jane Robelot introduced one Barry Clausen, identifying him as "an expert on these attacks working for North American Research, monitoring left- and right-wing groups." Robelot began their conversation thusly: "We don't hear a great deal about ecoterrorism. Is it on the rise?" Clausen replied, "Yes, it is. . . . In 1986, there was about 10 terrorist attacks. In 1994, '95, '96, there has been in excess of 300 a year. And now we're seeing more violence." Meanwhile, ABC brought in Ron Arnold, identified in separate reports as author of "a book on ecoterrorism," and as someone who's "been studying the tactics of radical environmentalists for years." The New York Times proffered Clausen's judgment that "we are seeing a decline in small acts of sabotage, against timber and mining, and an escalation of large acts of terrorism." In another piece, the Times had Arnold drawing a connection between the ELF and the radical environmental group Earth First! The Times blandly identified Clausen as "a Northern California researcher who studies terrorist acts claimed by environmental extremists" and Arnold as "the vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a defender of property rights and a critic of environmentalists who catalogues ecoterrorism." These descriptions are astonishingly incomplete. Arnold is better known— though not, apparently, by ABC, CBS, and the Times— as the founder of the Wise Use movement, the corporate-backed anti- environmental coalition that in the last decade has rallied more than a thousand western groups under the banner of property rights, while being linked to the militia and county-supremacy movements in their crusade against Big Government and the hated Greens. Arnold once said of environmentalists, "We're out to kill the fuckers. We're simply trying to eliminate them. Our goal is to destroy environmentalism once and for all." And Clausen has been "trying to discredit the environmental movement by any means necessary" for a decade, says Tarso Luis Ramos, research director of the Western States Center, a grassroots eco-coalition. Relying on Arnold and Clausen for analysis of radical Green activism is "like asking David Duke to assess the rise of black militants," says David Helvarg, author of War on the Greens. Clausen has been dining out for years on the strength of his "infiltration" of Earth First! for the timber industry— an achievement, notes Helvarg, on the order of "infiltrating the Shriners." Clausen's industry sponsors terminated his contract when he failed to produce any actual evidence of environmental terrorism. Instead, Clausen produced a risible book about his exploits, Walking on the Edge. Arnold helped Clausen distribute his book, but in recent years the Wise Use guru has ostentatiously taken the high road. "When I say we have to pick up a sword and shield and kill the bastards," he told Helvarg, "I mean politically, not physically." In 1995, my colleague James Ridgeway, along with Jeffrey St. Clair, found Arnold furiously backpedaling from the militia movement: "I deplore them. I think the notion of taking up arms to defend what we're trying to defend is wrongheaded. It's stupid." The distancing became necessary after the April '95 Oklahoma City bombing focused media attention on links between Wise Use and the militias and county-supremacy groups. Arnold, for example, has sat on the advisory board of the county movement's National Federal Lands Conference, whose October 1994 newsletter proclaimed, "Long Live the Militia!" The mainstream media's failure to include any of this background in its news reports on Vail allowed the extreme anti-Greens to "hijack the story," as Tarso Ramos puts it. ABC, CBS, and the Times all failed to respond to requests from the Voice for comment, but those outlets were not alone in hyping environmentalist violence. A report produced last week on the coverage of Vail by FAIR, the progressive media watchdog, noted headlines such as "Ecoterrorism Growing More Violent" (Chicago Tribune) and "Violence Escalates in the Name of Environmentalism" (Christian Science Monitor), though little evidence of a trend exists. Indeed, in their catalogues of Green terrorism Clausen and Arnold— who claims to have coined the term ecoterror— cite demonstrators engaging in civil disobedience, graffiti sloganeers, and protesters who refused to climb down out of trees. If anything, maintains Helvarg, the trend among radical Greens like Earth First!-ers in recent years has been away from monkey-wrenching and toward '60s-style c.d. And environmentalists, he says, are far more likely to be victims of violence: only six weeks ago, Earth First!-er David Chain, protesting logging in California's Humboldt County, was killed by a tree felled by a Pacific Lumber logger. What makes the mainstream media's performance even less creditable is the fact that Arnold and Clausen have peddled these wares before. When Ted Kaczynski was arrested in 1996, the two tried to use the Unabomber to discredit Earth First! An ABC World News Tonight report claimed to have uncovered Kaczynski's connection to the group and credited Clausen with finding an Earth First! "hit list" that Kaczynski was said to have used to target one victim. Much was made of a Clausen claim that a "T. Casinski" had registered at a November 1994 conclave at the University of Montana at Missoula, "attended by top Earth First! members." All this was set right by Alexander Cockburn in a May 1996 Nation column, which noted that the vaunted hit list had actually been put out by the anarchist zine Live Wild or Die (which had urged boycotts, parodies, and the like on its enemies), and that the Missoula gathering— in reality an open conference attended by some 500 people, including Oklahoma representative Mike Synar— showed no Kaczynski or Casinski on its attendance roster. Perhaps it's asking too much for mainstream reporters and editors to be familiar with a Nation story. Still, ABC, CBS, and the Times have all produced lengthy reports in recent years on the Wise Use movement and virulent anti-environmentalists. Considering that much of this information was available in-house— not to mention out in the wild blue datastream— why haven't big media wised up? --------------------------------------------------------------------- >from December 97 PL's Shame Loss of license latest blemish on company's flagging reputation The California Department of Forestry's decision to revoke the timber harvesting permit of Pacific Lumber Co. may not harm the bottom line of the forestry giant. Their permit may be renewed after further negotiations between the company and state officials, or the company can increase its reliance on private contractors who operate under separate permits. But the decision--by an agency seldom accused of over-zealous regulation--does damage the company's reputation and its credibility in the give-and-take of forestry politics. The Forestry Department charged the company with 103 separate violations of state rules, most of them related to allegations that work was performed without due regard for erosion control. Jerry Ahlstrom, chief of the department's enforcement division, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the regulators suspend only four or five out of more than 2000 licenses issued in California each year. Needless to say, most of the permitees are a fraction the size of PL, which owns 200,000 acres in Humboldt County. Environmental groups were quick to say that the decision only confirms what they have been saying since Texas financier Charles Hurwitz acquired Pacific Lumber in a hostile takeover--that the company disregards the law, the natural environment and the impact of logging operations on neighbors. "They're consistently bad actors who don't follow the rules," according to Paul Mason of the Environmental Protection Information Center. This new embarrassment unfolds against the backdrop of efforts to implement an agreement in which the federal government would acquire Headwaters Forest, one of the largest stands of virgin redwoods that remain in private control. Some environmental groups want to sink the deal because they say it doesn't provide for an adequate sanctuary around the forest. For future claims from Pacific Lumber, there can be expected a popular reply: Well, what can you expect? That's the company that couldn't even keep its timber permit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Breakthrough for Deal to Buy Headwaters Alex Barnum, Chronicle Staff WriterSaturday, January 24, 1998 California environmental groups, whose support is crucial for a June ballot measure to finance the purchase of Headwaters Forest, yesterday laid out the conditions under which they would back the measure. It was the first time the state's diverse environmental community, long split over the Headwaters deal, has reached a common position on the government's agreement to purchase the 7,500-acre forest in Humboldt County. In a letter to the leaders of the state Legislature, 10 conservation groups indicated they would support the bond measure as long as Pacific Lumber Co. commits to a strong conservation plan for the rest of its 190,000 acres of Humboldt County timberland. The letter represents a significant shift for two groups in particular, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Information Center. Both have long criticized the deal for not going far enough and have never said it would be acceptable. Without support from the Sierra Club, the bond measure has little chance of passing. Observers in the Legislature said yesterday that the newly forged consensus gives a major boost to the prospects for a ballot initiative. ``This is a breakthrough,'' said a state Senate analyst intimately familiar with the initiative. ``This means that there's a possibility that if the (conservation plan) is good enough, they'll come on board. It's a much more positive step.'' The state must come up with $130 million to complete the $380 million purchase of Headwaters, the largest tract of virgin redwoods remaining in private ownership. Congress recently approved the federal government's $250 million share. The Wilson administration wants to include funding for the Headwaters deal in an $800 million bond measure for park funding that could go to voters as early as June. It would be the first parks bond in a decade and include funding for open space around the state. But for the funding to appear on the June ballot, Pacific Lumber and government biologists must quickly wrap up their negotiations on a ``habitat conservation plan'' aimed at protecting endangered species on the company's property. Key state Democrats, whose support is necessary for the Headwaters funding measure, said they will not back it until they have had a chance to review the conservation plan and determine whether it provides sufficient protection. Negotiations over the conservation plan have been at an impasse for more than a year. Government biologists say Pacific Lumber's remaining old-growth redwood groves must be preserved to ensure the survival of the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in the ancient trees. Company officials, on the other hand, want to be able to cut some of the remaining virgin groves to keep their old-growth timber mill in Scotia up and running for the next five years. A similar deadlock exists over salmon protection. It is still unclear whether Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Inc. owns Pacific Lumber, will ever agree to a conservation plan that is acceptable to environmentalists. Government negotiators met with Hurwitz in San Francisco this week and said they had made progress. But time is running out. For the funding measure to appear on the June ballot, it must pass both houses of the Legislature by a two- thirds vote by March 9. In their letter yesterday, environmentalists echoed the demands of state Democrats for ``substantial new protections'' for Pacific Lumber's remaining old growth groves and its populations of murrelets and coho salmon. Among the groups that signed were the California League of Conservation Voters, Greenpeace, the Planning and Conservation League, the Wilderness Society, Rainforest Action Network, the Rose Foundation and the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters. Ted Nordhaus, who is executive director of the Headwaters Sanctuary Project and helped broker the consensus among environmental groups, billed the letter as a significant step. ``This is the first time that the core Headwaters groups have ever articulated conditions under which the agreement would be an acceptable resolution,'' Nordhaus said. ``To my mind, that's quite significant.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------- (WASHINGTON) -- A New Deal To Save Trees At Headwaters 12 more ancient groves would avoid loggers' ax Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Saturday, February 28, 1998 The Clinton administration and Texas financier Charles Hurwitz agreed in principle yesterday to protect 8,000 more acres of ancient redwoods near the Headwaters forest, more than doubling the size of the protected area. The agreement constitutes a major breakthrough in the decade-long effort -- including 13 failed attempts by the state and federal government -- to save the last remaining privately owned virgin redwood groves in Northern California. The protections come at a cost: In exchange for saving 12 of the 13 so-called lesser cathedrals of ancient redwoods near the Headwaters, Hurwitz's Pacific Lumber will be allowed to log one grove. The company will have a choice of cutting either the Owl Creek or the Grizzly Creek stands, according to the agreement. The agreement provides the outline for the ``habitat conservation plan'' that will guide Pacific Lumber's logging operations on its 200,000 acres for the next 50 years. The sweeping plan is the most extensive ever in the state, and officials predicted that it would establish a model for future protection of California's coastal habitat. The agreement is intended to preserve more than just the redwood stands, where trees as old as 2,000 years reach heights of up to 300 feet. The marbled murrelet, an endangered bird, nests in the treetops, and Coho salmon spawn in the approximately 1,000 miles of streams in the forest. It is also a key element of a $380 million deal to buy the 7,500-acre Headwaters forest that was brokered by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and approved by Congress last fall. Officials said the entire Headwaters agreement now would protect 84 percent of the the old growth forest in Pacific Lumber's 210,000 acres. Environmental groups reacted with muted praise for the number of old-growth stands saved. But they leveled sharp criticism at the protections for the Coho salmon on remaining private land that will be logged, calling the buffer zones for streams inadequate and short of federal standards. The agreement is still preliminary. A detailed plan must be drawn up and submitted to a 60- day public review, starting around mid-May. But it already has the approval of each of the key players: Hurwitz, Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi and California Resources Agency head Doug Wheeler. Garamendi, along with federal and state biologists, insisted yesterday that the plan is ``biologically driven'' and represents a ``major milestone'' in habitat protection. ``This scientifically sound (agreement) will protect the species in over 200,000 acres of the coastal forest,'' Garamendi said. ``That is a terrific result for all creatures whether they're in the rivers, in the air or the on land.'' Some environmentalists disagree on the merits of the agreement. Sierra Club director Carl Pope issued a statement saying the plan is ``sacrificing the fisheries for the trees'' and warned that it would ``undermine habitat protection in coastal watersheds along the entire Pacific Coast by setting a terrible precedent.'' But Jay Watson, regional director of the Wilderness Society, offered some praise. ``I think it's a very positive thing that the remaining redwood groves will be protected,'' Watson said, ``and I hope that it wasn't accomplished at the expense of coho salmon.'' Government officials said the federal stream standards were developed for public land, but the government was limited in its ability to regulate the streams on Pacific Lumber's private property. Watson conceded that a ``fundamental difference'' exists between private and public lands and the standards that can be applied to them. But Kathy Bailey, forest conservation chairwoman of the Sierra Club in California, countered, ``There is no difference between federally and privately held streams from the fish's point of view.'' Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said the agreement finally gives his company and its employees some certainty and offers a marriage between wildlife protection and sustained-yield logging. ``I think it's going to work,'' Campbell said. Frank Riggs, the Republican congressman representing Humboldt County, also praised Feinstein for forging a compromise between interests that have so long been at war. ``She is someone who is more interested in solutions than in controversy,'' Riggs said. Feinstein was instrumental in getting agreement on the conservation plan as well as the original Headwaters purchase. All the principals in the talks said that without her intervention, the deal would have unraveled. Feinstein said the negotiations were the toughest of her career, more difficult even than citywide strikes during her tenure as mayor of San Francisco. ``Up to this stage, we have had nothing but failure in attempts to save the Headwaters,'' Feinstein said. ``If you had asked me 18 months ago, would we be where we are today, I would have to quite honestly say, `Not on your life.' '' The Headwaters deal is far from complete, however. The habitat conservation plan must survive this summer's public hearings. The state also must pony up $130 million as its share of the deal. A bill in the state Assembly would appropriate the money, and the Wilson administration is talking about a bond issue that would have to be approved by state voters. The deadline for final completion is March 1, 1999, when the $250 million congressional appropriation expires. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, March 11, 1998 Lead Editorial The Headwaters Deal -- Good Work in Progress THE LONG and contentious negotiations to preserve the Headwaters Forest, a grove of ancient redwoods in Humboldt County, have produced the outlines of a sound deal. It's not perfect, but it is reasonable, especially considering the difficulty of balancing environmental protection and property rights. One of the critical elements of the deal, a habitat conservation plan to cover more than 200,000 redwood-graced acres owned by Pacific Lumber Company, was agreed to late last month. Here are the essentials of the deal at this point: -- The 7,500-acre Headwaters grove and surrounding forest, with 2,000- year-old redwoods that provide nesting habitat for the endangered marbled murrelet, would be purchased by the state and federal governments. Congress has authorized $250 million; the state must come up with the remaining $130 million by either a legislative vote or a bond measure on the November ballot. -- A 50-year "habitat conservation plan" -- the result of extensive negotiation -- spells out many of the rules for Pacific Lumber's remaining timber holdings in the area. The plan offers a truce. Logging will be allowed to continue on the private land, but with restrictions designed to protect the murrelet and 21 other species. "The idea is not to respond to crises, one site at a time and one species at a time," said state Resources Secretary Doug Wheeler. >From an environmental standpoint, the most serious criticism of the plan is that it does not sufficiently protect coho salmon. The Sierra Club is arguing for much wider no-logging zones around streams than the 30-foot minimum specified in the plan. However, the plan does call for significant restrictions on logging up to 170 feet from streams, and federal fisheries experts will retain the ability to demand larger buffer zones for permits in particularly sensitive watersheds. The buffer-zone issue is a legitimate concern for further scrutiny, but is not a reason to torpedo the deal. Critics of the deal must remember that this plan is substantially more restrictive than current state forestry rules -- and Pacific Lumber owner Charles Hurwitz has agreed to abide by it immediately. The alternatives to moving forward with this deal are going back to the table with Hurwitz, or taking the risk of extended legal fights over his property rights. Hurwitz, the Texas financier, may be a favorite public villain -- with dual notoriety as timber baron and savings-and-loan scandal figure -- but he does have rights, and the resources to assert them. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein should be commended for her central role in producing a reasonable Headwaters compromise. The Clinton and Wilson administrations also deserve points for perseverance, and state legislators or voters should now come up with the money to complete the deal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >from the SF Chronicle at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998 /04/13/BU6 0047.DTL Study Says Media Wrong on Headwaters Jonathan Marshall Monday, April 13, 1998 Americans love a morality play, and for years the media have given them one in the saga of corporate raider Charles Hurwitz, his takeover of Pacific Lumber and the ensuing struggle to save the Headwaters redwood forest. The popular story goes something like this: San Francisco-based Pacific Lumber was a family run, environmentally responsible firm until corporate raider Charles Hurwitz, backed with junk-bond financing from Wall Street tycoon Michael Milken, grabbed control of the company. To repay his huge debts, Hurwitz ordered heedless clear-cutting of Pacific Lumber's virgin redwood forests, including the 3,000 acres of ancient Headwaters redwoods. The only trouble is that a lot of the blame cast at ``Wall Street greed'' for the threat to ancient redwoods is misplaced, according to a provocative new article in a publication you don't often see on newsstands or supermarket aisles, the Journal of Financial Economics. The revisionist analysis by University of Southern California business professors Harry and Linda DeAngelo doesn't portray Pacific Lumber owner Hurwitz as an environmentally sensitive white knight. Nor does it exonerate him of allegations that he abused a Texas thrift and used questionable tactics in taking over the timber firm in 1986. Nor, finally, does it champion the cutting of redwoods. But it does blow holes in the widespread impression that Hurwitz's leveraged buyout of Pacific Lumber was responsible for putting one of the last great stands of privately held, old-growth redwoods at risk. That story became the rallying cry for environmentalists who ultimately persuaded politicians to take steps to protect the Headwaters -- a feat that may actually be accomplished this year if Washington and Sacramento come up with $380 million to buy 8,000 prime acres of timber from Pacific Lumber. Even some traditionally conservative media bought into that story. In a story titled ``California's Chain Saw Massacre,'' Reader's Digest wrote in 1989 that, ``Magnificent, ancient redwoods, once carefully harvested jewels in the Pacific Lumber Company's crown, have become expendable pawns in a game of leveraged buyout and corporate greed.'' But the DeAngelos argue that Wall Street finance actually had little or nothing to do with why Headwaters was threatened. Even under old management, Pacific Lumber would have cut (or tried to cut) its most valuable trees within only a few years of the logging schedule Hurwitz set. The scholars cite a 1985 Pacific Lumber memo noting that the company was cutting about 1,200 acres of virgin old-growth forest every year, fast enough to wipe out a stand the size of Headwaters every 2.5 years. At that rate, the old management's harvest policy would have wiped out the last of Pacific Lumber's virgin forests (including Douglas fir) by 1999. Using other harvest estimates from the company, the DeAngelos estimate that the oldest trees might have survived until about 2005, compared with 1996 under the accelerated plans of Hurwitz's company, Maxxam. Nine years' difference isn't much in the life of an ecosystem. Ironically, they point out, Maxxam's more aggressive cutting plans may have aided the cause of preservationists by making the forest a cause celebre. The company's old management ``was systematically logging the firm's virgin forests at a pace that was slow enough . . . to keep them off environmentalists' radar screens.'' The old regime's slower cutting schedule didn't reflect the environmental benevolence of a family owned firm, the authors argue. For one thing, Pacific Lumber wasn't family owned; by 1985, the family long associated with the publicly held company owned less than 5 percent of its common stock. For another, the firm simply didn't realize until Hurwitz engineered his takeover just how much timber it had. It last commissioned a thorough survey in 1956. Eventually, Pacific Lumber would have figured out that it owned much more lumber and would have increased its harvest rate. Indeed, the firm's board had approved clear-cutting and a speed-up in harvesting even before the Maxxam offer. Pacific Lumber's old policy of selective cutting had been dictated by state tax laws that discouraged clear- cutting. Those laws were revoked in 1978, and the firm's policies began changing a few years later. The DeAngelos say Maxxam further increased the cut rate after Hurwitz's takeover of Pacific Lumber because it knew, from its own surveys, that the company had much more timber than previously realized. Like most other timber owners, it also figured that virgin forests were more profitable if they were cut rather than left standing -- because old trees stop growing. Cut forests, on the other hand, regenerate new timber stands. Those economic considerations were entirely independent of Hurwitz's debt financing, the DeAngelos argue, although Maxxam itself once justified its timber cuts on the basis of those debts. Even after Hurwitz refinanced his junk debt with lower-yield bonds in 1993, he continued cutting at higher rates. And Hurwitz hardly was unique in cutting old forests. ``The steady reduction and ultimate depletion of nearly 2 million acres of ancient forest by private owners of redwood land over the last 150 years cannot plausibly be due to junk-bond-financed hostile takeovers, a phenomenon of the 1980s,'' they added. The demonization of the Maxxam takeover had a couple of counterproductive consequences, they said. One was that grandstanding politicians, claiming that Hurwitz was undeserving, tried to insist on below-market compensation for Pacific Lumber's redwoods. That tactic never would have stood up in court, and it might have delayed a settlement to save the forests. And, the DeAngelos believe, few policymakers stopped to consider alternatives to saving the Headwaters once the story was framed as a corporate raider's threat to a unique stand of virgin redwoods. They point out that the $380 million needed to buy 8,000 acres surrounding the Headwaters could plausibly purchase 600,000 acres of second-growth redwood lands -- and then be left undisturbed to create an enormous new old-growth forest over time. Longtime residents of Humboldt County and redwood activists insist that the DeAngelos have underplayed the differences between the old Pacific Lumber and the new Hurwitz regime. Citing the hiring of hundreds of new loggers and the purchase of a new mill to handle bigger harvests, Ceclia Lanman, program director at the Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville, said, ``To me, it's clear that management took a 360 degree turn. They started doing logging practices never seen on this property.'' And since Hurwitz bought the company, Pacific Lumber has gained what many argue is a well- deserved reputation for slipshod practices. It has been cited hundreds of times for improper logging that contributes to mudslides, soil erosion and stream siltation. It temporarily lost its logging license last December and was sued a few months ago by the district attorney of Humboldt County for forestry-law violations, Lanman noted. But the lesson that should come out of the Pacific Lumber controversy is that virgin redwood is a valuable commodity in anyone's hands. No timber company could afford to let it stand uncut forever. If society values old- growth forests more as a unique ecosystem and species habitat, as a rare example of primeval nature or just as an awe-inspiring place for human visitation, it should just dispense with demonology and buy the land for posterity. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: MON 06/22/98 Section: A Page: 1 Edition: 3 STAR Suits: Bad logging makes bad neighbors / PacificLumber ruins watersheds, critics say By BILL DAWSON, Houston Chronicle Environment Writer Staff EUREKA, Calif. - The bomblike sounds that roused Mike O'Neal from bed one morning also woke him to the possibility that logging by a subsidiary of Houston-based Maxxam could cause problems for people living nearby. In the early hours of Dec. 31, 1996, O'Neal spied a huge landslide pushing down a steep canyon from a tree-stripped area toward his tiny community of Stafford. Huge trees "were snapping off like matches and hitting the ground," the truck driver recalled. He rushed to warn neighbors - "literally running ahead of the slide." Everyone escaped safely, but seven homes were destroyed and residents abandoned several others. "It wasn't good logging that caused this," O'Neal concluded. For Kristi Wrigley, a fourth-generation resident of Humboldt County who lives adjacent to Pacific Lumber's land in another rural area, the realization was more gradual. The Elk River, her domestic and agricultural water supply, had flooded an old family home every 10 to 20 years, she said, but then did so three times in two rainy seasons. Wrigley and her children moved to a hilltop house nearby, where her family has grown namesake Wrigley apples for decades. But unusually sticky and plentiful sediment started filling in the river where she swam as a child, threatening the orchard's future, she said. "I said something's wrong here. Something's really wrong." Some other Humboldt residents are saying the same thing - alleging erosion-related problems have increased because Pacific Lumber accelerated logging and expanded clearcutting after Houston financier Charles Hurwitz , Maxxam's chief executive, seized control in 1986. The best-known dispute over those policies is the long fight to prevent logging of the Headwaters Forest, the largest grove of ancient redwoods in private hands. The company has agreed to sell it as a preserve, once government agencies adopt sweeping new logging rules negotiated for its other land. Headwaters was never the only environmental issue facing Pacific Lumber, however. The impact of timber practices - especially erosion's effects on salmon, which sediment can harm in various ways - is an old point of contention. In its debate with environmental critics, Pacific has pointed to an enlarged work force since the Maxxam takeover, and stressed its constitutional right to use property zoned for logging. That property-rights argument now has an ironic twist, however, in residents' charge that Pacific, the largest county landowner, is damaging their downstream property. The company's president, John Campbell, blames the area's recent spate of flooding, landslides and water-supply complaints on natural causes - a steep, naturally erosive landscape beset by strong earthquakes in 1992 and uncommonly heavy rains the past two years. "It's saturated soils, it's heavy precipitation, it's slope and it's gravity," he said, noting that many California areas without logging had recent landslides. "The urbanization of the forest" has degraded water quality in streams, as newcomers seeking "a little rural lifestyle" installed septic tanks and caused erosion in areas like the Mattole River's flood plain, Campbell said. "If you want to talk about ironies," he said, "on rural real estate developments of that type there are no rules. The timber industry has an enormously complex regulatory scheme." But local attorney Bill Bertain, a conservative Republican long critical of Maxxam's policies who won a $7 million pension settlement for Pacific retirees, has a far different assessment. "What we're seeing, after 12 1/2 years of Hurwitz pounding the watersheds, is a regionwide collapse of watersheds," he said. "More and more people are seeing it." "Charles Hurwitz has nothing to do with these watersheds," Campbell said. "If anyone does, I do - and my foresters and scientists." Bertain represents 37 current and former residents of Stafford and 23 residents near Elk River in lawsuits alleging they were harmed by "irresponsible logging" and "clear violations of the law." Pacific Lumber denies the accusations, though it bought the property of several Stafford residents, which Campbell said was "the right thing to do." Spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said it is unknown if the landslide started on land owned by Pacific or a smaller timber company, also named in the suit. The basic thrust of Humboldt residents' complaints is supported by government officials, however. "The general problem, and Pacific Lumber is no exception, is that the watersheds are overharvested from a functional, riparian point of view," said Jim Lecky of the National Marine Fisheries Service. "In many instances, there are not enough trees left for stream bank integrity, and roads on slopes have led to landslides and excessive sedimentation in streams." Ralph Kraus, a retired science teacher, said he and his wife can no longer pump Elk River water regularly, and it isn't suitable for drinking. In summer, he said, "There's a very heavy load of decaying organic matter on the bottom, which we didn't have before." In March, regional water-quality officials ordered Pacific to provide drinking water to landowners along the Elk, but it has not complied yet and is appealing. The company received court fines of $5,250 in 1987 and $13,000 last month for violations of state forestry rules noted last year, including erosion-linked problems. In an unprecedented action last December, the California Department of Forestry imposed new restrictions and threatened to yank Pacific's license to log with its own crews. Inspectors had found "substantially more" violations than at any comparable company, most related to erosion, official Gerald Ahlstrom said. Bertain said inadequate state enforcement is responsible for some problems, and residents "are really planning to bend the ears" of the state Board of Forestry at a rare meeting in Humboldt County next month. But Campbell said residents' complaints are "opportunistic," given recent heavy rains, with "known activists" joining "a lot of individuals who have been stirred up by regular activists." Kim Rollins, born in Pacific Lumber's company town of Scotia with "a lumber identity - almost a genetic thing," doesn't agree. A Stafford plaintiff, he moved his family following the landslide. "Up until this, I defended the bastards, whether I liked them or not," he said of the company. "Nothing makes my neck redder than an Earth First! guy," he said, referring to a countercultural group that obstructs logging. Wrigley also has a new view of a company she once respected. She was distressed when a Pacific official, hearing her concern that the shrinking Elk channel could kill her apple business, suggested she could cut her small stand of redwoods for cash. "Those trees don't just belong to me - they belong to every apple customer who's ever come and every one that ever will," she said. "Besides, they hold the soil." Mike Evenson, a former logger who ranches in the Mattole watershed, said he doesn't entirely fault Pacific Lumber for his loss of seven acres to the river since last year. "It's an unstable area," he said, "but a good neighbor would not do something on their land to aggravate an already significantly degraded condition." One local official reflected on Maxxam's neighborliness: "Treat people like a colony long enough and we know what people do to colonialists - the natives get restless." Some citizens have organized a grass-roots group urging adoption of county ordinances to regulate timber practices more strictly. Recent actions by Pacific Lumber may ease tensions somewhat. Last month, it held the first of a promised series of meetings to hear complaints in Freshwater, a community near a clearcut area, where a "Remember Stafford" banner went up last year. "We're taking steps to immediately address some of their concerns," including cutting truck traffic by half, Bullwinkel said. Maria Rea, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said recent talks with Pacific about correcting landslide-related problems produced "significant progress." State forestry officials, meanwhile, see better compliance since December's threatened license revocation, Ahlstrom said. Campbell said an agency backlog in checking off corrective actions led to that crisis. Still, he hired a new compliance team and sent "a very stern note" telling employees, "we were embarrassed, and it wasn't going to happen to this company again." New conservation rules for Pacific Lumber's property would ban logging of old-growth redwoods in large areas. But Evenson, a board member of the Mattole Salmon Group, fears they will "sacrifice" the Mattole watershed by authorizing extensive logging of old-growth Douglas fir there. State, federal and company officials who negotiated the proposed rules said they will do much to reduce erosion on Pacific's land. "We really have built roads that have failed. We really have had landslides off some of our inner-gorge clear cuts that have done bad things," said Jeff Barrett, recently hired as Pacific Lumber's fish and wildlife director. "The company desperately wants the environmental wars to come to an end," he said. "I've heard so many people tell me, we want our white hat back." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: SUN 07/19/98 Section: A, Page: 1 Edition: 2 STAR Redwoods, not red ink, may have motivated FDIC againstHurwitz Documents show agency may have tried to hide truth in pursuing suit against financier By BOB SABLATURA, Staff Recently unsealed court documents suggest that attempts by federal banking officials to collect $250 million from Houston financier Charles Hurwitz may have more to do with redwoods in California than red ink on the books of a now-defunct financial institution. Officials with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation say they sued Hurwitz because he cost taxpayers millions of dollars by mismanaging the former United Savings Association of Texas. But the court documents, including an internal FDIC report the agency has fought hard to keep secret, suggest FDIC officials may have bowed to pressure from environmentalists and government officials and filed the lawsuit to force Hurwitz to turn over ownership of the Headwaters Forest in Northern California to the federal government. The forest of redwoods is owned by Pacific Lumber Co., which was acquired in the 1980s by Maxxam Inc. Hurwitz is chairman and chief executive officer of Maxxam. After the acquisition, the company enraged environmentalists by making plans to increase its harvesting of redwoods. In an attempt to preserve the forest, the largest privately held stand of old-growth redwood trees in the country, environmental activists on the West Coast conceived the idea of inducing Hurwitz to give up the trees in exchange for the debt the financier allegedly owed the federal government. The unsealed internal documents also reveal: FDIC officials brought the lawsuit despite their own assessment that it was highly unlikely the agency could win the case. FDIC officials specifically targeted individuals close to Hurwitz for prosecution. And in one instance, the unsealed documents show that FDIC officials decided against suing one highly respected person because it would make the agency look bad. The FDIC attempted to hide the fact that it was secretly financing another government agency's investigation and prosecution of Hurwitz and his associates, while claiming the action was "independent" of the FDIC case. The internal documents have been at the center of an ongoing legal battle by FDIC officials to keep them private. After U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes unsealed the documents late last year, FDIC attorneys appealed the action to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the documents were resealed while the matter was under review. When the appeals court declined to take any action on the matter, Hughes again unsealed the documents. After learning of his action several days later, FDIC attorneys appealed the unsealing for a second time and the documents were again placed under seal. The Chronicle obtained a copy of the documents during the two-day period that they were available to the public. FDIC officials say they cannot discuss the contents of the internal reports because they are again under seal, but say they are fighting to keep them secret, not because there is anything embarrassing in them, but because they contain sensitive information that can hurt their case if it becomes public. Similar internal reports are drawn up on every case brought by the FDIC and are presented to the FDIC's governing board. Upon approval, the reports become the agency's official memorandum authorizing FDIC officials to bring a lawsuit. FDIC spokesman David Barr said the internal reports spell out the agency's strategies in pursuing a lawsuit, and even reveal the amount of money the agency believes it can get to settle a case. "It is our game plan for the lawsuit," Barr said. "And that is not something you want to turn over to the other side". Hurwitz attorney Richard P. Keeton, a partner with Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton, said federal officials have been maneuvering for more than a decade to gain possession of the redwood forest from Hurwitz but have not been able to come up with the money to purchase it. FDIC officials hoped Hurwitz would give up the redwoods as part of a settlement of the lawsuit, an idea that has become known as a "debt for nature" swap, he said. "The agency could not stand the heat that they were getting from Congress, the administration and from the environmentalists who wanted them to do something about Hurwitz ," Keeton said. "So the easiest force to apply was to bring the lawsuit." Barr acknowledged that his agency was aware that numerous environmentalists and members of Congress had an interest in seeing a debt-for-nature swap, but said it had no effect on the FDIC's decision to bring its lawsuit. "There was no political influence on us to file this case," Barr said. "There may have been some interest by politicians, but we did not see it as pressure." Hurwitz 's attorneys say their client has been unwilling to agree to such a debt-for-nature settlement because FDIC's claims of mismanagement of United Savings are simply not true and Hurwitz isn't liable for the S&L's losses. "There is no debt to swap," Keeton said. Hurwitz declined repeated requests for an interview to discuss the debt-for-nature proposal. He did, however, address the subject several years ago in a Chronicle opinion piece, saying the legal actions by federal officials represented a form of political harassment and an attempt to gain ownership of the Headwaters Forest without having to pay for it. "The bottom line is that the Headwaters Forest will not be traded for a debt that does not exist," Hurwitz wrote. "Nor will it be a pawn in any abuse of governmental power." Hurwitz and his companies have spent more than $20 million defending against claims brought by federal banking authorities. The events leading to the legal battle now being fought in a Houston courtroom began more than 15 years ago. The year was 1982 and Houston was experiencing the boom before the bust. In the midst of a thriving economy, Hurwitz , known as a corporate takeover artist, bought just under 25 percent of the financially troubled United Savings by purchasing stock in United Financial Group, the S&L's parent company. Hurwitz apparently wanted the S&L for the assistance the $3 .3 billion institution could provide him in financing his ongoing corporate acquisitions. For the next six years, as the Houston economy went from downturn to disaster, United experienced financial difficulties, racking up huge losses in its loan and securities portfolios. When federal regulators finally moved in and closed the institution in the waning days of 1988, United was an estimated $1.6 billion in the red. FDIC officials began investigating the failure of United soon after it closed. Since many of the potential claims against Hurwitz and others involved in United's management were subject to a two-year statute of limitations, FDIC officials asked Hurwitz to sign an agreement extending - or tolling - the statute of limitations while the investigation proceeded. Hurwitz , faced with the prospect of an immediate lawsuit against him, agreed to sign the tolling agreement in the hopes that he would eventually be cleared by the FDIC's investigators. Banking authorities first probed Hurwitz 's connection with Michael Milken, a Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. broker known as the king of "junk bonds," a high-risk corporate note that became the favorite tool used to finance hostile corporate takeovers. Regulators were apparently suspicious because United bought large amounts of Drexel's junk bonds at the same time Drexel was arranging junk-bond financing for Hurwitz 's takeover activities. According to FDIC documents, United purchased approximately $1.8 billion in Drexel junk bonds and other Drexel-brokered securities between 1984 and 1988. During that same period, Drexel provided $1.8 billion in junk-bond financing to Hurwitz , an action FDIC lawyers later labeled an apparent "quid-pro-quo" arrangement between Hurwitz and the Wall Street firm. The same document, however, went on to contradict that characterization of the relationship between Drexel and Hurwitz. "There is very little, if any, evidence of fraud or self-dealing," the report stated. One Drexel-assisted transaction was Hurwitz 's $870 million takeover in 1986 of Pacific Lumber, a Northern California company that owned thousands of acres of forest, including 3 ,000 acres that later came to be known as the Headwaters Forest. After Milken pleaded guilty to six security-related felonies not connected to Hurwitz and went to jail in 1991, FDIC officials turned their attention to other aspects of Hurwitz 's involvement in United's failure. Court documents indicate they became especially interested in United's heavy involvement in mortgage-backed securities and Hurwitz's failure to pump additional money into the institution when it became insolvent. FDIC investigators faced a major hurdle in assigning blame for the failure on Hurwitz because - although he was chairman of United's holding company - he was never an officer or director of the failed S&L. The FDIC investigation dragged on until August 1995 when, after more than six years and 13 tolling agreements, Hurwitz refused to again extend the statute of limitations. The FDIC quickly filed a lawsuit against Hurwitz alleging mismanagement of the S&L and failure to recapitalize the institution. The lawsuit alleged that Hurwitz controlled the S&L, serving as a "de facto" director, if not its "de facto" chairman." One FDIC official told the Chronicle that Hurwitz 's refusal to continue the tolling agreements forced the FDIC to take action before the statute of limitations expired. "I guess he had some strategy in mind, but he left us no choice but to file a lawsuit," the official said. But court documents also show that the FDIC, prior to filing the lawsuit, was keenly aware of another development regarding Hurwitz and the failed savings and loan. After Hurwitz 's Maxxam Inc. completed its purchase of Pacific Lumber, the company began to step up the pace in harvesting its redwood trees, a move that angered environmental activists on the West Coast. By the early 1990s, the environmentalists were applying formidable pressure on members of Congress and federal agencies to come up with a plan that would save the redwood trees in the Headwaters Forest. While various plans were proposed that would bring the redwood forest under the control of federal or California state officials, money to purchase the property wasn't forthcoming. Then in 1994, more than a year before the FDIC lawsuit was filed, the debt-for-nature proposal was hatched by California environmentalists. The idea - to force Hurwitz to swap the redwoods for his debt to taxpayers as a result of United's failure - spread like wildfire among environmentalists and garnered the attention of the national media. Recent events make an ultimate debt-for-nature swap unlikely. Hurwitz 's companies recently agreed to sell the Headwaters Forest to the federal and California governments, which would assure its preservation. But during the period the FDIC was considering its lawsuit, debt-for-nature seemed very much a possibility. Prominent environmental groups, such as the National Audubon Society, the National Heritage Institute and the Rose Foundation in California began a concerted effort in mid-1995 to encourage members of Congress, White House administrators, officials with the Department of the Interior and FDIC officials to pursue a debt-for-nature swap. Court records show their efforts were successful in garnering support for the idea, and FDIC officials were kept apprised of their efforts. One such show of support came from President Clinton's top White House administrator. In a March 21, 1995, letter to the National Audubon Society, White House chief of staff Leon Panetta affirmed the Clinton administration's commitment to preserving the Headwaters Forest. "Budgetary constraints have made it impractical to acquire such an expensive tract of land through outright federal purchase," Panetta said in the letter, which was written on White House stationery. "Your suggestion to consider acquisition through a debt-for-nature swap or other land exchange is worth pursuing." Panetta went on to say that he asked a top official with the Department of Agriculture to follow up on the idea. The unsealed internal FDIC reports also reveal that the agency was aware - prior to filing its lawsuit - that the Clinton administration supported the idea of a debt-for-nature swap. "The Department of the Interior recently informed us that the Administration is seriously interested in pursuing such a settlement," FDIC attorneys wrote in the document seeking a go-ahead from the FDIC board to bring the lawsuit. Agency officials were also aware that they were being watched. "Any decision regarding Hurwitz and the former directors and officers of USAT is likely to attract media coverage and comment from environmental groups and members of Congress," the report states. FDIC lawyers also participated in several meetings with outside agencies to discuss such a debt-for-nature settlement prior to filing suit. Court documents show that one of FDIC's lead attorneys on the case met with Department of the Interior officials, and later attended a meeting with a top White House environmental adviser and numerous federal agency officials to discuss "whether or not a debt-for-nature swap had any legs," according to one participant. Hurwitz attorney David Griffith said FDIC's participation in these meetings clearly shows that FDIC officials were responding to political pressure from White House and congressional leaders. "Why else would they be at these meetings to discuss settlement of a lawsuit that had not even been filed yet," Griffith asked. FDIC officials claim their participation in these meetings was at the behest of Hurwitz , and not because of outside political pressure. According to a deposition of FDIC attorney Robert J. DeHenzel, one of Hurwitz 's attorneys called a Department of the Interior official and suggested that his agency discuss with the FDIC the possibility of resolving the potential FDIC lawsuit through a debt-for-nature swap. That conversation led the Department of the Interior to invite an FDIC attorney to a meeting to brief the agency on the status of the FDIC's case against Hurwitz . FDIC spokesman Barr said it was the first time his agency had heard >from the Department of the Interior on the matter. "Our attendance at that meeting was the direct effect of that telephone call from a Hurwitz attorney," Barr said. "The other meetings were a chain reaction stemming from the first meeting." Griffith hotly disputed the FDIC's account of events. A Hurwitz representative may have expressed an interest in discussing a debt-for-nature settlement, but only because it was apparent that the FDIC was going to hold Hurwitz hostage with legal actions until it got what it wanted. "That Mr. Hurwitz would make contact with the kidnappers should not be held against him," Griffith said. "But we certainly did not initiate these meetings." Allen McReynolds, the Interior Department official who called the initial meeting, said in a deposition that the meeting was held at the request of two congressmen who had an interest in resolving the conflict between environmentalists and Pacific Lumber and ending the protests, where some participants were being injured. Additionally, the FDIC's internal documents fail to back up the agency's version of events. Although the meetings with Interior Department officials were discussed in detail in the reports, there was never a mention that the FDIC attended at the request of Hurwitz. The unsealed documents also reveal that FDIC officials brought the lawsuit against Hurwitz despite their own analysis that they would probably lose the case, a decision that is in direct violation of the agency's policies. According to a copy of an FDIC publication obtained by the Chronicle, the FDIC's policy is that a lawsuit should not be brought unless the FDIC is "more than likely to succeed in any litigation necessary to collect on the claim." The unsealed FDIC documents discusses the two types of claims against Hurwitz - the issues of mismanagement in the institution's investment policies, and Hurwitz 's failure to live up to a "net worth maintenance agreement," by failing to invest additional money in the institution to keep it solvent. On the mismanagement issues, FDIC lawyers concluded that there was a 70 percent chance that their case would be thrown out in the early stages of the legal proceeding. Even if the case survived the summary judgment level, the odds of a favorable outcome for the FDIC were "marginal at best," the report stated. FDIC lawyers concluded the claims regarding recapitalizing the institution stood a better chance, but overall, the case had less than a 50 percent chance of success. That assessment was virtually identical to a report prepared for the FDIC several years earlier by two Houston law firms. That report concluded the FDIC's chance of success was somewhere between 35 and 50 percent. Nonetheless, the authors of the FDIC memo argued that a lawsuit should be brought despite the high risk because of "the egregious character of the underlying behavior in this case which caused enormous losses." Despite the conclusions spelled out in the FDIC internal documents, FDIC officials insist the lawsuit conformed to the agency's policy. "It would not have been filed if it didn't," Barr said. Houston attorney Joel Androphy, an expert in white-collar crime, said it is disgraceful for a federal agency to bring legal action when it knows it is so unlikely to win the case. "The government is clearly acting in bad faith," Androphy said. "If they lose, the FDIC should have to pick up every dollar Hurwitz had to spend to defend himself in this case." The unsealed memo also raises questions about the methods used by FDIC officials in deciding who was sued and who was not in the United case. Rather than basing their decision solely on the issue of wrongdoing, the internal documents show that FDIC officials targeted people based on their relationship to Hurwitz . The authors of the internal documents recommended filing lawsuits against the S&L's officers and directors who were members of Hurwitz 's "core group," while allowing others to escape prosecution even though they were judged equally liable in the institution's failure. In one instance, the unsealed documents show that FDIC officials decided against suing one person because it would make the agency look bad. George Kozmetsky, a co-founder of Teledyne and former dean of the University of Texas business school, was a board member and close Hurwitz associate. FDIC officials did not name him in the lawsuit because of his background as a well-known contributor to charitable causes and the recipient of numerous awards. "A suit against him would produce sympathy for the defendants and the impression that FDIC is pursuing a claim against him solely because of his financial circumstances," the internal report states. "Although Kozmetsky's high net worth could be relevant . . . the litigation risks are too high to justify naming him in our suit." The FDIC eventually named only Hurwitz in its August 1995 lawsuit because the rest of the proposed defendants continued signing tolling agreements with the FDIC. Another federal banking agency, however, decided in late 1995 to pursue legal actions against Hurwitz and a group of the former S&L's officers and directors in an effort to recover a portion of the losses suffered in the institution's failure. That suit also named Maxxam as a defendant. The action by the Office of Thrift Supervision was relatively rare because the agency's primary responsibility is to regulate the operations of existing savings institutions rather than try to recover >from insolvent institutions, something that is generally left to the agencies that insure deposits. The OTS, however, had recently adopted a controversial policy of stepping up its legal efforts to collect such losses from failed S&Ls. The OTS suit mirrored almost exactly the charges in the FDIC lawsuit. The OTS had two advantages over the FDIC. Because its legal actions took the form of an administrative hearing, it did not face the statute of limitation problems that plagued the FDIC case, and its case would be heard before an administrative judge in OTS' employ. The legal actions continued on both fronts, much to the displeasure of Judge Hughes, who was assigned the FDIC case. His orders in the case showed his growing irritation over the dual prosecutions. The issue reached its peak after Hughes ordered the FDIC to produce their memorandum to sue, which revealed that the FDIC has not only paid the OTS to investigate the United failure, but was also picking up its sister agency's tab for prosecuting the OTS lawsuit, something the FDIC had kept secret for several years. The FDIC documents, which consistently refer to the OTS' actions as "independent" of their own, also revealed that the two agencies had an agreement providing for the FDIC to receive any money collected as a result of the OTS suit. Under pressure from Hughes, the FDIC dropped most of its federal lawsuit, leaving only the claims that Hurwitz violated its agreement to recapitalize the S&L. The remaining portion of the lawsuit was also delayed until the OTS action is complete, and will only be pursued if the OTS collects less than $250 million in its case. The OTS case began testimony earlier this year and is in trial in Houston. It is expected to continue until the end of the year. Hurwitz attorney Griffith is not optimistic of his client's chances of winning that lawsuit. He expects that Hurwitz may only find himself exonerated after getting the case heard before a federal appeals court. "We are playing their game in their home court," Griffith said. "The judge seems to be a reasonable and fair man, but he is still employed by the other side." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- July 23, 1998 San Francisco Chronicle, pg. A14 U.S. Assails State's Headwaters Logging Plan Alex Barnum, Chronicle Staff Writer In a move that raises new concerns about the deal to protect Headwaters forest, federal officials have rebuked California's forestry agency for approving what they said was possibly an unlawful logging plan on property owned by Pacific Lumber Co. The regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service said in a letter Turesday that the logging plan could violate federal endangered species statutes and called on the state to immediately revoke its approval. "The (fisheries service) is deeply concerned and disappointed by the Californial Department of Forestry's disregard for its responsibilities and obligations," wrote the agency official, William Hogarth. The letter said the state's approval "has the potential to compromise" implementation of the $380 million deal to save the Headwaters forest. In response, Pacific Lumber abruptly halted cutting trees in the area covered by the logging plan. And state officials quickly called a meeting with agency scientists and the company to discuss concerns about the plan. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ San Francisco Chronicle Letters to the Editor August 18, 1998 NORTH COAST EXPLOITED Editor -- While I don't question John Campbell's sincerity (Letters, August 6), I must question his characterization of Pacific Lumber Company, and by extension corporate timber operators, as guardians of "the hard-pressed North Coast economy." As a 30-year North Coast resident, county supervisor and congressman, I have long understood the incongruity between our region's rich resources and "hard-pressed economy." The economy of the North Coast bears strong resemblance to that of a Third World country. The timber corporations exploit our natural resources, taking huge profits while despoiling the countryside and threatening long-term job prospects. Many people seem to be confused about this. They think that Louisiana-Pacific, Simpson, Pacific Lumber, Sierra Pacific and the rest are the source of our wealth. After all, don't they provide the jobs? No, they don't. It is the resources that provide the jobs. It is the climate, the soils, the clean air and water that protect the jobs. Clearly, this is the most important legacy we can leave our children. Unfortunately, the Pacific Lumber Habitat Conservation Plan/Sustained Yield Plan that John Campbell touts falls far below the mark in this regard. Pacific Lumber Company has committed over 200 violations of the Forest Practices Act in the last three years. In an action without precedent,they have had their license to operate suspended by the state. John Campbell wants us to think that the Wilson/Feinstein/ Thompson Headwaters Agreement represents grand largesse on the part of Pacific Lumber Company. This reminds me of stories of the nobility carriaging through the countryside, tossing small coins and breadcrumbs to the rabble. Enough is enough! Dan Hamburg Green Party candidate for Governor -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sen. Burton Calls Headwaters Deal Toppled Greg Lucas, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Friday, August 21, 1998 The leader of the state Senate said yesterday that as far as he is concerned, a much-debated deal to purchase the Headwaters Forest has collapsed. Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said Pacific Lumber, the owner of the 3,000 acres of ancient redwoods in Humboldt County, has refused to compromise. ``The company has taken a no- negotiation, no-change position. They refuse to address our legitimate concerns,'' Burton said after an afternoon of talks with company officials. Pacific Lumber President John Campbell disputed the claims. Burton's comments came on the same day Pacific Lumber began running newspaper ads touting a deal it cut with U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Clinton administration and the Wilson administration. That deal, which would combine $250 million in federal money with the state's $130 million to buy Headwaters and an adjoining 4,500 acres, does not go far enough, Burton and other state Senate Democrats say. Burton has made the state's participation in the Headwaters purchase contingent on commitments by Pacific Lumber to not log within 100 feet on each side of fish-spawning streams located on the firm's other 190,000 acres in Humboldt County. ``If they ain't budging, they ain't getting $130 million of state taxpayer money outta me,'' Burton said. Environmentalists say the no- cut buffers should be 170 feet. Until yesterday, Pacific Lumber would agree to no more than 30 feet. Campbell said yesterday that his firm has agreed to not log within 100 feet of fish-bearing streams whose banks are susceptible to landslides, at least for three years while watershed studies are conducted. ``The company's come a very, very long way on this issue and we've been more than reasonable,'' Campbell said. State lawmakers and the firm have been negotiating for months. It is unclear whether further talks are scheduled. If no further progress is made, the Headwaters deal dissolves in March 1999, when the $250 million pledge from the federal government expires. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998 /09/18/MN8 5351.DTL Friday, September 18, 1998 ©1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A21 Toppled Tree Kills Logging Protester in Humboldt First fatality in decade of activism Alex Barnum, Chronicle Staff Writer A young anti-logging activist was struck in the head and killed by a falling tree yesterday during a protest to block the cutting of redwoods on North Coast land owned by Pacific Lumber Co. It was the first fatality in more than a decade of contentious but mostly peaceful protests against the company's logging of ancient redwoods on its property in Humboldt County. David Chain of Austin, Texas, thought to be in his mid-20s, was one of about a dozen Earth First activists protesting logging near Grizzly Creek, one of the redwood groves that would be protected under the pending Headwaters Forest agreement. Accounts of the incident conflicted. An Earth First spokesman said Chain and others were trying to dissuade loggers from cutting down the trees when he was struck and killed in the remote area. "I'm not saying it was intentional. I'm not saying it was accidental. I don't know exactly what happened," said Darryl Cherney, the group's spokesman. A spokeswoman for Pacific Lumber said the company's tree- felling crew was unaware that any protesters were in the area when the accident occurred. The company is "deeply saddened" by "what appears to be a tragic accident on its property this morning," spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said. "Pacific Lumber has one of the finest records in the industry. But despite all our precautions, a trespasser was apparently killed by a falling tree at one of our logging sites on our private property," she said. Members of the logging crew told Humboldt County sheriff's investigators that they heard yelling after a tree they were cutting knocked down a second tree and apparently hit Chain, said officer Janet Held. "They said they had no idea anyone was there," Held said. Authorities were investigating the incident, she said. The area had been the scene of a 12-day protest against the logging of redwoods near Grizzly Creek, in a ravine near the mill town of Fortuna, about 300 miles up the coast from San Francisco. On Wednesday, eight Earth First activists were arrested blocking a logging truck while protesting what they said was illegal logging in an area bordering Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park. Earth First activists said the company was violating logging restrictions while surveys were being conducted for the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in old-growth redwoods. Bullwinkel said the work was being conducted in accordance with a timber harvest plan approved by the state Department of Forestry. The area is near Grizzly Creek, one of a dozen ancient redwood groves on Pacific Lumber land. The grove recently was added to those that would be protected in the $45 million Headwaters agreement approved by the state Legislature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10/3/98, SFChron `WHAT HAPPENED TO GYPSY IS CRIMINAL' Editor -- Media coverage of the death of David Chain, defender of our ancient redwoods, has been extremely limited. This has myself and many others in our local community, gravely concerned. Our board of supervisors has in effect ignored demands for an independent investigation. Our sheriff's department has echoed Pacific Lumber Co.'s absurd claim that this young man's death was an accident. The California Department of Forestry has since reluctantly admitted that PALCO was in violation of forest practice rules by conducting operations at this site. Why were they not there to halt illegal logging? Is that the question David ``Gypsy'' Chain was asking as the redwood tree, he was defending, came crashing to the ground? Timber fallers are able to ``put a tree on a dime.'' That logger knew precisely what he was doing when he began to cut that tree! Pacific Lumber/Maxxam and Humboldt County officials are guilty of covering up this heinous crime. Governor Wilson's aide arrogantly stated that David was trespassing. If Wilson does not act on our requests for an inquiry and does support our corrupt local government it would seem he is commiting a crime. Ms. Boxer, Ms. Feinstein, where are you? We will only grow in strength! Not one more ancient redwood! JASON WRIGHT Arcata ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998 /10/15/MN4 6610.DTL ©1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A19 Thursday, October 15, 1998 Pacific Lumber Faces Clear-Cutting Charge Contractor razed sensitive area along creek near Eureka Greg Lucas, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Just weeks after receiving $242 million from the state in a deal to save several groves of ancient redwoods, Pacific Lumber is facing charges of clear-cutting trees in a protected zone along a sensitive streambed. The destruction along 500 feet of Freshwater Creek, just east of Eureka, took place over Labor Day weekend and prompted the state Department of Forestry to take legal action. Pacific Lumber, which has already been cited for 14 violations of state forestry laws this year, blamed a logging outfit it hired to harvest adjacent areas. Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said the company's own inspectors discovered the clear-cut and ordered the logging outfit to report it to the state. "There was no effort to hide this," Campbell said. "Procedurally, the company took all the right steps. Our compliance guy found the problem and reported it, and we notified the contractor." The logging outfit, Rounds Logging, will not have its contract with Pacific Lumber renewed, Campbell said. State forestry officials found, however, that Pacific Lumber "shares responsibility" for the violation. "We're going to file a citation (against Pacific Lumber)," said Ken Nielson, a deputy chief in the state Department of Forestry. "You're supposed to leave 50 percent of the shade along this watercourse. There wasn't any left." Rounds Logging was also cited for cutting down the trees and for allowing trees to fall into the stream. If found guilty of the violation, the company is guilty of a misdemeanor. Each violation carries a $1,000 fine, which is relatively small compared with the $50,000 to $100,000 worth of a mature redwood tree. Clear-cutting is prohibited under state law along the banks of streams and creeks. Depending on the slope of the stream bank, the no-clear-cut zones range from 50 feet to 100 feet on either side of the watercourse. If fish live in the stream, the zones are bigger. According to Department of Forestry documents, the area near Freshwater Creek was found last year to contain a small number of spotted owls -- one of the endangered species that inhabit the 190,000 acres of North Coast forest owned by Pacific Lumber. After finding the birds, Pacific Lumber scaled back its plans to clear-cut the area, instead deciding to leave 60 percent of the trees. This year the owls moved on, and Pacific Lumber opted to clear-cut. But the company did not amend the timber harvest plan that it submitted to the state. Nor did it mark the boundary of the protected creekside zone on the plan. Over the Labor Day weekend, nearly all the trees in the protected zone were felled. "This resulted in approximately 500 feet (of stream bank) with all but a few trees removed," according to a state report on the incident. Environmental activists, who have been fighting with Pacific Lumber for years, say the latest alleged violation is normal behavior for the company. "Breaking the law is business as usual for Pacific Lumber, but this incident is especially egregious," said Kevin Bundy, spokesman for the Environmental Protection Information Center. The trees were cut a week after the Legislature adjourned for the year. Its final act was to approve a deal using $480 million in state and federal money to preserve a grove of 3,500 ancient redwoods in the Headwaters Forest and an additional 5,000-plus acres of timberland that serves as home to endangered fish and birds. Signing of the deal ended months of often intense negotiations involving the White House, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Governor Pete Wilson, state legislators, environmentalists and Charles Hurwitz, the Texas billionaire who owns Pacific Lumber. During his ownership, the company has had a steady stream of violations of state forestry laws. Since 1996, Pacific Lumber has been cited for 272 violations on its lands -- 12 serious enough to warrant criminal charges, according to the Humboldt County district attorney's office. In 1992, the company logged in the Owl Creek grove of redwoods, one of the stands purchased in the Headwaters deal, without receiving state permits. Last year, the company pleaded guilty to logging too close to streams and improperly disposing of slash, the brush and limbs from felled trees. The company was placed on probation, a condition of which was that there be no more violations. At the end of 1997, the state revoked the company's timber license but returned it several days later. Shortly afterward, Campbell said he sent a letter to all company employees and to the various companies with which Pacific Lumber contracts, saying "violations and citations would not be tolerated, and people (should) be alert and vigilant." In mid-1998, the state filed charges against the company for more violations similar to the ones last year and for operating heavy machinery in the rain, which is illegal because it increases sediment in streams. The company was found guilty and fined the maximum amount: $13,000. --------------------------------------------------------------------- State Suspends Pacific Lumber Logging Again Alex Barnum, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, November 11, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For the second time in a year, state officials have suspended the logging license of Pacific Lumber Co. because of repeated violations of California forestry regulations. The embattled timber company -- which is involved in a deal with the government to sell the ancient Headwaters Forest -- was notified yesterday by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection that its license is suspended until the end of the year. The suspension comes during a seasonal lull in the company's logging. And it does not apply to outside contractors, which will continue to be allowed to cut trees on the company's 200,000 acres of Humboldt County forest. But a Department of Forestry spokeswoman said the suspension is ``unprecedented'' for one of the state's largest timber companies. She said the agency is considering a denial of the company's license for next year as well. In its action, the department cited 16 violations since the company was granted a conditional license after the first suspension last December. The violations showed ``gross negligence and willful disregard'' for state forestry rules, the agency said in a letter to the company. Altogether, Pacific Lumber has had 128 violations over the past three years, the agency said, including logging too close to salmon-bearing streams, failing to construct adequate drainage systems and logging in a Northern spotted owl nesting area. Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said the company will cease operations for a couple of weeks and lay off 100 loggers and other workers while the company discusses the suspension with the state and assesses its options. But he defended the company's practices, saying it had made ``tremendous improvement'' in reducing the number of violations over the past year. And he said the forestry agency is under unusually heavy pressure to scrutinize the company because of the Headwaters deal. But environmentalists said the suspension was overdue. ``It's about time,'' said Paul Mason, of the Environmental Protection Information Center. The company ``pushes the law on a regular basis. This is a pattern of practice with the company.'' Mason said the suspension raised questions about whether Pacific Lumber can be trusted to abide by a long-term timber and wildlife management plan that is central to the $495 million Headwaters agreement. ``This puts the `habitat conservation plan' into a different light,'' he said. ``It's a voluntary agreement that relies on the company's integrity, yet they can't be trusted to run a chain saw on their own property.'' But state officials said the suspension shows the state intends to monitor the firm's compliance to the plan closely. ``We're riding this company very hard to improve their forest practices,'' said Jim Youngson, spokesman for the state Resources Agency. ``Today is proof of our commitment to that kind of scrutiny.'' Forestry Department officials say the department typically suspends only a handful out of 2,000 licenses every year, and Pacific Lumber, one of the largest timber companies in the state, is by far the largest operator to be suspended. The department suspended Pacific Lumber's license last December, but it issued a conditional license several days later after the company agreed to greater restrictions and to give inspectors keys to its property so they could make spot inspections. Among the 16 violations this year are charges that company loggers built roads and logged too close to streams, both of which increase erosion and can destroy habitat for the threatened coho salmon and other species. Some of the company's half- dozen outside contractors also have been reprimanded. Last month, a contractor was charged by the state with clear-cutting trees in a protected stream zone. Campbell said he has since fired the contractor. But in a letter, the Forestry Department said the company had concealed the violation. ``This concealment and profiting from the concealment are willful violations'' of the company's conditional logging license, the letter said. Forestry Department officials would not speculate about whether the company's license will be renewed for next year. Spokeswoman Karen Terrill said the department's director, Richard A. Wilson, could consider the company's history of violations in its decision. The company also faces a lawsuit from Humboldt County property owners who charge that irresponsible logging practices led to 1997 New Year's mudslides that devastated homes in the tiny river town of Stafford. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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