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Final day for Headwaters deal By Robert Salladay EXAMINER CAPITOL BUREAU SACRAMENTO - With just hours left in its two-year session, the Legislature has crafted a deal to buy the Headwaters Forest and another ancient redwood grove, while strengthening an environmental agreement made earlier this year with financier Charles Hurwitz. Lawmakers were expected to vote Monday on a measure to buy the 7,500-acre Humboldt County forest and another 925-acre "lesser cathedral" redwood grove for $210 million, saving the woods from logging. Although environmentalists want the Headwaters saved, they are objecting to an endangered-species protection plan worked out for another 200,000 acres Pacific Lumber wants to harvest. They believe the federal plan does not do enough to save endangered coho salmon that spawn in the streams and marbled murrelets that nest in the trees. Time is running out. If the Legislature does not act by midnight Monday, its legal deadline, it is likely to lose $250 million in matching federal money. That would break the deal and move the debate from the statehouse to the courthouse. "It's done by tomorrow at midnight or it's never done," said Sen. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, whose district includes the Headwaters Forest. "The stars will never line up like this again." Negotiations with Hurwitz, whose Houston-based Maxxam Corp. controls Scotia-based Pacific Lumber Co., remained fluid through the weekend. To get votes from some Southern California legislators, the Headwaters deal may be tied to a $235 million bailout for San Diego water agencies, lawmakers said. Almost 8,500 acres But the Headwaters agreement looked like this Sunday night: Beyond buying the 4,500-acre Headwaters Forest and 3,000 acres in Elk River for $130 million, the plan calls for spending up to $80 million more to buy the 925-acre Owl Creek Grove, a "lesser cathedral" of old-growth redwoods that environmentalists want saved. Pacific Lumber would be forbidden to cut or salvage trees within 100 feet of any major stream and 30 feet of smaller streams. A three-year study of erosion and mudslide problems would be done and then new no-cutting buffer zones would be established and monitored by federal officials. This toughens a plan, worked out between Pacific Lumber and federal environmental authorities, that outlawed logging within 30 feet of larger streams and 10 feet of smaller tributaries. Humboldt County would get $5 million in economic aid to compensate for the loss in jobs. Another $500,000 would be spent to administer the entire deal. Logging would be prohibited for 50 years in areas where the marbled murrelet nests. The ancient forests in the area - some with trees 300 feet tall - are home to 160 wildlife species, from the furry, weasel-like fisher to coho salmon, rare orchids and imperiled salamanders. "This is an opportunity to acquire a wonderful ancient forest. Some of those trees are 1,500 years old," said state Sen. Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, a chief architect of the current plan. "This puts them in public ownership, protects them forever and at the same time ensures the survival of these endangered species." Agreement or court Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he's spent more time on the Headwaters deal than any other issue this year. Burton said Vice President Al Gore called him at home two weeks ago to discuss the issue, and some Capitol staff members have literally been working around the clock on it. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has spent her vacation this week calling state lawmakers and the Wilson administration to work out a deal, said her spokesman, Jim Hock. Feinstein is the architect of the federal deal, which environmentalists have roundly criticized. But Feinstein and many lawmakers are worried that without a Sacramento deal, the issue would have to be resolved in court, which would have "devastating effects on the environmental preservation movement," as she said in a letter to Gov. Wilson last month. Feinstein and the Clinton administration believe the Endangered Species Act would not adequately protect the Headwaters Forest if an agreement fell through. Talks continue U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has said that despite the protection act, Pacific Lumber could salvage logs out of the area and "compromise its ecological integrity." And although the federal agreement gives the government until March to make a deal, Feinstein believes the $250 million allocated in the federal budget is in jeopardy. "The federal money will clearly be taken away and spent elsewhere by a Republican majority in Congress who feel that Californians cannot get their act together," Feinstein wrote on July 31, "and there are plenty of other states that want the $250 million." Sher said there would be no deal unless Hurwitz agrees, and negotiations are ongoing. "They don't want to walk away from this," he said. "They have stayed at the bargaining table and bargained very hard because clearly they want to sell the Headwaters."
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