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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.
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