September 2, 2008
A glimmer of hope graces the Redwood coast this summer as decades of wrangling between environmental activists and Pacific Lumber Company (PL) over their liquidation logging has finally passed. Twenty-three years after corporate bandit Charles Hurwitz's Maxxam took over Pacific Lumber, the company spiraled into a complex bankruptcy process that has resulted in the Mendocino Redwood Company (MendoRC) reorganizing the company and operating the mill. In the final weeks of PL's existence, the Environmental Protection Information Center's (EPIC) decade-long legal battle challenging permits issued after the Headwaters Deal also reached a climax, in a unanimous California Supreme Court case affirming environmental positions on two of the central legal issues the case presented.
When PL filed for bankruptcy in January of 2007, EPIC sat at the table with other creditors and began the long process of reviewing proposals to eventually dissolve the 120 year-old company. When various plans emerged, the introduction of a Mendocino Redwood Company/Marathon Investments proposal surfaced. EPIC staff toured the Russell Brook watershed on MendoRC land and observed their logging styles, roads, chemical eradication of tan oaks, and old-growth reserves. After weighing the different options, EPIC supported the MRC plan to retain single ownership of PL land and mill operation. Their plan promised significant improvements in the management of former PL forestlands.
On July 30, 2008, the new Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) took control of PL forestlands and the Scotia mill. Now HRC blows the whistle at the Scotia mill early every morning, and employs about 250 former PL mill workers. Their website, http://hrcllc.com serves as an online bulletin board with messages from HRC CEO Richard Higgenbottom. A recent posting expresses enthusiasm in the transition and lists some important policy changes like the "immediate implementation of a comprehensive old growth protection policy."
HRC has promised to implement immediate changes including an end to "traditional clear-cutting," a reduction in harvest rates to 55 million board-feet per year for the first decade, a commitment to increase the standing inventory of trees, and the adoption of their old growth policy. HRC also made the public promise to seek certification by the Forest Stewardship Council for all of the former PL lands. To that effect, EPIC's industrial forest monitoring team has presented recommendations for changes in PL Timber Harvest Plans. HRC foresters are using EPIC's recommendations as a guide for reviewing the problematic Timber Harvesting Plans and making prescription changes.
In 1998, when the Fisher family-owned MRC made a land acquisition of around 200 thousand acres in Mendocino County, they logged sensitive habitat and became the target of the "Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap" campaign. According to Mike Jani, the head forester for HRC/MRC, they made major mistakes during the transition by over- cutting and shutting the public out of the process. Jani stressed that HRC will not repeat those mistakes during this transition. So far, they have kept their word.
While the bankruptcy proceedings were underway in Texas, EPIC staff attorney Sharon Duggan prepared her oral arguments for the California Supreme Court to hear a complex case involving California Department of Forestry and Fire (CDF), Department of Fish and Game (DFG), and PL.
On July 17, the California Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling in the challenge that EPIC, the Steelworkers, and the Sierra Club brought against permits that California agencies granted to PL under the Headwaters Deal. The state Supreme Court agreed with us on the two central issues of the case, holding that the Sustained Yield Plan (SYP) that CDF claimed to have had approved wasn't a final document at all, and even less a plan that met their legal requirements. The court also agreed that SYPs, including the plan which must now be prepared under the terms of the Headwaters Agreement, need to analyze impacts on the appropriate planning watershed scale.
In the other key issue presented, the Court ruled that the DFG exceeded its authority and abrogated its legal responsibility when the agency approved the so-called "No Surprises" permits for the incidental take of species listed under the California Endangered Species Act. Under those 50-year permits, the state could not require PL to take additional measures to mitigate harms to covered species, even if those harms were due in part to PL's own actions. This may well be its most far-reaching aspect of the ruling. It's going to affect how California regulates actions with substantial impacts on habitat, both in logging operations and major land development projects.
To mark this time of transition, EPIC plans to initiate a Hurwitz out of Humboldt gathering on October 4th, 2008 at a location TBA.
Check out www.wildcalifornia.org to learn more about these issues.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Summer 2008