Headwaters deal two years later
March 02, 2001
By John Driscoll
The Times-Standard
It has been two years since the state purchased 7,400 acres of timberland, some of it prime, from the Pacific Lumber Co., along with an agreement that the company develop a strict, scientific approach to how it logs its timber land.
Was it a good deal?
It depends on who you ask. Some say that paying $480 million for a few thousand acres and a big headache wasn't a good idea. Others say that the March 1, 1999, agreement paved the way for the new, science-based forestry, affording better protections than ever before. The bottom line is that there is no consensus -- not atypical of the forum the struggle is in.
The long-embattled PL, hoping to see the constant controversy surrounding its logging practices go away, have found themselves still mired in dispute.
Much of the public, perhaps hoping the same, has grown disheartened that the huge purchase has so far failed to achieve its full purpose.
Four state and federal agencies signed off on the logging guidelines prescribed by the agreement. The California Department of Forestry, the California Department of Fish and Game, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have found themselves defending the plan against the claims of the staff of another powerful state agency, the board of which appears reluctant to hold hearings on its own staff's concerns.
By all accounts, it's not a smooth road. Pacific Lumber has been able to log under strict, interim terms of its Habitat Conservation Plan, or HCP. Part of the arrangement was that PL would be able to log more, according to the company, once scientific analyses meant to lessen environmental damage were performed on its timberland.
The ramifications of the agreement are manyfold. One of the county's premier employers, almost 1,400 depend on the company. Nearly a quarter-million acres, and the critters that live there, are also affected by the way the company operates. So are landowners downstream. So are contractors and the providers of goods and services for PL and its employees.
Though frustrated, PL President and CEO John Campbell said that the company is committed to making the agreement work.
"PL employees have been working diligently to make this agreement work the way it was designed," Campbell said.
The progress of the deal has ushered in a level of frustration, he said.
The company was given five years to accomplish the expensive, technically in-depth studies required by the agreement on nearly all its lands.
The first such study has taken two years. An anxiously awaited document, the Freshwater Creek watershed analysis is expected to be issued within days.
The creek is significantly damaged. (According to residents, this damage comes from recent logging practices. According to PL, it's from natural sources and long-past logging.) Residents and some renown scientists have concurred that the creek has been flooding more frequently of late and from smaller storms, because upstream logging has dumped sediment into the creek's lower reaches to fill its channel.
Freshwater resident Alan Cook, who is been actively involved in scrutinizing the progress of PL's Freshwater science, called the awaited analysis "suspect." Cook said that the comments of scientists and residents were largely ignored at its inception, and that for the past year and a half, the product has been worked on "in secret."
"There has been disillusionment followed by secrecy," Cook said. "And there has been a history of poor scientific products. It's difficult to be enthusiastic."
PL's first plan filed under the HCP for Freshwater is now in court. The Humboldt Watershed Council, representing a number of Freshwater residents, has sued the company, claiming that the recent logging poses a threat to property and lives downstream and should not be allowed without further studies.
Infighting
That's over one timber plan. The much greater issue is in the hands of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, whose staff has challenged the HCP on the grounds that its restrictions do not protect water quality and recommended severe cutbacks in logging in five different watersheds.
The report was filed in September, and the hearings meant to deal with the issue have been repeatedly postponed. As of today, no date has been set, and the matter has been appealed to the state board which has yet to decide whether to take it up.
The regional water board did not sign off on the Pacific Lumber conservation plan and the company believes that the staff's report amounts to a breach of contract made between PL and the state and federal government.
"We remain convinced that it was a good deal," said CDF spokesman Louis Blumberg. "The fact remains that the largest stand of old-growth once in private hands in now available to the public."
CDF and the other agencies have devoted a lot of resources to the PL habitat plan, but Blumberg said that is not at the expense of other operators. "Efficient and effective" use of a recently expanded staff has helped get the job done, he said.
The Environmental Protection Information Center has taken a different road to achieve the ends recommended by water quality staff. It has threatened to sue using a law generally associated with factories spilling toxic waster from pipes, and applying it to sediment sources generated by logging. The long-time adversary of PL is not enthused with the course of the Headwaters agreement.
"It's been a pretty big disappointment," said EPIC program director Cynthia Elkins.
Elkins said that even with the HCP guidelines, liquidation logging continues to occur at "breakneck speeds" which are bad for people and wildlife.
PL questions the idea that logging is occurring at "breakneck" speed. The company's log decks are low, and last year it logged "substantially less" than the 176 million board feet allocated to it under the Headwaters agreement. Laid-off loggers and contracted truckers recently protested CDF's slow approval of timber plans.
"We're very disappointed in that we expected, and were promised, a more streamlined process, and a certain and consistant supply of logs," PL's CEO Campbell said. "That has not occurred."
The company is also growing its milling capacity by two mills, adding to the four it has by the expected purchase of Eel River Sawmills Inc. Whether the company can really keep that many saws turning with the number of logs it's felling -- it has been importing logs for this purpose -- is anybody's guess.
"It's time for anti-forestry activists to get off their tired horse and participate in the process, and be dedicated to finding solutions," said California Forestry Association spokesman Chris Nance.
Nance said that the activists are "out of step with main stream thinking," and instead of cooperating to make things better have committed themselves to destroying the Headwaters agreement.
The Reserve
While the progress of the agreement is up in the air, something of a jewel shines in the rubble: the reserve itself.
The $480 million went to purchase the main 7,400-acre reserve outside Fortuna, and two smaller parcels: the 1,200-acre Owl Creek -- just bought for $67 million -- and the approximately 1,000-acre Grizzly Creek, which has yet to be exchanged.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been allowing limited access into the Headwaters reserve, and plans are being developed on just how the public should be allowed to use it.
Last year, more than 2,500 visitors signed in at the Elk River trail head at the north end of the reserve. The bureau reports that 78 percent of those were Humboldt County residents. About 600 people signed up for guided hikes at the southern end of the reserve, where one can come close to the big trees of Headwaters lore.
"There are some trying times, of course," said bureau resource specialist Dan Averil, who said that he believes the purchase was a good deal.
Protection of habitat for federally protected marbled murrelets and the northern spotted owls is being achieved, Averil said. And still, there has not been a fence put around it to lock it up, he said. The ecological sanctuary, Averil said, is an opportunity to educate the public, too.
Perhaps it's just too early to tell, too soon to know what the complicated agreement really meant. Doubtless, it's imperative that solutions be found to the ongoing disputes. What those solutions are, not surprisingly, would depend on who you ask.