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Court Shuts Down Logging Under Headwaters Deal
Court Shuts Down Logging Under Headwaters Deal
Stall Tactics Backfire on Pacific Lumber
Stall Tactics Backfire on Pacific Lumber
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 30, 2002
For more information, please contact:
Cynthia Elkins, EPIC, (707) 923 - 2931
Kathy Bailey, Sierra Club, (707) 895 - 3716
Court Shuts Down Logging Under Headwaters Deal
Stall Tactics Backfire on Pacific Lumber
The California Superior Court on August 29 issued a “stay” on all logging operations that are authorized under the infamous Headwaters Deal, finding the ruling is necessary to “serve[ ] the public interest…in careful management of natural resources such as forests, wildlife habitat, and wildlife.”
The ruling was issued in an ongoing case the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Sierra Club brought against the Pacific Lumber Company, California Department of Forestry (CDF) and Department of Fish and Game (DFG) in March 1999. The lawsuit challenges state permits that were issued as part of the Headwaters Deal, including permits to kill numerous endangered species and a “streambed alteration” agreement that applies to 210,000 acres of land.
The court’s ruling suspends all logging operations being carried out under these permits, stating that “no party to this proceeding shall take any action whose validity depends upon the validity of” these permits until “further order of the court.”
EPIC and the Sierra Club sought this stay following what the court calls a “manifest delay” in the case proceeding to trial. This delay was caused by CDF’s and DFG’s failure to provide complete, certified administrative records for the court as required, something the agencies have still not done to date. The agencies received their first notices to provide these records on April 6, 1999.
“Delay always favors the defense, and has certainly benefited Pacific Lumber in this case,” Cynthia Elkins, Program Director for EPIC, stated. “When we finally get the facts before a judge, we fully expect the court will find that Pacific Lumber’s permits are invalid. The company is causing serious harm to our forests, fish, and wildlife in the meantime,” Elkins added.
The court notes that EPIC and the Sierra Club are challenging permits that “authorize conduct which may be harmful to sustained timber yields, wildlife habitat and wildlife. Some of such conduct…has been conducted by [Pacific Lumber] during the three year period. In the event that this proceeding results in a determination that the administrative action authorizing such conduct was taken irregularly and must be annulled, the judicial remedy afforded by this proceeding will prove to have been neither prompt nor effective.”
“The Davis Administration’s stalling tactics in this case have allowed Pacific Lumber to continue the clearcut logging that has fouled local drinking water and sent landslides into neighboring homes,” said Kathy Bailey, spokesperson for the Sierra Club. “They’re afraid to let this case proceed because they know we’re right and we can prove it.”
Pacific Lumber has been forced the Regional Water Quality Control Board to truck in drinking water to families who had relied on water from the Elk River for more than 100 years.
According to published news reports, Pacific Lumber donated $61,000 to Governor Davis in the last two years (Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2002), and Governor Davis solicited and received a $15,000 contribution for New Hampshire Governor Gov. Jeanne Shaheenís re-election campaign from Pacific Lumber's Houston-based corporate parent Maxxam (San Jose Mercury News, May 25, 2002) at the same time the state was considering regulatory action against the company for water quality violations. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, whose members are appointed by Governor Davis, has repeatedly deferred action on the water quality matter, which remains unresolved. [Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2002].
- end -
August 30, 2002
For more information, please contact:
Cynthia Elkins, EPIC, (707) 923 - 2931
Kathy Bailey, Sierra Club, (707) 895 - 3716
Court Shuts Down Logging Under Headwaters Deal
Stall Tactics Backfire on Pacific Lumber
The California Superior Court on August 29 issued a “stay” on all logging operations that are authorized under the infamous Headwaters Deal, finding the ruling is necessary to “serve[ ] the public interest…in careful management of natural resources such as forests, wildlife habitat, and wildlife.”
The ruling was issued in an ongoing case the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Sierra Club brought against the Pacific Lumber Company, California Department of Forestry (CDF) and Department of Fish and Game (DFG) in March 1999. The lawsuit challenges state permits that were issued as part of the Headwaters Deal, including permits to kill numerous endangered species and a “streambed alteration” agreement that applies to 210,000 acres of land.
The court’s ruling suspends all logging operations being carried out under these permits, stating that “no party to this proceeding shall take any action whose validity depends upon the validity of” these permits until “further order of the court.”
EPIC and the Sierra Club sought this stay following what the court calls a “manifest delay” in the case proceeding to trial. This delay was caused by CDF’s and DFG’s failure to provide complete, certified administrative records for the court as required, something the agencies have still not done to date. The agencies received their first notices to provide these records on April 6, 1999.
“Delay always favors the defense, and has certainly benefited Pacific Lumber in this case,” Cynthia Elkins, Program Director for EPIC, stated. “When we finally get the facts before a judge, we fully expect the court will find that Pacific Lumber’s permits are invalid. The company is causing serious harm to our forests, fish, and wildlife in the meantime,” Elkins added.
The court notes that EPIC and the Sierra Club are challenging permits that “authorize conduct which may be harmful to sustained timber yields, wildlife habitat and wildlife. Some of such conduct…has been conducted by [Pacific Lumber] during the three year period. In the event that this proceeding results in a determination that the administrative action authorizing such conduct was taken irregularly and must be annulled, the judicial remedy afforded by this proceeding will prove to have been neither prompt nor effective.”
“The Davis Administration’s stalling tactics in this case have allowed Pacific Lumber to continue the clearcut logging that has fouled local drinking water and sent landslides into neighboring homes,” said Kathy Bailey, spokesperson for the Sierra Club. “They’re afraid to let this case proceed because they know we’re right and we can prove it.”
Pacific Lumber has been forced the Regional Water Quality Control Board to truck in drinking water to families who had relied on water from the Elk River for more than 100 years.
According to published news reports, Pacific Lumber donated $61,000 to Governor Davis in the last two years (Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2002), and Governor Davis solicited and received a $15,000 contribution for New Hampshire Governor Gov. Jeanne Shaheenís re-election campaign from Pacific Lumber's Houston-based corporate parent Maxxam (San Jose Mercury News, May 25, 2002) at the same time the state was considering regulatory action against the company for water quality violations. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, whose members are appointed by Governor Davis, has repeatedly deferred action on the water quality matter, which remains unresolved. [Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2002].
- end -
For more information:
http://wildcalifornia.org
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The above posting is distorted in both factual and ethical merit. I assure you that very few of the statements above are legitimate estimations of the court ruling.
But feel free to congratulate yourselves.
Log on.
But feel free to congratulate yourselves.
Log on.
Maybe it's time to get the court's interpretation on the criminal necessity defense. Read the courts ruling, listen to the lies of mary and frank basic and take it to the logging operations. make sure you have a copy of the judge's ruling, CDF's forest practice rules and maybe a few other pieces of information on these illegal operations and then let a jury decide or maybe take on the long haul of the criminal proceedings. PL's dragging their feet on this and the judge knows it. EPIC will be back in court for a interpretation and in the meantime, have fun working over the weekend loggers, cause your time is nearing when it won't happen. Too bad you've kicked and screamed along the way, but when the trees are gone, you ain't gonna have a job. had you slowed the rate of cut and tryed true sustainability logging, maybe you'd have jobs into perpetuity................................................
As long as humans continue to use wood products as shelter, knowledge (i.e. books, papers, etc), fuel, and the many other uses wood provides us, the loggers will continue to work. So before you condemn the loggers and timber companies, look at your own lives and think about all the wood products that you benefit from and thank the logger who fell the tree that allows you to enjoy that benefit.
I agree that wood products are great. One can wipe their butt with them. One can also build shelter to live in(IE..a house is a nice thing). But one can also run their operations sustainably. It is obivous that when banks with interest rates set the rate of cut due to bonds that where issued under the fradulent "Headwaters deal", the loggers and mill workers are gonna be out of work soon there after. Logging is probably one of the toughest jobs out there, but it doesn't make it right to drive species into extinction. It doesn't make your job more valuable than a fisherperson's job. Why are all the streams on the northcoast silted in? The answer isn't the unstable geology. That's greenwashing to say it is.
Science can be dribbled back and forth, but there's no science in setting a cut rate based on timber notes issued by the banks to cover some slimeballs debt in houston.
PL commissioned a study back in 1985-86 and it told them that they'd be in the situation laying off their workers like they have over the past year. They've know the result of what happens when you overcut and run triple shifts when running one shift is what can be truly supported by the land. The end result is that a few make a quick buck and the rest of the habitat and the people within it, LOOSE.
Science can be dribbled back and forth, but there's no science in setting a cut rate based on timber notes issued by the banks to cover some slimeballs debt in houston.
PL commissioned a study back in 1985-86 and it told them that they'd be in the situation laying off their workers like they have over the past year. They've know the result of what happens when you overcut and run triple shifts when running one shift is what can be truly supported by the land. The end result is that a few make a quick buck and the rest of the habitat and the people within it, LOOSE.
By shutting down operations in California, environmental groups such as yourself are forcing timber companies to move their operations overseas where ther are really raping the forests. Congratulations, enjoy your martini parties in San Francisco. You have done a great dis-service to the environment, the workers and your so called movemnet. You are a joke!
They are really raping the forests in Humboldt county, a majority of the National Forests throughout the US and British Columbia has the world's largest clearcut. This is just an isolated incident on PL's land, SPI is doing similar things over in the Sierra's also. It's greed which is causing this, not martini parties. Come on, get a better argument. Debate is a healthy thing, but I have a hard time with you logic blaming the central and south american rainforest destruction on Groups like EPIC.
They are really raping the forests in Humboldt county, a majority of the National Forests throughout the US and British Columbia has the world's largest clearcut. This is just an isolated incident on PL's land, SPI is doing similar things over in the Sierra's also. It's greed which is causing this, not martini parties. Come on, get a better argument. Debate is a healthy thing, but I have a hard time with your logic blaming the central and south american rainforest destruction on Groups like EPIC.
Mr. IN SUPPORT OF THE LOGGING INDUSTRY made the the clever remark that as long as we use tree-derived products, we should pat the logger on the back who cuts the trees for them. Hmm, I pay more for hemp and recycled paper. I buy recycled paper toilet paper. I plan to live in a rammed earth house. I recognize the valuable contribution Hemp could make to a far more environmentally friendly paper industry. SO, while your loggers helped me with the house I live in now. I am making plans for the future that reduce this dependence I have on timber logging.
For more information:
http://yubawatershed.org
Mr. IN SUPPORT OF THE LOGGING INDUSTRY made the the clever remark that as long as we use tree-derived products, we should pat the logger on the back who cuts the trees for them. Hmm, I pay more for hemp and recycled paper. I buy recycled paper toilet paper. I plan to live in a rammed earth house. I recognize the valuable contribution Hemp could make to a far more environmentally friendly paper industry. SO, while your loggers helped me with the house I live in now. I am making plans for the future that reduce this dependence I have on timber logging.
For more information:
http://yubawatershed.org
I am glad to hear that you recycle and I encourage you to continue along with everyone else. Although you may believe that along with recycling, hemp will solve all our environmental problems, it will result in the opposite. The idea of using hemp to replace timber products sounds fine and dandy until one looks at it in depth. First of all where is all the hemp going to be grown to replace timber products? A few choices might be to convert the forests (which have some of the most productive soils) to farmland, this means clear cutting and burning in order to clear the way for a monocrop of hemp. Or we could plant them in the valley and divert more water away from its natural course in order to feed the thirst of the hemp plants. Now that the hemp plants are in the ground and the water diverted to water them how do we keep all those pests and fungus form attacking them? Or how do we replenish the nutrients that they suck from the fertile soils. We wouldn’t want to spray herbicides of fertilizers now would we? On top of that hemp must be harvested every year instead of every 40-80 years as timber is. The constant re-entry on the land will just further the negative impacts on the environment. Before any praise to hemp is given one should first look at the results it may cause. Small-scale hemp production may work, but using it to replace timber is not a feasible option.
" A few choices might be to convert the forests (which have some of the most productive soils) to farmland, this means clear cutting and burning in order to clear the way for a monocrop of hemp"
This has never ever been suggested by anyone. You're pretty much just making that up to further your cause, unless you can prove me wrong.
Furthermore, farmers are eager to get involved in hemp and grow it on agricultural land, not in forests (?). It is likely to replace tobacco crops since its soil requirements are similar and it is also a cash crop.
This has never ever been suggested by anyone. You're pretty much just making that up to further your cause, unless you can prove me wrong.
Furthermore, farmers are eager to get involved in hemp and grow it on agricultural land, not in forests (?). It is likely to replace tobacco crops since its soil requirements are similar and it is also a cash crop.
So EPIC has muted the sound of chainsaws on Pacific Lumber Company's Land. At least that is what their press release would have you believe.
Was this statement a knee jerk misintrepretation of the judge's ruling, or a calculated press release to mislead those who wouldn't know any better? EPIC relies on donations from an uniformed public. As long as people think that eco-groovie lawyers are slaying dragons for the common good, then they will keep blindly tossing away their money toward EPIC. Thus you have the above press release, which possessed very little more that opinion and was designed to boost donations from those who think that David has beaten Goliath.
Try again EPIC, but easy on the interpretation.
Log on.
Was this statement a knee jerk misintrepretation of the judge's ruling, or a calculated press release to mislead those who wouldn't know any better? EPIC relies on donations from an uniformed public. As long as people think that eco-groovie lawyers are slaying dragons for the common good, then they will keep blindly tossing away their money toward EPIC. Thus you have the above press release, which possessed very little more that opinion and was designed to boost donations from those who think that David has beaten Goliath.
Try again EPIC, but easy on the interpretation.
Log on.
No, you are correct in stating that no one suggested clear cutting forest, but that fact remains that if you wish to replace timber with hemp you will have to grow hemp industrially. Which means either clearing new land or using other land that is already zoned for farmland as you suggested. The questions still remain, how will you protect the crops from fungus and pest? How will you replace the nutrients? Are the yearly entries really better than the 40-80 year rotations of timber crops? Hemps will also require a lot of water, are people willing to divert more water out of the rivers to feed hemp, when the timberlands are watered naturally? How many hemp plants are going to be required to produce the fiber that on 40-year redwood can? The fact still remains that growing and harvesting timber is less environmentally taxing and can mimic nature a lot more than a crop of hemp.
Hemp fiber is the strongest their is. It's my understanding that this was outlawed by the oil and timber interests because of the money. A forty year of redwood is a big tree, however it's quality of wood for building materials is crap. Hemp would solve part of the issue and I have been told that it would benefit the farmers in a crop rotation bringing certain nutrients back into the groud other crops deplete the soil. Thus making it a beneficial crop for industrial farmers wishing to reduce their dependencies on the fertilizer companies. Seems like your just pro timber and there's no changing your mind about other alternatives which can work, but needs some lobbying done to get them to be a viable crop.
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