WATER AGENCY
CAPITULATES ON PERMIT REQUIRMENTS, OKs RENEWED LOGGING
MAXXAM/PACIFIC LUMBER HIRES MORE SECURITY TO HARASS TREE-SITTERS
Last Thursday the Regional Water Quality Board (RWQB) cleared the way for
logging in the sensitive Freshwater watershed by Pacific Lumber (PL). PL and
their newly hired security firm have had a combative presence at the Freshwater
tree-sits recently. Local activists anticipate renewed assaults on both
the tree-sitters and the forest. There are at least 15 tree-sits in the area.
Late last week, Columbia helicopter and PL personnel were harassing activist,
spray-painting trees, flying a helicopter erratically around the tree-sit
areas and, as tree-sitter Remedy reported from the tree she has occupied for
over 11 months, one guy yelled, "I could hit em with my rifle".
On Sun. March 2, a scuffle ensued when PL security guard Bradley Thrasher
cut a forest defender's rope on a tree, and inflicted a 4-inch slash on the
palm of an activist named Bear. Thrasher was cited for assault and battery.
In a move residents called "agency malfeasance", the Regional Water
Quality Board, at its 2/27 meeting in Santa Rosa granted waivers of waste
discharge requirements on three logging plans in the Freshwater watershed,
clearing the way for logging to resume there. These include THPs that tree-sitters
are in. Resident Jesse Noell noted, "These [timber harvest] plans had
letters of non-concurrence from the Regional Board staff. They are not in
concurrence with the Basin Plan."
At January's RWQB meeting, PL requested waivers in an increasingly heated
debate around whether Dept. of Forestry regulations adequately protect "beneficial
uses of water", which the Water agency is charged with. PL was granted
permits in the Elk River area over recommendations of agency staff that the
severely damaged watershed should be left alone, but were not granted permit
waivers in the face of dramatic evidence presented regarding property damage
(into the 100s of thousands of dollars) resulting from PL's logging, petitions
by EPIC and the Humboldt Watershed Council seeking civil penalties due to
PL's illegal logging in December (logging without waivers exempting them from
prohibited sediment discharges from logging operations), and the looming threat
that the state attorney general would look into PL illegal logging. At that
point, the Regional Board refused PL's request for waivers for these 3 timber
harvest plans (THPs), while giving them waivers on other plans. At the February
meeting, the RWQ Board capitulated.
Sediment-choked streams are at the center of the issue. PL claims past practices
caused problems, which result in flooding in even mild storms. Residents point
to the rate of cut-the equivalent of 500 acres of clearcuts per year in Freshwater-as
too much for any watershed to bear, but a rate that courts disaster under
circumstances of steep slopes and unstable soils. A report by a blue ribbon
scientific panel was released at the January Water Quality meeting, essentially
confirming the correlation between the (increased) rate of logging and flooding,
debris torrents, sedimentation of streams and other water quality problems.
PL panned the report, whining that the Headwaters deal and the HCP bought
them "regulatory certainty".
As legal actions like a much-delayed challenge to PL's SYP, at the heart of
the Headwaters deal, Humboldt county's $2.5 million lawsuit for damages to
watersheds against PL, and petitions before the Water Board move forward,
some fear relief could come too late, as some watersheds in Humboldt county
are in a state of meltdown. ###--
Karen Pickett |
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