Greenwood: Exemption and THPs

by Mary Pjerrou

A new Louisiana Pacific Corporation logging plan was approved by the California Department of Forestry on April 13, 1995 - 122 acres of salvage logging, using mostly helicopter methods, close to town, east of Greenwood Commons. This logging plan has a long history. In 1993, L-P filed an exemption paper to do 1,380 acres of salvage logging in this area. We've seen great abuse of salvage logging exemptions in California. Recently, Pacific Lumber filed a single exemption on 179,000-plus acres - virtually its entire timber holding. State exemptions allow removal of 10% of the timber volume per acre with no public notice, no environmental review, no approval process, and little, if any monitoring. The GWA and the Elk County Water District filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Forestry to stop this exemption. The judge granted a restraining order, and L-P subsequently withdrew the exemption (then recently filed a regular timber harvest plan - with normal review - on the above-mentioned 122 acres of it.) The principles of the exemption case were argued before Superior Court Judge James King this March. We asked for the following: 1) public notice for exemptions, 2) that CDF review exemption filings for potential environmental impacts, and require a regular THP where such impacts are indicated. Public notice and environmental review are fundamental to California environmental law. Judge King will rule on the case within ninety days.

During the exemption hearing, Deputy Attorney General John Davidson stated that we don't need to change the way the California Department of Forestry administers exemptions. If environmental damage is done, the public can simply take the matter to court, he said. Davidson's solution (more lawsuits!) is curious, at best. At worst, it is cynical and irresponsible. Your taxpayer dollars pay his salary and his expenses to travel to Ukiah every time a citizen's group is forced to go into court to protect the environment. In addition, your donations help pay for our attorney to be there. Lawsuits are expensive, time-consuming and difficult - and corporations have enormous resources to defend themselves, as Mr. Davidson well knows. Who is this "public servant" speaking for, as he sits on the other side of the courtroom with the industry lawyers?

L-P heavily logged the area near town from 1985 to 1990. Many of the remaining trees blew down in the 1993 storms, likely because of the earlier logging which left a thinned-out forest. These sort of hidden long-term impacts are rarely monitored by state agencies.

The 122-acre salvage logging (helicopter) plan near town will likely go forward this summer. Our legal action accomplished several things: 1) L-P decided to file a regular timber harvest plan which CDF, other agencies, and the public could review; 2) L-P drastically reduced the scale of their salvage plan (from 1,380 acres down to 122); 3) will use a helicopter, which reduces soil disturbance (fewer logging roads and landings); and 4) will stay out of Greenwood Creek protection zone (except for emplacement of a temporary bridge). Although cumulative impacts assessment is still very inadequate in THPs - and no long-term monitoring is required - this plan contains many mitigations, which we hope the timber operator will closely follow.

L-P is proceeding with a 431 acre logging plan about 8 miles up Greenwood Road, on the creek side. The plan calls for "commercial thinning" (not a clearcut), using cable and tractor yarding.

Both of the above logging plans are relatively low impact - compared to what was being done to this watershed in 1980-1990. The trouble with these and other L-P logging plans - and with the accumulation of small plans over a period of time - is that they are being approved by CDF in the absence of any scientific monitoring data. No one knows what the effect of 431 acres of "commercial thinning" will be. All we know is that the fishery has been devastated, and the water district has to spend $10,000 a year to deal with the impacts from upstream logging.

Folks up in the 8 mile area report that L-P has planted thousands of baby trees near the 431-acre plan area. The trees have strange-looking white plastic skirts around their bases. (You can see this from the road.) Ron Bloomquist commented that the planting looks like an out-door art installation by Christo!

Our watershed advisor, Dr. Euphrat, says the white skirts are soil fertilizer and are biodegradable. (But is it art?)