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FROM THE
June 3, 2004
COVER
STORY | IN THE NEWS | SUMMER FESTS 2004
KIDS'
SUMMER ACTIVITIES | THE
HUM | CALENDAR
The
problem is Palco
by KEITH EASTHOUSE
The wonder is why it came as
such a surprise.
Last week, the Garberville-based
Environmental Protection Information Center informed Humboldt
residents that the Pacific Lumber Co. is, in effect, cheating.
Instead of adhering to the restrictions it agreed to in the 1999
Headwaters deal, restrictions laid out in painstaking detail
in a document known as the habitat conservation plan, the company,
it seems, has been breaking the rules -- repeatedly.
In an eight-page report, the
group found evidence of 227 separate violations of the plan,
along with 98 violations of state forest practice rules. The
most common infractions -- about 75 percent of the total -- were
for logging in protected streamside areas. This is of obvious
concern in terms of water quality impacts and of the many ongoing
salmon restoration efforts taking place around the region.
In a response issued Tuesday,
Pacific Lumber's chief scientist Jeff Barrett accused EPIC of
exaggerating the importance of the violations. He made a distinction
between breaches of state forestry regulations, which he said
could have signficant environmental impacts, and "matters
of noncompliance" with the provisions of the conservation
plan, which he said are less serious. Maybe there's something
to what Barrett is saying, or maybe he's guilty of his own distortions.
But the fact is that the company, in entering into the Headwaters
deal, signed a contract with the state to not do certain things.
If it has nevertheless been doing those things all along, it
is in violation of the contract. We think that's a problem.
As for the regulators' view
of the EPIC report, the picture is mixed. The California Department
of Forestry, charged with enforcing state forest practice rules,
also says that most of the violations cited by EPIC were minor
in nature and had to do with paperwork mistakes. But the state
Fish and Game Department, which monitors compliance with the
conservation plan, said many of the violations were serious --
and that in at least two instances the company was fined $100,000.
That's big money. But we're
wondering why federal and state regulators haven't done more
to prevent violations from happening in the first place -- although
having said that, we're skeptical, given the company's history
of violating the law (see story on page 6), that anything will
really work. If there isn't a commitment at the top to play by
the rules, then the rules will get broken. It's as simple as
that.
Pacific Lumber has asked state
and federal regulators to loosen some of the key restrictions
in the conservation plan, those having to do with logging along
streamsides, among other things. This effort has caused concern
for a couple of reasons. One had to do with the secretive nature
in which the initial request was made. (See "Secrecy
flap," NCJ, April 22.) State Sen. Byron Sher,
D- Stanford, along with State Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco,
President Pro Tem of the Senate, raised another concern with
Michael Chrisman, head of the Resources Agency, in a letter in
April: the fact, in their view at any rate, that the alterations
the company is seeking are "inconsistent" with the
Headwaters agreement itself and with the state legislation that
authorized the deal. Now, thanks to the EPIC report, we know
that the company has been violating the very logging restrictions
it is seeking to loosen.
We have made reference before
in this space to "PL fatigue," the sheer mental exhaustion
generated by the never-ending controversies that have dogged
PL, and plagued this county, ever since Texas financier Charles
Hurwitz seized the company in a hostile takeover in the mid-1980s.
Environmentalists, in particular those with EPIC, have been scapegoated
for challenging the company, as have other critics -- attacked
not just by Palco representatives, but by Palco apologists, of
whom there are far too many around here. And need we remind you
of the storm District Attorney Paul Gallegos had to weather for
daring to sue Hurwitz for fraudulent logging practices?
Make no mistake. Hurwitz and
his Maxxam Corp. put us through that ordeal, not Gallegos and
Assistant DA Tim Stoen. And, if the EPIC report is an indication,
Gallegos and Stoen are on to something. This is a company that,
by all appearances, cannot be trusted.
COVER
STORY | IN THE NEWS | SUMMER FESTS 2004
KIDS'
SUMMER ACTIVITIES | THE
HUM | CALENDAR
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