Redwood Reader

Pacific Lumber representatives met with the administration officials in Sacramento in order to push for regulatory clearance in what should be a scientific decision, threatening bankruptcy and lifting of the Habitat Conservation Plans restrictions in that event as the company said bond holders would be paid out of liquidated assets under new management in the event of bankruptcy. This will certainly be contested as the Agreement could be seen as a conservation easement bought and paid for by the People in perpetuity. In that case the restrictions stay with the deed.
Eleven Timber Harvest Plans in the Freshwater and Elk River areas already approved by CDF are ready to operate once approved by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board despite concerns over waste discharge from logging operations, which means sediment is moving. The NCRWQB has just approved four other plans. And here we are again at this point, with most local opposition at a loss or in disarray. There is property destruction occurring to individuals as well as to the people of the state. In 1990, Elk River and Freshwater Creeks were the best last local coho runs. So all the damage to these creeks is within the time frame of the takeover, and quite a bit since Headwaters was signed. Then there was the hole in the Headwaters. PL’s long time efforts to contain the problem can only be as successful as their understanding of what causes sediment to move downslope. PL scientists and government scientists need to study information readily available in order to make sustainable decisions that don’t harm their neighbors or public assets like wildlife and water quality. The government has imposed critical habitat distances from streams that seem draconian to the company and decrease available logs for their mills.
A better protection would be a mandated maximum canopy removal, no ground disturbance or trails or ruts. After establishment of baseline data for water storage in the root zone and yearly flow rates of a watershed, trees can be selectively harvested to insure plenty of glomalin producers remain undisturbed, and the watershed can continue to capture and store water for release later. Once the general principle is understood more acreage will be available for sustained water production, with timber as a large byproduct. Fuel reduction and TSI and shaded fuel breaks require lots of work and provide lots of small trees and brush, by small we mean up to 12 or 14 inches DBH. This is especially critical in cut over land. It needs time to re-grow the water storage mechanism. Clear cutting small trees causes all the damage done described in Our Shrinking Watersheds in the April 29, 2004 archive of this blog. TSI can be done at the same age as the Van Duzen clear cuts. Most of the trees would be harvested. But leaving some trees feeds the fungi, which work harder for less mouths to feed and the forest grows rapidly eventually streams are able to run all year again. This would greatly increase the overall health of the watersheds where cumulative impacts are making it harder to operate profitably. I am trying to point out this information and extrapolating from it in our forest and watershed experience.
Pl continues to threaten business losses causing loss of employment. They always say that, even when the layoffs are part of upgrading or seasonal weather. This week was a sensational week for their press releases and publicity campaigns. With the North Coast Board studying the plans, all eleven were in danger of failing the test. PL screamed foul to get go-aheads on four plans from the Board. Mark Lovelace of Humboldt Watershed Council went south to a hearing with the state WQB director asked for and received a meeting with Tamminen — himself a former Cal EPA secretary, currently on loan from EPA. He made his presentation alone unaware of the fact Tinnamen had beem briefed earlier, according to the LA Times.
On January 11, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger EPA Cabinet secretary Terry Tamminen and Cal EPA general counsel Maureen Gorsen met with company owner Charles Hurwitz, President Robert Manne and other representatives and officials in order to get permission to work. PL also submitted a request to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors asking for their support in the decision. The item was added to the agenda and approved without public notice on a three to one vote, with Jill Geist opposed saying it was inappropriate for one agency to pressure another.(!). Roger Rodoni a Palco lessee, abstained. The Eureka Times Standard reported the Palco request for support from the Board of Supervisors and published the Supervisors letter.
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2674573,00.html
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2674582,00.html On January 13 Catherine Kuhlman, executive director of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, said she received a phone call from Cal EPA, the agency that oversees her own just asking many questions. She has said she has eleven more plans on her desk.
According to the Times-Standard Catherine Kuhlman, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board's executive officer, said Palco requested time on this morning's meeting agenda to discuss the company's timber harvest plans back on Jan. 12. The company asked for three hours on the agenda. Kuhlman said she wrote back to Palco on Jan. 17, stating the company would have 20 minutes of discussion time this morning, January 27. Palco has reported itself operating at 11% of capacity on TV.
Of course, this is all buffalo wallow stuff where so much capital is thrown at securing a natural resource. We will only persuade them to stop destroying things if we can make economic gain that requires the use of the products we are currently selling, in this case carbon dioxide accumulators. Our wholesale consumer good has become a piece of capital expense too valuable to take out of production. Suppose we find Douglas fir sequesters 1 ton of carbon a year per acre in wood. Thee will be another ton below ground in roots and fungi, and another in produced glomalin. (We need numbers here. There is a lot of work to do.) If we recover the profit from the wood but we lose the belowground, the existing glomalin reserve, and the ability to retain the same level of water in the ground, sediment is cut loose for years as silt and as dust and we lose our habitats and our fisheries.
This scheme, converting timber zones to working glomalin zones with constant thinning sustaining small wood, chip fuel and pulp industries could allow PL to enter the carbon market. At $10 a ton and a ton per acre it is about two million dollars a year. PL would have to put on their ties and make this happen. Headwaters Fund money could allow them to arrange for property owners of all sizes and stripes to enter the carbon market, they would be local heroes bringing home the bacon and global heroes of the War on Global Warming. It is totally do-able.
Another sort of science-fictiony idea is a whole battalion of Wood-Mizers operating on their lands. It is kind of surprising they don’t have a hardwood operation. Wood Mizers allow for making every board a radial cut, preventing warping in oaks and other tough to cure hardwoods. There is also a whole field of small veneer lathes used in Europe for short trunked hardwoods like oak and chestnut. Perhaps the economy of scale has once again overextended itself. Maybe they just use hardwoods for power, or maybe its all been sprayed out. But probably it gets skidded into big piles till the season ends, then the trunks get sold by the ton.
If neither of those is the case, note that the Stockton-Pacific export dock was purchased by Simpson at the same time Lee Man bought the pulp mill, for future chip export when market conditions are right. The sale of the mill has resulted in the back bill being paid. Fairhaven Power also regained its effluent pipe access allowing the sale of that facility to DG Energy of San Diego to go through.
The other alternative for PL is selling to a more flexible operation with an updated business plan that improves public resources while remaining profitable. I think we will see a flurry of golden parachutes just before they announce closing the operation or sale. If we don’t then the operation is probably more profitable than they are willing to admit, and should support research into using glomalin as a land use guide in order to sustain their own operations.