Redwood Reader

Reading Steven Wills article on Timber Wars (Eureka Reporter July 15)continues to provoke my response (see 137). While he knows some excellent points, he is either ignorant or willfully dismissing a lot of available information. For example, HWC was founded to protect private property of individuals living below PL holdings in Freshwater. Elk River residents reluctantly were drawn in after the Hole in the Headwaters logging had done irreparable harm to downstream properties. The Hole in the Headwaters showed poor faith in the first place almost akin to a wink and a nod because many environmentalists believed a buffer was necessary to protect the groves. It should have been to protect the streams.
Ythe core reserve at Gilham Butte was put off limits by BLM in the late 1980’s. Residents challenged and won battles over nine THP’s surrounding the Core Reserve because of inadequate protections and mitigations. The money for these came from potlucks and cabaret nights and T shirt sales, and in many cases good arguments were not followed in order to put more money into imperative ones. Like talking common sense wasn’t good enough. EPIC filed these suits because that is their mission- to enable affected parties to sue, and they were asked to. Residents showed good faith by buying the land with help from Save the Redwoods and others, and ERS was happy to have the cash.
As Walter Berry said last winter, environmentalists have lost every issue because they compromise on everything. That’s democracy in action. It is not clear what offers Mr. Wills says were turned down but lawyers do the bidding of their clients, that is, they have to be hired to get anything done, and they are not the ones to decide when enough is enough. Instigators need to look in the mirror when seeking the cause of public dismay.
Their role was made critical by the Habitat Conservation Plan, which excluded pre-emptions by signatory agencies, thus making lawsuits the only way to be heard. CDF became consumer friendly once they realized they had no role in the obvious demonstrations outside their window. All they were legally allowed to do was take it all in, so they were nice about it.
Someone forgot about the Water Quality Boards and they are not signatories to the Headwaters deal Their job is to protect water resources, and in residential or undeveloped areas that means sediment. Sediment has a long and unhappy history of ruining land, streams and fisheries. A lot of money and effort has gone into figuring out what exactly happens when trees are cut. Now some evidence is available, from the US government(USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research Lab) no less, and when you logically follow the meaning of these discoveries, a lot of old fights just look like stupidity warmed over.
PL’s HCP was an honest attempt to minimize damage to watersheds based on the best science available in 1992, the same basis used for the Northwest Forest Plan. It is pretty immutable except in one area, new findings by science. Since we have seen the plan is missing something, we apply new science as mandated. That science has discovered a new operating feature in vegetated landscapes that holds soils together and stores water and carbon in the ground. Many universities now have their own research looking into this now as farmers have altered their methods and saved millions in fuel, labor, herbicides and erosion in a decade. This same science applies to trees as well as crops, but a farm field with one species and a couple of mycorhizzia fungi are a long way from large trees with millions of mycorhizzia. In effect, the discovery was made in a stripped down environment of limited factors. The results can be applied to any vegetated landscape you choose. The stuff the fungi make from shared photosynthesis products is what makes topsoil topsoil. We have all seen it, held it our hands, dug in it, and prized it for lawns and gardens. It is the very stuff global warming is supposedly caused by. When exposed to sunlight, running water or ambient air it reverts to CO2 and the topsoil returns to unaggregated silt and clay particles.
My own search for causes of sedimentation led to this realization, and I have been emailing and blogging for a year now. I notified all parties in this case several times so people should be at least aware, and I have suggested using Headwaters Fund money to sponsor a group to study this and make its findings part of the public record, since it goes to the heart of all forms of land management and development, showing us the opportunity cost of land use and development in a new and enlightening way. We can be smart and move into green development or not and lose every lawsuit on scientific merits, although they might be overturned on economic basis.
EPIC is not dependant on PL for work, in fact they are probably sick of them. There are and have been plenty of other fights going on over water, rivers, air quality, industrial ocean discharges, salvage logging in roadless areas and in fact everywhere monied interests are degrading the environment for profit, especially on public lands. All watersheds contain the public properties of air, water and wildlife, and all private landowners are to some extent corralled by these public issues. Without new science or agencies willing to buck corporate power we will never solve these problems in an evenhanded manner, and so today we see the screw turn and PL the one suing.
Its hard to say how many logs ERS was able to buy with the Gilham Butte purchase, but they were out of logs real quick. The entire mountain wouldn’t have lasted them a couple of months. Buying logs should allow larger numbers since there is no operating costs, that absorbed by the sellers contract loggers even if himself, and especially in times of cheap foreign logs. Same with PLs refusal of 40 million for their Mattole holdings last year. More attention was focused on this than the press seems to have realized, and some of its components deserve the attention of investigative journalism like the SLAPP suits used to threaten landowners into submission for fear of the loss of their homes, the unexpected appearance of golden eagles and using private real estate negotiations to ward off local protest. Its all good in business but it makes people mad as hell, and their rebuttal is simply that we are taking away jobs. Now they blame closure of Fortuna mill on environmentalists, while the new automated mill and previous negotiations to sell the land belie them.
This year PL comes to the Mattole with a fresh crop of university grads, many locals, to make peace and ask for input into planning for the Mattole. In the Mattole they own about 18000 acres, 10% of the land base, compared to 95% in Elk River and Freshwater, and are neither the largest landowner nor beyond the reach of public resources. BLM holdings are far greater than PL in the Mattole and they are also responsible for habitat conditions in the estuary. BLM and Save the Redwoods have cooperated to purchase lands to connect Humboldt Redwoods State Park and King Range NCA, striving for an eventual hiking trail, currently the Redwoods to the Sea Wildlife Corridor, as wildlife is willing to use private property inaccessible to humans. Salmon restoration is the single thread running throughout the Mattole and many believe a new round of sedimentation from tributaries both in extreme orographic influence and close to the estuary may push the estuary beyond suitable conditions for young salmon in the summer, putting at risk twenty plus years and at least thousands if not millions of dollars. This must be weighed against the proposed income as opportunity cost and recognized by the agencies that have spent the money and expertise.
No one has tried to buy the lands in Freshwater and Elk River but they have stopped operations after much of the job was already done and impacts to other private property was obvious. But what about the logs they didn’t get? They’ll be back or die trying. For this reason alone it makes sense to go back to the science and see if we can discern something either new or profound to base decisions on. That is now at hand, and we need other scientists already studying logging issues to take a good look at this. Redwood Sciences lab has never been able to explain conditions after clear falling its study area at Caspar Creek, the 2003 report essentially a throwing up of hands in frustration. The PNW Forest Mycology team tells us there are thousands of fungi living in symbiosis with Douglas fir, assuring us the soil glue is present and operating even if they haven’t recognized it themselves yet. CO2 Science magazine reports regularly on CO2 use by plants and has incorporated the glomalin into their global warming studies.
In the Mattole, they listened to purchase offers and suggestions, went about their business and now expect to come peacefully back to let us know what we are in for next. But we are prepared and so people shouldn’t think this is made up as we go. It is the hammer of truth. We are all malleable, and once this information becomes common knowledge and incorporated into practice and law, we will have logs AND fish.