Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
ACTION ALERT
Posted by Mary Bull (chalicenew@earthlink.net)
Monday, March 1, 1999
Forest Defenders Across the Land!
***East Coast/West Coast Demos!***Valentine Campaign: BAA Schools Group Sends 1300 Valentines to Gov Davis!***FISHERS TARGET OLD GROWTH: Special Report!!!***URGENT ACTION ALERT!!!****
First, the good news...
--Simultaneous EAST COAST-WEST COAST Gap demos in New York City and Palo Alto!!! On January 30, Wetlands Rainforest Action Group/NYC Earth First, Rainforest Relief, and a network of students from over a dozen regional high schools and colleges held a demo at the Gap in Manhattan's West Village. 25 people chanted "Redwood Trees, Not Corporate Greed. Don't Shop Gap!" (great chant--let's remember it!) and gathered 500 petition signatures!!! Meanwhile, the Stanford Redwood Action Team demo'd at the Gap at Stanford Shopping Center, in a big moral victory for First Amendment rights in shopping malls! THREE MIGHTY CHEERS FOR THESE DUAL COAST ACTIONS!!!
--Valentine Campaign Highlight: Bay Area Action Schools Group sent THIRTEEN HUNDRED VALENTINES (Yes, 1300!) to Gray Davis asking him to overhaul the Board of Forestry!!! THREE OFF-THE-CHART CHEERS FOR THE BAA SCHOOLS GROUP!!!!
--Hey Guys! Guess what?! This must have worked, cause... Gray Davis and Mary Nichols are saying just that: They are going to reform the Forest Practice Rules! (And we're going to ask you to give them some encouragement at the end of this email!)
The BAD NEWS is that the Fishers have begun their spring logging blitz a month early, and they're going for the gold--the last of our old growth! IF ANYONE HARBORED ANY SHRED OF HOPE REGARDING THE FISHERS' INTENTIONS, THEIR RECENT ACTIONS WILL DISPEL IT!
The rest of this newsletter is a special report and call-to-action from Mary Pjerrou, President of the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance, the public-interest non-profit that watchdogs logging in Mendocino County.
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FISHERS SPRING LOGGING BLITZ STARTS EARLY--WITH OLD GROWTH LOGGING
February 28, 1999
The Fisher family and their logging company, Mendocino Redwood, have repeatedly stated that they want to be "good stewards" of the land. I would like to know WHEN that "good stewardship" is going to begin.
The Fishers are right now logging old growth redwoods in the Albion River--in February, in the rain--in order to avoid having to do new Spotted Owl surveys during the nesting season, which begins March 1--and have further begun to hastily amend old logging plans in order to target ADDITIONAL old growth. The Fishers already have some 50 logging plans lined up for their logging blitz this spring-summer. Last week they rammed through the review process a sloppy AMENDMENT to an old 1995 logging plan in Greenwood Creek, changing it from a low-impact "commercial thinning" plan into a high-impact plan for CLEARCUTTING old growth, in 15 clearcut strips of 2 to 2.5 acres each (called "group selection")--a plan with a great potential for landslides, a town water supply at risk, high risk to a precious salmon fishery (misclassified as NON-fish bearing), and no surveys for endangered birds that are dependent on old growth trees.
How is this "good stewardship"? Logging old growth in these depleted forests? TARGETING old growth? Changing logging plans at the last minute in order CLEARCUT old growth? Ignoring fish in the stream? Ignoring endangered birds? Trying to hoodwink the public and avoid issues of public concern? Short-circuiting the review process?
The Fishers actions this past week show a callous disregard for endangered species, and just plain contempt for the public and its concerns (see "LOGGING BLITZ - DETAILS" later in this email for further information).
It is obvious now--if it wasn't before--that the Fishers are indeed targeting the very last old growth. There couldn't be plainer evidence
than this - changing commercial thinning to group selection, with substantial old growth present. Also obvious: they don't care about Spotted Owls, Marbled Murrelet, Coho salmon, public drinking water and other forest values - and they are in a very great hurry.
**We ask our wonderful redwood forest protection network to come to our assistance in the following three ways:
1.) Fax or mail letters protesting this forest liquidation to California Governor Gray Davis. (See sample letter at the end of this email.) Remind Davis that he said no more old growth should be cut in California. Tell him that enforcement of the Forest Practice Rules in Mendocino is critically needed. (For those of you who faxed letters to Davis last week, urging him to include a strong contract with the Headwaters Deal: It worked! Thank you!)
2.) Escalate the pressure on the Fishers and their Gap empire! We need more signatures on the Petition to Save the Mendocino Coast Redwood Forest (which is easily available on-line). Maybe they can ignore 10,000 signatures on a petition. Could they ignore...say...50,000? 100,000? 100,000 signatures is not an unreachable goal. If the 10,000 people who have already signed the petition would each get just 10 more people to sign--we would have it!
http://www.elksoft.com/petition
Spread the word! Take it to work with you! Take it to school with you! Post it in public places!
(We are re-writing the Petition to incorporate recent developments, and to include Governor Davis. This will be on-line shortly. But the old Petition is still good! Don't hesitate to get new signatures!)
3.) For those in the Bay Area, join the rally at 12 noon on March 6 at Powell and Market in San Francisco or at Telegraph and Bancroft Way in Berkeley to protest Gap sweatshops in Saipan, as well as protesting the destruction of the redwood forest.
We are going to need the overwhelming support of people around the state and across the nation to save the Mendocino coast redwood forest. It is in extreme peril. Please act now. Write Governor Davis! Circulate the Petition! Picket the Gap!
My deepest thanks to all of you who care so much!
Mary Pjerrou
Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance
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LOGGING BLITZ - DETAILS
A week ago, Mendocino Redwood (MRC) sent a crew of 6 or 7 fallers out into the rain, in February, to log old growth trees in the Kaisen Gulch area of the Albion River. By logging in February, they avoid having to do new Spotted Owl surveys during the nesting season, which begins March 1. Once the trees are down, no more Spotted Owl surveys will be required--sadly enough.
MRC started logging with the ink not yet dry on CDF's rubber stamp of THP 1-98-350 MEN (one of the plans in our Petition to the Fishers). CDF approved the plan on Wednesday (2/17/99). MRC phoned in their "Notice of Start-up of Operations" that day, and had their logging crew in the field the next morning--before anyone in the community had even gotten the notice from CDF (the "Official Response to Public Comment").
This logging plan poses a serious threat to the Albion River fishery, and to wildlife and other resources. The roads in the plan are saturated from months of rain, and are pouring sediment into the streams. Independent fisheries biologist Dr. Edmund Smith wrote a letter to CDF asking them not to approve this plan. It is the tenth industrial logging plan approved in this watershed in the last year alone, the eighth by MRC--all targeting old growth, all with inadequate cumulative effects assessment.
CDF refused to provide the public with Spotted Owl data for this plan--despite serious Spotted Owl habitat issues (compounded by MRC's end-run around the nesting season rules). Linda Perkins of the Albion watershed group and attorney Rod Jones took this plan to court on Friday (2/26), only to have a local judge delay the Temporary Restraining Order hearing until the following Monday (3/1), by which time the trees could all be down. The old growth is falling right now--in the pouring rain--as the crew hurries to beat the March 1 nesting season deadline.
In the midst of all this, MRC moved on another front, to hastily amend an old 1995 logging plan in Greenwood Creek, changing it from low-impact "commercial thinning" to high-impact CLEARCUTTING of old growth redwood and Douglas fir (THP 1-95-315 MEN Amendment no. 10). This move was also marked by unseemly haste and lack of care for endangered species.
The amendment drops the more restorative logging, and instead proposes 15 long, rectangular, strip clearcuts of 2 to 2.5 acres each (euphemistically called "group selection") which will stairstep down through a very steep watershed (Barn Gulch, tributary to Greenwood Creek), fragmenting wildlife habitat, destroying a significant stand of old growth and second growth trees, and threatening a town water supply as well as an unacknowledged salmon fishery.
The forester came to Second Review for this major amendment with over 30 revised THP pages in draft form. We still haven't seen the final official version, though they closed public comment on Wednesday (2/24/99). There was no survey for the extremely endangered Marbled Murrelet - though this rare bird has been sighted in this watershed and the old growth in this plan is prime Marbled Murrrelet habitat. The Spotted Owl no-take certificate is out of date - and no survey data was provided. The streams are mis-classified as non-fish bearing (meaning lesser protections), though local fishermen report often seeing fish in these streams, and identify it as Coho and steelhead spawning habitat.
The mis-classified fishery has many unstable areas that will be criss-crossed with clearcuts. With an old road below this area, a new road above it, and clearcuts in between, the potential for slides and sedimentation is great. The plan could not only wipe out a salmon fishery--it could seriously impair water quality. The Elk water district was not notified of this amendment. We were barely able to get these critical issues into the public record before they closed public comment.
The decision date for this major amendment is March 5 - which may be delayed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service interest in the Marbled Murrelet issues.
The original Barn Gulch plan was the subject of a public interest lawsuit, in 1990, by the Elk County Water District and the Greenwood Watershed Association (as well as mass protests and the arrest of 17 townspeople for blocking logging trucks). Louisiana Pacific settled that lawsuit, withdrew the 1990 plan, and later filed THIS plan, in 1995--a lower-impact plan with significant mitigations including "commercial thinning." This is the plan that the Fishers are now amending, in order to clearcut old growth. The plan already has one extension on it. This only justification that the amendment offers for this extensive alteration of the plan, is: "Some of the land management goals have changed with the change of ownership."
This all happened very fast--and sooner than we expected. The final liquidation of the Mendocino coast redwood forest has begun--despite all our efforts thus far to stop this madness. The Fishers have started their long-feared assault on these forests--in February, in the rain, a month before the logging season normally begins.
LOGGING OF OLD GROWTH IN THE ALBION:
THP 1-98-350 MEN is in the Albion River - Kaisen Gulch area, which contains scattered residual old growth (one of the plans in our Petition to the Fishers). The plan was approved by CDF on Wednesday, Feb. 17, despite extensive public comment opposing the plan (including 10,000 signatures on a petition), a letter from fisheries biologist Dr. Edmund Smith, CDF's failure to provide the public with Spotted Owl survey data, and CDF's failure to adequately address cumulative effects issues.
The very next day, Feb. 18, the Fishers' logging company sent a crew of 6 or 7 fallers into the plan area - who have been hurriedly cutting trees down since that time, despite almost constant rain. The roads are a muddy mess. The trees will be hauled out later. Their purpose seems to be to cut the trees down as quickly as possible.
Logging began even before people who had written public comment letters got the notice of approval (the "Official Response to Public Comment"). Normally, there is a wait of at least a day or two, while people get the notices and cry their tears. (Caring about a forest can be heart-breaking.) The Fishers' haste to get these trees down may be related to a requirement that new Spotted Owl surveys be done starting with the new nesting season on March 1. With the trees down, no new surveys will be required.
The fact that the public was not allowed to scrutinze the existing Spotted Owl survey data suggests that Spotted Owls are in jeopardy in the plan, and habitat--and possibly Owls themselves--are being destroyed. Without the data (which CDF itself does NOT review)--and without the additional surveys--it is impossible for anyone to know whether or not a take is occurring. (Spotted Owl are federally listed endangered birds.)
Linda Perkins of the Albion River Watershed Protection Association and attorney Rod Jones took this plan to Superior Court in Ukiah on Friday, Feb. 24, for a Temporary Restraining Order. Judge Conrad Cox put the hearing off until Monday. The Fishers may have most of the trees down by that time. Monday also happens to be March 1, start of the new Spotted Owl nesting season--the date for the beginning of surveys that will never be. (Judge Cox did the same thing last year in a Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance lawsuit--took three days to rule on a TRO request, while L-P hastily logged the plans in the midst of escrow.)
CDF is now saying that survey data for the Northern Spotted Owl is "confidential" and refused to give the data to Linda when she asked for it during the public comment period. This is a new policy at CDF, unsupported by law. ALL documents upon which a public agency's decision is based must be available to the public. The Department of Fish and Game is THEORETICALLY a member of the Timber Harvest Plan Review Team, and Spotted Owl "no take" certificates are part of the THP.
Spotted Owl surveys are generally extremely flawed--often incomplete or wrong, and almost never done according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protocols. No one reviews the data. It's not even kept at CDF any more. It's kept at the Dept. of Fish and Game--to make it more difficult to get, if you're reviewing a plan at CDF. The surveys are often done by industry foresters and then rubber-stamped by DF&G. The system is absurd. The only people who care about the Spotted Owl are members of the public--activists like Linda--who now can't even get the data for an objective review.
It is in this context that the Fishers logging company rushed out into the woods to log old growth--that is, Spotted Owl habitat--before the new Spotted Owl surveys had to be done. Other issues, such as the endangered Coho fishery, received equally lousy consideration (logging in the rain, in the mud!).
"Good stewards"? WHEN?
LOGGING OF OLD GROWTH IN GREENWOOD CREEK:
Hard upon this sneaky behavior (felling trees early to avoid Spotted Owl surveys), MRC last week amended an old logging plan in Greenwood Creek, from the relatively low-impact "commercial thinning" (the 1995 plan), to 15 long, rectangular, clearcutting strips of 2 to 2.5 acres each (called "group selection") that stairstep down a very steep watershed (Barn Gulch Creek, a tributary to Greenwood), through areas that contain some of the last old growth trees in this watershed. The amendment is clearly aimed at CLEARCUTTING the old growth.
The lower third of the plan area contains a Coho salmon and steelhead spawning area that is MIS-classified as non-fish bearing (meaning lesser protection for the stream). Local fishermen say the creeks in question are full of salmonid fingerlings and juveniles a third of the way up the creek--which they've frequently checked over the years because it is such good spawning ground.
With this amendment, we begin to understand the Fisher family's "old growth policy" (see http://www.mendocinoredwoodco.com). They promise not to log trees 250 years old or older and 48 inch diameter or greater, EXCEPT FOR "scattered residual" old growth trees--old growth that is not contained in an unentered stand, but that was left behind by previous loggers, sometimes just single trees, that were malformed or in awkward places (too hard to get with old equipment). For "residual" old growth, they give themselves the loophole that they will "evaluate" its "importance" to wildlife!
The old growth that they are targeting in this plan amendment is very substantial--or the forester wouldn't mention it at all. (We also have reports from local observers--this area contains some of the best forest in the watershed). The old growth is described in the plan as "residual" (by the forester). It is contained in a mixed stand of old growth and second growth redwood, Douglas fir and grand fir (with very little tanoak).
The amendment abandons the more restorative "commercial thinning" in order to go after these old growth and second growth trees with strip clearcuts.
Second growth trees - 150 years old or so - are ALSO very rare in these forests. The old growth trees are described as "suppressed" or "poorly formed." These trees were ignored in previous years, when straight, perfect old growth was plentiful--but these days they are pure gold, because there is so little old growth left. As "suppressed" trees (which may be smaller in diameter--with much tighter rings--compared to some old growth), they could be upwards of a thousand years old.
The other thing about "suppressed" or "poorly formed" old growth is that it is prime Marbled Murrelet habitat--an extremely rare and endangered bird that nests in the odd horizontal branches of poorly formed old growth trees.
Eight of the clearcutting strips criss-cross the lower area of Barn Gulch, where the old growth is concentrated. Three of the strips cross over streams in unstable areas, creating a landslide hazard (along with potential road failures above in the new road construction, and existing and potential road failures in the old road system which parallels the creek below). Clearly, they should be staying out of this area--with a fishery and a town water supply at risk--but are pushing the risks to get at the old growth.
We barely caught the tail of this plan as it sailed through the CDF review process, unimpeded by any serious review--and (with Linda Perkins' help), we got substantial public comment into the record just before 5:00 pm on the day of close of public comment (Wed., 2/24/99). Amendments don't normally involve such extensive changes to a plan. In fact, they've changed the whole focus and design of the plan, and should be required to submit a NEW plan, especially in view of the age of this plan (almost five years old). The plan already has one extension on it. They are adding a major amendment to an extension.
The MRC forester came to Second Review (the week before) with more than 30 revised THP pages in draft form. These pages weren't available to us until last Tuesday, the day before close of public comment. (CDF never did send them, though we requested them last Friday. We got them from the forester himself--but these are not the official, date-stamped pages and cannot be relied upon.)
The amendment relies on the old, outdated cumulative effects analysis from 1995. Critical wildlife, fisheries and water quality issues are given short-shrift (or no shrift). We are about to lose some of the very last old growth in Greenwood Creek--and there was no survey for Marbled Murrelet, a sloppy, invalid no-take certificate for Northern Spotted Owl (no data given - despite our request for it), no discussion of the old growth that was logged in the adjacent logging plan last year (and the overall dirth of old growth in the watershed), no surveys for fish, no mention or discussion of the L-P fish survey data that is now available--and on and on.
Sloppiness, haste, lack of care--all done in the confidence that whatever they propose, however unjustified and poorly planned--will be approved by CDF.
The Fishers' logging company notified the local Elk water district of OTHER plans they intend to log this season in Greenwood Creek, but NOT THIS amendment (more evidence of haste and sneakiness). The amendment ADDS serious risk to the Elk town water supply by positioning newly proposed clearcuts right over several streams in an area of chronic instability (three mapped slides), with an old road just below and new road construction above. The amendment was given a hasty, limited inspection by CDF--and no water quality inspection at all, not by the Regional Board nor by the local water district (as well as no Dept. of Mines and Geology or Fish and Game inspections.)
On top of all this, the amendment is a betrayal of the Greenwood-Elk community which fought so hard to get the original, high-impact Louisiana Pacific plan in 1990 withdrawn. Mass protests (in which 17 local community members were arrested--inn owners, teachers, even one logger), and a public interest lawsuit by the water district and the watershed association convinced L-P to drop that plan. They later filed this one (THP 1-95-315) with its heavy mitigations. For the Fishers to change THIS plan is both unnecessary and provocative. (They have plenty of other plans targeting the last old growth throughout their ownership. They just filed two MORE old growth plans in Alder Creek, just south of us--on top of the numerous approved logging plans they already have.)
(Note: One mistake in a previous communication. We said that 90% of the streams on MRC land are non-fish bearing. This was wrong. We should have said: 90% of the MRC streams showed an absence of COHO SALMON, in the 1994-1996 fish surveys. There ARE steelhead in some of these streams where Coho were absent.)
Mary Pjerrou
Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance
tel. (707) 877-3405
Sample Letter to Gray Davis:
Governor Gray Davis
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814
Voice: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633
RE: Old Growth Logging in Mendocino
March 1, 1999
Dear Governor Davis,
First, thank you for taking a strong stand with the Headwaters Deal! During your campaign you said that there should be no more old growth logging in California. We want to bring to your attention that for the past week the Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) has been logging old growth in Mendocino County, and last week amended a logging plan to CLEARCUT additional acres of old growth. This is particularly appalling because there is so little old growth left in Mendocino, and the clearcut plan failed to include surveys for the rare and endangered marbled murrelet and other critical cumulative effects information (including the presence of fish and precious salmon spawning habitat).
MRC and other logging companies in Mendocino are engaged in the final liquidation of the coast redwood forest, in violation of the intent of the California Forest Practice Act and numerous other laws. They already have numerous approved Timber Harvest Plans by which they are going to inflict the final blow on these overcut lands.
Your Secretary for Resources Mary Nichols said yesterday that the State is going to beef up enforcement of Forest Practice Rules in Humboldt County as a consequence of the collapse of the "Headwaters deal." Such enforcement is also critically needed in Mendocino County, where "liquidation logging" has been going on for two decades, where the Coho salmon is on the verge of extinction, and where we are right now losing the very last of the old growth trees.
We strongly support reform of the California Forest Practice Rules, and urge you to insist on recovery of all endangered species and long-term sustainability of forest resources.
Thank you for taking a strong stand in defense of our natural trust resources, in particular, thank you for protecting and restoring our majestic redwood forests and their dependent fish and wildlife!
Sincerely,
Your name and address
cc:
Mary Nichols, Secretary for Resources
1416 9th Street - Suite 1311 Sacramento, CA 95814
voice 916-653-5656 fax 916-653-8102
For questions and comments please e-mail us!
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