At Loggerheads : Back-Yard Timber Harvests Spark Battle Between Owners, Redwood Lovers

The soaring price of redwood, coupled with the poor economy, has residential landowners in coastal Northern California pulling out chain saws and logging their own back yards.

“It’s like guerrilla warfare around here,” said Marian Hill-Rocha of Westhaven, a small, forested neighborhood 30 miles north of Eureka. “My neighbors were logging at midnight last night.”

The price of redwood has doubled in two years, from $350 to $700 per 1,000 board feet--and more if the tree is old-growth redwood. A good-size yard tree can be worth at least $10,000 and sometimes much more.

“The Dyerville Giant (the second-largest tree in the world, which fell a few years ago) was in excess of 100,000 board feet,” state Forester Duane Shintaku said.

California Department of Forestry officials say that logging in yards and other plots of land less than three acres has increased dramatically in the last few years. In Humboldt County, for example, the number of small-parcel logging operations increased from 125 in 1987 to an expected high of 540 this year.

Owners of the trees are making some unexpected money, and some out-of-work loggers are finding employment. But the increased logging is turning formerly quiet neighborhoods into battle grounds.

“We know (loggers) are knocking on doors, talking to landowners, drumming up business,” said John Marshall, state forestry resources manager for the northern region, which includes Humboldt, Del Norte and Mendocino counties.

Regulations for back-yard logging are practically nonexistent, only requiring that residents file for an exemption to the environmental rules governing larger timber harvests.

Randy Lucero filled out a one-page exemption form last month and proceeded to cut one of four old-growth redwoods in his yard in Redway, a small town near Garberville in southern Humboldt County.

He said he wanted some light in his yard, and he wanted to build a garage--in the very spot where the trees were growing. But, he also acknowledged, “those trees are worth something.” Lucero was not required to notify his neighbors, but when they found out about his plan they called an attorney. After discovering a county ordinance that prohibits commercial timber harvesting in Redway, the neighbors effectively shut Lucero down. He says he will try again.

“The whole thing about keeping the neighborhood intact, its charm and beauty . . . we understand,” Lucero said. “But a property owner ought to have some rights. I can’t touch half my property now because of these trees.”

Marshall said forestry officials have received complaints about the burgeoning number of back-yard logging operations. Some of the most vocal complaints came from Miranda, about 60 miles south of Eureka along the Avenue of the Giants, a scenic state park corridor dominated by redwoods 500 to 1,000 years old.

Next to the state park, two people with an entrepreneurial streak bought a six-acre parcel covered with large trees. One small house was on the property. The landowners each filed an exemption form, hired a logging firm and left a nearly six-acre clear cut.

According to Department of Forestry spokesman Ron Pape, this way of getting around the environmental rules that govern larger logging operations is a statewide trend as popular in the Sierra as it is in northern redwood country.

Three-acre exemptions are the “loophole of choice” for developers, according to Jose Sinai, a Miranda resident who lives near the cutover land. “It looks real bad.”

Sinai and others have appealed to Humboldt County officials and plan to push for a countywide ordinance like that in force near Redway.

“The three-acre thing was put in place to help the small landowner,” said Humboldt County Supervisor Roy Heider. “But now it’s being abused. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the county to be cutting trees on the Avenue of the Giants. Trees are tourism.”

State rules usually supersede local laws, but the Humboldt County Planning Department put one would-be logger out of business over a harvest plan near Hill-Rocha’s home.

Tom Whiteley bought a piece of property with older second-growth trees in Westhaven. When he started logging late one Friday, neighbors called the TV stations and flocked to the site to protest.

“We were standing there hugging trees,” Hill-Rocha said. A local judge processed a restraining order based on the possible need for a conditional-use permit.

Since then the project has dropped off the court docket and residents are negotiating with Whiteley to buy the parcel.

“They’re offering $90,000 when the trees alone are probably worth twice that,” said Bill Davis, a Eureka attorney who specializes in representing timber owners.