Deal to Save Old Trees Stalls as Deadline Nears

With a logging moratorium in the Headwaters Forest set to expire this weekend, government negotiators indicated Thursday that there are still obstacles to a deal to preserve the nation’s last stand of privately owned ancient redwood trees.

“There are a whole complement of issues yet to resolve,” said a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson.

If a preservation agreement is not reached, Pacific Lumber Co. can begin limited logging operations of old-growth redwoods on Monday.

One spokeswoman for the company said the logging would be restricted to removing downed trees. But another said that in some parts of the forest the company could take standing trees that are dead or diseased.

Describing the Headwaters as a national treasure, representatives of the governor and the Clinton administration have been trying for several weeks to acquire at least 5,000 acres of the oldest and largest trees from Pacific Lumber and its parent company, Houston-based Maxxam Inc.

The negotiators have been discussing an asset swap with Maxxam that would trade Headwaters acreage for a variety of government-owned land including military bases, commercial real estate and forest lands now in state or federal hands.

But the talks have bogged down over a number of issues--including conflicting valuations of the Headwaters property and whether a deal should resolve legal claims pending against Maxxam and its chairman, venture capitalist Charles Hurwitz.

Federal bank regulators are suing Hurwitz and Maxxam for alleged responsibility in the 1988 collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers about $1.6 billion.

Hurwitz and Maxxam acquired Pacific Lumber and the Headwaters Forest in a takeover in the mid-1980s. In order to pay off junk bond debt incurred in the takeover, Hurwitz sought to double the rate of logging in the Headwaters. That decision sparked a decade of protest and civil disobedience.

The two-week moratorium on logging, which is scheduled to expire at midnight Sunday, follows a ban on logging during the nesting season of the marbled murrelet, a federally protected seabird that nests in old-growth redwoods.

Protests intensified as the Sept. 15 end of the nesting season neared. More than 900 protesters were arrested that weekend at the Humboldt County forest even though Pacific Lumber had agreed to the two-week moratorium. About half a dozen protesters were perched in trees Thursday in parts of the Headwaters Forest that are not currently off limits to logging.

A Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Thursday that about 30 or 40 people trespassing on Pacific Lumber Co. property have been arrested during the past few days.

The logging moratorium now in place covers a 3,000-acre stand of virgin redwood known as the Headwaters Grove and several other islands of old growth within the 200,000-acre expanse owned by Pacific Lumber known as the Headwaters Forest.

Environmentalists have been pushing for a deal that would protect about 60,000 acres, including all of the groves under the moratorium. But state and federal officials have signaled in the past that they would settle for an agreement covering the Headwaters Grove and a 1,500-acre buffer zone.