Redwood Forest Owner Denied Logging License

Citing chronic violations of the state’s forest protection law, the California Department of Forestry has taken the unusual step of denying a license to cut timber next year to Pacific Lumber Co., owner of the embattled Headwaters Forest along the North Coast.

Forestry officials said the agency took the action because the company had committed more than 100 infractions of the Forest Practices Act in the last three years.

Most of the infractions stemmed from Pacific Lumber’s careless logging operations during wet weather and its failure to control erosion across much of the firm’s 200,000 acres of timberland, the officials said.

By weakening hillsides and plugging up streams, erosion can jeopardize fish and wildlife habitat and lead to landslides and floods.

“This is the first time ever we’ve had to take the action we did with a company as big as Pacific Lumber,” said Gerald Ahlstrom, the department’s deputy chief of enforcement and litigation.

The firm, which owns the largest private stands of ancient redwood trees in the world, is one of the five largest timber companies in California, he said.

Despite the license rejection, which Pacific Lumber learned of Tuesday, Ahlstrom said ongoing discussions with the company could lead to a “provisional” license for 1998 that would be subject to special conditions.

Even without a provisional license, the company could conduct logging operations by hiring outside contractors to do the work.

“The point of denying a license isn’t to stop logging but to get people out there who will do the work without damaging the environment,” Ahlstrom said.

John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber, expressed confidence Tuesday that the state would issue a license by the beginning of the year. “We are taking the issue very seriously, and we are looking for a satisfactory resolution,” he said.

Conditions of the license, he said, will probably require new erosion control safeguards on logging roads as well as closer supervision by licensed foresters employed by the company.

At the same time, Campbell said he believes that the state’s action resulted from lobbying by environmental groups that have been criticizing the firm’s forestry practices for more than a decade. Last year, more than 1,000 people were arrested outside one of the company’s mills. This year, thousands of activists descended on the area for a save-the-redwoods rally.

“I think this is coming out of intense pressure on the agencies from the environmental community with really a focal point on fisheries,” Campbell said. “People are concerned about sediment entering watercourses.”

Salmon are among several endangered species that live in the forests and streams owned by Pacific Lumber, and salmon spawning grounds are often destroyed when sediment accumulates in stream beds.

Pacific Lumber is negotiating a $380-million deal that would transfer the core of its old-growth redwood forest to joint state and federal ownership. The grove amounts to an island amid the company’s broader holdings.

Even if Pacific Lumber can continue logging, the Forestry Department action is an untimely slap in the face to company officials in the midst of such a high-profile transaction with the Clinton and Wilson administrations. Part of that process requires the firm to develop a conservation plan for any of its land that harbors endangered species.