Keeping Redwoods for the Ages

This was a victory not easily or cheaply won. Ceremonies in Sacramento and Washington marked the conclusion of a 10-year-long battle to save the redwoods of Northern California’s Headwaters grove, 3,000 acres of old-growth trees, some of them 300 feet tall and 1,000 years old. The seemingly endless negotiations finished in a moment of high drama in Eureka when Pacific Lumber Co., the state of California and the federal government signed a historic $480-million agreement at literally the last moment, near midnight Monday.

At midnight, the federal share of $250 million would have expired. The state put up $130 million and has appropriated $100 million more to buy additional redwood groves. Gov. Gray Davis said the deal was struck at just two minutes to midnight.

It is indeed a landmark purchase. The 7,500-acre Headwaters contains the largest stand of old-growth redwoods still in private hands. An additional 4,500 acres will serve as a buffer to the Headwaters. To protect several endangered species, including the coho salmon, the agreement also subjects Pacific to exceedingly stiff rules in logging 211,000 acres in the region. Eight thousand of those acres will be saved from logging altogether.

State and federal officials must be diligent in making Pacific live up to the new logging rules. The timber company’s work has been so shoddy that the state last year suspended its license to cut. Watershed plans must protect streams that run through the region from silting and becoming clogged with logging debris.

Many participants were cited Tuesday for their work in the negotiations with Charles Hurwitz, the wily financier who runs Maxxam Inc., Pacific’s parent company. Two deserve special mention: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who carried this battle for the last five years, and state Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford), who entered the fray 10 years ago, just as Pacific was preparing to log the Headwaters redwoods.

Headwaters now joins several state preserves and the Redwood National Park as places where future generations can view these majestic trees in awe and wonder.