Judge Stalls Headwaters Tree Cutting

In a sharp rebuke to state forestry officials, a Superior Court judge on Monday blocked a plan that would have allowed a North Coast timber company to cut an unprotected stand of redwoods surrounded by the newly created Headwaters Forest sanctuary.

Judge Quentin Kopp, a former state senator now serving in the judiciary, ruled that the state Forestry Department should have allowed the public to weigh in on timber harvest plans for the so-called “Hole in the Headwaters.”

But he also declared that environmental groups, which sued to block a plan by Pacific Lumber Co. to log more than half the 1,000-acre tract of second-growth redwoods, must put up a $250,000 bond.

Environmentalists said the money, which would be forfeited to Pacific Lumber if the timber company wins the lawsuit, represents a daunting economic obstacle.

“Of course this ruling is good news,” said Paul Mason, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, which sued along with the Sierra Club. “But do you happen to know someone who has an extra quarter-million they can spare us?”

Pacific Lumber President John Campbell said he was disappointed by the ruling, but confident of victory in an upcoming trial. In the meantime, he added, the company and its employees will take a financial hit because of the logging ban.

Kopp, noted for blunt speaking during his long tenure as an independent legislator, had harsh words in his 19-page decision for the performance of the California Forestry Department, which approved Pacific Lumber’s plan to log 595 acres of trees next to the Headwaters Forest.

He said the department should have considered the substantial effects of noise from helicopters that would hoist trees from the steep hillsides. He noted that no review was performed of plans to use a logging road along an unstable hillside that could send silt into the fragile salmon spawning grounds of the Elk River.

But the former politician saved his toughest words for what he described as a “transparent” effort to avoid public comment on the logging plan.

“A believer in orchestration,” Kopp wrote, “might reasonably conclude CDF’s actions were intentionally executed to prevent public exposure or comment.”

Louis Blumberg, a Forestry Department spokesman, said the agency stands by its decision and looks forward to a trial to prove that it followed standard forestry rules in agreeing to grant Pacific Lumber’s request to begin logging this summer.

He said the agency felt no public comment was needed because Pacific Lumber was proposing changes in its timber operations on the site that would result in “net environmental benefits.”

Pacific Lumber officials contend that helicopter logging is far easier on the environment than tractors and other heavy equipment that can scar hillsides--and still make noise.

The timber firm also decreased the acreage to be logged by 15%, widened stream-side buffer zones by 25 feet, agreed to restore damaged swaths of forest and avoid logging when roads are wet and susceptible to erosion.

Those changes “provide the proper balance between sustainable timber harvesting, job preservation and environmental protection,” said Campbell of Pacific Lumber.

Originally, a smaller lumber company was set to log the swath of forest at the far north edge of Headwaters preserve. But the section of second-growth redwoods--most of them 60 to 80 years old--was transferred to Pacific Lumber last year as part of the $480-million Headwaters deal, which authorized the purchase of 10,000 acres of old growth forest.

No trial date has been set. Kopp will require the two environmental groups to put up the $250,000 bond by Thursday. He said EPIC appeared to lack assets to afford the bond, but said the Sierra Club could tap its “vast financial resources.”

The two groups may appeal Kopp’s financial requirement. Kathy Bailey, Sierra Club state forest conservation chairwoman, said the group’s financial resources are spread thin and no pool of money is available for the bond.

“It’s not like we have a lot of loose slush fund money around,” Bailey said, adding that Kopp’s requirement could have a chilling effect on public interest lawsuits.