A Hard Look at Private Logging

Logging is a volatile issue in environmentally aware California, even when a company is cutting its own trees on its own lands. Current controversies over two separate logging operations should encourage Gov. Gray Davis and state forestry regulators to take a new look at state policy regarding logging on private lands in California. Both disputes indicate the state may need to toughen its rules.

One involves Pacific Lumber Co.’s logging of 595 acres of second-growth redwoods in the so-called “Hole in the Headwaters” near Eureka on the North Coast. It’s actually not a hole but rather a swatch of forest along the northeast side of the celebrated 10,000-acre Headwaters Forest, which was bought by the state from Pacific in early 1999 for $480 million. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups argue that the logging, using helicopters, threatens to cause erosion into the South Fork Elk River, an important home of the coho salmon.

The environmentalists claim the only way to preserve the stream and salmon run is to buy an additional 8,700 acres of forest. That may or may not be desirable, but if the state Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention is doing its job, it will prohibit any logging likely to cause such environmental damage. In reviewing firms’ timber cutting plans, the department is supposed to make sure the environment is protected from degradation.

Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, who temporarily halted logging in the Headwaters hole, severely criticized the department for not allowing any public comment on the logging plan. The department replied that no public comment was needed because the changes in timber operations would benefit the environment. That is the sort of bureaucratic judgment that needs to be tested in a public forum.

The second issue involves the clear-cutting of timber by Sierra Pacific Industries, which owns about 1.5 million acres of forest in California. The firm has rapidly escalated clear-cutting, mostly along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Residents of Arnold, a former logging town in Calaveras County southeast of Sacramento, have protested clear-cuts averaging 18 acres on slopes above a reservoir near town. Businesses fear the unsightly gashes in the forest will hurt the tourist business.

State forestry officials say that clear-cutting in California is subjected to some of the most rigorous regulations in the nation. The cut areas, in which all trees are removed, are usually limited to 30 acres. Even at that limit, however, clear-cutting leaves ugly scars. The U.S. Forest Service has virtually phased out clear-cutting on national forests. The state should consider such a policy, or at least subject the logging to special controls when it is adjacent to state highways or tourist attractions.

The state cannot bar private companies from harvesting their trees. But the heart of forest practice rules is the protection of watersheds and their streams. In the Headwaters case, protection of the river must be paramount. At Arnold, and elsewhere on Sierra Pacific Industries land, the state must be certain that logging practices are not at odds with the public interest. The department and the Board of Forestry should reconsider whether clear-cutting is in the public interest and, if so, under what conditions.