Environmentalists Try to Raise Funds for Bond in Logging Suit

Citing a lack of cash, two environmental groups scrambled for contributions Thursday to meet a $250,000 bond required before a judge will block harvest of unprotected timber surrounded by the Headwaters Forest sanctuary.

Lawyers with the Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Information Center also asked Judge Quentin Kopp to consider giving them more time to raise the money or eliminate the bond completely. Kopp set a hearing for today to consider the extension.

Kopp sided with the environmental groups earlier this week to block harvest plans by Pacific Lumber Co. for the so-called “Hole in the Headwaters,” but said they must put up the bond money before he would issue the order.

Environmentalists say the money, which will be forfeited to Pacific Lumber if the timber company wins when the lawsuit comes to trial later this year, represents an unprecedented and daunting economic obstacle.

In his ruling, Kopp said the Sierra Club has vast resources to draw on to finance the bond. Sierra Club officials counter that the organization has little in the way of cash reserves and most of its money is already committed to individual chapters or programs.

“We were given three days to come up with a quarter-million dollars,” said Kathy Bailey, the Sierra Club’s state forest coordinator.

Unlike in criminal cases, she said, the group cannot put up 10% to secure a bond for the civil trial. “If we had gone out and robbed a store we could get a bond for 10%, but not now,” she said.

Bailey also suggested that the bond requirement, the first such fee of its size ever placed on the Sierra Club, could put a damper on public interest lawsuits.

“If environmental groups are put in a position where they can bring only those cases they’re positive they’ll win, it’ll have a chilling effect,” she said.

Pacific Lumber officials, meanwhile, said they plan to appeal Kopp’s ruling and are opposed to any attempts by environmentalists to delay or avoid paying the bond.