Fine Proposed in Cutting of Old-Growth Trees

A $160,000 fine is being recommended for a Grass Valley logging company accused of illegally cutting down 49 old-growth trees at Lake Tahoe.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is expected to consider the proposed fine against Menasha Corp. when it meets Wednesday at Kings Beach.

Jerome Waldie, chairman of the agency’s legal committee, said the fine is justified because Menasha violated the agency’s rules at least 80 times during an April 1999 forest thinning project on Tahoe’s west shore.

“While I do not believe Menasha is an evil company that set out to illegally cut big trees, I found that time after time it cut corners and bent rules,” Waldie wrote in his recommendation.

But Menasha executive Mark Salyer said he disagrees with Waldie’s finding and hopes that the agency’s governing board takes a different action.

“I don’t think [Waldie’s decision] is supported by the evidence,” he told the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

“I hope and I believe the board, after considering all the evidence, will see that [$160,000 penalty] as an exorbitant figure.”

The planning agency has a lawsuit pending against Menasha for the violations, and Waldie said the agency would proceed with it if the company decides not to pay a fine.

Waldie, the California Senate’s appointee to agency’s governing board, made the recommendation after reviewing testimony from a hearing he presided over in January.

Only an estimated 5% of the Tahoe Basin is covered with old-growth forest. Trees of 30 or more inches in diameter at their base are protected under the agency’s old-growth ordinance.

“I believe it to be a palpable loss to the ecosystem of the Tahoe Basin when trees over 30 inches are needlessly felled,” Waldie wrote.