Logging Firm to Sell Up to 50,000 Acres to Preservationists

California’s biggest logging firm has agreed to sell as much as 50,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada to preservationists over the next five years along a half-dozen of the most scenic river gorges.

The deal announced Monday by Sierra Pacific Industries, the state’s largest owner of private timberland, and the Trust for Public Land is among the biggest swaps ever in the state’s rugged but environmentally fragile mountain spine.

Although much of the Sierra turf slated for sale and eventual incorporation in surrounding national forests is not in immediate danger from logging, environmentalists praised the plan as a rare proactive step that will dramatically cut the sale price.

“Very rarely can you be out in advance of a threat,” said Jay Watson, the Wilderness Society’s state regional director. “We’re usually on the defensive trying to do something at the last minute before the ax drops.”

The initial sale is expected to involve 6,100 acres along the formidable granite walls and lush greenery of the American River’s frothy north fork.

That region is a prime recreational playground and wildlife sanctuary, home to white-water rafters and 150 bird species, including peregrine falcons, golden eagles and goshawks. It is also a visual feast, with 500-foot waterfalls and towering old growth conifers dotting the landscape.

Though final details remain to be settled, the land is expected to change hands at a cost of about $6 million, or an average of less than $1,000 an acre. The land trust would act as middleman, but the bulk of the cash for the purchase is included in an appropriations bill now before Congress. Under government ownership, the land would be part of the Tahoe National Forest.

If completed, the deal would represent a virtual steal compared to the price typically paid for fragile environmental property threatened by man. When the contentious Headwaters forest was purchased for preservation in the north coast redwoods two years ago, the average price of an acre was $48,000.

Alan Front, the Trust for Public Land’s senior vice president, said the price of the Sierra Pacific property would likely have skyrocketed if the logging firm had secured an approved timber harvest plan or sought to subdivide the terrain into vacation home parcels.

“When you’re negotiating for the keys to a bulldozer that’s running and ready to go,” Front said in an interview, “the keys get a lot more expensive.”

Battered by Bad Publicity

Officials at Sierra Pacific, which has been battered in recent years by publicity over clear-cut logging near Sierra towns as well as ever-stricter logging rules and tough foreign competition, said they were happy with the deal.

“We think it’s a real win-win situation for everyone involved,” said Mark Emmerson, Sierra Pacific’s chief financial officer and son of the firm’s founder, Red Emmerson. “We’re trying to respond to what we think the California electorate, the California citizens, would like.”

Officials said the deal was hatched after Sierra Pacific officials approached the land trust about selling off huge swaths of its forest land. The logging company, which owns 1.5 million acres in California, has square-mile parcels checkerboarding the region, all of them a legacy of 19th century railroad land grants.

Emmerson said it would be more economically advantageous for the company to sell the land than attempt to log it. Although heavily forested in some spots, the terrain is very steep and rocky in others. In addition, the American and other Sierra rivers have large recreational constituencies--hikers, campers and others--who would almost certainly put up a fierce fight against any logging plans.

“It wasn’t optimal for timber production,” Emmerson said. “We could have sold it for other uses, but we think this land is of greater use visually and for recreation.”

Aside from the parcels along the American River, the land trust and Sierra Pacific are negotiating over terrain along the Yuba, Clavey, Mokelumne and Rubicon rivers and beside the Granite Chief Wilderness west of Lake Tahoe.

“We have frequently crossed the Rubicon this year,” Front jested Monday, “and in years to come, we’re hoping to buy the Rubicon.”