Redwood Park Remap Urged in House Bill

A Northern California congressman has proposed legislation to redraw the boundary of Redwood National Park to allow state officials to get help from the federal government in transforming property once owned by a timber company into a facility for research and education.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) and introduced Nov. 21, would affect the 25,000-acre Mill Creek tract of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, making it eligible for grants available only to federal entities. The park is near Crescent City in Del Norte County.

The bill would also streamline management of 130,000 acres of ancient redwoods that dot the North Coast and are overseen by the state and national park systems.

In addition, it would allow the federal and state parks to save money by combining some management efforts, officials said.

“We need this to happen,” said Rick Sermon, superintendent of the area’s three state parks. “It makes sense and will give us the chance to make the changes we need to make to the property.”

Sermon said he envisioned the former lumber mill site as a scientific research station affiliated with a university and a residential outdoor school for children to study the region’s ecology.

The Mill Creek tract was purchased for $60 million by the Save-the-Redwoods League and transferred to the state in June 2002. The property, formerly owned by Stimson Lumber Co., preserves a wildlife corridor between the coast and the Coast Range mountains. It also links the Pacific Crest and Pacific Coast hiking trails.

Mill Creek harbors coho salmon, and the surrounding area is home to 22 other threatened or endangered species, including the marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests in redwoods.

According to Thompson spokeswoman Leslie Danz, the bill has been referred to the House Committee on Resources.

The state first created three parks around North Coast redwood groves in the 1920s. Those parks -- Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast and Prairie Creek redwoods state parks --along with the national park, contain 45% of the remaining old-growth coast redwoods in California. The national park was created in 1968.

The four parks are jointly managed by California State Parks and the National Park Service and are designated as a World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve.

The Mill Creek parcel nearly doubled the size of the state park. Its purchase took two years to negotiate and required financial assistance from an array of public and private groups, including the California Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board, the state Department of Fish and Game and California State Parks.