Timber Accord in Headwater Redwood Forest Meets Environmental Protests
9/30/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Timber accord focus of environmental protests
September 30, 1996
Copyright 1996 Associated Press.
ARCATA, California (AP) -- Environmentalists are denouncing an accord to
protect part of the last private old-growth redwood forest because it
allows continued logging in most of its more than 60,000 acres.
"It's 7,500 acres (protected) instead of 60,000 acres," said Paul Mason, a
spokesman for the Environmental Protection Information Center in
Garberville.
Mason and some 400 other environmentalists gathered Sunday in Arcata to
protest the deal, which was reached late Friday after weeks of closed-door
negotiations.
Critics say the plan is a sweetheart deal for Texas financier Charles
Hurwitz, whose Pacific Lumber Co. owns the land covered in the agreement
and is one of several owners of the rest of the forest 300 miles north of
San Francisco.
The $380 million pact reached Friday between Hurwitz, the Clinton
administration and state officials would turn 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber
land over to the public.
The land includes the 3,000-acre parcel on which Pacific Lumber had planned
to begin salvage logging Monday. That's the removal of dead, dying and
diseased timber that has already fallen.
In return for relinquishing the property, Hurwitz would receive $250
million from the federal government and $130 million from the state in
cash, land or other assets.
The salvage logging is now on hold for at least 10 months, awaiting
congressional and state legislative approval of the package. The
protesters argue that wait gives Hurwitz a chance to veto the deal.
Hurwitz, along with state and federal officials, said the agreement struck
a fair balance between environmental protection and economic necessity.
"It's a very good deal," Hurwitz said after the deal was announced. "It
shows we can preserve old trees and continue to log in an environmentally
sound manner."