Humboldt Logging Raises Flood Fears
11/24/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Humboldt Logging Raises Flood Fears
Source: The Environment News Service
Date: 11/24/97
Copyright 1997 ENS, Inc.
OAKLAND, California, November 24, 1997 (ENS) - Humboldt County residents
are worried that logging practices taking place upstream of their homes is
causing damage to their properties and destroying their quality of life.
Victims of landslides and extensive flooding in Humboldt County detailed
their concerns today to the California Senate Natural Resources Committee,
led by Senator Tom Hayden.
The committee hearing is taking place in Oakland, while Tuesday the
California Board of Forestry will be in Roseville, just north of
Sacramento, the state capital to hold a hearing on Emergency Rules
requested by the residents.
"The Forest Practices Act as administered by the California Department of
Forestry (CDF) does not protect the property of downstream neighbors nor
does it protect the health of our streams, their aquatic life and the
fisheries they once supported," said Ralph Kraus, a 44-year Elk River
resident. "Our quality of life, our property, and our fisheries are being
systematically destroyed. We must therefore seek legislative help," he
said.
Residents of Stafford Freshwater Creek and Elk River watersheds, both
located in Humboldt County, explained their concerns about forestry
practices to the Board of Forestry at a regular Board meeting November 5.
There a petition was presented calling for Emergency Rules:
* to abate nuisance threatening private property of downstream
landowners
* to safeguard the overall health and safety of downstream residents
* to protect the federally-listed coho salmon
* to halt activities that deliver sediment to the creeks
The activities that cause sediment to clog the creeks and streams are
winter and wet weather logging and logging on steep and unstable slopes.
Stafford resident Mike O'Neal woke up last New Year's Day to the sound of
snapping trees, and a 20 foot (6 metre) wall of mud coming right at him,
"about as fast as a man can run," he said. The slide destroyed seven homes
in Stafford, and residents remain in constant fear as winter rains
intensify.
Now O'Neal has been forced to leave his home because of the threat of yet
another landslide. Testifying today he told Hayden's committee, "Clearly,
what happened in Stafford demonstrates that we have a failed system.
Maxxam cut and built roads on extremely steep slopes above our community on an
active landslide. They knew we lived down below, and we believe they
gambled on the stability of the hill. And they cut it anyway. And CDF
permitted them to do it," O'Neal charged.
Alan Cook, a Freshwater resident who was flooded in for nine days last
winter, calledon the State Senators for a solution. "I, like my neighbors,
fear the consequences of the intensive timber harvest of the past few
years and the planned harvest for the next ten years in the Freshwater
watershed. We ask that you intervene to slow the pace of timber harvests so it
does
not destroy our valley."
"Landslides, flood, and loss of our water quality - what is CDF protecting
anyway? Not us," argued Kristi Wrigley, a third generation Elk River
resident who experienced three major floods in her family's generational
home last year.
"I can no longer occupy or rent my house in the wintertime because of the
constant threat of flooding. They house used to flood once every 10-20
years, now it floods once or twice a year. Almost ten square miles of land
has been logged in the last seven years in the North Fork of the Elk River
watershed. There's eight feet of mud on the bottom of our river now. The
quality of our drinking water is destroyed and the fish are gone. This is
not a coincidence," Wrigley said. "A large timber company is infringing on
our private property rights."
Twenty-five year Freshwater resident Jan Kraepelien put a finger on the
problem - the fact that for the past 12 years Pacific Lumber Company has
been owned by an uncaring corporate entity - Maxxam. In 1985, Charles
Hurwitz, the CEO of Maxxam Corporation, effected a hostile takeover of
Pacific Lumber for $900 million. That's when the trouble began, Kraepelien
and many others say.
"The old Pacific Lumber company was a good neighbor with good logging
practices," Kraepelien said. "The new Maxxam-controlled Pacific Lumber is
devastating our watershed. It appears that over six years, starting in
1995, Maxxam is planning to log 70 to 80% of our valley. Since 1995, the
number of Timber Harvest Plans in Freshwater Creek has tripled. That is
simply way too much of any watershed to take without collapsing the
ecosystem. Only a certain percentage should be harvested every year.
Maxxam gambles and we are the ones who lose."
Prior to 1985, Pacific Lumber, headquartered in the company town of
Scotia, Humboldt County, California, had been locally owned and, local residents
say, admirably managed for many decades. Sustainable logging was practiced
on 150,000 acres of forest proper to farm, adjacent to the ancient groves.
The Headwaters Forest was protected as a treasure for now and future
generations.
Maxxam and Pacific Lumber are the same companies charged by forest
protectionists with logging the last giant California redwood trees -
those located in the Headwaters Forest of Humboldt County.