©2001 San Francisco Chronicle 
June 29, 2001
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

For 70 years, conservationists have dreamed of putting into public parks thousands of acres of North Coast forests south of the Oregon border, a rugged territory crisscrossed with streams rich in salmon and steelhead.

This week, a group called the Save the Redwoods League brokered a $60 million deal with the Portland-based Stimson Lumber Co. to buy nearly 25,000 acres in the Smith River watershed, right in the heart of a cluster of federal and state parks in Del Norte County.

If the deal is completed, the land, home to 23 imperiled species, would connect with Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park on the north, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park on the west, Six Rivers National Forest on the east and Smith River National Recreation Area on the northeast.

"This is an ecological crown jewel," said Andrew Miller, president of Stimson Lumber and a fourth-generation member of the family that owns the company. "It's the middle piece of a puzzle. It connects the national park with the state park, both beautiful old-growth parks, and connects the Pacific Ocean with the U.S. Forest Service land."

The Smith River is the only major undammed river system in California and is listed as pristine under the National Wild and Scenic River Act.

The deal won't be final until the buyers raise another $30 million. Save the Redwoods already has $15 million in private funds, and the state Resources Agency's Wildlife Conservation Fund has another $15 million.

Al Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Fund, said state agencies were trying to get the other $30 million, including the Department of Fish and Game, the Coastal Conservancy and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The lumber company has been working with Save the Redwoods for about two years to sell the forests south of Crescent City in the drainage of Mill Creek and Rock Creek, tributaries to the Smith River, which has 37 miles of fish- bearing streams.

The conservation group, which in 1933 listed the Mill Creek drainage as a top acquisition goal, approached the Wildlife Conservation Board six months ago to partner in a land deal the size of 1,000 Golden Gate Parks.

"The fish biologists say acquiring the land may be the most important thing we can do for coho salmon in the state right now," said Wright.

Because of a sharp decline in numbers, the coho, or silver, salmon is protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. Chinook and chum salmon and steelhead and cutthroat trout also use the streams as nursery grounds.

Other rare species living in the deep forests include such amphibians as the Del Norte salamander, foothill yellow-legged frog and northern red-legged frog and such mammals as the California red tree vole and Pacific fisher.

Among the rare birds breeding there are the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl, yellow-breasted chat, yellow warbler, purple martin, ruffled grouse and Copper's hawk.

The Miller family founded its timber business in Michigan in the 1880s and moved west at the turn of the last century.

The company bought the quarter-million acres of coastal redwoods, Douglas fir and hardwoods in the 1950s. Some parts have been logged once, other tracts twice. Only 125 acres remain of trees over thousands of years old.

But the family has tried to do a responsible job of stewardship, Miller said.

"Our business is to grow and harvest trees," he said. "But we do it with a great deal of care. People who spend a day up there will see it's a beautiful landscape that has been touched by human hand. Mill Creek remains a productive fishery."

Stimson decided to sell its Del Norte holdings because the bulk of its land and its mills are in northwest Oregon, northern Idaho and eastern Washington.

"We could use the money to buy land where we already own land and have sawmills," Miller said. "We thought that would be a better choice for us."

E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com. Error: Unable to read footer file.