Daily Journal - A Recall Drive

TAKING ON TIMBER 
A Recall Drive is the Latest Development in The Case of the Humboldt County D.A. Suing Pacific Lumber 
By Dennis Pfaff
Daily Journal Staff Writer, April 24, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO - Paul Gallegos knew he was taking a political risk by going after Humboldt County timber giant Pacific Lumber Co. just weeks after taking office as the county's top prosecutor.

"I would have had to have been blind, deaf and dumb not to know that it would be the end of any political career I might have," said Gallegos, against whom a recall attempt was poised to be launched today.

The veteran defense lawyer-turned-Humboldt County district attorney may be causing political discomfort outside his jurisdiction, as well. Both state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the Gov. Gray Davis could find themselves drawn into the suit Gallegos filed in February against Pacific Lumber.

He's seeking as much as a quarter-billion dollars in civil penalties from the timber giant for allegedly hiding information in connection with the 1999 Headwaters agreement.

Under that deal, Pacific Lumber agreed to cede thousands of acres of old-growth forests to government control in exchange for regulatory certainty in operating on its remaining acreage.

Gallegos' civil fraud case is among a trio of parallel courtroom dramas. Just completed last month was a trial of a lawsuit brought by environmentalists alleging state officials didn't do their jobs properly in scrutinizing the plans that govern Pacific Lumber's logging practices under the Headwaters deal.

Coming up May 12 in Eureka is the retrial of a federal police-brutality complaint against sheriff's deputies who pepper-sprayed activists protesting the company's practices.

Coincidentally, the next day in the same city, a key hearing in the Gallegos lawsuit is scheduled in Humboldt County Superior Court.

The community, according to various accounts, is roiling.

"When it comes to timber and environmental activists, Eureka is the center of a war zone," attorneys for the pepper-sprayed protesters said recently, in arguing against holding the trial there.

While some county residents see Gallegos as a troublemaker, others point to Pacific Lumber, which since its takeover by a Texas conglomerate in the mid-1980s has been at the center of near-constant controversy.

"These guys have distorted almost every aspect of life up here - the political, the environmental, the social and the judicial," said Eureka attorney William Bertain, who has represented property owners and pensioners in cases against Pacific Lumber.

Gallegos' lawsuit, brought under Business and Professions Code Section 17200, says Pacific Lumber secured state approvals to log under the Headwaters deal by submitting an environmental report containing false information regarding the potential hazards, such as erosion from its hillside operations.

Logging on unstable slopes "resulted in major landslides causing destruction to ancient redwoods, serious harm to Humboldt Bay and serious harm to streams, bridges, roads, homes and property rights of the people of Humboldt County," the complaint alleges.

Although Pacific Lumber eventually came forward with corrected information, according to the lawsuit, that data was delivered only to a local representative of the California Department of Forestry, and not until just before the Headwaters deal was finalized. Gallegos said that prevented the information from being included in the decision-making process.

Pacific Lumber officials have denied any wrongdoing, saying Gallegos' lawsuit rests heavily on the findings of a government researcher whose work lacks "scientific credibility."

Gallegos has requested a court order to stop the company from logging in some areas, including those potentially unstable hillsides. He also seeks $2,500 for each tree harvested illegally. By some estimates, that could reap $250 million in penalties, although any actual recovery likely would be far lower.

Gallegos' own demeanor in pursuing the litigation suggests a combination of defiance and optimism, notwithstanding the recall effort funded by a retired timber executive, a serious slap-down by the county's board of supervisors and a legal counter-attack by Pacific Lumber that threatens Gallegos and the county itself with sanctions.

"If I put that ahead of doing my duty then I couldn't do this job," Gallegos said. He is fond of saying that the prosecutor's position is "a job to do, not a job to have."