ER - Court nixes ruling on part of Headwaters agreement

Court nixes ruling on part of Headwaters agreement
by Kara D. Machado, 12/18/2005

A state appellate court last Monday overruled a Humboldt County Superior Court judge’s ruling that sided with environmentalists over The Pacific Lumber Company.

The appellate decision threw out the July 2003 ruling by Judge John Golden, which invalidated a major portion of the PALCO’s 1999 Headwaters agreement.

“Of course we are delighted with the decision,” said PALCO president and CEO Robert Manne.

Larry Evans, president of the Environmental Protection Information Center, was not.

EPIC was one of two plaintiffs that sued the California Department of Forestry and other “interested parties,” including PALCO, with regard to what EPIC considered a “flawed” Headwaters agreement concerning species and habitat.

Evans said EPIC’s next step will be to analyze the decision and, should it decide to do so, appeal to the state Supreme Court.

“We will be reading through it with a fine-tooth comb,” Evans said. “Overall, we disagree with it, respectfully, and we stand by our basic case, which is that (PALCO’s environmental) plan doesn’t represent the realities on the ground, meaning species are being pushed to the brink of annihilation.”

According to Chris Manson, manager of regional government relations at PALCO, Golden’s ruling invalidated the company’s Sustainable Yield Plan — which allowed it to cut up to 178 million board feet per year; its State Incidental Take Permits — in relation to the steps PALCO took to protect species and habitat; and its Streambed Alteration Permit — which allowed PALCO to put in crossings on water courses.

Despite Golden’s ruling, PALCO did not have to shut down operations, it just shifted gears and obtained different permits and a different option in its sustainable yield plan.

Throughout the 84-page appellate ruling, there were several comments that stated EPIC “confused” distinct notifications and its attacks against PALCO and the environmental plan were “nonsensical,” erroneous, “simply wrong,” have taken too “narrow a view” and even stated that EPIC’s complaint that no mitigated measures were provided for the geologic impact identified in the environmental report were “meritless.”

Evans said the science the appellate court relied on to make its ruling is “suspect.”

“It has been politicized from the highest levels, from the Bush administration and its cabinet,” Evans said. “They are taking science from people in the field and rewriting it and then deleting whole sections in some cases and sending them back down as agency science.”

Evans said EPIC believes PALCO has logged about 120 percent in the overall watershed within the first seven years of its 10-year equivalent acreage and “the only thing they’ve sustained the yield of is mud and sediments into the creeks and sustained the yield of floods.”

EPIC plans to continue to closely watch PALCO’s operations and Evans said that it is not EPIC’s intention to “just beat up on PALCO.”

“We want reform of forestry across the board,” he said.

Manson said what’s important for PALCO regarding the appellate decision is the validation.

“It’s a validation for what we’ve said all along,” he said. “ ... We’re operating in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive manner.”

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