June 27, 2005 >< +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Please Comment: Endangered Habitat On the Chopping Block +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ** Please contact California Department of Forestry (CDF). Deadline is July 8 ** Charles Hurwitz's Maxxam / Pacific Lumber Co. is at it again - this time trying to liquidate as much old-growth forest as it can in anticipation of filing for bankruptcy, which it has been threatening for months. Recently prevented by the State Water Quality Control Board from logging his desired volume of trees in the Elk River and Freshwater Creek watersheds, Hurwitz is now turning to the damaged Eel River watershed, looking for ...

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REMINDER– State Water Board will decide at a hearing JUNE 16 whether the stay on logging in the impaired watersheds of Elk River and Freshwater will stand. (See BACH’s April 7 and March 30 alerts for details). We re-post EPIC’s alert below, which also includes information about old growth forest hikes. Also check out detailed stories about Maxxam/Pacific Lumber in last Sunday’s SF Chronicle: The financial wizard behind Pacific Lumber controversy and Lumber dispute coming to a head. The financial wizard behind Pacific Lumber controversy Lumber dispute coming to a head. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/12/BUG87D71N21.DTL EPIC ACTION ALERT _______________________________________________________ PUBLIC MEETINGS, EMAIL YOUR …

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Water Board caves to PL pressure despite rivers of evidence Pepper Spray by Q-tip civil rights trial nears, trial-related events in Bay Area Forest activist get-together next week (April 7) Day of Action for forests at Victoria’s Secret April 14 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WATER REGULATORS CAVE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On March 10, we alerted this list regarding the March 16 North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) public hearing in Santa Rosa to consider demands by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Co. (PL) for authorization to conduct extensive logging in two of its severely fractured watersheds, Elk River and Freshwater Creek. The March 16 hearing before …

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On March 10, we alerted this list regarding the Wednesday, March 16 North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) public hearing in Santa Rosa to consider demands by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Co. (PL) for authorization to conduct extensive logging in two of its severely fractured watersheds, Elk River and Freshwater Creek. That hearing is still taking place, but has been moved to a larger venue. Earlier agenda items will be heard at the regularly scheduled venue (Regional Board Hearing Room, 5550 Skylane Boulevard), starting at 9 am. The Regional Board will reconvene for the public hearing at 12 noon at …

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Please come to Wednesday’s Water Board meeting in Santa Rosa if you can! http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050313/NEWS/503130302/1033/NEWS01 Big Timber’s Last Stand The Latest Tree War Pits Pacific Lumber’s Logging Plan Against an Agency Aiming To Protect Streams From Runoff Sunday, March 13, 2005 By MIKE GENIELLA THE PRESS DEMOCRAT For two decades, the North Coast timber wars have been waged by protesters chanting in the streets and staging symbolic sit-ins atop towering redwoods. This week, the fight moves to an anonymous Santa Rosa hearing room, where the fate of the North Coast’s last surviving big-timber corporation is in the hands of state regulators …

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IMPORTANT PUBLIC HEARING! ATTENDANCE NEEDED! DATE: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 TIME: The hearing will begin at 9 am. Come early to get a seat! We recommend being there by 8 am. See http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/agenda/03_2005/03_2005.html for the agenda. PLACE: North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board 5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A, Santa Rosa (directions below) Regional Water Board to Consider Logging Levels in Maxxam/Pacific Lumber’s Impaired Watersheds On Wednesday, March 16, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) will hold a public hearing in Santa Rosa to consider demands by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Co. (PL) for authorization to conduct extensive logging …

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BACHsters: This piece, written by Remedy, covers the decision made yesterday by the Water Board regarding the contentious timber harvest plans that Maxxam/PL has been trying to get approved by threatening bankruptcy (see previous BACH alerts). Your BACH rep attended the hearing in Eureka Feb. 23 when both PL and the watershed residents presented their arguments to the Water Quality agency, just before the executive officer made her decision. I will give a more detailed update on that hearing and related issues at the next BACH meeting (Thurs. March 10, 7 pm at the Rockridge Library in Oakland). Press coverage …

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press coverage we thought would interest you THE NATION A Titan of Logging Threatens to Topple By Tim Reiterman Times Staff Writer February 21, 2005 REDCREST, Calif. – Whenever Pacific Lumber Co. planned to dispatch helicopters to log its nearby redwood groves, the company would phone Christine Rising at her vine-draped bungalow above the Eel River. After finding someone to care for her horses, dogs, cats and pot-bellied pig, Rising, 51, would pack her clothes and head down the dirt road toward a Eureka hotel about an hour’s drive away. Then for days or weeks, she could escape the beat …

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dear BACHsters, This is an interesting piece that just appeared in the Eureka Reporter, an interview with the president of the Humboldt Watershed Council. It helps in understanding how we arrived at the unsustainable rate of harvest that PL is now complaining about mightily as being too low, and how Maxxam is raking off $100 million a year in profits for the past 20 years while keeping PL fully in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy in order to pressure regulatory agencies. http://www.eurekareporter.com/Stories/fp-02170507.htm One-on-one with Mark Lovelace by Glenn Franco Simmons The Eureka Reporter (Editor?s note: In last week?s …

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Public COMMENTS NEEDED on huge old growth logging plan Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), who amassed a gigantic land base from railroad grant lands in the late 1800s, making them the largest private landowner in the nation, and making its chair Red Emmerson one of the richest individuals in the U.S. is planning to log a large chunk of old growth forest on our north coast. Known for their rapacious practices in the Sierras, SPI now has considerable holdings in Humboldt county, including a parcel on Davis Creek near Petrolia in southern Humboldt, previously (publicly) owned by the Bureau of Land …

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