Eureka, CA - California Superior Court Judge John Golden on Friday, September 27 denied a motion to reverse a ruling that orders Maxxam/Pacific Lumber to halt logging operations on 210,000 acres of land in Humboldt County.
The ruling maintains a "stay" order that the court issued on August 29 to prohibit further logging, "taking," or killing, of threatened or endangered wildlife, and any alterations of streambeds by Pacific Lumber. The company has blatantly violated the court order since it was issued, admitting that it has continued to cut a million board feet, or two hundred logging truckloads, every day.
This unlawful logging continued even after a September 19 court hearing in which Judge Golden specified that the order applies to active operations. The recent ruling discusses the fact that Maxxam/Pacific Lumber has violated the order and makes it abundantly clear that the continuation of the "stay" applies to active logging throughout 210,000 acres. However, the Eureka Times-Standard reported on September 28 that a Maxxam/Pacific Lumber spokesperson "said the company has not decided whether to stop logging, but that the decision would be made soon."
"Maxxam/Pacific Lumber needs to understand that complying with court orders in not optional. Unfortunately, their behavior has mirrored the 'scorched earth' logging policies that began when Maxxam took over Pacific Lumber in 1986," Cynthia Elkins, EPIC's Program Director, stated.
Judge Golden issued the order in two separate cases that EPIC and the Steelworkers Union filed in March 1999 against the Department of Forestry (CDF), Department of Fish and Game (DFG), and Pacific Lumber. For more than three years, CDF and DFG blocked the case from proceeding to trial by only recently providing certified administrative records for the court.
The Golden ruling notes that EPIC and the Steelworkers have been denied due process in the two cases, putting "sustained timber yields, wildlife habitat and wildlife" at risk of harm. The order states that "[t]he public interests in prompt and effective judicial resolution of these matters and in careful management of natural resources...justify the continued operation of the stay."
Judge Golden did make an exception in his latest ruling for six separate logging plans, none of which are currently approved. These six logging plans are located within the Elk River, Van Duzen, Salmon Creek, and Eel River watersheds, and include three that contain ancient redwood habitat for the endangered marbled murrelet.
Under the terms of the infamous 1999 Headwaters Deal, Pacific Lumber received a permit to kill, or "take," marbled murrelets by logging almost 10,000 acres of old growth forest habitat that were previously protected. Pacific Lumber also received a similar permit to "take" coho salmon, chinook salmon, and more than a dozen other imperiled species, as well as a "Sustained Yield Plan," which is a 120-year permit granting nearly unlimited clearcutting on 210,000 acres, and a blanket, ownership-wide "streambed alteration" permit.
EPIC's lawsuit challenges the "take" permits for threatened species, the sustained yield plan, and the streambed alteration permit. Judge Golden's ruling stops all actions that rely on these permits, applying not only to active logging operations, but also to the processing and approval of further logging plans. His latest ruling states that he sees no basis for Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's claim that the previous order was unclear, stating that "[i]t does not seem to lack clarity. It...employed basic and simple language in ordering that 'no party to this proceeding shall take any action whose validity depends upon the validity of any said approvals.'"
"Maxxam has never shown respect for the law or our children's natural heritage, but this time they have really outdone themselves. While thumbing their nose at the court, the company has been driving the murrelet, coho salmon, and other species to extinction," Elkins stated.
Pacific Lumber, owned by Texas financier Charles Hurwitz (CEO of Maxxam), has a history of violating the law. The company has been found violating its "Habitat Conservation Plan" and the California Forest Practice Rules approximately 100 times in the last year, including illegal logging within five separate marbled murrelet habitat areas. In 1998, EPIC's investigations uncovered that the company violated the Forest Practice Act more than 300 times in 3 years, leading the California Department of Forestry to revoke its license to operate in California. Pacific Lumber has been cited with criminal violations more than a dozen times since 1996.
Number of acres approved for Pacific Lumber to log since March 1999: 32,669
Number of acres currently pending approval for Pacific Lumber: 7,472
Total number of logging plans Pacific Lumber has submitted since March 1999: 346
Number of murrelets in California historically: 60,000
Current number of murrelets in California: < 4,000
Percent of murrelet decline each year: 4 - 13%
Percentage of murrelet habitat gone today: 96%
Number of acres of murrelet habitat sacrificed by the Headwaters Deal: 9,400 - 9,964
