By David Bergin
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Tree Hugger in McCoy Creek
Photo: Arleen Olson |
After years of struggle on the part of local environmentalists and landowners, the beautiful headwaters of McCoy Creek high above Piercy were clearcut by Lancaster Logging while locals were still trying to raise funds to acquire the parcel. Helicopters have hauled the giant Douglas-fir trees out of the canyon.
This tragic end closes a two-year legal effort by EPIC and the Piercy Watersheds Association (PWA) to preserve 160 acres of virgin ancient forest that sheltered spotted owls in its towering trees and straddled the spawning grounds of a coho stream. The canyon walls are so steep and unstable that the only thing holding them up was the web of massive old growth roots.
Until recently, McCoy Creek was an ancient forest that the public already owned. The land was managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In August of 1996 local residents became aware of BLM's plans to sell the parcel to a logging company. People wrote letters of concern to BLM, urging them to preserve the old growth.
BLM, expecting a challenge in federal court, secretly sold the land in a back-room deal before notifying or responding to the public, effectively blocking any chance to test in court the legality of the sale. The land was sold to a broker called the American Lands Conservancy, (ALC), which immediately turned the title over to Lancaster Logging, even though neighbors had offered to match Lancaster's offer in order to put the property into a conservancy. Currently, Harriet Burgess, the director of ALC, is under federal investigation for allegedly giving gifts to a National Forest manager who was in charge of some $60 million worth of timber sales.
By the time the public found out about the deal, Lancaster Logging Company had already filed a Timber Harvest Plan with the California Department of Forestry (CDF) to clearcut all the old-growth Douglas fir on the property. CDF was eager to approve the plan, even though the clearcut blocks were too large and too close together to be legal. They simply called the largest block a "rehabilitation" cut, a forestry prescription usually reserved for areas where the original conifer forest was clearcut and has never grown back. Apparently CDF and Lancaster thought McCoy Creek's virgin forest needed "rehabilitiation,"and the best way to do that was to clearcut it.
Over 300 letters of concern were received by CDF, every one opposed to the plan. Nonetheless, CDF approved the plan on July 17, 1997. Two days later EPIC and PWA went to court with noted environmental attorney Sharon Duggan to seek a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). Earth First! And the McCoy Creek Defenders blockaded the logging road for a day until the TRO was issued.
Thus began 14 months of complicated litigation. The plaintiffs prevailed at every stage of the trial, yet in the end Lancaster was given a green light to log by Mendocino Superior Court Judge Conrad Cox. The final issue argued in court was over a "Mitigation Monitoring Plan" (required under the California Environmental Quality Act) to ensure the effectiveness of measures taken to protect the creek and the area's fragile hillsides. Judge Cox agreed with plaintiffs that Lancaster did indeed have to include such a plan in his THP. This was the first time that this monitoring section of CEQA has ever been required by the court in a THP case.
Experts at EPIC and other groups such as Salmon Forever submitted detailed technical criticisms, backed up by some 800 pages of documents from the scientists and heads of the public agencies, describing and illustrating in exhaustive detail what monitoring is all about. For more than 10 years the Environmental Protection Agency has complained that the Forest Practice Rules are inadequate on compliance and effective monitoring.
There is a clear consensus throughout the scientific community that California's forest practice rules are not working. Fish are going extinct. Birds are going extinct. Hillsides are sliding into creeks and forests as we know them are being transformed into wastelands or monocultural tree plantations. All the wildlife agencies with the notable exception of the California Department of Forestry agree that there is an urgent need for long-range, comprehensive monitoring.
Yet, CDF issued the death warrant and the virgin ancient forest of McCoy Creek
is now gone.
