Posted on 01/28/2007 1:26:37 PM PST by calcowgirl
Fate of a 200,000-acre swath owned by Pacific Lumber is in doubt
SACRAMENTO — The Schwarzenegger administration on Friday sided firmly with environmentalists in a potential legal battle with Pacific Lumber Company over a huge swath of ancient redwoods in Humboldt County that could be jeopardized by the company's financial troubles.
The fate of a 200,000-acre swath of redwoods owned by Pacific Lumber was thrown into doubt last week when the company filed for bankruptcy in Texas. In 1999, the state and federal governments spent $480 million combined to buy 7,400 acres of the company's redwoods, now part of Headwaters Forest Reserve, and establish a "habitat conservation" plan to protect endangered species on 200,000 acres of the company's land.
Environmentalists and Democrats worry that the company will try to escape from that 50-year deal during bankruptcy proceedings — a maneuver that would boost the timber company's value. On Friday, the Schwarzenegger administration weighed in, declaring that the state will use every possible means to protect the redwoods.
The governor's stance ensures that Pacific Lumber will face a tough legal battle if it tries to extricate itself from the redwoods agreement.
"We intend to be dogged and unyielding in our efforts to protect California's interests and hold (Pacific Lumber) to all of its obligations," Mike Chrisman, secretary of the state Resources Agency, wrote in a letter to the Democratic leader of the state Senate, Don Perata of Oakland.
Pacific Lumber spokeswoman Andrea Arnot said the company to date has not asked the bankruptcy court for any changes to the Headwaters agreement, which she called the "most stringent environmental standards" ever placed on timber harvesting.
When asked whether the company might seek such alterations to the deal at some point during bankruptcy proceedings, Arnot said, "You're asking me to speculate how a legal proceeding will go. I can't speculate."
Environmentalists appreciated Schwarzenegger's help in what could be a protracted legal battle. "Taxpayers made a significant investment in these environmental protections," the Sierra Club's Paul Mason said, "so it's very welcome to see the state will be taking all possible steps to ensure those commitments are honored."
Schwarzenegger's opposition isn't the only obstacle the logging company would face if it tries to nullify the redwoods agreement. The deal's requirements were attached to the deeds of Pacific Lumber's land to ensure that new owners would be bound to the same rules if Pacific Lumber ceased to exist, said former state Senator Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto.
In filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Pacific Lumber blamed what it called overly strict state water regulations — rules separate from those contained in the redwoods agreement — for unfairly squeezing logging profits. That led some observers to wonder whether the company will try to get out of the deal it had signed.
The 200,000 acres of Humboldt County forests at issue is roughly seven times the size of San Francisco.
Not redwood forests. The big trees are essentially fireproof. Due to the soil that develops under them and the constant shading, there usually isn't very much underbrush anyway.
Other forest types you are correct.
You should lend that one out as FR tagline material.
granted, they probably sold it with a gun to their head (sell or we discover some endangered species there that depends on the trees), but they did sell.
there are probably lots of things about this deal that i don't understand, but it sounds similar to selling mineral rights, then using bankruptcy proceedings to declare the sale void so that you can exploit the resource that you sold to someone else. Am I correct in that assumption?
Just in case anybody actually gave a hoot... I for one simply despise Schwartzeneggerism and all the rest of the GovernMental EnvironMental GANG-GREEN Born Again Pagans!!!
What is wrong with you? Were talking about something here that gets born, lives a long life, then dies off EVEN IF NEVER HARVESTED for the benefit of all mankind for which it was created by God in the first place!!!
We have his WORD on it!!!
But I thought the governor was pro-business!
That's why we needed him and not McClintock to run against Gray Davis!
he won't, he won't make any money on the expenditure.
Just talk, as usual dems talk no action. empathy sympathy.
My objection to naturalized citizens, especially ones who refuse to renounce their original citizenship demonstrating a real lack of commitment to the ideals of THIS country, is that it takes time for that old EU/UN Socialism to be flushed out of one's veins!!!
I constantly see and hear blue zone voting Americans, even CONservatives hangin around here, coveting stuff we left behind in the "Old World" like mass transit, infill development, "smart (NOT!) growth," conservation, recycling, central planning/zoning and tyranical stuff like that!
I despise that stuff and the knot-heads that keep bangin away at all the rest of us with stuff like that, like a tree full of hyper-squacking old Crows!!!
Yep--and many were dead. More than 95% of elderly people have died in the last 500 years. That's life.
The remaining giants are a national treasure. I say save them at all costs.
There are forests upon forests in the hands of Government worldwide. How do you define "all costs"? Who do you propose bear these "costs"? The oceans are also a national treasure. Should we not build near beaches, either? What part of the beautiful planet should people be able to use, in your "conservative" way of thinking?
Do you also favor dropping that pesky little phrase from the 5th Amendment ("or property")?
ditto
Out of curiosity, who do you think should pay for these "costs"?
They're not.
I'm sorry, but this sounds like the kind of glib, arbitary statistic that environmentalist freaks delight to make up out of thin air or that they concoct by manipulating and stretching the data to preposterous lengths. Nobody ever challenges it so it becomes the "truth" by mindless repetition.
As long as we are exchanging opinions, I'm a conservative and detest conservationist. Conservationist = Liberalism.
Sigh! The end of an era...
Now's the time to snap up that cute little Scotia vacation cottage, PL's selling the town.
By the time the enviros get done, Humboldt County will only have two products left. One's illegal, and the other (tofu) ought to be.
We'll all pay, California and the federal government. But it's worth it. I am not a tree hugger. But I do visit the Coast Redwoods. If you did the same, you would feel as I do.
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