Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Nails Order To Vacate To Trees; Order Against Tree-Sitters Starts Clock Ticking
For Immediate Release -
Contact: Karen Pickett 925-376-7329; Remedy in the tree: 707-498-0601
FRESHWATER WATERSHED-In an area where there are at least 18 tree-sits occupied by activists protesting Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's (PL) unsustainable logging, an order to vacate within 24 hours was posted on trees PL believes to be occupied today. The posting at about 4 pm on Wednesday presumably starts the clock ticking for PL to move to evict the tree-sitters.
The Order To Show Cause Re. a Preliminary Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) was granted by Humboldt County Superior Court judge Dale Reinholtsen on Monday March 10. The order names tree-sitters Remedy, Wren and Does 1-200, and all persons working in concert with them.
In addition to ordering them to remove their persons and personal property from the trees they occupy within 24 hours, they have until March 19 to file any opposition to the order, and to appear at a hearing in Eureka on March 24. The TRO expires on March 21.
The TRO is based on a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) that PL filed against tree-sitters last August. Freshwater is not the only area on PL property where forest defenders are sitting in trees. There have been on-going tree-sits and other protests as well as other campaign activity such as agency petitioning and acquisition strategies in the Mattole watershed and on Gypsy Mountain, where David Gypsy Chain was killed by an angry logger in 1998.
Freshwater watershed has become the flashpoint because PL has been given the green light to log in unstable areas without waste discharge permits despite severe flooding, debris torrents and sedimentation of streams. The Regional Water Quality Board gave PL the go-ahead on February 27, despite compelling testimony from eminent scientists that the degradation in water quality is tied to increased rate of cut allowed under the Headwaters deal HCP and SYP. (Habitat Conservation Plan and Sustained Yield Plan).
