Maxxam tries extortion to get logging approved-Letters needed

[ bach home | newsletter | updates | press releases | email list | links ]
updates /

Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Tries to Extort More Logging Plans
at Top Levels of State Government

Pacific Lumber is once again holding ancient redwoods hostage and threatening dire consequences for the community and for protected ancient trees if they don't get what they want.

We've seen this before. During Headwaters deal negotiations in 1998-1999, their extortion efforts were for money (half a billion tax-payer bucks) and concessions on their Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP)-this time they are extorting suspension of regulatory limits on their logging. Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz himself met in private with top aides of the Gov. Schwarzenegger on January 11 to issue their threats and demands. (see LA Times article

The threat Hurwitz is holding over the heads of the people of California is that unless they get the green light on logging in flood-prone watersheds where their previous logging has wrecked havoc for residents and endangered fish habitat, then the company would go belly up. Why is bankruptcy a threat to the public trust and not just the company's assets? Hurwitz is trying to argue that bankruptcy would invalidate protections of the 1999 deal, including stream protections and 50-year set-asides for the last substantial chunks of virgin old growth redwoods on Pacific Lumber property, but that just isn't so. Negotiations for the Headwaters Deal were brutal, partly because some people were ensuring it would be a long term agreement.

Will the governator's office cave? Schwarzenegger has not proven himself to be a friend of the forests as yet. He had no record when he arrived in office and although he has made some decent appointments, he has proposed "streamlining" of processes by which logging plans are approved, in a way that would undermine environmental protections.

PL got some of what they wanted when the State Water Quality Control Board last week granted four controversial logging permits in watersheds already severely impaired. But Maxxam wants more.

Maxxam/PL tried to squirm out of HCP restrictions on such things as logging too close to watercourses last spring when they tried to "loosen" restrictions on steep slope logging and falling trees close to streams and cutting in wet weather-even though they were already grossly violating these very provisions. (227 violations of the deal-connected Habitat Conservation Plan-most of them-75%--for logging protected stream areas.)

The company says they want to preserve jobs, but they have laid off many of their mill workers (38 on Jan. 11 at the Fortuna mill) and now contract out most of their logging, so they won't be responsible for benefits and pensions, and their new mill technology allows the company to increase production with fewer workers.

Which bring us to a burning question: If they thought they were on the brink of bankruptcy, then why did they just invest millions in revamping their flagship mill to a high tech operation, calling it "the foundation for the growing PL Company"?-or is it because this new mill will take smaller trees (remember Louisiana Pacific in Mendocino county in the 1990s?) and will use fewer workers for greater production AND because they assumed their arm-twisting at Water Quality and in Sacramento would work.

Let's be real. In the 19 years since the takeover of PL by Maxxam, the company has reaped huge benefits by logging valuable old growth redwood, by selling off PL assets, by unburdening the company of pensions and benefits by shifting so many positions to contract workers, and of course by reaping the benefits of the Headwaters Deal. They could have paid off their junk bond debt. They could have re-instituted sustainable logging (as their predecessor did) and ensured saw timber and jobs in perpetuity. Who should pay the price for their cut and run management style?

Below find a sample letter to send to the Governor's office. Cc to Alan C. Lloyd, Sec'y of Cal EPA, Michael Chrisman, Sec'y of Resources Agency, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Or write your own separate letters to those people.
----------------------

Gov. Schwarzenegger:

I understand that Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company management met with your top environmental staff in Sacramento recently to bring their case for increased logging. They specifically are asking for approval on plans in watersheds that have been subjected to flooding in recent years and are therefore under scrutiny by the state's Water Quality agency, as well they should be.

That this timber corporation would seek direct intervention the Governor's office in the timber harvest plan approval process is disturbing, but what is even more disturbing is how they are making their argument-by threatening bankruptcy and concomitant abandonment of the protective provisions contained in the 1999 Headwaters Deal for ancient redwood groves and sensitive water courses.

This corporate extortion is outrageous. I urge you to make it known to Maxxam/Pacific Lumber that corporate threats are in appropriate and further, I urge you to offer assurances to the public that you will safeguard the protections in the Headwaters Deal that the public paid dearly for.

We count on you and your appointees and staff to fully enforce the mandates of the water quality agencies and Dept. of Forestry that will protect the public trust values like healthy forests, clean water and thriving fisheries that California residents deserve.

Sincerely,
-----------------------------------
Contact info:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633


Alan Lloyd, Ph.D. Agency Secretary, Cal EPA
contact: Exec Ast. Mary Delaney
Phone: (916) 323-2514 or (916) 322-2628



Sec. of Resources Mike Chrisman
Ast to the Sec. for Resources Cynthia Paulsen
1416 Ninth Street, Suite 1311, Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 653-5656 fax (916) 653-8102


Senator Barbara Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3553 fax 415-956-6701


Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
, Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954


--



More Updates



updates /

[ bach home | newsletter | updates | press releases | email list | links ]