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West Coast Correspondence

PALCO v. Forest Defenders

by Andrew Mefferd

The road was closed because Palco was trying to evict activists who were living in their old growth redwood trees. Twenty or so activists had taken up residence in the company's trees near Freshwater about a year ago to keep them from being cut down. Monday was the day the lumber company started evicting treesitters.

One of the reasons Palco picked the 17th is because an activist named Remedy was about to celebrate one year living in her tree, a 1,200 year old redwood named Jerry, on March 21. Another reason the week of March 17 was a good one was that the drums of war were beating so loudly, that most of the media was paying attention to little else. Later the same week war broke out in Iraq, further minimizing publicity of the conflict in the trees.

Up at the top of the road, though, the trees were demanding the full attention of everyone involved. Several California Highway Patrol cars kept the sparse traffic flowing, and 20 or so Humboldt County Sheriffs kept an eye out for any stray activists who might have bushwhacked through the woods to get to where the action was.

A Takoma Voice press pass only went so far, though. No one was allowed at the base of the occupied trees, because something or someone could fall out of them at any time. Falling from over a hundred feet up in a redwood tree, even the smallest piece of equipment was a deadly missile by the time it reached the ground.

Six Palco-hired climbers were up in two trees trying to do something very dangerous: dislodge the sitters, Remedy and Wren, who had been living in the canopy of Freshwater the longest. This involved trying to convince the activists to come down of their own will, or cut them out of the trees and bring them down while restrained.

It took all day, but Remedy was lowered down from her perch around 5 p.m. First climbers cut the platform she had been living in out of her tree and threw all her gear down. Then they tried to talk her into coming down. When that failed, they cut her out of the metal sleeves she had attached herself to the tree with. By that time, the road was re-opened and 50 or so protestors, standing by the road yelling and chanting, surged forward as Remedy was put into a police car bound for the Humboldt County Jail. Four more days and she would have been in the tree a year.

Attention then focused on Wren's tree, where climbers were using a cutting tool called a grinder to remove the lock box attaching her to the tree. Sparks visible from the ground flew as the metal was cut away from around her wrists. The job the climbers started early that morning was finished just as the sun was going down over the Pacific. Wren was silhouetted by the sunset as she was lowered down, hands and feet cuffed, from the tree that had been her home for nine months.

Things got ugly this time as protestors sat down in the road. A shoving match broke out between sheriffs and activists, and protestors were pepper sprayed and some arrested.

The lumber company did not cut the vacated trees that day because it was dark by the time the activists were removed. They didn't cut them the next day either, because overnight other activists climbed up and took the place of those removed. That's how it went all week long. Every day of the week war broke out in Iraq, climbers went up after tree sitters. Every day, activists were arrested. Every night, other activists climbed back up to replace those that had been removed. Only one previously defended tree was cut that week, since most were so quickly re-occupied. The process of removing tree sitters in Freshwater continues today.

Sequoia Sempervirens

Palco is willing to hire climbers and pay for the sheriffs to come out in force because the old growth redwoods being occupied are so valuable, the lumber from a single tree being worth tens of thousands of dollars. Forest defenders are willing to live on a 4' by 8' platform and risk arrest not just because they love the trees, but because they love the whole forest ecosystem. Each giant, gnarled tree is home to a wide variety of life forms, from flying squirrels to endangered tree voles and even other plants that grow in holes in the massive trunks and branches.

The focus of the conflict over old growth logging is on the trees, but the fight is over whether an ecosystem that has been much the same since dinosaurs were on the earth will vanish under human stewardship. Once the old growth trees are gone, the rest of the forest ecosystem goes downhill.

Two million acres of redwood forest once covered a narrow strip along the coasts of California and Oregon. 97 percent of that original forest has now been removed. About one and a half percent of that forest is protected in parks and national forests. The remaining one and a half percent is owned by timber companies.

Coastal redwoods are the tallest organisms on earth, and can grow to over 360 feet tall. A single tree can live for 2,200 years. Some of the trees being cut now were growing when the Bible was written. With spectacular longevity and size, redwoods are essential to the coastal big tree ecosystems. They anchor the soil and promote carbon, nutrient, and water cycling in the forest, and support an abundance of plants and animals.

The coast redwood's scientific name is sequoia sempervirens. Sequoia invented the Cherokee alphabet. Sempervirens is Latin for "ever-living."

This is apt because one of the only ways to kill a redwood tree is to make it into a house, deck or hot tub.

If a redwood falls over or is severely damaged, even cut down, the damaged tree can sprout anew from bud or root tissue called burl, and use the parent tree's root system. In this manner redwoods can survive and even reproduce from damage that would kill most other trees. A single tree may spawn genetically identical trees that will survive, in succession, for an unlimited amount of time.

Modern Industrial Logging

Driving south into Northern California from Oregon, it is difficult to go more than 30 seconds without passing a tractor-trailer filled with logs or boards. Palco cuts a million board feet a day, the equivalent of 200 trucks full of logs, and they're not the only ones cutting. Some of that redwood makes its way across the country to your local home improvement store or lumber broker.

The most sustainable way to harvest timber from a forest is to select the most valuable trees and remove them, leaving other trees to continue growing.

The cheapest way get lumber is to cut every tree in a given area to the ground, and that's what modern timber companies generally do.

Clearcutting reduces the ability of the forest to grow back, since most native plants and seedlings depend on the shade and dampness of the forest canopy to grow. During the dry summers, undergrowth in redwood forests gets two thirds of its water from fog that rolls in from the coast, catches on the trees and drips down to the forest floor. Many plants cannot survive or grow back in clearcut areas because of the loss of fog drip water.

Many old growth clearcuts are on steep slopes or gorges. These trees were too difficult or expensive for timber companies to remove in the past. Now that old growth is rare and valuable, and modern forestry techniques include removing trees by helicopter, those slopes are now being harvested. This leads to landslides, since the dead tree roots no longer anchor the soil to the hillsides.

Several homes have been destroyed because of landslides caused by clearcuts, and the owners are currently suing Palco. The siltation of salmon streams and lack of a canopy to cool the water has led to the decline of the wild salmon fishing industry.

Other practices associated with clearcutting have also had a negative effect on the people and animals of Humboldt County. Clearcuts are routinely sprayed with herbicides and diesel fuel to eliminate the natural rebound of the forest. This is done so the lumber company can plant its own seedlings, genetically modified to grow as fast as possible.

These GMO seedlings, planted in rows, ensure that the forest will never revert to its natural state. In 1999, 28,376 pounds of herbicides were applied in the forests of Humboldt County. This could have something to do with the fact that rural Humboldt County has the fifth highest cancer rate in California.

Forest activists do not advocate an end to logging altogether. They are agitating to save the remaining old growth, and end the most destructive logging practices. Their goals, as articulated in the Earth First! Newsletter and elsewhere, are: no cutting of old growth, no clearcutting, no herbicides, and no cutting on steep slopes.

Palco before and after Maxxam

Though Palco is not the only lumber company clearcutting old growth in Humboldt County, it is the one most actions and demonstrations are against. This is because of the contrast in the company's past and present business practices.

Began in 1869 and run as a family business, Palco was one of the more sustainable lumber operations until taken over by the Maxxam corporation.

Charles Hurwitz is the CEO of Maxxam, a holding company that buys other companies that are underperforming and milks them for all they are worth.

Along with junk bond broker and convicted felon Michael Milken, Hurwitz looted the United Savings Association of Texas until it failed. Bailing it out cost U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion.

With money made from his savings and loan scheme, Hurwitz acquired Palco in a hostile takeover. Before the takeover, Palco cut its forests at a rate of one percent a year. While this is not ecologically sustainable, it is economically sustainable. After the takeover, Palco increased its rate of cut to four percent, on pace to cut all its forests in 25 years. This rate destroys both the forest and the local economy, with the prospects for tomorrow's loggers looking dim.

Despite liquidating most of Palco's assets and raiding worker benefits and pensions, Palco/Maxxam is still $700 million in debt. Hurwitz owes the government $1.2 billion for his role in the savings and loan scandal.

The case against Pacific Lumber

This past February environmentalists' claims that Palco was breaking the law in the process of destroying the environment were given new substance. Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos filed suit seeking $250 million in penalties for harm to the county inflicted by the "unfair and fraudulent business practices" of Palco.

The complaint alleges that Palco used falsified studies about landslide risks in timber harvest plans to allow it to cut down 100,000 trees on unstable slopes–and make an extra $40 million a year. The suit claims damages of $2,500 per illegally cut tree, thus the quarter of a billion-dollar damage amount.

The deception "caused destruction to ancient redwoods, serious harm to Humboldt Bay and serious harm to streams, bridges, roads, homes and property rights of the people of Humboldt County," it charged.

If Humboldt County wins its suit against Palco for fraudulently gaining government approval to cut on unstable slopes, and suppressing contradictory data, it is quite possible that the amount of damages would put the company out of business.

This is not the first time that Palco has broken the law, however. The company was cited over 250 times for violations of the Forest Practices Act in the last 3 years, and has had its Timber Operator License temporarily suspended by the California Department of Forestry.

It has lost seven lawsuits regarding violations of the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Practices Act, and other statutes. Numerous civil actions are pending, including several brought by watershed groups over sedimentation caused by mudslides. According to federal regulations, the citations and convictions Palco has received should make the company ineligible for an Incidental Take Permit (ITP).

The innocuous sounding ITP is an exception to the endangered species act, a euphemism meaning holders are allowed to "take," or kill, endangered species whose survival is interfering with business practices. In the case of Palco, they have permits and continue to kill Northern Spotted Owls, Golden Eagles, Pacific Fishers, coho salmon, chinook salmon, and other imperiled species. It is likely that continued logging will extinct the marbled murrelet, a sea bird who lives only in the upper mossy limbs of old growth.

The Gold Rules

Maxxam/Palco CEO Charles Hurwitz said "He who has the gold rules," and that explains why Palco has had so much freedom from prosecution and regulation in its quest to liquidate its tree assets as quickly as possible. Though the strategy of privatizing the profits of unsustainable business practices and socializing the costs is common, it doesn't come without some bribery along the way.

California Governor Gray Davis has received $500,000 from the logging industry since he took office. In turn, Davis ensured that the California Board of Forestry is stacked with industry representatives. His appointments include a top executive of Sierra Pacific Industries, an executive of Simpson Timber Company, the president of a consulting company that works for numerous logging companies, and the president of a company that works for Palco.

Influence is not the only thing purchased by big business. The logging industry benefits from a program of corporate welfare that has taxpayers picking up their costs of doing business.

Under the U.S. Forest Service timber program, logging companies are subsidized to build roads to cut and remove timber. Taxpayers are shelling out over $31 million a year for environmentally destructive roads that cause soil erosion, water pollution and disruption of wildlife. Humboldt County has a seven million-dollar road repair bill, due to logging trucks and flooding.

U.S. Forest Service commodity timber sales provide timber to logging companies below cost. Private timber companies end up paying $5 per tree for timber taken from public lands. The federal timber sales program actually loses money because the amount timber companies pay for the wood does not even cover the government's costs. The program resulted in a $111 million net loss to taxpayers in 1997 and has damaged many old growth forests and wildlife habitats in the process.

One other notable prize the timber industry's political largesse brought it was a blanket exemption from regulation under the California Clean Water Act starting in 1987. Since then, the Regional Water Quality Board has listed more than 85 percent of North Coast watersheds as "impaired" from sediment pollution, naming logging operations as the primary cause for degradation in every instance.

Anastasia

One hundred and twenty feet above the ground, on Opal's platform, the tree that appeared as solid as a rock face from the ground was quite flexible, swaying with the breeze. She's living on a piece of plywood roped into the branches, with tarps duct taped all around like a tent hanging in midair.

There are ropes going from Anastasia attached to several nearby trees, so Opal can visit other tree sitters without touching the ground. Twenty or so tree-sits form an arboreal village, so no tree sitter feels isolated in their tree. These twenty occupied trees are all that is left of the old growth in Freshwater. Clearcuts are visible in every direction, a constant reminder to the sitters of why they're up there.

Shortly after I arrive on the platform, a Freshwater resident arrives, yells up at the platform and asks if we're hungry. Opal says sure and the woman passes up a warm veggie burrito and a thermos of eggplant soup. Opal tells me that living in the tree is not exactly catered, but it's not unusual for supporters to come by with food or a friendly word.Opal says she "just felt like I had to do something" about the logging of old growth, and so here she is.

No forest epiphanies or mystical revelations drew her to the tree. Her story is that of a concerned citizen acting directly against what she sees as degrading her community. Her interview questions remain simple, showing that it's not about the people on the ground or in the trees– it's about the forest.