Staff and Residents; PALCO Annoyed

Diane Beck
North Group Conservation Co-Chair

"Pacific Lumber picked and agreed to the panelists and the questions, now they are whining because they could not pick the answers." - Ken Miller, Humboldt Watershed Council

Residents of Freshwater Creek and Elk River watersheds in Humboldt County are feeling vindicated by a report by independent scientists indicating that the methods used by Pacific Lumber Company as a basis for timber harvesting are inadequate to protect water quality, lessen flooding, and maintain watersheds. And Regional Water Quality Control Board staff member Frank Reichmuth said that the report backs up recommendations made two and a half years ago, in an August 2000 staff report.

The report was issued by a panel of seven independent scientists of various disciplines that was assembled by a contractor of the Regional Water Board called Concur Inc. The panel was convened during a mediation process meant to bring resolution in the six-year-long acrimonious controversy over the ongoing damage suffered by the residents and watersheds of five north coast streams from Pacific Lumber's overly aggressive logging practices.

The panel was asked to consider three questions regarding the main points of controversy concerning how to achieve recovery of sediment-impaired beneficial uses of water in five county watersheds (Freshwater, Elk, Bear, Jordan, and Stitz):

1. What is the appropriate means of calculating allowable rates of timber harvesting in these watersheds: The method developed by USFS Redwood Sciences Laboratory and Water Quality, which has recommended 40 to 80 clearcut equivalent acres per year in Freshwater and Elk? Or the methods utilized by Pacific Lumber and the California Department of Forestry, which are allowing 500 to 600 clearcut equivalent acres per year?
2. What immediate steps can be taken to restore these watersheds?
3. What data is still necessary to help refine answers to these questions?

Their answers, very briefly:

1. The Redwood Sciences Lab/WQ method is the most appropriate.
2. Decrease rates of harvest, reduce tractor and skidder yarding, increase ripping of compacted areas, decommission roads, stabilize landslides, reforest and seed highly disturbed areas, use thinning or partial cutting to maintain relatively long rotations. Remove channel obstructions in lower reaches; reconstruct bridges; install instream structures and woody debris in upper and mid-channel reaches; construct sediment detention basins between mid-channel and lower reaches.
3. Clarify definition of and determine "background levels" of suspended sediment. Collect and reassemble GIS, field data, and key documents in a digital library. Develop hydrologic and geomorphic monitoring to test mitigation measures adopted by Pacific Lumber. BUT DO NOT DELAY HARVEST-RATE REDUCTIONS OR CORRECTIVE ACTIONS WHILE AWAITING FURTHER DATA.

The independent scientific review panel hired by the Regional Water Board was approved by both Pacific Lumber and residents of Freshwater and Elk watersheds. That Pacific Lumber is critical of its findings comes as no surprise to those knowledgeable in the ways in which the company manipulates "science" to its own ends.

Pacific Lumber has continually argued that it must be allowed to log in order to repair the sources of erosion, like roads and Humboldt crossings: "[Jim] Branham said without money coming in, there won't be any way to pay for erosion projects needed in the watershed" (Eureka Times-Standard, 1/12/03). Such logic speaks to either sophistry or feeble-mindedness. (The rest of us would dip into savings or get a loan when our roofs start to leak.)