Write a Letter for the Redwoods

Cary, Glen and all,

Maxxam/PL often claim through advertising that they have the most sustainable and ecologically sound harvest practices in the state or country. Courts have repeatedly found that not to be the case.

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My conclusions is that Maxxam is probably pushing the limit because of the economics involved, but they are probably not flagrantly disregarding the rules either.

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Federal Judge John Bechtle, in the Owl Creek case, found PL had forged murrelet surveys, altered survey protocols, mis-represented the murrelet surveyor as independent when he was in reality employed by PL, used their lawyer to craft the “scientists’” testimony, and intimidated surveyors.

Here's lots of information on PL's logging violations (and the very little they pay in fines compared to the violations and their consequences)

Below is a good place to begin evaluating one’s feelings about Maxxam and their affect on the land, economy, workers, etc.: Just a few quotes from the recent State Water Board Report on Maxxam/Pacific Lumber’s Economic Situation.

“MAXXAM has taken money out of PALCO in subtle and complex ways and has directed PALCO to harvest trees at rates that greatly exceeds sustainable forest practices. MAXXAM has put PALCO at risk by borrowing large sums of money, not paying down its long-term debt, and thereby keeping PALCO a highly leveraged company.”

“Old PALCO (the company MAXXAM purchased in 1986) had been around for 125 years. I do not believe that the MAXXAM owned PALCO, as currently structured, can possibly survive even the next 10 years, hardly another seven generations. This is based on the highly leveraged business model MAXXAM has imposed on PALCO and the unsustainable harvest levels PALCO has operated over the past 19 years since the MAXXAM takeover.”

“PALCO and Scotia Pacific are in financial trouble...This condition is the result of the risky business model that MAXXAM has chosen to follow.”

See the Full Report I PDF

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About the Murrelets – I finally found the 5 year status review on Marbled Murrelets online here.

Remedy
 
Thanks for the links Remedy!

I reviewed the Appendix B (summary) and to be honest most of it is exactly the type of stuff I was referring to. It was interesting to note the number of times a single tree/plant was referenced or the number of issues caused because a stream was misclassified to be a smaller type.

As far as the road issues go they seem to be doing a much better job than the county does here! I have seen chocolate soup running for a ¼ mile down the edge of the county road and directly into a clear stream. I have seen the same section of road fail during a summer rain storm because an inadequate amount of gravel was on the road. You call them about the problems and they whine about how expensive road maintenance is yet we forest land owners are expected/required to keep our roads and trail clean. What's fair about that. We keep the upper 1 ½ miles of the stream clean just to have the county road ruin all our hard work. Don't get me started on what the lowland farmers and city dwellers contribute!

I agree that Maxxam has ruined the legacy PL could have given us and it is unfortunate they are not more forward thinking, but the expectations of modern corporate stock holders often prevent this from happening. Institutional holders (your 401K, IRA, etc.) are a big part of it whether they own MXM or not.

Cary
 
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I have seen chocolate soup running for a ¼ mile down the edge of the county road and directly into a clear stream.

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Attached is a picture of such “chocolate soup” (sediment) pouring out of Bear Creek into the Eel River. Maxxam owns the entire Bear Creek watershed; accept for a narrow strip of the park (Avenue of the Giants). No people live on Bear Creek. Aside from the park, it’s all zoned for timber production. The harm to Bear Creek comes from Maxxam’s logging upstream. This is not the result of lowland farmers or city dwellers.

This photo is one example of the damage caused by Maxxam. The horrific Stafford landslides of New Years day 1997 is another. In that case, people’s homes were wiped out, and residents narrowly escaped death and injury. The state has recognized these kinds of sediment loads flowing into the impaired streams in Maxxam’s ownership.

Whenever roads are built, the hydrology is altered. A well-engineered road will not allow sediment to be deposited in the states waters. Anyone who builds a poorly designed road is responsible for undue erosion and damage to water quality. The difference is scale. Maxxam is allowed to build miles of road in every square mile they own. If you build roads in inappropriate places (like steep, unstable inner gorges) damage to water quality will occur. The fact of the matter is Elk River, Freshwater, Stitz, Jordan and Bear Creeks are highly impaired. The overwhelming damage has been done by Maxxam. See the Independent Science Review Panel's Reports here and here.

In the victims’ lawsuits against Maxxam/PL in Freshwarer and Elk, Maxxam has just demurred relying on the Noer-Pennington “right to lie” defense. Isn’t “corporate personhood” great? California residents can get completely screwed by a Texas corporation’s “constitutional rights” to “free speech.”

Looking at this brand new peninsula from just one winter storm, you can imagine the harm caused to public park lands in the lower reaches of Bear Creek, i.e. the boles of ancient trees buried alive under thousands of yards of sediment deposited from debris torrents originating from Maxxam’s clearcuts, and the publicly owned ancient riparian redwoods felled into the stream because of under-cut banks caused by the debris torrents.

Remedy
 

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Hi Remedy,

I'm not sure I can completely decipher this picture, but you are correct that does look like a significant amount of silt buildup. There are many factor one would need to know other than just this photo to figure out what is really going on with this stream.

Something to consider about the 1996 and 1997 time frames. I am not sure about California, but in Oregon they were both 100 year flood events. We had a lot of landslides as well and many but not not all of them could be correlated to recent logging events. Because of these years certain rules have been recently updated to help reduce the likelihood of landslides. I guess we will have to wait for the next 100 year event to see if the changes work.

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A well-engineered road will not allow sediment to be deposited in the states waters.

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That is probably a bit strong. A better definition is “A well engineered road will reduce the likelihood of sediment entering a stream”. All this ultimately has to be based on some return interval. Do you design for a 50 year event, a 100 year event or what? What forest cover do you assume? If conditions exceed your design assumptions sediment will likely flow off the road and may enter a stream. I have seen sediment in a stream that had no roads and complete forest cover, so some sediment in a stream can be natural. To me the goal should be to minimize the sediment cause by our management practices, but realize we cannot make the impact zero for all cases.

Remember for the most part I am on your side. What I balk at is exaggeration and misstatement/ommision of facts to make a point.

Cary
 
Ancient Tree Logging:

i think that the Indian peoples that lived the same lands before us; in all their uneducated, uncivilized ways; would maybe see clearer. Perhaps they would have seen the trees, as these super parts of the earth especially by their size etc. to in general belong to the patch of mother ground they fed on to grow so much to attain and maintain that size. That in the end, to maintain the nutritional and elemental quality of a magnnificient stand; the same nutrients et all need recycled back in. That as any other balance, you can't affect 1 side, without affecting the other. That trees, espeically the largest or largest stands, should be studied for how they have been able to be the ones to harmonize with Nature to grow taller, heavier, larger etc. than any other living thing ever; and then work to maintain all that for a life longer than any other on top of that! Also like the largest elephant or smallest bee, are more of a keystone species than we to this earth, so altering their course by our own is not best. So many unlinked ancient cultures have trees as wise and historians etc.; also guardians of the earth they feed with their conversions of elements that plants do like nothing else. Animal, nor bacteria can produce the essential carbon life unit for everything on the whole planet; only plants. As companion, plats take in exasperated carbond dioxide by animal and bacteria, to give them back essential oxygen;all interwoven. Trees are the biggest contributors of these plant services for the whole planet, as well as using the most solar energy (that otherwise batters the planet) to do so.

i think we need to look deeper and back; and that out of respect, study and necessity the massive olde individual stands (that precede even our own time); should be let be. Or only with the faintest hand meddled with. We have pushed things very far; these should be our first re-treated from.
 
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That in the end, to maintain the nutritional and elemental quality of a magnnificient stand; the same nutrients et all need recycled back in. That as any other balance, you can't affect 1 side, without affecting the other.

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Most of the usable nutrients in conifers are contained in the needles. Which as luck would have it we are currently leaving in the forest. We will need to be careful if we start to really investigate biomass and make sure we don't go too far in harvesting the forest. Course woody debris (the bole) does provide some benefit to the forest ecosystem, but carbon sequestration may be more important if we think we need to fight off global warming.

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That trees, espeically the largest or largest stands, should be studied for how they have been able to be the ones to harmonize with Nature to grow taller, heavier, larger etc. than any other living thing ever; and then work to maintain all that for a life longer than any other on top of that!

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Here's how I think about it. To survive you must grow taller to get to the sunshine. As you grow taller you have to grow larger (wider) to support your hight and increased weight. So what is the limiting factor? To me it is height and one of the key things to limit hight is a trees ability to pump water/nutrients from the soil to the top of the tree where all the active growth is. The heights attained in the native redwood stands appears to be helped by the persistent fog they developed in. Living for many centuries has also helped!

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So many unlinked ancient cultures have trees as wise and historians etc.

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It certainly is easy to have reverence for a living thing that is both very old and very massive.

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i think we need to look deeper and back; and that out of respect, study and necessity the massive olde individual stands (that precede even our own time); should be let be. Or only with the faintest hand meddled with. We have pushed things very far; these should be our first re-treated from.

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And personally I have no problem with this. Except that many think private individuals should bare the burden for this responsibility. If we want to set aside the old growth we need to acquire any that is left (for a fair price) and then set it aside for society to support. My disagreement has always been with someone expecting another individual/company to provide a service that society should be responsible for providing.

Cary
 
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