Mattole protester cut out from lockdown w/out law enforcement

For Immediate Release: August 13, 2002

Contact: Riley Acres (707) 443-3663

Around 4:30 a.m. on August 13th,, 2002, a non-violent activist locked herself to a loader off of Rainbow Ridge in protest of the continued clear-cutting of old-growth owned by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) in the Mattole Watershed. In recent months, numerous plans in the area have been filed along with eight out of nine of the plans PL has filed start up with the intent to log to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Truck drivers of D.W. Grant Trucking Company and logging contractors for Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company, were the first to arrive at the blockade. The contractors began violently throwing wooden slash at the protesters and screaming obscenities. The contractors were filmed battering the woman's legs with the wood while she was locked down to the loader. Soon after, another employee tied one of her ankles to the tread of the machine.

Carl Anderson, head of security for Maxxam/PL, along with other workers, cut the ladder that the protester was locked to on the loader. The activist's clothes were unprotected from the sparks of the grinder and her legs received minor burns. She was video taped to be screaming of pain while the extraction was happening. The protester locked down a second time to a nearby log. By this time, the Humboldt County Sheriff had arrived, and the woman was arrested for tresspassing and resisting arrest. She was soon released.

The hands off approach on protesters mandated by the David "Gypsy" Chain wrongful death settlement for Maxxam/PL employees and contractors was disgarded this morning as they threw wood and cut the protester out of her lockdown without the presence of law enforcement.

The Upper and Lower North Forks of the Mattole River, owned by Maxxam/PL contains the largest, low-elevation, coastal Douglas-fir old-growth forest in California, with some areas which have had no roads built or any previous history of logging.

There are documented sightings of Spotted Owl and Red Tree Vole nests within some of the timber harvest areas, as well as populations of rare plants, including a rare lichen called Usnea Longissma. The agencies who have surveyed the area have shown much concern about the many landslides and steep unstable slopes that surround and are within the THP boundary markers as well as for the many threatened and endangered species which are specifically old growth dependant.