Palco's watershed plans assailed

By John Driscoll - The Times-Standard

EUREKA -- A meeting to explain the Pacific Lumber Co.'s designs on three watersheds got off to a rocky start and never got much better as the company's critics berated its plans.

At the Wharfinger Building on Thursday night to present an analysis of its lands in Freshwater Creek, the Van Duzen River and the lower Eel River, Palco Chief Scientist Jeffrey Barrett was questioned from the start why the meeting would not include public comment. Despite his best efforts the public commented anyway.

When Barrett said the analyses were a finished product and the meeting was only informational, some residents of the watersheds said Barrett had gone back on his word.

"That is not a public meeting," said Freshwater resident Jan Kraepelien, "that's a lecture."

"Then you're here for a lecture," Barrett replied.

It was only one of several heated exchanges.

Staff from state and federal agencies backed up Palco, saying the documents were complete. But they said comments from people could apply to unfinished analyses in other watersheds.

In the three watersheds Palco examined, its analyses will allow it to log closer to some streams and cut trees on areas previously suspected of being unstable. In some areas, it will have to leave larger streamside buffers or avoid landslide-prone areas.

"The overall balance is that more land is available for Palco to harvest," Barrett said.

More than the temporary restrictions set in place when the state and federal governments signed a deal with the company in 1999. The Headwaters Forest agreement paid Palco $480 million to put aside 7,400 acres of land -- plus two smaller groves -- and operate under a Habitat Conservation Plan.

The watershed analyses come out of that plan, and were conceived to allow a loosening of the interim restrictions, Barrett said.

Palco found that the three watersheds had different problems, based on management and geology, among other factors.

In Freshwater Creek, roads muddy streams, causing flooding problems and concerns for fish. In the Van Duzen, most sediment was delivered by landslides along streams. In the lower Eel River, that same type of slides, plus slides on hill slopes, were the biggest problems, Barrett said.

Throughout the meeting, Palco's credibility was questioned. Members of the audience asked how the company could ignore the conclusions of an independent panel of scientists that found the rate of Palco's cutting to be a more pervasive problems than roads in Freshwater. And Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos' claims that Palco defrauded the government by using bogus landslide data -- a charge dispute by Palco -- were brought up.

The watershed analyses cover some 41 percent of Palco's 210,000 acres, and similar studies are under way or are soon to be getting under way for the Mattole and Elk River, both areas where Palco's logging is hotly disputed.

Activists in the Mattole have recently been blocking roads into the Mattole, and several people have been arrested. Protesters at Thursday night's meeting held up a banner reading "Reduce River Pollution. End Clearcutting."

The watershed analyses also lay out work Palco needs to do to fix roads, ensure that large pieces of wood collect in streams to create fish habitat, and monitor its properties and practices.