The beauty of coastal redwood forests and the beauty of wood products from harvested redwood have been lauded for generations. These two values are inevitably in conflict and have generated intense debate as scarcity has enhanced each type of value. Redwood forests occupied more than 2 million acres of California prior to harvesting. Only about 86,000 acres remain unlogged. Recently, proponents of preservation and utilization focused on the largest remaining stand of old-growth redwood on private land and ignited a national controversy. Although most of the media attention was directed at preservationists camping high above the forest floor and last-minute buyouts from the public treasury, the debates also involved a complex habitat conservation plan with watershed elements. Endangered species are a principal issue in the debates.
As redwoods were harvested throughout this century, a citizens group, Save-the-Redwoods League, sought to preserve some stands and successfully brokered a series of trades and purchases throughout the range of the redwood in California. Various preservation efforts have protected about 80,000 acres of old-growth redwood forest and another 170,000 acres of second-growth in several state parks and Redwood National Park. Most of the remaining 6,000 acres of old-growth forest were owned by the Pacific Lumber Company, and about half of that constituted the Headwaters Forest. This unit was considered to be in imminent danger of being harvested after Pacific Lumber was purchased by Maxxam Corporation in 1986. This final piece of private old-growth forest became a focal point of preservation efforts. Governmental attempts to acquire the Headwaters Forest began in 1994 with legislation that would have authorized the U.S. Forest Service to negotiate a purchase of the grove and a 41,000 acre buffer zone around it. This measure passed the House but failed in the Senate. Subsequent efforts in Washington and Sacramento established funding mechanisms that came to fruition this winter. Congress approved up to $250 million in funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with a deadline for agreement of midnight on March 1, 1999. After negotiations collapsed in late February, a last-minute resumption changed the deadline from Eastern to Pacific time and created a deal.
The well-publicized heart of the agreement was purchase of the Headwaters Forest and surrounding lands, totaling about 7,500 acres, for $380 million. In addition to the $250 million in federal funds, the state of California contributed $130 million. An additional 2,000 acres of land will be purchased by the state of California for about $100 million. Another 7,700 acres will remain with Pacific Lumber but cannot be harvested in the next 50 years.
The Headwaters Forest Agreement also included a controversial Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) dealing with management of Pacific Lumber's other properties. The HCP covers about 211,000 acres of land spread throughout Humboldt County. These lands include habitat for several species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including the marbled murrlet, northern spotted owl, and coho salmon. By accepting the deal including the HCP, the company agreed to drop its lawsuits that asked for compensation for lands not logged in compliance with ESA rules. HCPs allow "incidental take" of listed species if broader conservation measures improve the prospects for long-term recovery of the species. This HCP has been described in terms ranging from a "model for future forest practices in California" to a "license to kill". Implementation of the HCP seems destined to be contentious and may keep two generations of attorneys busy. The 50-year life span of the plan is a major issue in itself. Some environmentalists say that it allows logging for 50 years, while some in the timber industry say that it forces restrictions for 50 years. The longevity of the HCP is intended to provide regulatory stability for the company. Opponents argue that the so-called "no-surprises" clause is contradictory to adaptive management provisions of the plan.
The Habitat Conservation Plan was combined with a Sustained Yield Plan (SYP) (required by the California Department of Forestry) to provide a single integrated document for long-term management of the company's lands. The draft plan was released for a 90-day public comment period in July 1998. More than 20,000 pages of remarks were filed with the Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Forestry. A draft federal-state EIS/EIR on the Headwaters Forest Agreement was released in August 1998. The HCP/SYP was certified in January 1999, and the final EIS/EIR was also published that same month. The HCP/SYP became effective with the signing of the Headwaters Forest Agreement on March 1, 1999.
The HCP includes a variety of watershed-related provisions: watershed analyses will be conducted on all lands prior to harvest, with some minor exceptions; existing roads will be improved to minimize erosion at the rate of about 50 miles per year and new roads will be designed and constructed to modern standards of erosion control; riparian management zones will be established along perennial streams; and activities will be designed to minimize impacts to endangered species, most notably coho salmon. Although all parties were glad to see these issues addressed in the HCP/SYP, the matter of how much is enough was prominent in the review comments.
Watershed analysis is a central tenet of the HCP/SYP and is intended to provide sufficient information about the landscape as a basis for management decisions. The Washington Forest Practices Board methodology will be applied on all Pacific Lumber Company lands within the next 3‚5 years. The analysis will precede timber harvest except on some lands exempted in the agreement that will provide a short-term flow of timber during the analysis period. The company expects the watershed analysis to result in site-specific management prescriptions. This expectation creates a somewhat different use for watershed analysis procedures than in prior applications. The management prescriptions that follow watershed analysis may subject to negotiation between Pacific Lumber and the agencies, but the legalities are not clear to this writer. The criteria for allowing and constraining activities based on findings from the watershed analysis were not obvious either. The watershed units (in terms of hydrologic integrity and nested scales) that are chosen for analysis will influence the effectiveness of the program. As is usually the case, the property boundaries do not coincide with topographic divides. Although the analysis will obviously focus on company lands, Pacific Lumber has the opportunity to continue the convention of considering its activities within the context of whole watersheds. Watershed analysis is a rapidly-evolving approach to evaluating environmental capabilities and potential responses to disturbance. Its success in this situation may be instructive for future development of the methodology and its applications.
Closely allied with the watershed analysis, an assessment of cumulative effects is required under the California Forest Practice Rules. In the HCP/SYP, this assessment is based on the equivalent roaded area approach developed by the U.S. Forest Service and a simple index of disturbance. Discussion of this methodology in the HCP/SYP and comments illustrate the general need for continued developed of improved tools for analysis of cumulative watershed effects.
Much of the HCP/SYP is directed at avoiding degradation of aquatic habitat. However, the relevant language in the plan tends to be vague. Specific impacts on habitat quality, such as gravel mining and blockage of fish migration at culverts, will also need further clarification. The National Marine Fisheries Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies have established a set of criteria to assess properly functioning habitat conditions in streams along the north coast of California. The HCP considers these criteria as a desirable set of goals rather than as enforceable standards. The ESA does not provide for active restoration of habitat on private lands. Some sort of public/private partnership will be necessary to pursue restoration goals.
Riparian protection was another area of contention between drafters of the HCP/SYP and reviewers. The plan provides interim guidelines for activities near streams that are more conservative that current state regulations but less stringent than new practices on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest. Streams were categorized, according to California Forest Practice Rules conventions, as class I (those with fish present and that have fish habitat), class II (those that have habitat for nonfish aquatic species), or class III (those that do not support aquatic life but are capable of transporting sediment to class I or II waters during storms). Within the area covered by the plan, there are approximately 265 miles of class I streams, 751 miles of class 2 streams, and 3,200 miles of class III streams. At the minimum, the Watercourse and Lake Protection Zone standards of the California Forest Practices Act would be adopted for each class. The results of the watershed analyses could lead to prescriptions that created wider buffer zones with less permissive activity, although the HCP/SYP specifies some upper limits on protection. A continuing debate about riparian protection throughout the western states involves the generally arbitrary nature of buffer designations and lack of ecological-process considerations in riparian management. The prescriptions for streamside areas that result from the watershed analysis have the opportunity to employ some innovative approaches.
The HCP/SYP also addresses the major watershed impacts of the road system. Previous studies in the region have indicated that forest roads are the primary locations of accelerated erosion and anthropogenic mass movement. Pacific Lumber will conduct a sediment-source assessment on its lands as part of the watershed analysis. There are currently about 1,500 miles of existing logging roads on company property. Another 400 miles of roads are planned for construction in the next 50 years. The road system will be considered complete at that time. The company has designed a system for reducing sediment yields from roads that it calls "storm-proofing". In this process, each road is first evaluated for potential to deliver sediment and block water flow. After priorities are assigned, rehabilitation work is conducted that includes replacing stream crossings, installing drainage structures, removing unstable fill, altering drainage paths, and installing rolling dips or water bars. Although road reconstruction has great potential for significant long-term reductions in sediment, the construction disturbance can increase short-term sediment yields.
A wide range of suggestions about the watershed and aquatic-habitat elements of the plan were made by scientists during the public comment period. Few of these technical suggestions seem to have influenced the final draft of the HCP/SYP. If the aquatic habitat does not show signs of improvement in the next decade or so, the agencies may need to investigate opportunities for taking restoration efforts at public expense well beyond the terms of the HCP/SYP.
Two days after signing of the Headwaters agreement, legislation was introduced in Congress to make the Endangered Species Act focus on the recovery of species rather than on maintaining species in a protected status. Congressman George Miller drafted H.R. 960 in part as a response to the inconsistencies between the Headwaters HCP and recovery plans for coho salmon and marbled murrlet. This bill would require future HCPs to be consistent with species recovery and would allow plans to be changed to reflect new scientific information. Several bills have been introduced in the California legislature to reform the state's review of forest practices.
In a possible preview of legal battles on the horizon, the California Department of Forestry was ordered to rescind two Timber Harvest Plans for Pacific Lumber lands on March 9, 1999. The Humboldt County Superior Court ruled that the agency abused its discretion by failing to consider cumulative impacts of the harvest and concerns about endangered species, such as coho salmon. The plans applied to 185 acres of the watershed of Sulphur Creek, a tributary to the North Fork of the Mattole River. A much-broader lawsuit was filed on March 30, 1999 by the Environmental Protection Information Center and the Sierra Club that challenges Pacific Lumber's new Sustained Yield Plan and two state-level permits. The suit contends that the plan and "incidental-take" permits are not consistent with state laws. The first hearings on the case are expected in September.
The Headwaters Forest Agreement can be considered as a set of experiments in endangered species recovery, forest management, soil conservation, and public policy. Although the responsibilities of the landowner have been set by the HCP for the next 50 years (subject to legal adjustments), there should be continued opportunities for public involvement. Restoration of aquatic habitat throughout the region may require substantial investment of additional public funds. One or more river basins with the greatest likelihood of habitat restoration and population recovery may need be to managed primarily to improve the chances of fish survival. The experiments in progress need to be monitored and assessed by agency personnel and residents of the North Coast watersheds. There is much to be learned about what we can get away with and what we can fix in sensitive environments inhabited by sensitive species.
California Environmental Resources Evaluation System:
ceres.ca.gov/headwaters
Environmental Protection Information Center:
www.wildcalifornia.org
Pacific Lumber Company:
www.palco.com
Save-the-Redwoods League:
www.savetheredwoods.org
