June 3rd 1999
Lisa Norman The Mendocino Beacon June 3, 1999 More than 100 people attended a rally at J Road in Albion May 26 to protest continued logging in Mendocino Redwood Co.'s timber harvest plan 1-98-199 MEN, a 233-acre selection harvest. Six protesters were cited for a harvest interference in the same area last month and are scheduled to appear in Fort Bragg Superior Court June 7 at 9 a.m. Mendocino Redwood Co. purchased about 120,000 acres of Louisiana-Pacific's North Coast holdings in June of last year. This area is divided among watersheds with roughly 30,000 acres in the Albion and Navarro areas, 40,000 acres in the Rockport area, and 50,000 acres in the Greenwood and Garcia River areas. The harvest plan under protest has been available to the public since June of 1998. It was received by California Department of Forestry June 3, 1998, filed June 12 and approved Aug. 21 of the same year, and expires Aug. 20, 2001. Consultant Lee Susan, a registered professional forester from Fort Bragg, wrote the plan. Rally and 'tree site' The rally last Wednesday was said to have been a spirited event with several area residents, Bill Heil, Chris Skyhawk, two of the tree-sitters, and others speaking for the cause. Plus, there was music by Bill Bottrell, "Chocolate Albion," and more. A "tree-sit" has continued since the May 11 interference. A cargo net is tied to five trees, only one of which is marked to cut, said Mendocino Redwood's Albion/Navarro Area Forester Jon Woessner. Roughly 60 of the rally attendees walked up to the site of the tree-sit and adjacent slide via a decommissioned 40-year-old road in Unit Two of the plan. There are four harvest units. The Albion protesters want Mendocino Redwood Co. to back up its claim that it is environmentally conscious by not logging in deep-seated landslide areas, said Skyhawk. The protesters also want the company to find out more information on the geology of the harvest plan areas by consulting state agencies and holding a forum where opinions can be weighed and more conclusive evidence can be shared regarding the effects of timber harvesting in slide areas. "We have stepped into a room and it's getting bigger as we go along," said Skyhawk. "We need to understand more about these deep-seated geological areas." The problem is larger in scope than just Albion and should be addressed at the state and national level, he added. Company President Sandy Dean said that the company continues, "to work to demonstrate it is possible to manage productive forestland with a high quality standard of environmental stewardship and at the same time to operate as a successful business." Environmental stewardship is "leave it better than you found it," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening. How risky is the slide? Skip Wollenberg, an environmental geologist for nearly 40 years, 30 of which were at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, spoke en route to the slide and tree-sit about the area's geology. He identified two forms of erosion. High mass wasting, said to occur in multiple spots throughout the plan, is a generic term for movement of stuff, said Wollenberg. It categorizes all different types of landslides and soil creep and is common to the North Coast range. Active landslides come in two forms, debris flow and deep-seated, he said. The debris flow is more common, however, the deep-seated is of most concern to him. The slip surface or slab can be 100 to 200 feet below the surface and a massive amount of earth can shift. Wollenberg cited three reasons for not harvesting in the deep-seat erosion areas. The root structure of a tree helps to keep soil material from moving and the canopy helps break up hard rain to prevent gully washing, he said. In addition, trees remove water from the ground in the dry season, evaporating it into the air through their leaves and needles in a process called evapotranspiration. Soil moisture is known to cause slipping and acts as a lubricant for larger damage during such events as earthquakes. The principles Wollenberg spoke on have been documented in geological literature all over the world, he said. "It's the type of information that shows up in textbooks." Two licensed geologist approved the plan, said Mendocino Redwood's Woessner. Selection logging was an approved treatment for the area and concern over lost root mass is not a problem because alder, tan oak and redwood will all re-sprout, he said. Not placing roads across deep-seated slides is the current forest practice, said Wollenberg. Woessner concurred, saying the road that intersects the deep-seated feature is not in use. However, Wollenberg said that practice should be taken further: "No logging in those areas." Dean said the slide being protested is "the product of a legacy road built to a poor standard." It is different than a deep-seated slide, he said, adding it is a debris slide that sits in a deep-seated land slide area. Deep-seated slides Mendocino Redwood Co. Chief Forester Mike Jani said the deep-seated slide is similar to other geologic land forms along the coastal range that sit on sandstone, which is not as stable as the granite of the Sierras. For a millennium the coast has had landslides, even when under the ocean, said Jani. When he looked at the "deep-seated feature," he say that it was epochal or prehistoric and not active, he said. The free flow debris resulted from the failed landing near the old road, said Jani. He found old growth stumps in the adjacent deep-seated area were sitting upright which told him the land mass predated even the old growth clear cut. Given that the stumps did not move in that clearcut, which is more severe than the planned selection cut, Jani determined that the protested 10-acre area in a harvest unit of about 80-90 acres was still OK. The harvest was approved in 1998 by company geologist Tim Best and another state geologist, he said. Dean added that no harvesting will occur below the slide but the removal of a couple trees beside the slide was deemed safe by geologists. Woessner said that he just completed hauling the rest of the debris slide, the landing fill, to a safe area Tuesday. Remediation of problem areas as cited in the harvest plan need be completed before the harvest plan expires in August 2001. Two deep-seated slides exist in Unit Two of the harvest plan and one small deep-seated plan is in Unit One with several sites of mass wasting occurring throughout the four units of the plan, said Skyhawk. Best acknowledged the existence of the deep-seated feature, as did Susan, and the plan was approved. "Nearly all research conducted in the Coast Range of California indicates that the effect of harvesting on stability is much less in comparison to roads and yarding practices, and in fact, very few studies have documented a significant increase in landsliding associated with timber removal alone (Durigan and others, 1988)," said Best in the harvest plan. Harvesting continues in the general area of the harvest plan except in the near the tree sitters. The company is completing a watershed analysis of the entire Albion area, looking at the causes of erosion, said Woessner and Dean. A Total Maximum Daily Load analysis is scheduled in two years by the state water quality review board and will be included in the final report. Physical contact policy In addition to the cease logging requested by the Albion protesters, the group also wants the company to adopt a no physical contact policy during the dispute. Skyhawk was told that the company would discourage physical contact but not prohibit it. Photographs in Skyhawk's possession reveal what he called a fractured pinky knuckle of one of the tree-sitters reportedly struck by a company security person. Legal action may be taken, he said. Dean said that the tree-sitter, named "Manzanita," was offered medical assistance on site and two days later. She elected not to accept the offer, he said, however the offer still stands. "It's difficult to know exactly what the injury was because we have not visited the doctor together." Dean also said that the occurrence in the woods was inappropriate for all parties involved. "We have very specifically reviewed our policy about physical contact and have revised the policy where that will not occur again." Mendocino Redwood Company Responds Copyright 1999 Mendocino Beacon