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[From EcoNet ecotopia.news Conference]

Layoffs, Threats Surround Timber Accord Politicking 
 
Editor's note: On August 28 -- the day ECONEWS was published --
the 'Grand Accord was defeated in two votes on the Assembly
floor.
 
by Andy Alm 
 
As forestry reform efforts came to a dizzying peak last month
in the legislature and at the Board of Forestry, the timber
industry upped the ante with layoffs and threats of future
job losses.
 
Louisiana-Pacific, which blames lack of Forest Service sales
and citizen suits limiting logging on its own land for log
shortages, led the pack by cutting shifts and laying off 161
workers in Ukiah and Fort Bragg. Also citing log shortages,
Schmidbauer announced a two-month shutdown.
 
Simpson Timber used the threat of layoffs to lobby the
legislature as the long-stalled "Grand Accord" forest reform
package was revived and prepared for votes on the Senate and
Assembly floors.
 
Simpson circulated photo albums of its employees and their
families, along with a letter from General Manager Dave Kaney
saying: "Please examine the pictures and help me identify the
200 or more of these families who will lose their livelihood
within a few months if the 'Grand Accord' legislation passes."
 
                            Discord
 
The North Coast timber firms have broken with most other in the
state, which are still on record as supporting Governor Pete
Wilson's timber package, hammered out early this year as a
compromise between major environmental groups and the industry.
 
Grassroots environmental groups also oppose the compromise. Led
by the California Forest and Watershed Council and the Sierra
Club, they say the legislation would guarantee liquidation of
the last privately held old-growth forests and erode existing
environmental protection law.
 
Environmental groups supporting the accord legislation, led by
the Planning and Conservation League and the National Audubon
Society, bore the wrath of dissent. Earth First! occupied PCL's
Sacramento office for two hours in protest, and the Sierra Club
brought in David Brower to blast the compromisers.
 
Meanwhile the Board of Forestry, claiming its attention was
diverted by the forest fire situation, again delayed action
on old-growth, sustained-yield and sensitive watershed rules
packages, but found time to listen to a six-hour choreographed
timber industry presentation of a "coordinated package" re-write
of the rule proposals.
 
An informal discussion of the industry's new proposal is
scheduled for the board's next meeting on September 7-8
in Sacramento.
 
                          Courts, Too
 
L-P also was going to the state Supreme Court to try to overturn
the injunction on its logging operation in the "Enchanted
Meadow" along the Albion River in Mendocino County.
 
A state appeals court, meanwhile, halted L-P and Simpson logging
in the Little River watershed in Humboldt County pending an
October court hearing on cumulative watershed effects and
endangered species questions.  L-P says 25 million board feet
of its timber is tied up in lawsuits.
 
Citizen suits over logging practices are flaring like wildfires
this drought year. Cases are active in Santa Cruz, Sonoma,
Mendocino and Humboldt counties, all brought by individuals or
small activist groups with shoestring budgets.
 
Old-growth logging plans on Pacific Lumber land are being
tackled by the Environmental Protection Information Center in
Garberville and the Sierra Club, and they were readying another
suit to halt PL logging on Owl Creek if the state does not
enforce its own wildlife-study requirements to protect the
marbled murrelet.
 
(From ECONEWS, Newsletter of the Northcoast Environmental
Center, September 1992. Write 879 9th St., Arcata, CA 95521,
or e-mail nec@igc.apc.org, for a free copy.)