Forests Forever Press Release
For
Immediate Release
October 24, 2002
Forests Forever: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546, Paul Hughes (415) 974-3636,
ext. 5
STATE SUED OVER JACKSON FOREST EIR
Ukiah, CA—
Citizen groups today challenged a key environmental document prepared
by the California Department of Forestry (CDF) for Jackson State Forest.
Until halted by a lawsuit last year, large-scale timber operations in
Jackson State Forest had been generating $15 million of revenue for state
forestry programs.
In a March court settlement with the Campaign to Restore Jackson State
Redwood Forest, CDF agreed not to resume logging in Jackson State Forest
until a new management plan and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) were
approved. The previous management plan was prepared and approved in 1983.
The new lawsuit, filed in Mendocino Superior Court by the Campaign to
Restore Jackson State Redwood Forest and Forests Forever Foundation, is
the latest blow to CDF's efforts to continue its profitable but increasingly
controversial management of Jackson State Forest.
Vince Taylor, spokesperson for the Campaign, said, "We regret the
necessity for this suit, but CDF left us no choice. Jackson State is owned
by the people of California, who have overwhelming told CDF they want
their 50,000-acre redwood forest restored to old growth as sanctuary for
threatened species. Experts filed 1000 pages detailing glaring deficiencies
in the EIR and management plan. CDF ignored the public and experts. It
adopted a management plan that would essentially clearcut half the forest
and approved an EIR that is legally defective. Sadly, the public now has
to go court to force CDF, our supposed public servant, to obey the law."
Paul Carroll, lawyer for the citizen groups, said, "The EIR for Jackson
State fails to meet well-defined legal standards laid out by the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and related court decisions. The absence
of a comprehensive analysis of cumulative effects, a fundamental requirement
of CEQA, is a fatal defect. The requirements of CEQA are not mere legalities,
but
reflect expert scientific knowledge. Without the information required
by CEQA, there is no way for the public or decisionmakers to know the
environmental consequences of the proposed management activities."
Paul Hughes, Executive Director of Forests Forever Foundation, explained
the involvement of his San Francisco based organization in the lawsuit,
"The 50,000 acres of Jackson Forest constitute an island of public
land in the midst of a half-million acres of industrially owned, devastated
redwood timberland. Jackson State Forest is the only possible large sanctuary
between San Francisco and Humboldt County for salmon and other endangered
redwood-related species. It
could also be a recreation haven for the millions of people who live in
the Bay Area and Central Valley. The state ought to be restoring this
publicly owned treasure for its precious ecological and recreational values,
not logging it like another big industrial company."
CDF has been working for over a year to develop and gain approval for
a new management plan. In April 2001, it issued a draft management plan
that called for continued large-scale commercial timber production in
Jackson State. The draft plan was widely criticized for its heavy use
of "even-age management" (commonly known as clear-cutting),
minimal protection for salmon streams, and planned cutting of the oldest
second-growth stands in Mendocino County. In
response to the criticism, CDF requested informal public comment, which
many took to be a sign that CDF was planning to revise its plan to incorporate
public concerns.
An approved EIR is necessary under the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) before a management plan can be approved. In May 2002, CDF
released a new draft management plan and a draft EIR. The new draft plan
was essentially identical to the heavily criticized plan of 2001. The
new plan and EIR drew an immediate and overwhelmingly critical flood of
public comment. Of the 4000 public comments, less than 50 supported the
proposed CDF plan. The remainder strongly opposed CDF's large-scale logging
plans and most called for restoration of the publicly owned forest to
old growth for recreation, habitat, education and research.
CDF also received a thousand pages of detailed expert comments on the
EIR. The expert comments detailed numerous deficiencies, including lack
of any meaningful cumulative impacts analysis, lack of comprehensive botanical
surveys, inadequate protection of endangered species, inadequate presentation
of data on timber, and errors in estimates of timber inventory, growth
and allowable harvest levels.
CDF published its response to comments and certified its final EIR on
September 26. A few days later, it issued its final management plan and
took it to the Board of Forestry for approval. Few substantive changes
were made between the drafts and final versions of either the EIR or management
plan. The Board of Forestry is expected to approve the management plan
at its November 5-6 meeting.
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