Board ordered Pacific Lumber Co. to monitor potential environmental damage

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State Water Board Orders Monitoring of Palco's Headwaters Cuts

By Don Thompson Associated Press Writer Published: Oct 18, 2001

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - In a precedent-setting move, a state water board on Thursday ordered Pacific Lumber Co. to monitor potential environmental damage from its logging in the Headwaters region of Northern California. The state purchased the Headwaters Forest area of Humboldt County with its old-growth redwoods for $480 million nearly three years ago, but Pacific Lumber retained a 720-acre site in the middle dubbed the Hole in the Headwaters.

On Thursday, the State Water Resources Control Board ordered the company and its affiliated Scotia Pacific Lumber Co. to monitor water quality in the south fork of the Elk River that might be affected by erosion caused by logging of the area. The board cited the potential effect on three threatened species of fish that live there.

It was the water board's first decision affecting timber cuts outside the state's usual regulatory process.

That could prompt a court appeal, said Jim Branham, Pacific Lumber's director of government affairs. The monitoring could cost the company as much as $250,000 over 10 years, he said, but Pacific Lumber is anxious to begin logging and may decide not to fight the new requirements.

Environmental groups hailed the order after years of unsuccessfully asking the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to require similar monitoring before permitting logging elsewhere.

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On the Net:

Read the proposed order at http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/agendas/2001/october/1018mtg.html

AP-ES-10-18-01 1906EDT

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001


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