On Monday, March 8, just after ten o'clock, the controversial Clar Tree THP, 1-98-253 SON, was recommended for denial by CDF Review Team Chair Anthony Lukacic, on the grounds that it would not "incorporate feasible silvicultural systems, operating methods and procedures which would substantially lessen significant adverse impacts on the environment" (898.1(c)1, Forest Practice Rules). The adverse impacts at issue are effects to water quality: the THP was objected to by both the Sonoma County Water Agency/Russian River Sanitation District and by the Regional Water Quality Review Board. The Sanitation District leases a portion of the THP area for disposal of treated effluent from the Guerneville plant and both agencies were concerned that the proposed logging would damage the Guerneville plant's equipment, diminish its treament capacity, and lead to water quality harms.
At an earlier stage in the THP review, the Sanitation District had requested additional information from the plan submitter regarding the effects of logging upon the evaporo-transpiration rate of that portion of the THP area leased by the Sanitation District. To date, though, the Sanitation District and the timber owner, Roger Burch, had not come to any agreement about such effects. An additional reason for denial being considered by CDF is that "there is evidence that the plan ... is insufficient to evaluate significant environmental effects" (898.2(c), FPR).
Mr. Burch's logging company is also involved in contentious THPs in other counties and has previously been disciplined by CDF for "excessive removal of overstory canopy within a watercourse and lake protection zone", "cutting of unmarked trees", and other complaints.
The course of this THP through the CDF review process has been unusual in several respects besides the critical participation of the County agencies: at one point a scheduled 2nd Review of the THP was cancelled at the last minute at the request of the plan submitter. The timber owner's options at this point are: 1) to drop his timbering plans, 2) to appeal to the Board o Forestry (which usually probably upholds such decisions by CDF), 3) to sue the County, or 4) to withdraw this THP and start over with some other plan which might meet the present objections of the Sanitation District and of Water Quality. An appeal to the Board of Forestry might take some time, since the Board currently lacks a quorum; Governor Davis has yet to make his new appointments to the Board and he is proceeding slowly in making those and similar appointments.
The County's attorney, Prentice Fish, said at the CDF meeting, "We're dead set against this THP" and "We'll be there." [At the BOF, if an appeal is made].
In other news, RRRAULians and other forestry critics testified in Ukiah for four hours on Tuesday, March 2, before a Scientific Review Panel of the California Watershed Protection and Restoration Council. The panel was formed to "review the adequacy of the Forest Practice Rules in protecting salmonids". The invitees made numerous detailed suggestions regarding watercourse protections, logging practices, and the THP review process, and submitted hundreds of pages of documents.
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The California Department of Forestry says: "C.D.F. reviews an average of 1,200 THPs each year.... Approximately 1,200 THPs are approved each year." (Source: "Timber Harvesting in California", a C.D.F. Fact Sheet)
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R.R.R.A.U.L. -- Russian River Residents Against Unsafe Logging
P.O.Box 2030, Guerneville, CA 95446-2030
Phone, Fax: 707-869-3302
E-mail: rrraul@sonic.net
WWW: http://www.rrraul.org
 "A
confusion between the Real and the Ideal never goes
unpunished." -- Goethe
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