Austin Creek, Revisited

2ND OF 3 CONTROVERSIAL AUSTIN CREEK THPS FUELS FIRE AT C.D.F.

Today at ten o'clock a first review of the second of three controversial Timber Harvest Plans proposed for hills above Austin Creek, a tributary of the Russian River, was held at California Department of Forestry offices in Santa Rosa.

The public hearing of the plan, No. 1-98-254 SON, was chaired by a C.D.F. representative and attended by many immediate neighbors of the logging plan. It included several local groups opposing the proposed operations: Austin Creek Alliance, Russian River Residents Against Unsafe Logging, and Citizens for Watershed Protection. Conduct of the meeting was improved since the July 23 review of another Austin Creek THP; no attempt was made this time to prohibit public taping of the meeting.

The combined area of operations for the three adjoining Austin Creek THPs totals 648 acres. Much of the hilltop area affected is visible to anyone looking in the direction of Cazadero while driving along Highway 116 in the vicinity of Duncans Mills. The plan calls for tractor hauling on hillsides with steep slopes (up to 80%) and a high erosion hazard, and with numerous landslides and unstable areas, including some already pouring down watercourses to Austin Creek. Nearby Cazadero records the highest yearly rainfall in the state (90 inches, ave., more in wet years). Austin Creek is a major tributary to the Russian River, and is home to the federally listed steelheand and coho salmon.

The well-organized critics produced aerial photographs, topographical maps, and soil charts, and they cited geological studies showing fault lines in the THP area. They were emphatic in requesting that other agencies be involved in the pre-harvest inspection, including Fish and Game, Dept. of Mines and Geology, and Dept. of Water Quality.

Among numerous public complaints voiced were issues about: public safety (the THP is adjacent to a residential neighborhood with only one access road), fire danger, emergency vehicle access which might be impeded by logging trucks, high landslide potential, damage to the habitat of threatened and endangered species, and the total cumulative impact of so much logging upon the environment.

"This goes beyond just the effects on the forests themselves. CDF needs to remember that these are our homes, this is a *community*, with 60 occupied homes," said one neighbor.

Others complained that the public is held to strict standards of conformance to the numerous rules, while "professional foresters" can turn in a plan which, after being rejected once, will still raise nineteen questions from CDf for the forester to answer, thirteen more for the state agencies to address -- and with yet many more added from the public's questions.

Familiar questions surfaced -- similar to those raised in other local THPs -- regarding school bus routes, fire and emergency vehicle access on narrow one lane roads, fire safety (slash still remaining from recent logging and there being only a small volunteer fire department in the area); also, in the same area, failure of CDF to enforce the law on other recent logging activities. Some of that logging was alleged to have been done without permits.

The public also protested the customary CDF process of speedy THP review with little public or outside agency notice, which puts a great burden upon the public to very hastily become knowledgeable about a great many technical details in order to even hope to effectively voice their concerns. The THP review process seems to consist, one critic (Mrs. Helen Libeu) complained, in CDF's functioning to "fix" (mitigate) professional forester's mistakes with unpaid public help. "It sometimes appears that CDF never met a THP it didn't like," she sniffed.

Helen Libeu