By Bob Martel – Country Activist, September 1987
When Texan Charles Hurwitz and his Maxxam Corporation “stole” our local Pacific Lumber in a hostile takeover in 1985, people throughout Humboldt County aroused themselves to stop him. Hurwitz is making good on his promise to destroy the last large private stands of redwood rainforests in the world. Meanwhile, the people are cranking up their efforts.
The takeover itself caused civil suits against Maxxam on behalf of stockholders, retired workers, and all the local residents. These first suits are now in limbo awaiting the results of the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) investigation as well as a new inquiry by the U.S. Congress into the takeover. In the state Legislature, Sen. Barry Keene has introduced a bill to roll back the increased cutting to the pace PL used preceding the takeover. His focus is to discourage highly leveraged takeovers such as Hurwitz’s theft of P.L. which produces large debts to finance the takeovers causing a massive escalation of natural resource destruction.
Because these bills, suits, and investigations were doing nothing yet to halt the increased logging and eventual elimination of Old Growth Redwoods, additional citizen pressure is now being applied. The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) has brought suit against Maxxam and the State agencies responsible for the increased logging. Earth First! has taken direct action against increased cutting, with campaigns of resistance at Hurwitz’s offices in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Marin County, and elsewhere in Arcata, Eureka, Fortuna, Scotia (PALCO’s home), and in the redwood forests. Going beyond demonstrations, Earth First!ers have taken up the defense of our future by occupying the trees themselves. Thirteen arrests have resulted in Humboldt County and five more in Marin County. EPIC and EF! are pursuing two different courses of action, and the response of citizens from all over the country to these actions have been very encouraging.
The People vs. Maxxam & the State
Environmental Protection Information Center’s suit against Maxxam and the State’s alphabet soup agencies (CDF, F&G, NCRWQCB, CRA, etc) has undergone several days of hearings in early September before Judge Frank Peterson in Eureka. EPIC, the people, contend Maxxam’s logging does not comply with the State’s laws protecting environmental quality. The State’s agencies overseeing these laws are willfully ignorant of MAX-XAM’s violations and are acting as a rubber stamp approving all logging plans (THP’s) without adequate investigation.
The suit focuses upon the environmental destruction coming from the cumulative effects of the increased logging and the destruction of animal habitats. Testimony by government witnesses has shown the CDF’s preharvest inspections to be willfully deficient since CDF sent employees to check the proposed logging sites for frogs, salamanders, birds and owls which they had never been trained to spot, nor even been shown pictures of, until one week before the hearings! Further, Carlton Yee, HSU professor and Board of Forestry member was accused of intimidating State employees who criticized CDF for approving THP’s without consideration of its own laws.[1]
Judge Peterson is due to rule soon on EPIC’s suit, and in the face of official intimidation, agency duplicity, and willful ignorance, the people hope for a victory in court which may prove the State and Big Timber to be in conspiracy to break laws the people demanded and won for their own protection.
The State vs. the People
Earth First! actions on May 17 and 18 have led to the arrest of 13 people in Humboldt County. The charges of trespassing (dropped against four media people) are being pressed against the remaining nine in Fortuna Justice Court. With the nine lawyers working on the case we can expect the “justice system” to be woefully taxed to live up to its name.
The defendants, supported by hundreds of friends, look forward to turning the tables on the State and Maxxam by proving the necessity of their actions to prevent a public disaster.
Maxxam vs. the People
Hurwitz, in the typical jackbooted fashion of the rich and powerful has filed an intimidation suit against one hundred-thirteen people claiming to want to recover “costs” incurred by Maxxam on May 17 and 18 (1987).[2] Naming the original 13 arrestees and 100 additional John and Jane Does, Maxxam hoped to discourage further attempts to physically halt its logging of old growth redwoods.
This suit may never see the light of day in court, since it claims the 113 interfered with a legal business, a point which will necessitate proof in court. The team of attorneys anxiously awaits the opportunity to argue this point. This alone may put the fear of exposure into Hurwitz’s stony heart.
Tarzan and Jane Defend Trees
Meanwhile, back in the woods, two Arcatans, Greg “Tarzan” King and his tree sitting partner Jane Marie Cope, undaunted by State or Maxxam, took possession of two old growth redwoods deep in the forest on the South Fork of the Elk on Sunday August 30, 1987; the two stayed up for a week… (See next chapter).
Footnotes:
[1] For more details, see “Two Forestry Employees Testify at PALCO Trial”, By Marie Gravelle, Eureka Times-Standard, Friday, September 4, 1987.
[2] L-P would attempt a similar campaign against the Albion uprising in 1992. Such legal actions are often called “SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits. For example, see “Proud to Be Slapped by L-P”, by Louis Korn, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, May 6, 1993 and “L-P Slapped by Feds”, staff report, Mendocino Country Environmentalist, May 27, 1993.