Santa Cruz County will appeal Lompico Timber Harvest Plan

Most of the redwood is found along the stream corridors.

After more than two years of foot dragging, (34 extensions!) on October 30, the California Department of Forestry (CDF) finally approved the highly contentious Lompico Timber Harvest Plan. Santa Cruz County has submitted an appeal to the Board of Forestry which will decide in early December whether or not to hear the appeal. If the Board of Forestry denies the appeal, the Plan will still have to go before the Regional Water Board for a Waste Discharge Requirement Permit or waiver.

This Timber Harvest Plan generated the largest public hearing on record for a local timber harvest. Over 300 letters of opposition were sent to CDF. As reported previously in The Ventana, one of the reasons for such great concern is the fact that this 425-acre property is the headwaters of Lompico Creek, which is the major water source for the Lompico County Water District. The district has been under a state-imposed moratorium preventing the release of new water connections for many years.

Most of the redwood is found along the stream corridors with hardwood and chaparral in the uplands. Any increase in sedimentation in Lompico Creek will reduce winter water withdrawals from the creek and increase the demand upon the District’s wells. Thus the logging of Islandia, as the area is known locally, will reduce the water available to a community already suffering from insufficient water resources.

The Redwood Empire logging operation targets land so steep, complex and erosive that it can only be logged by helicopter, which would subject residents to intensive noise. A landslide analysis commissioned by the Lompico Watershed Conservancy showed that the land is far more unstable and vulnerable to disturbance than indicated in the timber harvest plan or reported in the CDF review.

This property has lain largely undisturbed since it was clearcut before 1900. In the intervening hundred years it has healed from the extensive landslides, soil fertility losses, and streambed log skidding that occurred during the brutal clearcut. There are scattered old growth trees among the tall stands of second growth redwood. Together they support habitat for endangered steelhead trout, every local owl species and forest hawk, bats, salamanders, and rare sand hills plants and insects.

Efforts by the Lompico Watershed Conservancy and the Water District to purchase the property from Roger Burch, owner of Redwood Empire, have been unsuccessful even though these groups were willing to pay many times what Burch paid for the property in 1995.

The Sierra Club is supporting the efforts to stop this logging operation. To keep informed, contact the Lompico Watershed Conservancy, 335-8136 or bats3@cruzio.com or visit www.lompicocreek.org.

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