PL, state ordered to pay $6 million in EPIC case

PL, state ordered to pay $6 million in EPIC case
By John Driscoll The Times-Standard

Thursday, September 30, 2004 -

In one of the heaviest awards in a case of its kind, Pacific Lumber Co. and the state were ordered by a judge to pay $6 million to attorneys of organizations that filed a major environmental suit targeting core documents in the Headwaters Forest agreement.

Attorneys for the Environmental Protection Information Center and the United Steelworkers Union will be paid $4.3 million and $1.8 million, respectively. The ruling by Lake County Judge John Golden orders the fees, among the highest ever paid in an environmental case.

It follows the July 2003 decision by Golden to strike down the state's Sustained Yield Plan, which aimed to guide Palco's logging on more than 200,000 acres over decades. The plan was drawn up with the California Department of Forestry and the state Department of Fish and Game as part of the $480 million Headwaters deal.

The case was monumentally complex, with an administrative record of more than 75,000 pages.

Cynthia Elkins of EPIC called the new ruling huge and impressive, but also said she realizes it's not likely the end of the line.

"We're going to see an appeal of that," Elkins said, "and we're not going to see a check for a long, long time."

If the decision sticks, EPIC would recover $250,000 it put into the effort, Elkins said. She said the ruling shows Golden understood the importance of the case and the burden it put on EPIC.

Pacific Lumber spokeswoman Erin Dunn said the company would not have a comment on the ruling today.

"Account has been taken of the fact that an award against the respondents will ultimately fall upon the taxpayers, but this is a circumstance which does not appear to justify a mitigation," Golden wrote in the ruling for the Humboldt County Superior Court. "The burden on the public ... of such an award is outweighed by the significant public benefit achieved by the litigation."

How much the state would have to pay was not immediately clear.