Careless, Irresponsible Logging By Maxxam's Pacific Lumber

Maxxam/Pacific Lumber will likely find itself in another wrongful death lawsuit if they don’t change their ways. Five years after of the death of peaceful activist David “Gypsy” Chain, a similar tragedy was narrowly averted on September 18, when a tree cut by a Maxxam/PL contracted logger came within inches of killing yet another person on Gypsy Mountain, this time a security guard working for the corporation. Without warning, a tree fell where activists and security guards were talking, the branches slamming a security guard to the ground.


You would think they’d learn to do better. But instead, the lack of accountability has taught Maxxam/PL they are above the law, and that every careless or malicious act will result in nothing more than a token punishment. What’s worse, due to a mutual defense clause in the HCP, government agencies must defend Maxxam/PL’s right to destroy forests and water quality regardless of the findings of independent PhD scientists. How convenient.


Forest activists and workers are not the only ones at risk. Local residents, and the harm caused to them from corporate logging, are consistently ignored even as water sources are spoiled (if not destroyed completely), and others have to move or raise their houses due to increased flooding. In Freshwater, more than twenty families are routinely stranded during winter storms as erosion and canopy removal cause the creek to jump its banks, flooding roads and houses. Meanwhile, as millions of pounds of sediment from these barbaric clear-cuts pour into degraded waterways, tax-payers foot the bill for dredging Humboldt Bay - the final resting place for tons of silt.


While nearly every elected official sits on their hands, claiming no responsibility to do something in the face of such injustice, we the people are being manipulated out of our health, our rights, our money and the quality of life for future generations.