Industrial Logging in the Sierra Nevada
Sierra Pacific Industries
Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) is the second largest private landowner in America and the largest landowner by far in the state of California. It is a privately owned company which owns more than 1.5 million acres of land in California and is the largest timberland owner in the United States. It is also the largest harvester of federal timber in California, cutting 39% of all the trees logged from the state’s national forests.
The primary logging practice of SPI is in the form of clearcutting. They have clearcut hundreds of thousands of acres of both public and private land. Although the lands that SPI is logging are its own, clearcut logging is a devastating practice that is causing significant harm to the wildlife, water, and public lands that belong to all Californians.
While there are more responsible, sustainable ways to log, SPI persists in its destructive ways, turning forests into tree farms and releasing tons of pesticides and chemicals into the land and water. Their practices increase fire risk to local communities and destroy valuable wildlife habitat. Industrial timber harvests result in long term increases in carbon emissions, both from clearcutting and because young trees farms lack the complex processes and elements of a natural forest, which normally would store large amounts of carbon.
In the past, private logging companies in the region managed much of their timberlands in a responsible fashion that provided good habitat value for most wildlife species. In the last decade however, SPI has bought out all its competitors in the region and is now aggressively logging its lands with widespread clearcutting, followed by bulldozing, herbicide treatments, and the creation of sterile tree plantations.
In August 2007, Sierra Pacific Industries settled out of court to pay the state a $13 million fine for polluting the air and endangering the health of Sierra Nevada and Central Valley communities. SPI also had to pay millions more to upgrade outdated equipment that for years has spewed soot and dangerous chemicals into the air that our families breathe. Not surprisingly, SPI’s website claims "family values at the heart of Sierra Pacific Industries", but actions speak louder than words, as discovered by a joint investigation by the California Air Resources Board, the California Attorney General, and the Placer County Air Pollution Control District. The agencies discovered that SPI intentionally failed to report emissions, exceeded emission limits, and failed to operate and maintain air pollution control equipment as required by law.
Aggressive Clearcutting
Between 1992 and 1999, SPI increased its clearcutting by an astonishing 2,426%. SPI plans to clearcut 1 million more acres (1,562 square miles) – an area larger than the state of Rhode Island – over the next 70 years. No private timber company has ever clearcut so many acres in an area such as the Sierra Nevada. In some watersheds, SPI has cleared as many as 3,000 acres within eight years.
Clearcutting is a destructive logging technique that removes all vegetation within the area and replaces a complex forest ecosystem with a denuded landscape of disturbed soils and an herbicide-laden plantation. Many rare species of plants that are dependent upon old-growth forest conditions, as well as those that benefit from fire, are disappearing from California's forests under industrial timber management regimes such as SPI's. Clearcutting also fragments the forest landscape, eliminating wildlife habitat and making it impossible for some species to migrate, find shelter or locate food. In short, SPI's management regime is permanently eliminating critical habitat for many plants and animals in the Sierra Nevada.
The original Sierra Nevada Framework requires the agency to protect plants and animals that depend on old-growth forests, and prevent them from slipping toward extinction. Sadly, SPI’s massive level of clearcutting on private lands threatens these conservation goals in many parts of the Sierra. Efforts to restore the Pacific fisher for example, in the northern and southern Sierra Nevada are further impaired by SPI’s clearcutting practices which reduces the habitat connectivity needs of this species.
Fixing the Problem
California’s current forestry regulations allow SPI to clearcut more than a million acres of California forests with no limit on the amount of clearcutting in a single watershed, and no protections for sensitive watersheds or old-growth forests.
The State Water Resources Control Board is required to ensure that logging does not violate the Clean Water Act but the water board has delegated this authority to the California Department of Fire and Forestry which consistently has approved logging plans that have failed to protect water quality.
Some actions that would greatly reduce the devastating impact of SPI’s logging practices on the ecological health of California’s forests and watershed are:
- Banning clearcutting in favor of intermediate harvest styles which still allow for timber production and profits without environmental devastation.
- Limiting the amount of clearcutting that can be conducted in any decade in any watershed.
- Creating buffers along all streams that will be free from any logging activity.
- Increasing the number of large trees that are protected on industrial forestlands.
- Set sustainable limits for logging within a single watershed.
- Limiting the use of certain herbicides that persist in soils, contaminate streams, and threaten the survival of aquatic species such as amphibians.
- Fully enforce Timber Harvest Plans through the Department of Fish and Game, State Water Resources Control Board, and California Geological Survey.