California: Quincy Library group’s 21st century history

He began by stacking two massive piles of binders into dual pillars on
either side of himself, commenting there would be more binders but
some of the information was on CDs. He gave the supervisors a short
history lesson, noting the QLG fund was set up in 2001 when the Forest
Service’s first framework document came out and “in our opinion,
destroyed the QLG program.” “So we set up this program in order to be
able to bring our interest to, first, the regional forester and,
second, when we didn’t get satisfaction, to the federal courts.”
Jackson pointed out the county had spent $143,500 on QLG litigation
since 2001, when the legal battles began.

He also mentioned the number
included this year’s county budget allocation to the effort of about
$35,000. Next to Plumas, Lassen County has contributed the most,
$43,000, out of the eight QLG counties. The attorney said the logging
companies had already given their contributions for the year, based
upon their individual scales of operation and interests in a positive
outcome for QLG. Over the years, Sierra Pacific Industries has been
the largest contributor, spending $184,000. Chester-based Collins Pine
has contributed $38,200. Jackson went on to inform the board the total
expenditures allocated to him from all interested parties including
counties and logging groups was $235,875, with an additional $237,161
going to Linda Blum, who does most of the work that doesn’t require a
lawyer.

Jackson digressed for a moment to clarify that one stack of
papers was for the framework case, with the other accounting for the
Basin Sale, a single planned logging operation on the Oroville-Bucks
Lake Highway. He quipped that there were 13 more piles of binders of
equal size for the other sales if the board wished to see those as
well. The attorney explained the Forest Service designed the sales,
with Blum and County Forester Frank Stewart giving input during the
comment period. He added they also split time helping Forest Service
foresters put the projects together in conformance with the QLG plan.
“We assume that it’s much better for that to be done at $45 per hour
than to be done at my fee, which is $200,” Jackson said.

Jackson
described Blum as irreplaceable, as no one else understands the
National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the
history of the Forest Service as well as she does. He also argued she
had been to every major planning meeting concerning the state as a
whole and understood planning on the Forest Service side. The attorney
ended his discussion on the topic by claiming no one else had that
level of knowledge and would work for $45 an hour. He went on to
remind the board this was a pilot project, meaning the idea was for
the Plumas National Forest to be a testing ground for whether or not
logging has a future on federal land. He said the project would be
testing particular kinds of logging like watershed restoration and
wildlife-management-focused cutting. Jackson said the amount of work
proposed in the project was much greater than that accomplished
“because of the litigation funded by all kinds of environmental groups
all around the country who do not want logging to be an appropriate
use on the national forest.” He argued these groups didn’t want any
commercial logging on federal lands and thought the government should
pay if it wanted cutting done.
http://www.plumasnews.com/news_story.edi?sid=7145