Mendocino Judge Halts New Logging in Coho Salmon Watershed

A Mendocino County judge has ordered loggers to stop felling trees included in two timber harvest plans in the upper South Fork Eel River watershed, siding for now with a citizens' group that says state regulators approved the logging without adequately weighing the harm to coho salmon in the streams below.

The preliminary injunction, issued Sept. 2 by Judge Charlotte Scott, freezes any further tree-cutting on the two plans — known as Hot Tuna (also called Lincoln Ridge) and Lincoln Logs — while a lawsuit challenging the plans’ approval moves ahead. The order stops what the court called "any new felling of trees," but lets the timber operators finish limited erosion-control and winterization work meant to protect water quality.

The plans, covering 594 and 332 acres in the Dutch Charlie Creek and Little Charlie Creek drainages, were approved in early July by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE. The timberland is controlled by Redwood Timber Company and Redwood Forest Operating Company, which submitted the plans and are named in the suit as real parties in interest.

The challenger is Friends of Shaahnaa Lhook, an unincorporated association that describes itself in court papers as "concerned citizens" organized to protect forests and watersheds in the upper South Fork Eel. It is named after the Cahto name for the creek, used by the Cahto Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria, according to court filings. In group’s petition, filed July 7, it contends that CAL FIRE violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the state's Forest Practice Act by signing off on the plans without adequately analyzing their cumulative effects on coho salmon and their habitat, along with the foothill yellow-legged frog, the northern spotted owl, and wildfire risk. They group argues that the plans glossed over how sediment from logging would reach salmon-bearing streams.

CAL FIRE and the timber companies opposed the injunction, defending the environmental reviews behind the plans and warning of the cost of halting operations already underway. A registered professional forester for the companies told the court that, as of Aug. 25, the work was nearly finished: about 98% of the trees on the Lincoln Logs plan and 76% on the larger Hot Tuna plan had already been cut. Because so much had been felled, Scott's order restrains only new cutting and permits the companies, under CAL FIRE's supervision, to remove some downed logs, stabilize debris, and complete work needed to guard against winter erosion.

The ruling capped two months of legal maneuvering that played out in two courts at once. The group first sought an emergency restraining order in July, but Judge Ann Moorman denied it on July 13, finding the group had not shown it was likely to win. The group then used a peremptory challenge — a one-time legal maneuver that lets a party remove a judge without proving bias — to take the case away from Moorman, who signed the order stepping aside. The matter was reassigned to Scott.

At the same time, the group pursued a parallel track in the state Court of Appeal. After that court declined to issue an immediate emergency stay in late July, it granted a broader one on Aug. 17, ordering the companies to halt timber operations across both plans while the appeal proceeded, again with an exception for measures "to protect water quality and other resources." The appellate court declined to require the group to post a bond, and signaled that a trial-court ruling on the injunction would likely make its own order moot.

Scott described the ruling as a hard one to reach. In the Sept. 2 order, the court wrote that it had "tremendous difficulty determining the true substance" of the group's claims, which it said were not clearly identified in the briefing and "shifted through the briefing and oral argument."

The court also faulted both sides for the volume of their filings. Rather than narrowing the evidence, the order said, the group and the timber companies "overwhelmed the court" with successive briefs, declarations, and ex parte requests to file oversized memos, submitting "more than a thousand pages of proffered evidence." The court reminded the parties that the injunction motion was "not a trial on the merits" and said the paperwork had contributed to the delay in its ruling.

Because the group won a preliminary injunction, state law required it to post a bond — money set aside to cover the timber companies' losses if the companies ultimately win the case and the halt is found to have been wrongly imposed. The companies argued the amount should reflect the roughly $5 million in harm they said a stoppage could cause; Scott set it at $1,000 — $500 for each plan — after the group's leader said in a sworn statement that it was a small nonprofit that could not afford a bond of that size. The group posted the $1,000 deposit the next day.

The injunction does not decide the lawsuit. In granting it, the court found the group likely to prevail on at least part of its case, but did not rule on whether the plans were lawfully approved; that question awaits a later hearing. Under the order, the companies may still carry out winterization work on the two plans. A case-management conference is scheduled for Oct. 30.