KAREN PICKET is scared. The veteran environmental activist fears politicians and the media have lulled the public into believing that a deal between timber interests and Sacramento legislators will preserve Headwaters Forest.

"Not only is Headwaters not saved yet, and not only does the deal stink, but there's still a lot people can do," Picket told the Bay Guardian.

For more than a decade Picket and other members of Earth First! have fought to prevent Pacific Lumber, which owns the forest, from chopping the thousand-year-old, 300-foot-tall redwoods for timber. Headwaters is the last sizable chunk of privately owned primeval forest, a natural treasure too precious to turn into furniture. Through an unceasing stream of sit-ins, forest occupations, fax blitzes, and tree-sits, Earth First! campaigned for permanent legal protections for the Humboldt County woodlands.

The agreement reached this year by Pacific Lumber owner Charles Hurwitz, the federal government, and the state of California is supposed to provide those protections. Under the deal, the federal government and the state plan to purchase and preserve some 12 percent of Pacific Lumber's Headwaters holdings. And the company has agreed not to log within 30 feet of streams and estuaries in order to limit hillside erosion and protect endangered river species.

Picket and a range of other critics say the deal serves mainly to insulate Pacific Lumber from criticism. In recent months stentorian ecologist David Brower has labeled it the "Headwaters hoax," Green Party gubernatorial candidate Dan Hamburg has blasted it in his campaign, and the Sierra Club, which lobbied for the deal's passage, recently slammed it in the press.

Environmentalists want to protect the entire forest, not just a few groves. And some say Hurwitz's past business dealings provide the federal government with leverage to do just that.

In 1988 United Savings Association of Texas, a savings and loan in which Hurwitz held a $1.6 billion stake, went belly-up. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision bailed him out -- and the terms of that bailout are still being negotiated. Earth First! is pushing the federal agencies to engineer a "debt for nature" swap, under which Hurwitz would turn over the forest to pay off some of his debt to the government. Loggers displaced by the swap, the activists say, should be hired by the government to rehabilitate and care for the new wilderness refuge. Pacific Lumber says such a swap isn't an option.

"We need to put pressure on FDIC and OTS to find a creative solution," Picket said. "The FDIC had previously said it was a possibility. They need to know the public stands behind that kind of solution."

FDIC representatives did not return Bay Guardian phone calls.

Bad terms

The three-way pact spearheaded by U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), state senator Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), and state assemblymember Carole Migden (D-S.F.) provides $210 million in state money and $250 million in federal funds to purchase 7,470 acres of Pacific Lumber's holdings. Of the newly acquired acres, 3,500 are largely untouched groves; 4,000 acres are logged-over lands nearby.

Experts say the acquisition is too small and fragmented to sustain the area's endangered species -- coho salmon, spotted owl, giant Pacific salamander, and marbled murrelet. Environmentalists call it a half-billion-dollar tree museum.

The greater Headwaters ecosystem consists of some 60,000 acres -- some old growth, some second and third growth, some moonscapelike clear-cuts. Environmentalists say the only way to preserve the biological integrity of the woodlands already purchased is to acquire the entire forest. The portion covered in the deal "are museum pieces; they're very small islands," Picket told us. "There's no way they're biologically sustainable habitat."

Migden told the Bay Guardian she stands by the deal, calling it "pragmatic."

The deal also includes a "habitat conservation plan" and a "sustainable yield plan," announced in February, that spell out Pacific Lumber's rights and responsibilities over the remaining acreage. The plans are meant to protect endangered species -- but scientists and forest advocates call those protections woefully inadequate.

The plans bar Pacific Lumber from logging within 30 feet of streams and estuaries, a move designed to limit hillside erosion. Logging exacerbates natural erosion, choking waterways -- and fish -- with topsoil and sediment. Environmentalists and biologists want the buffer zones expanded; Hurwitz and Pacific Lumber say the company can't afford it.

In interviews with the Bay Guardian, two California scientists slammed the 30-foot buffer zones as insufficient. Dr. Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology at UC Davis, said the blueprints represent "too much of a compromise."

"We've been doing wrong by our streams for so long," Moyle told us. "We really need severe protections on streams."

Dr. Terry Roelofs, a fisheries expert at Humboldt State University, told us the endangered coho salmon could be eliminated without buffers of 450 to 600 feet. The coho's numbers have plummeted from hundreds of thousands to some 10,000 over the past few decades. "If we don't have those streamside protections, we're not going to have [coho]," Roelofs said. "The coho are part of the natural order. You can't put a dollar amount on it." If the government could acquire the entire forest, Moyle and Roelofs said, it could ensure the coho's survival.

"We have an agreement that preserves Headwaters forest," Pacific Lumber communications director Mary Bullwinkel told us. "We believe our habitat conservation plan is based on the best available science. We had dozens of scientific experts in various fields who assisted in putting this together." Bullwinkel said the scheme allows for changes if logging practices are found to be environmentally destructive.

Critics also wonder whether Pacific Lumber will adhere to the terms of the deal. In recent years the corporation has violated more state regulations than any other major timber company. The company has racked up 14 violations so far this year and 103 for the three years previous. More than 20 residents of the North Coast town of Stafford whose homes were demolished in mud slides last year are suing Pacific Lumber. The displaced residents blame the slides on the company's nearby logging operations, which they say left hillsides ripe for catastrophic erosion. Seven homes were totaled and several more were damaged.

Pacific Lumber wouldn't comment on the ongoing litigation. As for the regulatory violations, Bullwinkel said, "We're certainly conducting an investigation. However, we are human beings and we make mistakes."

Not giving up

Earth First! calls the long-awaited deal, signed by Gov. Pete Wilson in September, fatally compromised, and the group continues to stage daily protests in the Humboldt County forest. Activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill has lived on a platform 180 feet up a threatened redwood for almost a year. Hill's act of civil disobedience has gained worldwide media attention, including a profile in Time. Two Humboldt County residents are also staging a tree-sit nearby. But since the deal was approved by the state legislature, environmentalists have suffered some tough losses.

Toughest of all was the death of 24-year-old activist David "Gypsy" Chain. Chain died Sept. 17 when a Douglas fir felled by logger A.E. Ammons landed on him, crushing his skull. Earth First! has released a video, taped moments before Chain's death, in which an unidentifiable logger shouts obscenities and threats at Chain and his fellow activists.

The group pressed Humboldt County district attorney Terry Farmer to charge Ammons and Pacific Lumber with manslaughter. Instead, Farmer is considering charging Chain's fellow activists.

"They're blaming the victims to protect those who are really guilty," Michael Passoff of the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters told us. "It's so clearly a travesty of justice -- it's hard not to be upset." Activists are urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the incident.

And on Oct. 26, federal judge Vaughn Walker threw out a long-running civil suit brought by Earth First! members against the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office and Eureka police in which they charged that law enforcement officers who had dabbed pepper spray in their eyes had violated their civil rights (see "Pepper Spray: Standard Practice," page 21).

But activists say the fight for the woodlands isn't over yet. The final round of public hearings on the plans continues through Nov. 16, including a Nov. 5 meeting in Oakland. Earth First! members and other environmentalists plan to come out in force to voice their disapproval of the sellout agreement.

Even after the deal, Picket remains committed to the forest. "I'm in this to win," she told us. "It would be easy to get discouraged, but victories do happen."

The Headwaters public hearings take place Thurs/5, 1-4 p.m. and 6-9 p.m., at the Oakland Convention Center, 550 10th St., Oakl. Earth First! and other activists will rally from 5 to 6 p.m. The video of David "Gypsy" Chain's death can be found online at http://sfbg.com/focus/12.html.
For more information call (510) 548-3113.