A Timber Giant Threatens to Topple (Pacific Lumber) [View All]

[quaoar]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-timber21feb21,0,6487993.story?coll=la-home-headlines

A series of layoffs and mill closures culminated earlier this year with Pacific Lumber warning that it was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Company executives began negotiating with a state agency last week over 11 logging permits that they say are critical to the firm's survival.

< snip >

Since the early 1990s, Pacific Lumber has been at the center of one of the country's longest and most volatile environmental battles over the fate of some of the world's tallest trees and the wildlife they support.

To end the strife, six years ago the state and federal governments made a $480-million deal for 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber's oldest, grandest trees, creating the new Headwaters Preserve. The deal also required the firm to limit logging on its remaining 200,000 acres. But now the company contends that the terms are a huge financial burden and that it can't get enough logging permits to turn a profit.