Palco Bankruptcy Plan- Sell Ancient Redwood Forest to Developers

[nosmokes]

The tale of Charles Hurwitz,MAxxam Corp,Pacic Lumber(Palco),Kaiser Aluminum and the Milken/S&L junk bond scandal has another chapter. But this story, including his cronyism w/ various Texas Republicans(yep, including the dimson) and Oilmeisters from the Houston locale is a classic tale of greed gone wild. Hurwitz would definitely be a finalist for poster boy of the hurray for me, fuck you generation of big money barons, in stark contrast to those robber barons of yore that at least had enough conscience left that they felt duty bound to give some back to society, like Carnegie and his libraries.
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original-sfchronicle

Pacific Lumber wants to sell 29,000 acres of north state redwoods

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The fate of nearly 29,000 acres of Northern California redwoods is in the hands of a Texas judge.

The land in question - on which some of the state's most majestic trees stand - is owned by Pacific Lumber Co., a firm struggling to emerge from bankruptcy.

In order to do so, the company has asked for permission to sell some of the oldest of its remaining tracts of land and continue logging the rest. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Richard Schmidt has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 23 in Corpus Christi, Texas, to help decide the future of the land and its towering tenants.

Pacific Lumber President George O'Brien issued a statement Monday urging approval of his 102-page proposal, filed Sunday night.

"This plan saves a 140-year-old company and creates a viable forest products enterprise that can provide excellent long-term jobs," O'Brien said.

In January, the Humboldt County company sought protection from its creditors after it was unable to make a payment on roughly $714 million worth of bonds that are a holdover from the debt Houston financier Charles Hurwitz accrued when his Maxxam Corp. bought the company in 1986.

Pacific Lumber's proposal is the latest development in a 20-year battle over California's signature redwood trees that has pitted environmentalists and loggers against each other and has drawn worldwide attention to one of the state's best-known resources.

Dramatic tree-sitting protests in the late 1990s culminated in a 1998 deal that was supposed to buy peace in the woods by preserving a large part of the area's old-growth redwoods and requiring the company to agree to additional restrictions on its logging.

But friction continued between the company and its environmental critics, who now fear that Hurwitz will use the bankruptcy to void some of the restrictions that Pacific Lumber agreed to. The state attorney general is tracking the case as well, hoping to make sure that doesn't happen.

Ultimately though, it will be up to Schmidt to decide whether to accept Pacific Lumber's plan or let bondholders - who believe the land is worth far less than the company says - propose their own plan for dealing with the timber lands.

Environmentalist Mark Lovelace, president of the Humboldt Watershed Council, said the trees aren't worth anywhere near as much as the company says.

"It's pie in the sky, utterly preposterous," Lovelace said.

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complete article here

[aquart]

1. Redwoods are national treasure, not property.

Somebody correct their misapprehension.

[earth mom]

2. How can a Texas court decide what is a California matter?

:wtf:

[nosmokes]

3. The bankruptcy is in a Texas court;

the redwoods are in California. Hurwitz boughtPalco w/ a busload of junkbonds, putting it immediately into a huge amount of debt. Up until then Palco had been a small family owned company with roots deep in Humboldt county. just like the loggers and mill workers the owners were invested in the quality of life of the area. They logged in the spring/summer, went hunting and fishing in the fall, milled in the winter. The logging was done on a sustainable level and while not many were getting rich in southern Humboldt, folks wre making a comfortable living and it was a pretty good life in a hella beautiful place. And Palco was a neighbor that come every fall would usse their heavy equipment to put up temporary bridges over what would be torrential seasonal rivers so that kids on the other side could cut hours off their trip to school. No charge.I can't count the number of stories I heard about Palco generosity to individuals and the surrounding communities when it was family owned. When Hurwitz/Maxxam bought it out it was so deeply in debt that the only way to pay thtote was to ramp up the cut to unsustainable levels. The mill began running 3 shifts, CLear cuts on slopes became the norm, and violations of logging plans were as routine as morning paper delivery. People don't spend over a year in a tree w/o a good reason.FSM bless Julia Butterfly Hill.