Opponents of logging plan along Gualala River dream of expanding park

by Mary Callahan, The Press Democrat, April 25, 2019

[excerpt:]

Provoked by a new round of scrutiny over hard-fought plans to harvest timber in the Gualala River floodplain, a contingent of North Coast residents has launched a petition drive to use the land for expansion of a public park instead.

It’s the stuff of fantasy for the moment, given the property owners’ stated unwillingness to sell to conservationists and their desire to “ensure this area remains in timber production.”

But people like Anchor Bay resident Kathleen Chasey want state forestry officials to know that riverfront acreage involved in the “Dogwood” timber harvest plan would make a welcome addition to adjoining Gualala Point Regional Park, as an alternative to what they deem an environmentally destructive logging scheme.

County park officials are on board, as well, having eyed the swath of river since at least 1955 as ideal land for a major regional or state park.

. . .

. . . Gualala Redwood Timber has been defeated in court twice by Friends of the Gualala River, an environmental group that fears the company’s extraction of large, century-old redwood trees in flood-prone areas of the watershed will mean running roughshod over sensitive wetland habitat in a river that also hosts protected salmon and steelhead fish.

. . .

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Opponents of logging plan along Gualala River dream of expanding park