In return, Pacific Lumber Company will agree to certain restrictions regarding when and where they can continue to log on the rest of their land. Senator Diane Feinstein D-Calif. Along with other state officials and government agencies have been negotiating over this high profile deal for months. Senator Feinstein feels that Pacific Lumber Company would have won even more money in a court fight according to her press secretary Jim Hock.
Many environmental groups remain skeptical.
The main concern of the Bay Area Coalition on Headwaters is that this deal only protects 10 percent of the Headwaters old growth forest. Pacific Lumber Company owns over 200,000 additional acres of land. Pacific Lumber has plans to sustain harvests of their holdings over the next 50 to 100 years according to Mary Bullwinkle, public relations officer for Pacific Lumber. Bullwinkle claims that redwood trees are harvestable after about 60 years. The plan AB1896 authored by Carole Migden, set some conditions on the purchase to include stream buffers and protection of spawning habitats.