AB2494 passes Senate, awaits Newsom: Bill would change demonstration forests with tribal mandate, allowing higher camping fees and putting other uses on equal footing with logging- Will lawsuits be needed to resolve the legislation?

Will commercial logging resume this year or never in Jackson Demonstration State Forest?

Both seem possible now, due to the same dramatic event that took place late Wednesday in the California Senate.

AB 2494, pushed hard by the local environmentalist community, passed the California Senate, leaving only the low hurdle of Gov Newsom signing it for it to become law. The bill passed the Assembly earlier in the Senate, but a usually routine reconciliation is needed before the document lands on Newsom’s desk. 

After reading the bill through all its stages and the most recent version available, we can say factually it is a very confusing document, with no defined process of working out obvious conflicts between purposes, no local input and total control now vested in the State Fire Board.

Logging was set to start in late July, we were told by Kevin Conway, Staff Chief of Resource Protection and Improvement for Cal Fire and Justin Britton, head of the Demonstration Forest Program. But the environmental community hit hard to at least delay logging and possibly stop it entirely. They hit both in the streets and in the top floors of the State Capitol, we have heard from people on all sides and what they said happened.

No new logging plan has been implemented since 2020, when environmentalists turned out in masse and shut down the Caspar 500 plan, then stopped any more harvests from starting.

Loggiing was delayed indefinitely due to the actions taken and now neither Britton, nor Conway nor anyone localy knows when and if the logging will now start. The AMEX plan, discussed fully in the story below, began in 2022 and had followed a legal timeline to this point with bids made and contractors and subcontractors picked and the start of road work formally announced.

Then everything was paused and nobody can tell us why, but we heard from enough people to know it was pressure applied publicly and privately to wait on cutting at least until the bill is signed by the governor.

AB 2494 is designed to broaden the mission of Jackson Demonstration State Forest and the 11 demonstration forests in California. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Chris Rogers has been amended frequently during ts 7 month sojourn through the California Legislature  The bill does allow science-based commercial logging but now adds recreation, climate change research, and other purposes. It extends the mandate for indigenous co-management to the Demonstration State  Forests and it does not mention or recognize the existing local entity, the Jackson Advisory Group, established two decades ago in a compromise between environmentalists and lumber companies to allow local input into timber harvest  The bill solidifies control with the State Fire Board. Some critics feel that because it puts sometimes conflicting purposes on equal footing, it will result in much litgation that will also accomplish the goals of those who wish to stop commercial logging in the demonstration forest. The Save Jackson Forest coalition’s demands included the AMEX Harvest plan to wait until the bill was signed by the governor. Will the scientific logging plan to study climate change proceed now. We learned on Wednesday that the logging plan, which we were told by Kevin Conway and Justin Britton, head of the Demonstration Forest Sytem, was to start in late July, then August and now the contractors have been picked but they say its been delayed due to high level discussions, possibly involving Gov. Newsom.

We will post the final version of the bill when it becomes available

WE WROTE THESE STORIES BEFORE THE BILL PASSED