{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Measure V to play role in logging lawsuit","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"April 18, 2022 — Three environmental organizations are suing CalFire over the approval of a timber harvest plan by Mendocino Redwood Company which they say violates Measure V; would degrade the watershed of Russell Brook, which is a tributary of Big River; and would damage spotted owl habitat.\r\nThe Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Protection and Information Center, or EPIC, and the Coast Action Group, filed in the Mendocino County Superior Court earlier this month, asking a judge to set aside the approval of the plan.\r\nIt’s the first legal challenge invoking Measure V, the 2016 citizens’ initiative which declared that intentionally leaving dead standing trees is a public nuisance. Mendocino Redwood Company, which uses the herbicide Imazapyr in a practice called hack and squirt, or frilling, to kill tanoaks, maintains that the practice is a legal agricultural method under the Right to Farm Act and other local codes. \r\nTom Wheeler, the executive director of EPIC, wants Measure V enforced. “I’ve been disappointed that Mendocino County has not, on their own initiative, gone and tried to enforce Measure V,” he said. “Because I believe the large industrial timber companies have used their legal muscle to bully the county into not taking legal action against them. And so I hope we can add some legal clarity about how Measure V is applied, and that through our lawsuit we can give the county greater confidence in their ability to litigate this.”\r\nIn the summer of 2019, Xavier Becerra, who was the State Attorney General at the time, declined Mendocino County’s request for an opinion on the legality of Measure V, due to an unspecified conflict of interest. CalFire also uses hack and squirt in study areas within the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. \r\nWheeler elaborated on the role of Measure V in the lawsuit over the harvest plan, which covers 993 acres. “So we are not enforcing Measure V, because we cannot, per the terms of Measure V. The county is...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}