EUREKA, Calif. — Barely three months in office, Dist. Atty. Paul V. Gallegos faces a recall campaign, threats of lawsuits and court sanctions -- all after he brought civil fraud charges against a powerful timber company that has become a symbol of a beleaguered way of life.
An emigre from Southern California, Gallegos is a political neophyte in a north coast county that, since the mid-1980s, has been a battleground over logging practices that imperil some of California's last giant redwoods.
Although he doesn't view himself as an environmentalist and was elected last year with broad support, he now finds himself undercut by a local establishment that links him to the anti-logging counterculture.
"Mr. Gallegos is stirring up trouble," said Robin Arkley Sr., a former timber mill owner who pledged $5,000 to launch the recall campaign. "He's threatening our way of life."
Arkley, 78, said he and other "good ol' boys" are fed up with Gallegos and his kind. "It's us against them," he said. "We're going to take back the county from the ardent environmentalists, the college community and the hippies."
Lawyers for the timber company, Pacific Lumber Co., known here as "Palco," say the D.A.'s suit has no merit and have threatened to countersue if he doesn't drop it. Officials of the two state agencies responsible for overseeing logging practices also have questioned the merits of the suit.
Gallegos said he thought he was doing what he had been elected to do when he charged Pacific Lumber Co. in a civil action with deceiving the California Department of Forestry by failing to disclose that its timber-cutting plans could cause landslides.
Having concealed that information, Gallegos contended, Pacific Lumber was allowed to cut 100,000 giant redwoods, profiting handsomely at the expense of wildlife and downstream neighbors who have suffered from mud flows, flooding streams and other damaging effects of stripping redwoods off steep, unstable slopes.
In leveling such accusations, Gallegos has stepped into a long-running fight in this community and taken on a formidable adversary. Pacific Lumber has been engaged in a herculean struggle to log as it sees fit on its own land -- 211,000 acres that are home to the largest stands of ancient redwood trees that are not in parks or preserves.
