By Bruce Anderson – Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 8, 1990
Following three weeks of legal maneuvering and trials, the end is in sight for the Lorax Affinity Group protestors accused of obstructing a public thoroughfare, inciting to riot, failing to disperse, and providing false identification to a police officer. The defendants had identified themselves as “Judi Bari”. The verdict in the case is due today…The defendants, including Lisa Henry, the daughter of Mendocino County’s 4th District Supervisor Liz Henry, argued through their attorneys that they were legally justified in blocking the log trucks as lawful resistance to the larger crimes being committed by corporate timber. Bill Rodriguez of the California North Coast Region Water Quality Control Board testified last week that over the past five months, L-P’s Samoa pulp mill knowingly violated their EPA effluent emissions permit during 19 out of 24 viable monitoring tests. Rodriguez testified that by state and federal law, these violations constituted an ongoing felony offense. L-P has violated the EPA’s Clean Water Act standards more than 3,000 times in the past five years according to Mark Massara, attorney for the Surfrider Foundation. The Lorax Affinity Group is clearly guilty of nothing more than trying to bring the real criminals to justice.