By Bruce Anderson – Anderson Valley Advertiser, May 20, 1987
Louisiana-Pacific’s immediate denunciation of Earth First! to the contrary, the Advertiser has learned that the primary suspect in the tree spiking, resulting in serious injuries to a Hopland mill worker, is a conservative Republican in his middle fifties who has lately dyed his hair, moustache and eye brows a vivid blonde. This man, who is not a permanent resident of the Cameron Road area north of Elk, has access to property adjoining the site presently being logged by gyppo crews employed by Louisiana-Pacific. The suspect’s erratic and belligerent behavior, coupled with what an acquaintance describes as “a mania for guns” has made neighbors fearful of his periodic visits to Cameron Road. The suspect issued a number of threats against Louisiana-Pacific earlier this year within the hearing of casual acquaintances.
The Advertiser has also learned the suspect has spiked a number of standing trees on the property he visits adjacent to that owned by L-P. He has spiked these trees in patterns consistent with those recommended in the well-known underground manual, A Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching.
The spiking that injured George Alexander, occurred as a result of the mill saw blade hitting an 11-inch spike driven into a log approximately 9 feet from its foot, strongly suggesting the tree was spiked where it lay on a landing prior to being hauled off to the L-P mill in Cloverdale. Earth First! does not spike downed trees. The point of tree spiking is to keep trees standing by spiking them, then informing the media they have been spiked. Driving a spike deep into a downed tree plainly risks injury to both mills and workers and is a tactic repudiated by Earth First!
There is no apparent link between discoveries of mutilated animals along Cameron Road and L-P’s logging in the area. The dead animals, clearly displayed by the road side by a deranged person, began appearing in that area well before L-P began work there.
L-P’s Cameron Road cut has been widely criticized by not only residents of the neighborhood but by some of the men working on the job (see Chapter 15). Workers have said it is a shamefully rapacious cut even by the standards of L-P, a company whose logging practices evoke nearly universal contempt from the timber industry itself.
The unfortunate injured worker, 23-year old George Alexander of Hopland, although partially protected by a helmet and plastic face guard, was struck in the lower left jaw when a hunk of the huge saw blade flew at him after biting into the tree spike. The blade piece cut completely through Alexander’s left jaw bone, also nearly severing his left cheek. All of Alexander’s front teeth, uppers and lowers, were shattered. The spike that the enormous mill saw blade struck in the log had apparently been driven in by a second spike, a portion of which was also retrieved from the spiked log. Three more spiked logs from Cameron Road have since been detected by L-P at the Cloverdale mill.