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trestle
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 11:20 am 
And yet another skewed version of "truth" rears its head.... .....the beauty of statistics and numbers is you can manipulate them and misquote them to support nearly any position one wants to take..... A lot of those entitlements you're railing against were actually earned by people for a variety of reasons. But if you want to start with reducing entitlements for corporate farms I'll support that.

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HumpnoocheeGirl
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 12:28 pm 
Aside from my concerns of the management of forest & funds, I worry that foot access will not be accommodated for in the roads they decide need closing. The Legacy Roads to Trails road decommissioning that happened in the Skokomish valley is horrendous. All it takes is to close the road. It will grow over and/or decay on its own. It's not necessary to obliterate the road to the point of uselessness unles that's your goal. I didn't know about that particular situation until after it was said and done. But I can and will be weighing in on this one. I feel it's useless and necessary at the same time to put my two cents worth in. At least I can complain with merit later...lol

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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 2:35 pm 
good point, but don't they have to go in and rip out all the old culverts?

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Kim Brown
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 3:35 pm 
HumpnoocheeGirl wrote:
The Legacy Roads to Trails road decommissioning that happened in the Skokomish valley is horrendous. All it takes is to close the road. It will grow over and/or decay on its own. It's not necessary to obliterate the road to the point of uselessness unles that's your goal
Define "horrendous." What was so bad about the process? As you know, the Legacy Roads website gives details on the various reasons why a full decommissioning is more than just closing a road. Restoring a slope is not the same as closing a road - different outcome on the environment. Re-contouring the slope, restoring hydrology processes, etc. vs. walking away and letting weeds take over, culverts rust and twist around with each flood event, and the road mass wasting un-checked with each flood event. If it's fully restored, re-veged, culverts taken out - all this allows erosion goes through a natural process as it did before the road was built. It's a pretty interesting process to study. But there are all kinds of studies that say both ways to close a road have their benefits (gating and letting it grow in vs. full restoration); the USFS prefers full restoration when they can; but it is a more initial outlay of funds to do that, so you don't see that very often. But back to the Roads project – sure they need to decommission roads no longer needed. Think ˝ mile spur roads – those count, too. The process is not to target specific roads to close – it’s a way for them to know what the public values so that when it is time to go through with a watershed analysis, which they are supposed to do on occasion (Travel Access Management Plan), they already have information and input to begin the specific National Environmental Policy Act process for access in watershed or for a specific road. So this process isn’t a vote for what roads to keep or close. More of a guidance for future specific actions.

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treeswarper
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 5:09 pm 
Ski wrote:
good point, but don't they have to go in and rip out all the old culverts?
They can smoosh the ditch relief culverts, and put a waterbar--or draindip or whatever you want to call it in front or just behind the smooshed pipe. It's hard to believe all the dirt (fill) that is in some drainages. That's the big monster of decommissioning, where do you put that fill? Waste areas are filling up. Where can you dump the excess fill and how close is it to the project? And yes, decommissioned roads are a pain to walk on, at least the ones I've been on. Sometimes the elk will make a trail on them which helps. Sometimes I don't think that the elk want to walk through all that torn up stuff either. It wasn't decommissioning, but when dumptrucks were hauling the Benham Cr. slide material, they had to go down the 25, then along the Cispus on the 76 and then, go UPHILL on the 77 road to a site. It was quite a haul, and it did quite a bit of damage to those roads. Dump trucks seem to be rougher on roads than log trucks. They also hauled some on over to an old pit on the 23 road.

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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 5:22 pm 
wth? I can see how they'd want to haul out old culvert pipes, cables, steel gates, or whatever.... but they have to haul out dirt? are you kidding? what the hell is dirt going to hurt when it's out in the woods? now, if they were in the "red zone" (like I am here in the north end- less than a mile from the old smelter) they could just haul it down the hill, fill in part of Commencement Bay, and build condos on top of it... but out in the woods? am I missing something here? confused.gif

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Kim Brown
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 5:41 pm 
I would assume they’d haul out dirt that’s excessive or if it’s weedy. If they pile it up, the rain will erode it into a stream. Even if it doesn’t make sense; too bad. US Fish & Wildlife, NOAA, NMFS – they have the say in environmental regs; not the USFS. Chances are pretty good they’re hauling out a lot of soil from the Downey Creek bridge site on the Suiattle Road repair. BTW, the Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forests’ Sustainable Roads process is nearly ready to reveal last year’s survey results to the public. Even if you did not participate, folks can attend the public sessions that are planned this summer to learn what this is all about. The schedule isn’t ready yet, and it’s a bummer that it’s during summer when folks are likely out doing other things; but this stuff is important, and the more folks become involved, the more the USFS manages the way we want them to.

"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area." Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Kim Brown
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 5:42 pm 
I would assume they’d haul out dirt that’s excessive or if it’s weedy. If they pile it up, the rain will erode it into a stream. Even if it doesn’t make sense; too bad. US Fish & Wildlife, NOAA, NMFS – they have the say in environmental regs; BMPS are developed around the regs. The USFS develops BMPs to go with regs. Chances are pretty good they’re hauling out a lot of soil from the Downey Creek bridge site on the Suiattle Road repair. BTW, the Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forests’ Sustainable Roads process is nearly ready to reveal last year’s survey results to the public. Even if you did not participate, folks can attend the public sessions that are planned this summer to learn what this is all about. The schedule isn’t ready yet, and it’s a bummer that it’s during summer when folks are likely out doing other things; but this stuff is important, and the more folks become involved, the more the USFS manages the way we want them to.

"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area." Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 5:50 pm 
no, it doesn't make any sense at all considering how many "borrow pits" one can find on any 7.5 topo- they're everywhere! moreover, we simply don't have enough available real estate to turn the entire continent into a landfill. that's just nutty. toss in the cost of gas/diesel and dollars-per-man-hours and it becomes even more ridiculous. if it's full of weeds they could cover it with black pvc and it would be sterile in a matter of months. sorry, just doesn't make sense! (I had them take me off the mailing list for MBSNF - I just couldn't deal with the volume of mail/email I was receiving. ONP and GPNF is more than I can really focus on with my tiny brain.) smile.gif <edit 18:05 - supposed to be on ONF's mailing list too, but I never hear anything from them. >

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treeswarper
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 6:00 pm 
The amount of dirt that comes out is amazing. I've seen two excavators working in tandem to get the base of the fill up to the road and onto a truck. The dirt is compacted and digging it out fluffs it up. You can use some of it to pack in the road and try to recontour with, but then you need to be sure it won't slide off the hillside, into the drainage and kill all the fishies. The excess has to be trucked. It can't go to any flat spot. The area has to be stable and where the sediment won't run off and kill the fishes. Such spots, that are near the project, are hard to come by. That increases the cost of decommissioning in a big way. Once again, the Siuslaw learned this the hard way. They deposited waste from a decommissioning on an old landing, and during a heavy rain, it slid off the hillside. Working on NFs is always complicated. Gots to make everybody almost happy.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 6:09 pm 
okay... so.... when they build/construct a road, do they haul material in? (other than rock/crushed rock?) do they have to haul dirt in to build the road in the first place? if yes, then all that makes sense. if no, then it really really doesn't make sense. dirt doesn't "grow" or make babies. and bringing that part of it to light makes HumpnoocheeGirl's and Ranger Rock's arguments more valid: why not just rip out the culverts and leave the damn road in place if it's not skirting along a slope above a class 1 or class 2 stream? or is hoping common sense coming into play wishful thinking?

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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treeswarper
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 6:30 pm 
When you plan the route of a road, you try to make it so what you remove will equal what you need to fill. Cut= Fill. They used to shove the excess over the side, which is why we have sidecast failures--those places along the edge where the road is cracking, or dipping or breaking up. Modern road building in the woods is best done with an excavator. An excavator can compact the soil better by punching it down and dig into the hillside and make what is called a full bench road. Full bench is sturdier than building on sidecast. Yes, sometimes there is too much dirt when road building and the excess has to be hauled (endhauled) to an approved area. But not many roads are built anymore. I often wonder if the distance to dump slide material keeps increasing, could I get them to dump a couple loads for free at my house? I have a lot of rock, and gardening is difficult.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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PostWed Jun 11, 2014 6:50 pm 
was just conversing with my girlfriend, who was the project supervisor on a couple deals out on the Peninsula - and this is making less and less sense the more I learn. will make a point of contacting somebody at ONF with some questions and attending one of these open house deals. still don't understand why they can't use those old abandoned borrow pits- they'd have enough space and they could fill in some of those gaping holes they've left all over the place.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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ranger rock
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PostThu Jun 12, 2014 8:42 am 
Decommissioned roads are such a gawd awful mess. The Skokomish area has been hit so hard, there are very few roads left and they keep threatening to take out more of them. ENOUGH ALREADY! I see that about 5 miles of roads were "converted" to trail, but 100's of miles of roads were destroyed, tilled up so brutally that one can barely even walk down them. The land scarred by decommissioning far worse than it was scarred by the logging roads. The damage they do when decommissioning roads is unbelievable! They cut down so many trees, dig up so much earth AND they sometimes even build new roads just to get acess to one end of a road that they are docommissiong. Look on google earth, it's easy to tell what roads have been decommissioned by the gaping huge scars. I was surprised to see that you can still drive up high in the Wynoochee, they have not destroyed all the high roads up there like they did in the Skokomish. I hate it when roads are decommissioned.. they are not even hikeable when they have been torn up like that and I'm dubious about the enviromental consequences of rototilling a road and digging out all the stream beds. Here are two pictures of a road in the Skokomish that they just dug the crap out of...

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HumpnoocheeGirl
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PostThu Jun 12, 2014 8:51 am 
Ski wrote:
and this is making less and less sense the more I learn. will make a point of contacting somebody at ONF with some questions and attending one of these open house deals. still don't understand why they can't use those old abandoned borrow pits- they'd have enough space and they could fill in some of those gaping holes they've left all over the place.
When there is federal funding involved, sometimes the common sense disappears. The ways and means would be totally different if this was all a volunteer effort.

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