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RainierRidgeRunner
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Joined: 16 Aug 2002
Posts: 23 | TRs | Pics
Location: Auburn,WA |
| Newbie Newt wrote: | So Bush's plan will make it easier and more economical to harvest timber by lessening the hoops and red tape?
if sombody wants to do something to save something. non-renewable, lets start saving farmland and the lifestyle that goes with it. I remember when South Center had no businesses. All farmland. THAT'S something that isn't coming back. It's also a big threat to America.
Let nature have its way.
NN  |
Some of my favorite essays to read were by Wendell Berry. He writes alot about the benefits of self managed and supplied communities. He would defend this convincingly and as well astaking care of farmland and forest.
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Timber Cruiser
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Joined: 17 Dec 2001
Posts: 220 | TRs | Pics
Location: Cosi |
I didn't check that article out (too lazy to register) but found this one floating around today;
The Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
Logging old-growth is a sham issue
Tony Blankley
Published 8/28/2002
There is little more revelatory to us Washington armchair, journo-politico, all-purpose, television/newspaper, expert, pundit/columnists than actually to talk with a fellow out West who works in an industry we just write about. I recently had correspondence with a man who, right up front, called himself "just a fat old logger now working on a farm." Well, as just a fat old lawyer now working on TV and a newspaper, I liked this fellow right off. I feel more comfortable around people who use ab crunchers to keep the refrigerator door open, and who get a six-pack at the liquor store, not a gym.
His point to me was that the arguments by the enviros against logging old-growth public lands trees are completely phony, because there is no significant market for old-growth logs anymore. As a practical matter, all the noise the enviros make about old-growth logging is done to raise money, because the battle is already over — and they won years ago.
The big timber companies, in decades past, realized that one way or the other they would some day run out of old-growth lumber. So they advised their customers (home designers, construction companies, architects, building boards, etc.) to start designing around what could be manufactured out of small-diameter, short-rotation cycle timber. Those small-diameter logs are typically less than 20 inches in the butt end. The old-growth logs could be as large as 50 inches.
The building trades started substituting laminated veneer lumber, chipboard, waferwood, engineered floor joists, plastic and cement. So the demand for the old-growth log products shrank. Between the pressure of the enviros and their allies in the federal government, and the shrinking market for old- growth logs, the infrastructure of that industry began to break down. Log loaders, yarding towers and engines suitable for large old-growth log processing have not been manufactured for decades. In the last 15 years, most of such used equipment has been auctioned off and shipped to the tropics, where clear wood is logged and shipped back to America.
Selling of public lands timber became the vocation of only small, often sweat-equity, businesses. Between big timber's lack of interest in public land timber (they own their own forests) and the enviros' passionate interest in blocking all commerce, the whole public lands logging process has decayed. The road system is in ruin, and can no longer support logging traffic without expensive reconstruction.
The banks will no longer finance public lands logging ventures, because of the uncertainty of the business. Most of the public land timber logged after years of legal delays in the 1990s, were actually sold in the 1980s. That is a long time for a bank to wait for repayment. Understandably, the banks prefer to finance business activities that will not be blocked by lawsuits and enviro political action.
There are very few mills still capable of milling longer cycle or old-growth lumber. Also, the public land timber agencies no longer have the expertise to accurately appraise the lumber. They over-appraise the value, resulting in unsellable wood. With little capacity to finance, log, transport, process or sell larger public lands lumber, it is no surprise that only 200 million board feet is currently coming to market. This is only 20 percent of what even the Clinton administration was willing to permit,and only 4 percent of the 5 billion board feet that was routinely sold in the 1980s.
But when President Bush went to Oregon to talk about proper public forest management in order to avoid killer fires, the enviros nonetheless accused the president of endorsing fire protection as a "timber industry ploy to log old-growth" forests.
The fact is not only is there no significant market left for old-growth logging, but, as my fat, formerly logging, friend from Oregon pointed out to me: "The real story is that logging old-growth has no lobby. Not logging old-growth does. The Sierra Club and Weyerhaeuser have the same goal. The Wilderness Society and International Paper have the same goal. The Defenders of Wildlife and Georgia-Pacific have the same goal. They don't want old-growth logged. All it does is compete with the current production and profits."
Logging old-growth is a sham issue. The Western timber industry is now only a few giant companies that have paid vast sums to own their own, short-cycle, small-diameter-tree forest.They don't want old-growth products to get in their way. The only large organizations that exploit old-growth trees for profit are the Sierra Club, et. al., which harvest a handsome crop of dollars from nincompoop contributors who can still be separated from their money by old tales from the Western woods.
"Logging encourages the maintenance of foilage by providing economic alternatives to development."
"Logging encourages the maintenance of foilage by providing economic alternatives to development."
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Malachai Constant
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Joined: 13 Jan 2002
Posts: 16093 | TRs | Pics
Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
Washington Times is owned by Reverend Sun Moon of the Unification Church (Moonies). I give no credence to them or Tony.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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ajgoodkids
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Joined: 11 Aug 2002
Posts: 113 | TRs | Pics
Location: Issaquah |
That editorial in the Washington Times is a total piece of bullsh*t.
1. Last I looked, clear vertical grain douglas fir finish lumber, which is what is milled from old growth, was selling at caviar prices. It probably costs more per ounce than gold in Japan. Only a lawyer in Washington DC would have the balls to write an editorial stating no one wants the stuff.
2. Since when is being fat and lazy cool? Someone who brags about being fat and lazy should not be writing an editorial related to the environment for hiking and backpacking. Have another cigarette, Tony, and don't walk up the stairs. You'll have a heart attack. Just don't tell us about the value of recreational environments.
3. The only thing green in Washington DC is money. A lawyer in Washington DC should not be writing an editorial about trees. This editorial is analogous to a Pacific Northwest wilderness forest ranger writing about how a Washington DC subway system should be built. He'd have no idea what he is talking about.
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ajgoodkids
Member
Joined: 11 Aug 2002
Posts: 113 | TRs | Pics
Location: Issaquah |
One other thing, Fat Tony:
Take that term "longer cycle lumber" and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Not many of today's three-year pillage-rape-and-run CEOs are preparing five-hundred-year business plans. Is anyone editing this trash, or does Tony get to write whatever he wants?
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Vine Maple Victim
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Joined: 14 Aug 2002
Posts: 23 | TRs | Pics
Location: Shoreline, WA |
And think about this line:
Also, the public land timber agencies no longer have the expertise to accurately appraise the lumber. They over-appraise the value, resulting in unsellable wood.
When did inexperience come to mean over-appraisal? He just made that up. If anything it would be 50/50 over and under.
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Malachai Constant
Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002
Posts: 16093 | TRs | Pics
Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
The Moonies do not believe conservation of any kind is desirable or necessary as the end of the world is upon us. James Watt while not aMoonie shared this view. Krugmans oped was also in yesterdays P.I. Here is another one from a more opionated source. I like to see people who do not pull their punches.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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Malachai Constant
Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002
Posts: 16093 | TRs | Pics
Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
 The Schrub plan came out yesterday and here is an article on it. It is considerably worse than even I thought.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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MCaver
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Joined: 14 Dec 2001
Posts: 5124 | TRs | Pics
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MCaver
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 Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:55 am |
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I am speechless. The entire proposal (as defined in the article) seems oriented toward removing public input and judicial oversight of forest management, then handing a good part of it off to private (aka logging) industries. I guess what I thought was an exaggerated view of Bush's ideas -- cut down all the trees to avoid wildfires -- is closer to the truth than I had dared believe. I can only hope what Senator Ron Wyden said is true: "It's overreaching, and it will not pass."
I think it's time to fire off some letters to my Congressmen. I know I can count on my Representative (Jay Inslee) to vote against this, but I'm a bit concerned with the US Senators (Cantwell and Murray). They seem to lose their way on the high-profile issues, particularly Cantwell.
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