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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore
Joined: 15 May 2003
Posts: 14152 | TRs | Pics
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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore
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 Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:26 am |
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| marylou wrote: | Hardly any trails=even better.  |
Hardly a way to gain advocacy. now and in the future 
I can't help but to point out the absurd:
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Dear Americans:
I’m senator Marylou and I ask for your vote for a Wilderness proposal in which most of you will never see because in my plan, there aren't many trails to hike. Why go in a pesky 12 mile trail to granite glory when you can flounder in impenatrable brush for 2 miles? If you're real lucky, you'll get cliffed out early so you can turn around and go home and eat a nice dinner.
Sincerely,
Marylou
"...Other than that, the post was more or less accurate."
Bernardo, NW Hikers' Bureau Chief of Reporting
"...Other than that, the post was more or less accurate."
Bernardo, NW Hikers' Bureau Chief of Reporting
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Brian Curtis
Trail Blazer/HiLaker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 1696 | TRs | Pics
Location: Silverdale, WA |
| Tom wrote: | | OK, but I thought it was about saving the old growth. If not, what does it need to be saved from? ORVs? |
No, 93,000 acres is not enough. The more you chop these wilderness areas up the less they operate as wilderness. They went to local ORV and other groups and crafted a compromise and eliminated their opposition to the bill. Why screw it up in committee? Maybe they should take that additional 14,000 acres that were removed and designate it special recreational land.
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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Dayhike Mike
Bad MFKer
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 10958 | TRs | Pics
Location: Going to Tukwila |
| marylou wrote: | | Hardly any trails=even better. |
Totally disagree.
Hardly any trails == significantly less use by public, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
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Tom
Admin
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 17851 | TRs | Pics
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Tom
Admin
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:23 am |
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| Brian Curtis wrote: | | No, 93,000 acres is not enough. The more you chop these wilderness areas up the less they operate as wilderness. They went to local ORV and other groups and crafted a compromise and eliminated their opposition to the bill. Why screw it up in committee? Maybe they should take that additional 14,000 acres that were removed and designate it special recreational land. |
Can you shed more light on the 13K that the Pombo supported alternative would have designated for backcountry management? Your comment above implies the 13K would chop up the 93K of wilderness. Is that really true? I don't get that impression from what I have read.
As far as the 14K - it seems these areas are heavily used by ORV today so it's laughable they were included in the initial "wilderness" to being with. It's like a furniture or jewelry discount. Inflate the price, discount it, and represent the savings as a good deal. It seems quite odd to me that the ORV folks are in such strong opposition to Wild Sky if the 14K was an honest compromise.
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Brian Curtis
Trail Blazer/HiLaker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 1696 | TRs | Pics
Location: Silverdale, WA |
I didn't say the 13K would cut it up. I don't know what shape it is. When you remove 12% of the wilderness I call that a significant chunk. But if they've already excluded the area that ORVs use, why not include the 13K in question as wilderness? And why not protect the additional 14K for ORV users as a designated rec area?
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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Tom
Admin
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
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Tom
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:56 am |
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If the 13K is the portion that is not wilderness quality, it's like a furniture discount. How can it be a 12% loss if it isn't wilderness quality to begin with?
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Timber Cruiser
Member
Joined: 17 Dec 2001
Posts: 220 | TRs | Pics
Location: Cosi |
| Brian Curtis wrote: | | Tom wrote: | | OK, but I thought it was about saving the old growth. If not, what does it need to be saved from? ORVs? |
No, 93,000 acres is not enough. The more you chop these wilderness areas up the less they operate as wilderness. They went to local ORV and other groups and crafted a compromise and eliminated their opposition to the bill. Why screw it up in committee? Maybe they should take that additional 14,000 acres that were removed and designate it special recreational land. |
Where's the balance? Half of Washington is forested. 63% of that is managed by the government. 44% by the Feds. The USFS manages about 5 million acres in the state. More than half of that is already designated as Wilderness (2,569M). The USFS is mandated by law to manage these lands for multiple uses. Believe it or not that includes the economic use of these resources as well as recreation, habitat and water. The pendulum swung pretty far to economic use of the forests early on. That was by design. The government used these lands to entice people to settle in the area. Now it's swung just the opposite way. Less than 3% of the timber harvested in Washington came from Federal lands in 2003. There are a lot of acres in that non-wilderness category that have been managed, and should continue to be. Just one argument against the WildSky as proposed is the effect it will have on the local economy. When I got out of high school I spent a summer logging out of Skykomish. The area was much more robust at the time (if you ignore the bedroom communites that have now invaded the lower valley now). Resource based jobs fueled local business, area schools were still operating and locals that wanted to live and work in the area and see their children remain could do so. Not the case now here or in many other of the small timber towns of the NW. Is the desire of of people to live, work and raise families in such areas any less legitimate than those that want to infrequently hike through them?
"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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Brian Curtis
Trail Blazer/HiLaker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 1696 | TRs | Pics
Location: Silverdale, WA |
| Tom wrote: | | If the 13K is the portion that is not wilderness quality, it's like a furniture discount. How can it be a 12% loss if it isn't wilderness quality to begin with? |
What do you mean by wilderness quality? There was never any intention to only include untouched lands in wilderness. Here's an example. I've hiked in the Rainbow Lake Wilderness in Wisconsin. It is an area that is criss-crossed by RR grades and had been completely logged. Even the description on the FS website I linked to notes this: "Among the unique features of this wilderness are the numerous narrow gauge railroad grades that were used for log hauling in the early 1900's." That wilderness was established in 1975. Or, as Scoop Jackson said in 1973:
A serious and fundamental misinterpretation of the Wilderness Act has recently gained some credence, thus creating a real danger to the objective of securing a truly national wilderness preservation system. It is my hope to correct this false "purity theory" which threatens the strength and broad application of the Wilderness Act.
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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Tom
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Joined: 15 Dec 2001
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Tom
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 11:42 am |
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Hold on, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said that the wilderness act precluded including the 13K. I simply pointed out that if the original number is inflated, labeling the 13K as a loss is somewhat misleading.
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Tom
Admin
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 17851 | TRs | Pics
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Tom
Admin
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 11:47 am |
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| Dayhike Mike wrote: | | Hardly any trails == significantly less use by public, but that's not necessarily a good thing. |
If you consider the Wilderness Act to be on par with the US constitution, held in similar esteem, the holy scripture, the sole determinant of "good", "bad", "right", "wrong", etc. perhaps you could construct an argument that hardly any trails is a good thing in "wilderness". IMO the Wilderness Act was simply the perspective of the public servants who drafted it with certain goals in mind. One can debate whether these goals were noble, justified, good, bad, right, wrong, etc. but it does not validate or invalidate other perspectives of what wilderness is, what should be designated as wilderness, or what is good or bad, etc.
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Brian Curtis
Trail Blazer/HiLaker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 1696 | TRs | Pics
Location: Silverdale, WA |
| Quote: | | There are a lot of acres in that non-wilderness category that have been managed, and should continue to be. |
So you are suggesting that we log in the proposed Wild Sky area?
| Quote: | | Just one argument against the WildSky as proposed is the effect it will have on the local economy. When I got out of high school I spent a summer logging out of Skykomish. The area was much more robust at the time (if you ignore the bedroom communites that have now invaded the lower valley now). |
How can you ignore the bedroom communities? The economy is in transition and more and more jobs will be created farther up that valley as the bedroom communities expand.
| Quote: | | Resource based jobs fueled local business, area schools were still operating and locals that wanted to live and work in the area and see their children remain could do so. Not the case now here or in many other of the small timber towns of the NW. Is the desire of of people to live, work and raise families in such areas any less legitimate than those that want to infrequently hike through them? |
We certainly do need managed timber lands. If the MBSNF hadn't been so cut over already we'd have more jobs harvesting timber off it today. But When the trees are cut they need time to recover, especially in higher elevations and on steeper slopes. The prime growing lands are mostly privately held and will continue to be in production. There aren't that many good trees left to cut on the MBSNF and what we do cut we've chosen (wisely, I think) to limit cuts to be more environmentally friendly. You throw out numbers about how much percentage of wilderness there is, but ignore the fact that the vast majority of wilderness does not have commercial timber potential. The best timber lands were left out of wilderness. They're not cutting now because there isn't that much to cut. I assume trees will continue to grow and a lot of land will come back into production.
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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Brian Curtis
Trail Blazer/HiLaker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 1696 | TRs | Pics
Location: Silverdale, WA |
| Tom wrote: | | Hold on, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said that the wilderness act precluded including the 13K. I simply pointed out that if the original number is inflated, labeling the 13K as a loss is somewhat misleading. |
I think we're talking a bit cross-wise. It was 14K that was already compromised away and 13K that Pombo wants to compromise away. So when you talk about inflating are you talking about the 13K in the bill or the 14K already out of the bill?
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
that elitist from silverdale wanted to tell me that all carnes are bad--Studebaker Hoch
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Eric
Peak Geek
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 2062 | TRs | Pics
Location: In Travel Status |
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Eric
Peak Geek
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 11:53 am |
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My main problem with Pombo's actions is not his opposition but his legislative tactics. Multiple current and former GOP players have thrown their support behind it. It's not controversial in the Senate and has passed. The president has said that he would sign it. House passage is a virtual certainty as Congress usually defers on a localized issue given the support of all member of the delegation. It would almost certainly pass out of the resource committee as well. That's exactly why Pombo won't let it come up for a vote, because he knows the outcome would not be one he liked. So he uses his committee chairman position to strongarm it off of the agenda and never stage a vote. And we're left with 1 out of 435 House members bottling up a bill from being considered by the other 434. Representative democracy at its finest.
In many ways this is very similar to the RAT issue in terms of parliamentarian tactics allowing certain vested Congressmen to blunt the will of the vast majority of Congress. Here you have a committee chairman holding it from the agenda so that it doesn't get approved as it would. In the RAT situation Regula used a mutual backscratch with Ted Stevens to buy his way into position to attach it as a rider to an omnibus spending bill with full knowledge the amendment was not likely to pass on its own but could be attached and then would have to be considered as just a fractional part of a very large spending bill which had to be passed to keep the govt funded. Both show the disproportionate influence committee chairmen wield over their colleagues.
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Dayhike Mike
Bad MFKer
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 10958 | TRs | Pics
Location: Going to Tukwila |
| Eric wrote: | | It's not controversial in the Senate and has passed. |
Passed three times even.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
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Tom
Admin
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 17851 | TRs | Pics
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Tom
Admin
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Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:03 pm |
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| Quote: | | So when you talk about inflating are you talking about the 13K in the bill or the 14K already out of the bill? |
To the extent the 13K is used by the ORV crowd and does not adversely "chop" up the wilderness, I would say both. It would be interesting to know what the 13K is comprised of. Perhaps someone who knows can chime in.
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