Bush administration scales back massive Northwest timber sale

[icymist]

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Bush administration scales back massive Northwest timber sale

By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

In the face of protests by conservationists and federal environmental officials, the Bush administration yesterday scaled back the largest sale in years of federal timber from the Pacific Northwest.

In the area blackened by the Biscuit fire in southern Oregon's Klamath-Siskiyou region in 2002, the U.S. Forest Service had originally proposed to cut enough timber to build nearly 35,000 homes. Instead, the agency will allow cutting of enough to build about 24,000 homes.

The 370 million board feet to be logged still represents a huge chunk of federal wood. In this single sale, the Forest Service will unload more timber than the annual totals for multiple timber sales on all national forests in the Northwest dating back to 1999, records show.

Individual sales of this magnitude have not been common since the logging blitz of the 1980s.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service both said scaling back the timber cut allayed their initial fears that the draft plan removed too many large trees, causing potential harm to salmon, water quality and spotted owls.

More at this

[aquart]

1. Still sounds a trifle high to me.

Are we at least making a profit on it, or is this another bonus to the billionaires?

[struggle4progress]

12. The beauty of initially proposing a criminally large cut ...

is that they can scale it back to a smaller (but still criminally large) cut, and get credit for being concerned environmentalists.

Does it stink in here, or is that just the wind blowing out of DC?

[Don_G]

2. To Pay Off His Home Depot "Pioneers"?

And I'm certain Lowe's will get a cut of the profits too.

[Norquist Nemesis]

3. Oh the Compassion!

Anyone else notice how he's flip-flopped on all kinds of heavy-handed tactics that he's been using in the past 3 1/2 years?
Leadership. :eyes:
Stay the course. :eyes:
Lie :thumbsup:
Say one thing and do another. :thumbsup:

This makes it all the more terrifying what he'll do with another four years when he has nothing to lose.

[central scrutinizer]

4. another myopic plan

The Siskiyous are in a fairly dry area of the Pacific Northwest. It gets quite hot there every summer. If they remove all of the biomass from the area, it may never regrow a forest, at least not for centuries. It is not like the northern Oregon coast range where forests grow back rapidly.

[natrat]

6. hmmm no trees, no shade, no water retention in the soil

winter rains huge mudslides,stopped up streams

[sandnsea]

8. Biscuit on both sides

It went from near I-5 over to the coast. The logging areas are all around the perimeter. It isn't so much whether they take some of this wood out, it's whether they do it in a way that allows the forest to grow back naturally, doesn't destroy the rivers, leaves the wilderness alone, etc. So far, no logging company has bid on any of it that I know of anyway. It's so silly, they know how to manage forests so that they're healthy, I wish they would just sit their asses down and do it.

[icymist]

13. here! here!

I've seen enough of the 'clear cutting' approach. What I would have to say to the government cutting program of having 'progress' in whatever is in their mind for their cutting of trees from our forests: show me what is in your doing these things are going to protected us rather than harm us. Please show this to me in a way that we'll all understand.

[pinniped]

5. The EPA & FWS don't have to care about pesky salmon anymore.

Just wait until the POS * misadmin's plan to count the hatchery-raised fish with the wild fish takes effect.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/09/MNGP56IJRA1.DTL

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/29/BAGBR6TS5R1.DTL

[LeinesRed]

7. Looks like a flip-flop to me!

[dubyaD40web]

10. Why do we let them sell our trees at a loss?

Something like 4% of timber sales in the U.S. come from public lands (i.e. National Forests). Ninety six percent comes from private land. The beauty (if you're a logger) of cutting in the National Forests is that the U.S. Government is a lousy businessman, and sells its trees ("our" trees) at below market value. The government also pays to build many of the roads into the National Forests so that the logging trucks can get to the areas to be logged.

So, as taxpayers, first we pay to build the frikking roads for the timber industry. Then we, as taxpayers, subsidize the timber industry by selling the lumber at below market price. Then, we go to Home Depot and spend WAY too much money for a crooked 2x4.

Personally, I would at least like an occasional reach-around.

[Oreegone]

9. This whole thing is really sad

First of all the fire did not do as much damage as first thought. It really cleaned out a lot of brush and left a lot of trees. Secondly these mountains are very steep and most have a thin layer of top soil over solid rock. Taking all the trees means no more will grow because the soil will wash away in the 60" of annual rainfall. Secondly most of this area is pristine and they are going to build logging roads into roadless areas. These are all paid for by taxpayers money. We never make out on this deal, the timber companies are raping the taxpayer courtesy of the federal government.

Secondly, the trucks are rolling out not with burned trees, but old growth. I have yet to witness a single singed tree going down the highway.

It is a crime, the river that flows through is one of the very cleanest in the US.....Bastards...

[glitch]

11. halliburton trucks?

When I was there last year I was amazed at all the halliburton trucks hauling trees.