# Environmentalists cost money



## forestryworks (Nov 30, 2011)

Two great articles about environmentalists and taxes and the basics of forest mismanagement.

Are Environmentalists Ripping Off U.S. Taxpayers? | Forest Industry Network

Evergreen Magazine - Why Implementation Procedures Of Federal Environmental Laws Must Be Reformed

Since everything changes, everything needs a reform.


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## slowp (Nov 30, 2011)

I would add, 

Lobby to change the Northwest Forest Plan. For you non-PNWers, this is the plan that was put into place after the Spotted Owl shutdown. It was supposed to keep the timber industry going, and protect the critters. Instead, neither has happened.


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## deeker (Nov 30, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> Two great articles about environmentalists and taxes and the basics of forest mismanagement.
> 
> Are Environmentalists Ripping Off U.S. Taxpayers? | Forest Industry Network
> 
> ...



Great articles, dead on!

Too much government of any kind is bad, too much of the tree huggers BS destroys all of the forest. By feel good means the beatles are well fed while all of our renewable resources go to spoils instead of it's wise use.

I don't have much respect or use for the overly aggressive tactics of the ForUS Circus.
Most regulation is written in an office on the east coast, then the round peg is forced into the deserts triangle problems. No account for local uniqueness.

Big government is destroying all that is right with America.

Forests and public lands should be managed at state and or local levels.

Feds should stay out of it.

Kevin


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## Walt41 (Nov 30, 2011)

At some point in this country we stopped actually listening to the voice of experience, regulators that had no actual time in the field were put in charge of writing the rules for this country and it has had negative effects from coast to coast.


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## slowp (Nov 30, 2011)

Two of the Beatles are dead, so I doubt that the remaining two have much effect. 

I would not call the Forest Service --overly aggressive. In fact, I'd call it the opposite. The agency out here is in a paralysis. There are folks screaming for more road and trail management, more firewood, more of everything. 

How do I do this without getting political....

Meanwhile others are screaming for "less government". The FS workforce here is gutted. You couldn't increase the amount of timber put up for sale if you wanted. There are not enough folks on the ground. 

Contract it out? Well, that takes folks to make up the contract and folks to check up on the contract. That would require hiring and training more "government" to oversee the process. Whether you like it or not, there are contractors who will try their best to rip off the taxpayers. Some contractors are also a beaurocracy in themselves. 

Give it to the states? What will that do? The states will have to hire more folks to oversee the land too. Like it or not, we have public lands which should be open for the public to wander about in. Not given or sold off to a private firm who will gate off the roads to keep us out. 

Our state would be under the same amount of pressure as the Forest Service is by the environmentalists. 
For example, a guy got enough contributions to somehow buy out a state tract of forest and turn it into a preserve, which burned up. He tried to save the last of the Old Growth Lodgepole. That area is now out of production.

The state is under pressure to stop clearcutting, just like the Forest Service. The poster child for this was a picture of a landslide in 2007? which was on private land, but the harvest had to have been approved by our state DNR. 

The DNR is gutted. They have laid off folks....more of the less government. The counties are in the same boat. 

Until the timber markets improve, the state can't sell as much timber. Our state uses the profit from the sale of timber to fund our schools. So, we do not have as much funding for schools. 

It isn't simple. Less government=less folks on the ground to care for roads, trails and trees. Privatization=kicking the public out of the woods.


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## madhatte (Nov 30, 2011)

Zackly. The government that needs smallified isn't the land management part. Roads? Nope. Schools? Yeah right. There's a huge elephant in the room, and that elephant is the war in the middle east. That's where all of our money is going. Did you know that it costs almost a half-million dollars a day to keep an aircraft carrier on standby and not doing anything? We've got 10 or so now, and at any given time one or two are in a shipyard, one or two are in the Sea Of None Of Your Business, one or two are training to go there, and one or two just got back. That's just aircraft carriers. Thousands of troops, airplanes, helicopters, munitions, contractors, media... the costs add up pretty quickly. We'd save a lot of cash, and by extension forests, if we didn't have such huge expenditures elsewhere.


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## shades2914 (Nov 30, 2011)

I agree with less government, but not like your thinkin patty, less government to me is the guys sitting behind a desk and making rules they don't know anything about. Not the people out doing things that make sense, its not an easy fix by any means.........maybe some day


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## slowp (Nov 30, 2011)

shades2914 said:


> I agree with less government, but not like your thinkin patty, less government to me is the guys sitting behind a desk and making rules they don't know anything about. Not the people out doing things that make sense, its not an easy fix by any means.........maybe some day



In the realm of the Forest Service, the guys can sit and make all the rules they want, but the courts will decide whether or not a timber sale goes. That is, if it isn't planned to what the enviro industry feels is the correct way.

Forests are not run by foresters or even the mythical guy behind the desk in the East.


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## forestryworks (Nov 30, 2011)

slowp said:


> Forests are not run by foresters



The bane of federal forest management.

What does a judge know about forest management?

From all my rants, my dog knows way more than any judge.


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## Dalmatian90 (Nov 30, 2011)

> The FS workforce here is gutted. You couldn't increase the amount of timber put up for sale if you wanted. There are not enough folks on the ground.



Same in Connecticut -- the State Forests aren't run as "enterprises;" hiring a forester is a cost and the revenue they generate -- even though it's a net profit -- goes to the General Fund so it doesn't show up on their budget offsetting the cost.

We could double our cutting just from state land on a sustainable basis, generating more jobs and more revenue, but there is no method in place to link the expenses like hiring foresters to oversea the harvest to the revenues received. So it's not done. 

This isn't even an industry purely driven by the domestic market -- I think the figure is 40% of Connecticut's forest harvest is exported (red oak flooring is apparently popular in China). How many more good points of public policy can you hit? More state revenue, more private sector jobs, and it's bringing cash back to this country and state from overseas.

But the funding system is so facacta a couple years back they applied for a grant under the Stimulus bill to hire two foresters for several months to run the firewood program -- even showing the additional sales in firewood permits (at $30/cord) would offset the entire cost of the two temporary foresters...they just needed the seed money to start the program. Couldn't get it. That's the type of government spending that should be a no-brainer...it provided a benefit and had no tax costs.

Instead we hire the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Science to head up our DEP, with his insistence he'll only take the job if he also gets utility regulation, so we know have a Department of Energy & Environmental Protection that is in charge of everything from setting telephone rates to air pollution to maintaining picnic tables...take one guess where traditional conservation and recreation operations rate in that organization.

==============
To the original topic, quoting from one of the articles:


> extreme environmental groups have successfully used the courts to interpret our environmental laws so as to cause even the most benign forest management activities to be subject to public notice, comment and appeal procedures



Let's remember, this type of foot dragging is a jobs program, too. 

Not a *good* jobs program because it's wasting resources for no good reason; but there are a beavy of folks being employed who have a vested interest not in quickly coming to compromise on differences of opinion, but on dragging out environmental reviews and legal processes as much as possible. 

From lawyers (a really poor job market for folks graduating with law degrees), to ologists on both the NGO & Government sides, to secretaries filing paperwork...you're not going to hear them admit it and scream about losing their jobs like loggers screaming about owls...but it's just as much of an economic issue to the people involved on that side of the aisle.

And it gets worse as you go up the food chain -- one of the greatest ways to set your kids up with a nice income and avoid estate or gift taxes is to form a charitable foundation, but then have the kids draw six figure salaries for very part time work "managing" the foundation.

Foundations' tax returns left unchecked - The Boston Globe is one example of how these "foundations" are abused to personal gain above and beyond normal employment needs. (Another favorite is that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is organized as a non-profit, tax-exempt charity...and until the newspapers embarrassed them by pointing it out this summer were paying the members of it's Board of Directors upwards of $90,000/year for attending a half day meeting once a month.)


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## Gologit (Nov 30, 2011)

Okay, everybody has defined the problem. Great. Now, who has a solution?


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## madhatte (Nov 30, 2011)

How about we use the General Fund as a "Reserve Fund", make agencies generate and manage their own revenue, and see which ones sink or swim? I know I wouldn't lose a job that way... and neither would the USPS, I bet.


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## Hddnis (Nov 30, 2011)

The solution really is smaller government. Not in the sense of fewer people building roads and managing timber sales, but rather in far fewer laws. I read recently that it is not possible for a single person to read all of the laws they must follow in their lifetime, if that was the only thing they did. That is unreasonable and in fact detracts from the rule of law. 

Reducing the laws would reduce the lawsuits. There are too many laws that allow people without any standing to have a say through the courts in far too many areas of life. Most of the following stems from this basic first step.

Judicial reform. It used to be that a judge wanted to know, in common sense terms, why the court should bother with your case. Courts had limited budgets and didn't like people who wasted their time. Judges were trained that courts should keep a low profile and be used as a last resort. Courts today are inflated with an unreasonable belief in their own importance and have been funded excessively.

End overseas funding of lobby groups. The middle east and Russia have bankrolled the environmental lobby for years. China is becoming an increasingly bigger money source for attorneys who want to sit in San Fransisco or DC and tell other people how to do their job and live their life. This foreign meddling is deliberate and strategic. They know they can't defeat us on a battlefield, but they can convince us, it sadly seems, to lie down on die on our own.

Move decisions out of DC. End federal management of forests and all federal laws pertaining thereto. Give the control to the states. The local people have a vested monetary interest in proper management for the long term. DC does not and wouldn't know how to go about it anyway, they have proven this. Someone at a desk in DC accomplishes almost nothing on a practical level and the money would be better spent locally.

There will be a huge fuss and cry over any attempt to implement any of the changes I've suggested. Many here on this forum, while agreeing there are problems, will not like these solutions. We have to agree to some first steps at least and do it fast or it is all going to collapse. None of us want that, but economically we cannot sustain the current waste of our natural resources. 

Anyway, here are a few thoughts, we all know the problems and I think we can all agree on many real solutions for the near future and the long term.



Mr. HE


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## slowp (Nov 30, 2011)

Gologit said:


> Okay, everybody has defined the problem. Great. Now, who has a solution?



My head will explode thinking that hard.

Somehow, those pesky laws that allow anybody to sue, or even appeal a sale need changing to make it harder to do so. Perhaps requiring a bond or "putting your money where your mouth is". 

I'd also make a ruling that anywhere that had a clearcut done in the past, could be entered again without 
doing all the surveys for slugs, snails, etc. Enough surveys have been done. There's plenty of uncut buffers for them. 

I like Nate's idea of self funding. Too many of my former co-workers seemed to be oblivious to the fact that private companies have to make a profit. 

I'd get rid of the Northwest Forest Plan. 

There, are those solutions?


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## Humptulips (Dec 1, 2011)

So do you think the FS could even break even on selling timber? I think not! They haven't been able to do it in recent history. You'd have to go back 30 years to get in the black. I don't really think for the most part I would support timber sales that lose money.
So what is the problem? Centralized government, too many rules coming down the pipeline from D.C. or even in this state from Olympia in the case of the DNR. Yes, the lawsuits but I see that as more rules coming down from the Mount.
Solution? Decentralize. Give the districts control but require them to show a profit on sales. That pays for the cost of running things and local citizens that have the biggest stake the most voice.

Never happen though, pipedream in fact.
What to do? learn how to run a shovel, buncher, processor or god forbid a log truck:msp_thumbdn: and resign yourself to the fact it will get worse.
There are already very few jobs in the woods and there will be less in the future.
Where's that crying icon when I need it.


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## Hddnis (Dec 1, 2011)

I'm actually fairly hopeful. There is a real shift in mood in this country going on right now. People are watching what is happening over in Europe, the instability in the Middle East, and the economay here at home, and they are asking some really hard questions. States have already started cutting bloated social programs, and started looking at what agencies they don't need. States are also taking a real hard look at just what has DC done for them that they couldn't do better. It is a slow shift, likely to ugly as it is to go smoothly, but I have faith in our country that we'll work it out. One era of thinking and silly ideas it getting replaced with cold hard reality. 




Mr. HE


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## Gologit (Dec 1, 2011)

Humptulips said:


> What to do? learn how to run a shovel, buncher, processor or god forbid a log truck:msp_thumbdn:



Hey now, I run shovel quite a bit, and processor occasionally, and today I'll be driving a truck. I draw the line at running a buncher or a hotsaw though...just wouldn't be right. I've made some pretty good money this year following along behind them and putting the wood down that they, or their operator, couldn't handle. 

Also, I know know quite a few truck drivers that have more than a room temperature IQ, don't move their lips when they read, have more teeth than tattoos, don't drop the F-bomb in every sentence, and bathe often enough that you can comfortably stand down wind of them on a hot day. Give me a little time and I'll try to remember which ones they are.:smile2:


Back on topic...good solutions so far. But aren't there more? And shouldn't there be? There better be.


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## forestryworks (Dec 1, 2011)

I would add some sort of requirement mandating that forestry graduates and other natural resource graduates work a minimum of 2 or 3 seasons in the woods. Book sense and woods sense are two dynamically different things, and they both go hand in hand.

That should weed out those whiney fools who think gubmint jobs are just a chair in an office waiting on retirement, only because he or she showed up to work. How boring.


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## slowp (Dec 1, 2011)

Humptulips said:


> So do you think the FS could even break even on selling timber? I think not! They haven't been able to do it in recent history. You'd have to go back 30 years to get in the black. I don't really think for the most part I would support timber sales that lose money.
> So what is the problem? Centralized government, too many rules coming down the pipeline from D.C. or even in this state from Olympia in the case of the DNR. Yes, the lawsuits but I see that as more rules coming down from the Mount.
> Solution? Decentralize. Give the districts control but require them to show a profit on sales. That pays for the cost of running things and local citizens that have the biggest stake the most voice.
> 
> ...



Yes I do. Private industry does so. 

However, they can't do so under the current constraints--the biggie being the NW Forest Plan. All that survey work is spendy. As are the blanket rules for canopy closure requirements, etc. etc. Streamline the timber planning process. Planning is where the money is spent, and so much of that planning produces nothing. 

There was a ranger in charge here for a while that required a new unit, or equivalent volume be found to replace those that were thrown out during the planning process. He left. Which raises another point, the rangers on this forest, are very passive when it comes to putting up timber sales. So, even though some are nice people, I'd replace them. 

Concentrate sales in plantations or areas that are already roaded. Reopen the old roads--all of the roads here were rocked. Throw in some :eek2: clearcuts--now called regeneration cuts, and get to work. This area grows trees despite volcanic eruptions, fires and people, and has good ground. 

Now that I'm retired, start managing the Mineral Block again. That area is now ignored. The LEOs go there as does a TSI guy, but other than that, it is as if it doesn't exist. The rubber trees grow there. That's a term a faller called the timber because there wasn't as much breakage as he expected on the steep, broken ground.

Put the campground hazard trees that are felled, up for bid to go down the road as a log, not firewood. Some of those trees are valuable. I was questioned about one, which is still on the ground. I guess they can be shipped to yacht makers on the East Coast. 

Much of the timber around here is at the size the mills want.

Oh, and I'd make another law, rule or whatever that if a person or group holds up a salvage sale, and their case is lost, they will pay the full bid price of the timber to the purchaser or treasury. That would take care of the endless appeals, injunctions, law suits that are used to delay fire salvage until the trees are culls. 

Got lots of work to do, eh? Get rid of the NW Forest Plan is the biggie here, then tweak NEPA and the endangered species laws.


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## madhatte (Dec 1, 2011)

slowp said:


> Get rid of the NW Forest Plan is the biggie here, then tweak NEPA and the endangered species laws.



Yowzah! That's the ticket right there.


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## slowp (Dec 1, 2011)

I am wondering what restrictions will be added when the wolves need protecting. I am convinced the wolves are already wandering about in these parts. Last year, we found a big track in fresh snow. There were no vehicle tracks--plowing in with a cat was needed, and no dogs in the area. 

If more operating restrictions are put in place, that may put an end to what little logging there is. :msp_mad:


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## Jacob J. (Dec 1, 2011)

slowp said:


> Oh, and I'd make another law, rule or whatever that if a person or group holds up a salvage sale, and their case is lost, they will pay the full bid price of the timber to the purchaser or treasury. That would take care of the endless appeals, injunctions, law suits that are used to delay fire salvage until the trees are culls.
> 
> Got lots of work to do, eh? Get rid of the NW Forest Plan is the biggie here, then tweak NEPA and the endangered species laws.



I really like the idea of making environmental groups responsible for the costs of delaying or stopping timber sales and fuels reduction projects on public lands. They've been operating for years employing heavy litigation without any repercussions. 

NEPA is the 800-pound gorilla in the room here as well. Everything we do, from simple stick-stacking, to an active timber sale, requires all the surveys to meet the NEPA guidelines. A fuels reduction project on say 40 acres that involves cutting <6" standing green material takes upwards of two years of planning. Two years with an FMO, a Terrestrial Ecologist, a regional Fuels Specialist, and a project leader (an idiot like myself.) That's expensive.


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## forestryworks (Dec 1, 2011)

With the discussion on this, policies of sentiment, and listening to the mud slingin' about TX shootin' feral burros, I am convinced that there are environmentalists ignorant enough to want to preserve ice, because it is endangered habitat for snow :monkey:

Policies of Idiocy are the results of letting emotion undercut science.


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## Humptulips (Dec 1, 2011)

slowp said:


> Yes I do. Private industry does so.
> 
> However, they can't do so under the current constraints--the biggie being the NW Forest Plan. All that survey work is spendy. As are the blanket rules for canopy closure requirements, etc. etc. Streamline the timber planning process. Planning is where the money is spent, and so much of that planning produces nothing.
> 
> ...



Some good ideas but I don't think the superfilous planning and paperwork will ever go away so I don't think the sales will ever break even.
NW was one of the few places that showed a profit back in the day. Now it doesn't happen anywhere. Partial cuts are inefficient, wasteful and expensive to set up around here but that is all the FS will do and I don't think that will change so I can't see them breaking even.
I guess I'm not as optimistic as you.


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## Humptulips (Dec 1, 2011)

Gologit said:


> Hey now, I run shovel quite a bit, and processor occasionally, and today I'll be driving a truck. I draw the line at running a buncher or a hotsaw though...just wouldn't be right. I've made some pretty good money this year following along behind them and putting the wood down that they, or their operator, couldn't handle.
> 
> Also, I know know quite a few truck drivers that have more than a room temperature IQ, don't move their lips when they read, have more teeth than tattoos, don't drop the F-bomb in every sentence, and bathe often enough that you can comfortably stand down wind of them on a hot day. Give me a little time and I'll try to remember which ones they are.:smile2:
> 
> ...



Hey, nothing wrong with being a truckdriver but when you are you're not a logger. You get to keep the title if you only drive truck part time but if it's a full time truck driver you want to be then that's what you are.


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## lfnh (Dec 1, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> With the discussion on this, policies of sentiment, and listening to the mud slingin' about TX shootin' feral burros, I am convinced that there are environmentalists ignorant enough to want to preserve ice, because it is endangered habitat for snow *fleas* :monkey:
> 
> Policies of Idiocy are the results of letting emotion undercut science.



23 down 1 across A crucial winter food source for slugs :msp_thumbdn:


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## lfnh (Dec 1, 2011)

People (and companies for that matter) need to be better aware of the supplier companies they do business with. Too often these suppliers make donations to conservation groups without scrutinizing to whom these donations are awarded. Lot of times the onion has to peeled to the core to get the answer. Most would be surprised that the money ends up in the coffers of environmental groups that are in the forefront of agency court suits and appeals.

On another note stopping the abundant supply of easy federal grant money to the edu's for endless slug studies et al, would go along way in flatening the sails of the threatened/maybe endangerd species listings.

Agree with comments about mandatory outside field work for newly minted foresters, land management and ocologists. Problem now is there are far fewer common sense experienced people left to do the field education. Lot got fed up with the court litigation delays and forced office paper chasing, got close to retirement or early buyout and jumped with what sanity they still had left.

Get rid of or siginificantly change timber and range REIT's


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## forestryworks (Dec 1, 2011)

All the while, Federal timber sales continue to decline while our federal government racks up its highest debt in history. 

:bang:

Job creation, in some areas, is becoming borderline welfare.


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## Gologit (Dec 1, 2011)

Jacob J. said:


> I really like the idea of making environmental groups responsible for the costs of delaying or stopping timber sales and fuels reduction projects on public lands. They've been operating for years employing heavy litigation without any repercussions.
> 
> NEPA is the 800-pound gorilla in the room here as well. Everything we do, from simple stick-stacking, to an active timber sale, requires all the surveys to meet the NEPA guidelines. A fuels reduction project on say 40 acres that involves cutting <6" standing green material takes upwards of two years of planning. Two years with an FMO, a Terrestrial Ecologist, a regional Fuels Specialist, and a project leader (an idiot like myself.) That's expensive.



Well said.


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## Rounder (Dec 1, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> I would add some sort of requirement mandating that forestry graduates and other natural resource graduates work a minimum of 2 or 3 seasons in the woods. Book sense and woods sense are two dynamically different things, and they both go hand in hand.
> 
> That should weed out those whiney fools who think gubmint jobs are just a chair in an office waiting on retirement, only because he or she showed up to work. How boring.



Yes. I don't have much time for people who try to tell me how to do my job who have never done my job. That and some of the ridiculous unit layouts. 

And once again I'm wandering off topic.......Sorry.

Back to JC's original post, the biggest problem is the fact that I spend most of my waking hours in the forest, while environmental litigants spend most of their time sheltered in an office full of people who think exactly as they do. That just don't work. - Sam


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## lfnh (Dec 1, 2011)

Stumble on a newspaper article that is very on topic about the excesses of court petitions.
An excerpt:
"The scientific basis for a listing petition must be strengthened. And petitioners should not be allowed to gang bang the process with hundreds of listing petitions."

Environmental groups bury feds with Endangered Species petitions

This isn't about protecting endangered species or timber harvest, wild horses, cattle grazing versus the steelhead. It is about *barring all use * of public lands. Most feel good donors to their causes are blind to this deception.


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## Humptulips (Dec 1, 2011)

lfnh said:


> Stumble on a newspaper article that is very on topic about the excesses of court petitions.
> An excerpt:
> "The scientific basis for a listing petition must be strengthened. And petitioners should not be allowed to gang bang the process with hundreds of listing petitions."
> 
> ...



One would think there must be a lot of money being donated to organiztions like the Center for Biological Diversity, etc. Not really neccesary. These people are lawyers and when they sue they get fully reimbursed for their time and any expenses. These people have made a job for themselves. Until the law is changed the lawsuits will continue unabated.
We're paying people to sue us.


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## slowp (Dec 1, 2011)

Ahh, the Center for Biological Diversity. I knew them when they were two guys who couldn't afford the gas to come see all the snags that were being left in a salvage unit along a highway in AZ. They were the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity then. They were appealing a fire salvage sale for not leaving enough snags. They said they could not afford to come out and look at it but had read various papers on fire salvage and knew there would not be enough snags left.

The FS won on that one. After the area was logged, motorists were stopping and complaining about all the snags being left to rot.


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## madhatte (Dec 1, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> I would add some sort of requirement mandating that forestry graduates and other natural resource graduates work a minimum of 2 or 3 seasons in the woods. Book sense and woods sense are two dynamically different things, and they both go hand in hand.



Just had this same discussion today with a tech from the company that made the tanks on our fire slips. It's the classic management myopia. 



lfnh said:


> Get rid of or siginificantly change timber and range REIT's



What, you don't like corporate cut-and-run bait-and-switch avoidance of environmental policies? FOR SHAME!


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## Miles86 (Dec 2, 2011)

I have a friend who works for a utility pipeline and he told me that the eco groups use the threat of lawsuits against his company to get "donations" of money to the eco group, then the eco's leave them alone for a while, then they are back for more money, etc.. He says the company just views the ecos as another expense on their P/L statement. 

I am a conservative person, but we can all thank Richard Nixon and the Repubs for the EPA and all the later Eco Acts that has brought our country to this point.


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## lfnh (Dec 2, 2011)

Humptulips said:


> One would think there must be a lot of money being donated to organiztions like the Center for Biological Diversity, etc. Not really neccesary. These people are lawyers and when they sue they get fully reimbursed for their time and any expenses. These people have made a job for themselves. Until the law is changed the lawsuits will continue unabated.
> We're paying people to sue us.



Exactly right. Individual direct donations, for the most part don't mean squat. But follow the money trail. CBD and ONDA, etc., harvest sustainable cash grants year after year from the big money organizations like Conservation Alliance. It's those cash grants (ex: CA to ONDA -10 years of $35,000/yr) that are the litigation enablers for their 'projects'. It doesn't take many of these small grants to keep the litagation merry-go-round running. They have little overhead.

Slowp's comment about holding the suit filers cash accountable is key. As it stands now, when they rarely lose a case, they get get off scott free. Change it so they pay defendants legal bills plus loss of income * 10 and it'll get their attention real quick and put them outta business in a blink. Most would be floor'd by the actual legal expenses defendants incur in these suits - and it isn't monopoly money either for the agency or individuals.

I swore to just be a reader of the thread, but that didn't happen.
Sorry for the rant.


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## Gologit (Dec 2, 2011)

Good rant...no need to be sorry.


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## Humptulips (Dec 2, 2011)

I'm not making my self clear. This site explains better where the profit is in suing the USFWS over an endangered species ESA not about saving species

Maybe you've noticed all the suits somehow are about an endangered species. Here's the key section from the above article. As you will see we really are directly paying people to sue us.

If it weren't bad enough that America's taxpayers are spending millions simply listing species, that is not the end of the story. The ESA sets very specific time frames for species listing and critical habitat designation; time frames which the federal government cannot seem to meet. Species are listed by a petition process, which means that anyone can send a letter to the federal government asking that a species, either plant or animal, be put on the ESA list. The federal government has 90 days to respond to that petition, no matter how frivolous. If the federal government fails to respond in 90 days, the petitioner - in the vast majority of cases, radical environmental groups - can file litigation against the federal government and get its attorneys fees paid. The simple act of filing litigation does not mean the species will get listed or that it is warranted to be protected; this litigation is only over whether the federal government failed to respond to the petition in 90 days. Between 2000 and 2009, in just 12 states and the District of Columbia, 14 environmental groups filed 180 federal court complaints to get species listed under the ESA and were paid $11,743,287 in attorneys fees and costs.


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## Hddnis (Dec 2, 2011)

I can't be bothered to read about getting ripped off by the enviro weanies. I need to keep up to date on that Kim train wreck, what J. Lo wore to the awards ceremony, and Linsey Lohans court drama. I tell ya' those women keep me real busy keeping up with them.




Mr. HE


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## slowp (Dec 3, 2011)

It was explained to us at a training session that it is much cheaper to settle out of court than fight lawsuits.
Paying the enviros off is cheaper for the taxpayers than flying in witnesses from various places, paying for their lodging, and doing it over and over. 

That is another way taxpayers fund the groups.


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## madhatte (Dec 3, 2011)

Humptulips said:


> Maybe you've noticed all the suits somehow are about an endangered species



Boy howdy. Most of them wouldn't pass a Common Sense check otherwise. I'm on standby right now for how the newest set of regulations affect how I lay out sales.


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## slowp (Dec 3, 2011)

madhatte said:


> Boy howdy. Most of them wouldn't pass a Common Sense check otherwise. I'm on standby right now for how the newest set of regulations affect how I lay out sales.



The thing about that is, sometimes you get a sale laid out, and before it is sold, the buffer area requirements or something else is changed. You must return and change things.

Then you go out with black paint, flagging, and all that stuff, erase the old boundary and put in the new. The buffers usually get larger, not smaller so volume has to be deducted from the cruise. $$$$$ are lost and spent and so it goes. 

We had this happen with the Del Norte Salamander. Some units had to be thrown out because the new buffer requirements closed off access to parts of the units. The Del Norte Salamander does not seem to be scarce in its habitat in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties. You will find them in old rockpits, plantations, along roads etc. But, because they are only found in that area, they are considered to be rare and logging is considered to be a take. Notice that I mentioned they are found in rockpits and plantations.:rolleyes2:


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## Gologit (Dec 3, 2011)

I like the _intent_ of a lot of the rules. Clean water and clean air are key and I can't argue with that. I like the intent but I sure don't care for the way the rules are enforced. When rules are enforced with no thought about alternative methods they narrow down the options for compliance to the point that it's almost impossible to stay out of trouble. The people charged with seeing that the rules are followed are often poorly trained and not very knowledgeable about what really goes on in the woods. Their answer to any question that falls outside of their experience or training is always the same...NO. As in "no, you can't do that and please don't bother me with it again because your'e exposing me as the marginally qualified person I really am and you're making me uncomfortable and I'll salve my pride with restrictive guidelines until you quit asking".

In another post somebody wrote:
Cut and hack,
Burn it black'
Plant it back. 

That's all we did for many years. Too many years, really. We shot ourselves in the foot...repeatedly. The way we logged in "the good old days" was largely wasteful and destructive. We're paying for that now and we're paying big time.

We gave the environmentalists the opening they needed and they took full advantage of it. They found that the general public was receptive to their message and they made that work for them. Were they wrong to do that? Probably...but their message is louder than ours, often better presented, and given in such a way that it appeals to the emotions of people who are well meaning but very poorly informed. That doesn't make the environmentalists right, far from it in fact. It also doesn't change the fact that the goal of most preservationist groups is the total elimination of any kind of logging. Their agenda is clear.

We who make our living in the woods can howl all we want about what's happening. I sure do my share. But until we can present our side of things on the same scale that the environmentalists do, until our voice is as loud and yet as reasonable as theirs we're not going to make any progress. We need to be heard. Soon.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have all the answers...or even _enough_ answers most of the time. But I deal with the issues every day and I've watched this business become an ever increasing spiral of complexity. 

You younger people coming into this business will be the ones to turn it around and find the compromise between environment and logging. You'd better get started. Sorry about the mess we left behind.


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## forestryworks (Dec 3, 2011)

Well said, Bob.


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## madhatte (Dec 3, 2011)

slowp said:


> The thing about that is, sometimes you get a sale laid out, and before it is sold, the buffer area requirements or something else is changed. You must return and change things.
> 
> Then you go out with black paint, flagging, and all that stuff, erase the old boundary and put in the new. The buffers usually get larger, not smaller so volume has to be deducted from the cruise. $$$$$ are lost and spent and so it goes.



I almost don't mind it when they make us change boundaries before a sale goes to auction. Only my time is wasted. What really hacks me is when a unit is already sold and the F&W folks decide they need to exclude this tree and that tree and this skid route and... 

Thing is it never occurs to them that somebody has already BOUGHT those trees, and excluding them involuntarily is theft, plain and simple. Sometimes a purchaser will agree to a tree-for-tree swap, no harm, no foul. Sometimes they'll take the loss. In every case where I've seen exclusions happen after the fact, nobody benefited except nebulous "habitat" whose definition changes minute by minute. It's not like the F&W folks don't have rules to follow -- we try VERY hard to be proactive in supporting their goals through our prescriptions and marking strategies. We even pass the proposed sale through a regular gauntlet of NEPA, wildlife, archaeological, and tribal advisors before putting paint on trees, and they STILL find reason to want modifications later. 

If following both the letter and intent of the law isn't enough, what's left for a timber agency to do better? We're already FSC-Certified. That means we exceed all legal requirements. Are we just supposed to roll over and accept that we're the Bad Guys no matter what? What about all the paper the environmental agencies go through to stop logging -- where did that come from? 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: ours is a paradoxical profession. We know that we do things that destroy stuff, but we do it because that's not only how to get useful products, but it's also how to grow the next generation so that the product will still be there for later use. We're not ignorant, and the "Save The World" contingency needs to give us credit for that. 

I'm not even gonna get into the politics and economics of fire right now. I simply don't have the energy.


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## wowzers (Dec 3, 2011)

Wasn't there a 9th circuit ruling that made culverts point sources for pollution? It was big talk around here for a while but I've been out of the forestry loop for a while now. If that happens won't you need a discharge permit for every culvert?


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## madhatte (Dec 3, 2011)

That's just crazy -- the culverts themselves are to be treated as pollutants? What about everything upstream? I would like to know more about this ruling. This is the first I've heard if it.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 3, 2011)

I just googled this Madhatte: Opposition Mounts To Ninth Circuit Ruling Requiring NPDES Permit For Stormwater Runoff From Forest Roads | Marten Law

I know my town's highway foreman (he comes out of a heavy equipment operator background but attends the seminars and such as well as working with the contract civil engineers as needed) has told me the design preference is to all storm water to "sheet" off the sides of the road to be absorbed diffusely, and avoid curbs / storm drains / culverts as much as possible. I have NO idea how that conversation even came up (though I have a good stretch of town road that "sheets" onto my property). 

Sounds like the same thing they were arguing in that court case, maybe taken a bit more extreme.

I also have no clue how you'd build a crowned road along a steep hillside and not use ditches/culverts for the uphill side!


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## Humptulips (Dec 3, 2011)

madhatte said:


> I almost don't mind it when they make us change boundaries before a sale goes to auction. Only my time is wasted. What really hacks me is when a unit is already sold and the F&W folks decide they need to exclude this tree and that tree and this skid route and...
> 
> Thing is it never occurs to them that somebody has already BOUGHT those trees, and excluding them involuntarily is theft, plain and simple. Sometimes a purchaser will agree to a tree-for-tree swap, no harm, no foul. Sometimes they'll take the loss.


 
You telling me that it isn't theft if they exclude from the sale before the sale. It's still theft, just coming out of someone elses pocket.

"In another post somebody wrote:
Cut and hack,
Burn it black'
Plant it back. 

That's all we did for many years. Too many years, really. We shot ourselves in the foot...repeatedly. The way we logged in "the good old days" was largely wasteful and destructive. We're paying for that now and we're paying big time."

I don't agree with this either. There's more timber being wasted then there ever was back in the so called bad old days. Add up all the blown down RMZs, broken off wildlife trees and blown down or fire killed timber that can't be logged because of arbitrary designation of the area as a roadless area it all adds up to a tremendous amount of wasted timber rotting. I don't buy this RMZ stuff helping the salmon runs either. We had more salmon before the RMZs were mandated and the trees seemed to be growing just fine. Salmon didn't go to heck until they OKed Indian netting in all the rivers.


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## forestryworks (Dec 3, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> I also have no clue how you'd build a crowned road along a steep hillside and not use ditches/culverts for the uphill side!



And it's nonsense to think there's any other way!


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## madhatte (Dec 3, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> I also have no clue how you'd build a crowned road along a steep hillside and not use ditches/culverts for the uphill side!



That's just madness. I'll have to pass that up my chain-of-command and see if we're affected. I know we haven't talked about it yet, and road maintenance is, as always, a huge issue.



Humptulips said:


> You telling me that it isn't theft if they exclude from the sale before the sale. It's still theft, just coming out of someone elses pocket.



As a forestry tech, I have more sympathy for contract loggers than I do for the ownership the sale comes from. Give or take a tree here, a tree there, our management plan isn't really affected. The guys who have already paid for the logs are the ones who really get a raw deal.


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## Gologit (Dec 4, 2011)

Humptulips said:


> I don't agree with this either. There's more timber being wasted then there ever was back in the so called bad old days. Add up all the blown down RMZs, broken off wildlife trees and blown down or fire killed timber that can't be logged because of arbitrary designation of the area as a roadless area it all adds up to a tremendous amount of wasted timber rotting.



I don't doubt that at all...in your part of the country. And on government ground. I'm not there, I don't see what you see, so I'm not qualified to comment on it.

But where I work, which is mostly on private ground, we don't have near the waste that we used to. We don't have the blow down problems with RMZs that you guys have...different soil and terrain and tree types probably. And we sure log our bug kill and burn salvage as soon as we can get to it. Tops and slash are usually chipped on site and either spread or hauled out.
A lot of our ground is checkerboard with FS ground. You don't need signs to tell which is which. Benign neglect pretty much sums up what happens to the government ground. They waste. We don't.


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## Humptulips (Dec 4, 2011)

madhatte said:


> That's just madness. I'll have to pass that up my chain-of-command and see if we're affected. I know we haven't talked about it yet, and road maintenance is, as always, a huge issue.
> 
> 
> 
> As a forestry tech, I have more sympathy for contract loggers than I do for the ownership the sale comes from. Give or take a tree here, a tree there, our management plan isn't really affected. The guys who have already paid for the logs are the ones who really get a raw deal.



You'd feel different if you owned timberland. A recent patch of timber I was involved with logging the owner lost half the timber to RMZ designation. That guy sure thinks he was robbed. To top it off seasonal streams.


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## Humptulips (Dec 4, 2011)

Gologit said:


> I don't doubt that at all...in your part of the country. And on government ground. I'm not there, I don't see what you see, so I'm not qualified to comment on it.
> 
> But where I work, which is mostly on private ground, we don't have near the waste that we used to. We don't have the blow down problems with RMZs that you guys have...different soil and terrain and tree types probably. And we sure log our bug kill and burn salvage as soon as we can get to it. Tops and slash are usually chipped on site and either spread or hauled out.
> A lot of our ground is checkerboard with FS ground. You don't need signs to tell which is which. Benign neglect pretty much sums up what happens to the government ground. They waste. We don't.



Three or maybe it's four years now an estimated 10 million feet blew down on the ridge behind my house. It's still laying there. It's supposed to be a FS roadless area but there's a road right through the middle and at least half the timber could have been salvaged without building any road. Mostly hemlock and white fir so it's all rot now. I can look at it everyday if the clouds aren't too low. What a waste!
On private ground I'd say better then half the RMZ trees blowdown. A lot of places it's 100%.


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## slowp (Dec 4, 2011)

wowzers said:


> Wasn't there a 9th circuit ruling that made culverts point sources for pollution? It was big talk around here for a while but I've been out of the forestry loop for a while now. If that happens won't you need a discharge permit for every culvert?



Yes there is. It is being appealed. The case started in Oregon. What I understand is, if the decision is upheld, another permit will be required. 

However, I am confused as to the intent and knowledge of the folks suing. Roads don't stop running off water when log trucks leave. Roads are rained on for most of the year, logging or not. Unless the intent is to tear up the majority of roads, and shut more access off, I don't understand the point. But that doesn't matter. I do know the main intent is to stop logging.


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## Gologit (Dec 4, 2011)

slowp said:


> Yes there is. It is being appealed. The case started in Oregon. What I understand is, if the decision is upheld, another permit will be required.
> 
> However, I am confused as to the intent and knowledge of the folks suing. Roads don't stop running off water when log trucks leave. Roads are rained on for most of the year, logging or not. Unless the intent is to tear up the majority of roads, and shut more access off, I don't understand the point. But that doesn't matter. I do know the main intent is to stop logging.



Well said. The intent is _always_ to stop logging.

The last couple of years we've done a massive amount of road work and installed literally truck loads of culverts and drains. Maybe, for once, we're ahead of the curve.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 4, 2011)

> I do know the main intent is to stop logging.



And earn legal fees!

If you were truly interested in reducing silt -- and I recognize such runoff and erosion while usually trivial in individual instances does add up to a lot overtime -- the best way to achieve it is to tackle the engineering standards the roads are built and maintained too. Stuff like silt control structures & vegetation at the discharges of culverts, trying not to have culverts directly discharge into streams, etc.

Not wasting money on environmental impact reports.


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## Gologit (Dec 4, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> And earn legal fees!



Exactly. Lawyers have it figured out...litigation is a cash cow for them. The rest of us, in one way or another, are paying the bill.


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## lfnh (Dec 4, 2011)

ah, a long morning read of the actual opinion from 9th Circuit Appeals, NEDC v Brown, No. 07-35266 is about the application of NPDES permitting and point surce vs non-point source pollution under the CWA and Silvicuture Rule as it applies to the logging case in Oregon and EPA Rule makiing.

For those interested in reading the gist of this Opinion:
Case

pages 6406-8 are the Order and Background.
pages 6440-end Contention of Timber Defendants and Courts view.
near the end the Courts "sympathy" with EPA administration

An interesting side note relevant to this case is Oregon is permitted by the EPA to administer the NPDES for Federal facilities. Warshington, on the otherhand, is not.

The burden this places on the Timber Industry, Federal and State agencies is almost un-imaginable financially and resource staff wise as it applies to both new and existing roads to engineer, monitor and maintain pollution controls.
Seems to me the NEDC is shooting for the shutdown, abandonment and pre-road restoration of these roads by overwhemming micro-management and compliance reports to the courts.

Did Congress fail in writing the law; Did the EPA fail in writing regulations for enforcement ?
I'm sure as hell not qualified to comment on that aspect. But, am not blindsided to the cost to the taxpayer and our economy either.


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

If all these Eco-Nuts had their way, we wouldn't be allowed to breath air, because of the endangered 'air-mites'. 

They need monetary discouragement from their frivilous lawsuits. 

Something like:

*Judge:* I'll accept your lawsuit, but first let me be clear. If you lose, you will have to pay all court costs, you will also face a counter suit for further damages, and possible jail time for wasting this courts time. To the lawyers representing your case, you too will face stiff fines, and an investigation into nefarious practice, and possible disbarment. Do you wish to proceed?

Sound far fetched? It's not. It happened to me on a small scale for a fishing violation about ten years ago. When I appeared before the Judge and his clerk, he made it abundantly clear, that I had a right to fight the charges. He also made it clear that the fine was currently $80, and if I fought it and lost, it would be in excess of $500.00. So he then asked me, how to you plead? Guilty or not guilty. I yelled out guilty like I was singing in a choir! Made the judge and clerk laugh their butts off. He said he had never seen someone plead guilty with such verve. 

The point being, if I was gonna have to pay, I sure as #### wasn't gonna pay more than that 80 bucks.

We need Judges with the sac to tell these fools where to get off.

BTW, SMZ/RMZ's are a friggen joke, just like the ESA.


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## Gologit (Dec 4, 2011)

Metals406 said:


> BTW, SMZ/RMZ's are a friggen joke, just like the ESA.



You're right...most of this stuff _is_ a joke. Most of it is well meant but poorly thought out. And poorly executed, too. Remember when we were absolutely forbidden to leave logs in the creeks and rivers? I spent a lot of time and money retrieving logs that went astray.
Now they're intentionally _placing_ logs in waterways. And, once again, a lot of time and money is being spent. Some of the money, indirectly, comes from me.

It's a joke, alright. I'll probably laugh about it...someday.


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

Gologit said:


> You're right...most of this stuff _is_ a joke. Most of it is well meant but poorly thought out. And poorly executed, too. Remember when we were absolutely forbidden to leave logs in the creeks and rivers? I spent a lot of time and money retrieving logs that went astray.
> Now they're intentionally _placing_ logs in waterways. And, once again, a lot of time and money is being spent. Some of the money, indirectly, comes from me.
> 
> It's a joke, alright. I'll probably laugh about it...someday.



Oh I remember Bob. . . Logs? I remember hand picking pine bows in SMZ's because they were 'acidic', and could hurt fish 40 miles away. Hours of wasted money and time.

I also remember wading out (chest deep) into a bog of eternal stench to hook a Pondy that wouldn't come out'a the muck in one piece. . . Had to get 'special permission' to leave all the broken limbs and needles in there. More wasted time and money.


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## deeker (Dec 4, 2011)

Metals406 said:


> Oh I remember Bob. . . Logs? I remember hand picking pine bows in SMZ's because they were 'acidic', and could hurt fish 40 miles away. Hours of wasted money and time.
> 
> I also remember wading out (chest deep) into a bog of eternal stench to hook a Pondy that wouldn't come out'a the muck in one piece. . . Had to get 'special permission' to leave all the broken limbs and needles in there. More wasted time and money.



The upside, stroking the ego of the "God complexed" higher ups made nature okay.

Good thing they play God for us dimwits!


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## Gologit (Dec 4, 2011)

Yup...things have changed. Again. And, as usual, the responsibility for compliance falls to the guy in the brush. LOLOL...the last little run-in I had with Fins and Feathers concerning logs in a creek resulted from my offer to just leave some old snags where they were...in the creek. I'd bumped a couple with falling trees and that's where they wound up.

The 'ologists were horrified. Those weren't the type of logs they were looking for, the sizes was all wrong, they weren't placed according to their directions and diagrams, and they weren't properly installed by an approved contractor with the proper training and permits. I took the snags out of the creek.


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

Gologit said:


> Yup...things have changed. Again. And, as usual, the responsibility for compliance falls to the guy in the brush. LOLOL...the last little run-in I had with Fins and Feathers concerning logs in a creek resulted from my offer to just leave some old snags where they were...in the creek. I'd bumped a couple with falling trees and that's where they wound up.
> 
> The 'ologists were horrified. Those weren't the type of logs they were looking for, the sizes was all wrong, they weren't placed according to their directions and diagrams, and they weren't properly installed by an approved contractor with the proper training and permits. I took the snags out of the creek.



Makes a guy want to smack his forehead and walk away.


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## deeker (Dec 4, 2011)

Metals406 said:


> Makes a guy want to smack his forehead and walk away.



WRONG!!!

You trip the head FOOL in charge "HFIC" and help him back to his feet!

Then kick him where "the boys SHOULD be" and ask him if he has a permit to be in pain!

Back to my soap box!


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

deeker said:


> WRONG!!!
> 
> You trip the head FOOL in charge "HFIC" and help him back to his feet!
> 
> ...



:hmm3grin2orange::hmm3grin2orange:


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## madhatte (Dec 4, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> If you were truly interested in reducing silt



An ironic icing to this cake is that we actually need to INCREASE silt... just not where we're talking about. Fact: the Pacific coast of Washington between Leadbetter Point and Grayland has for over 30 years seen the highest sustained erosion rate on the North American continent. This description of Washaway Beach is broad but missing one key element -- where does the sand to rebuild dunes come from? It always comes from river drainages upstream relative to prevailing currents. 

In this case, that means the Columbia. As it happens, the greater Columbia watershed extends north and east into Montana, Utah, Alberta, BC and south into Oregon. That's a lot of land to drain, and on the many tributaries of this huge watershed, there are over 200 dams. Each dam withholds sediment which would eventually make its way downstream to be deposited in the great alluvial flat at the mouth of the Columbia, where it would be picked up by tidal currents and moved north to build dunes. Dunes are fragile and transient structures held together by little more than hardy grass and surface tension; new ones are very commonly destroyed by storms in the winter. Older dunes stabilize and become dry land. In the absence of sediment to rebuild after winter storms, only erosion is possible. Today, the sediment accumulation at the mouth of the Columbia has been estimated to be around 30% of what it was 120 years ago, the loss due entirely to dams. 

There's also a locally-popular story about the Army Corps of engineers dredging the mouth of the Willapa in the 30's and the 40's, changing the hydraulic properties of the coastline thereabouts. This is undoubtedly a contributing factor in the erosion rate, but the lack of sediment is a longer and more potent driver. 

Humptulips -- again, as a forestry tech, I wouldn't be too concerned about a few trees I can't cut, because in my mind, I'm in it for the long haul. There will be another sale. We'll get those trees later. That is, of course, if they don't blow down, in which case I'm 100% with you on stupid regulation regarding salvaging that which gravity so graciously provides us.


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## CTYank (Dec 4, 2011)

deeker said:


> Great articles, dead on!
> 
> Too much government of any kind is bad, too much of the tree huggers BS destroys all of the forest. By feel good means the beatles are well fed while all of our renewable resources go to spoils instead of it's wise use.
> 
> ...



So, you're saying that the Feds should stay out of managing federal land, if I read you right? May I shout out "hell no" to that?

I'd suspect that a big government would be appropriate for 300+ MILLION population and the land they're living on. But then your idea of "big" might differ from mine. For some it seems to be anything greater than zero involving their area of interest is too big.

Too little government wrt the banking/securities industries got us into our global economic spit-pile. Given the choice of too-big/too-little and the consequences, I'd lean toward too-big. Not paranoid here.

Let's stop chanting Murdoch's mantras; they do US no good.

Politics is the art of compromise. Some wise man said that.


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## forestryworks (Dec 4, 2011)

Gologit said:


> Yup...things have changed. Again. And, as usual, the responsibility for compliance falls to the guy in the brush. LOLOL...the last little run-in I had with Fins and Feathers concerning logs in a creek resulted from my offer to just leave some old snags where they were...in the creek. I'd bumped a couple with falling trees and that's where they wound up.
> 
> The 'ologists were horrified. Those weren't the type of logs they were looking for, the sizes was all wrong, they weren't placed according to their directions and diagrams, and they weren't properly installed by an approved contractor with the proper training and permits. I took the snags out of the creek.



And then they wash away in heavy rains.

I bet their little book doesn't explain that, thus leaving them at the head scratching stage.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 4, 2011)

> Given the choice of too-big/too-little and the consequences, I'd lean toward too-big. Not paranoid here.



Corruptions or failures in big organizations -- and that doesn't matter whether it's the government, business, or any other organization -- have greater negative consequences.

We also know all organizations are imperfect, it takes a lot of time and ethics to keep them from becoming selfish.

The Wall Street situation wasn't simply a failure of big government, it was also that too big businesses had been allowed to exist. Relaxing business regulations at a time we simultaneously relaxed anti-trust enforcement AND consolidated oversight in fewer agencies is a bad combination.

You're better off placing many small bets, accepting many small losses and many small gains, then one big bet on the assumption that you know all the possibilities and can make a statistically valid decision. Nicolas Talib's book Black Swan is a great one on this topic -- debunking the idea of the bell curve and trying to manage most things using conventional statistical methods.

So you're better off having many smaller businesses, and multiple layers of regulation (hey Federalism, what a concept!)

As it applies here, you're better off pushing as much decision making -- along with the research and broad policies to help guide them -- down to the lowest practical level, such as a ranger district or maybe the whatever level is above them. 

You still provide oversight through audits and observation to make sure there isn't malicious or simply too greedy activities.

What will happen when you devolve decision making to smaller units is you will have more failures, but those failures will be contained and relatively small impact. It also gives you the ability to point to districts that things are functioning well and go, "That's what we should be trying to be like!" 

When you consolidate decision making to bigger units in government you may nominally have fewer "failures" but when you do they're doozies and have great negative impact due to their size. And you lose the ability to compare the performance of A to B and figure out which is the better way to do things.


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## Rounder (Dec 4, 2011)

CTYank said:


> So, you're saying that the Feds should stay out of managing federal land, if I read you right? May I shout out "hell no" to that?
> 
> I'd suspect that a big government would be appropriate for 300+ MILLION population and the land they're living on. But then your idea of "big" might differ from mine. For some it seems to be anything greater than zero involving their area of interest is too big.
> 
> ...



Everyone's opinion is welcome here, some of ours are just a little different when you live and work in the West. Little bit different world.


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## slowp (Dec 4, 2011)

I did mind having to take away volume from a laid out but not sold sale. We had targets/quotas to meet and the purchasers also did a bit of planning on those targets. When volume was subtracted from a sale, we had to find more somewhere else, or lose funding and then find other places to live and work. 

Now, the last NEPA meeting I attended, had silt fence required around all landings. 

Silt is the current crisis, I guess. There was a crisis about water in the ditchline being muddy on a nearby district. I told folks it doesn't matter what color the water in the ditchline is, it is what color it is when it flows into a creek. 

Usually, it clears up because most pipes do not empty into creeks. Roads were designed correctly and the runoff filters through the vegetation. 

There was a big ruckus in the early 1980s on the Mapleton District which shut the timber program down for quite a while. I believe the crisis was muddy water/silt...I'll try to look it up. The Siuslaw Forest ended up paving a lot of their haul roads because of that. 

We can't afford to do that now.


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## madhatte (Dec 4, 2011)

slowp said:


> The Siuslaw Forest ended up paving a lot of their haul roads because of that.



I always wondered how those roads came to be paved. Seemed an awful expense for an area with so little non-commercial traffic through it.


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## slowp (Dec 4, 2011)

I may be mistaken. The shut down was because of landslides "triggered by timber harvest." 

They could afford paving, as did this area, because there was so much value in the big timber that was hauled down those roads. The trouble is, now we can't afford to maintain the paving, or make repairs.


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## OregonSawyer (Dec 4, 2011)

I often wondered the same thing. Interesting!


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

I can think of only one local logging road that was paved, and it was years ago. AFAIK, the state keeps it up, and they don't do too bad a job. They just repaved and did a bunch of culverts last summer.

Sure makes it nice to drive up for hunting and firewood get'n.


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## slowp (Dec 4, 2011)

Metals406 said:


> I can think of only one local logging road that was paved, and it was years ago. AFAIK, the state keeps it up, and they don't do too bad a job. They just repaved and did a bunch of culverts last summer.
> 
> Sure makes it nice to drive up for hunting and firewood get'n.



We have one, that I had to go up and down frequently for 3 years. Following a loaded log truck made you wonder about the sanity of the drivers. There are numerous places where the pavement is sinking, and failing on the outside of the road. The trucks sway and tip. 

The good thing is, the road is so bad, they can't get up the speed like they used to on it. When a coworker complained about the speeding trucks on that road, I knew he was stretching the truth. :msp_thumbup:


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## Metals406 (Dec 4, 2011)

slowp said:


> We have one, that I had to go up and down frequently for 3 years. Following a loaded log truck made you wonder about the sanity of the drivers. There are numerous places where the pavement is sinking, and failing on the outside of the road. The trucks sway and tip.
> 
> The good thing is, the road is so bad, they can't get up the speed like they used to on it. When a coworker complained about the speeding trucks on that road, I knew he was stretching the truth. :msp_thumbup:



Ours was like that until last year, now it's pretty nice. I think they throw money at it every 20 years or so.


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## forestryworks (Dec 5, 2011)

*Arizona is fed up...*

... and rightfully so.

11/29: Senator suggests state takeover of forests - News - Ecological Restoration Institute


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## Metals406 (Dec 5, 2011)

And here it is in a nutshell. . .



> Clearcutting by loggers that allowed thickets of saplings to grow and lawsuits by conservation groups that in recent decades dramatically reduced timber harvests also played a role, the researchers concluded.


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## madhatte (Dec 5, 2011)

Please don't overlook this piece of the puzzle: 



> the dramatic increase in tree densities stemmed from a century of fire suppression and unrestrained cattle grazing that removed the grass that once carried frequent, low intensity ground fires.



Low-intensity fires would have suppressed seedlings and kept an open understory, and would have encouraged a healthy spacing between larger, more fire-resistant mature trees. Logging in this case is a minor offender -- fire exclusion is the big one. No fire in a fire-dependent ecology nearly always results in occasional catastrophic fires, as opposed to frequent, non-catastrophic ones. Tree ring analysis of older trees should give an idea of historic fire return intervals in a given site; management strategies should be tailored to mimic this interval, bot for the health of the forests and for the protection of improvements. 

Now, what about this "globul warmingz" I keep hearing about? Odds are that it will change the fire return interval for a given site. Whether it lengthens or shortens it will depend on the site. What is certain is that if one changes, the other will as well. Is climate change inevitable? The geologic record strongly suggests that it is. It's foolish to try to reset the clock to 1850 and pretend that the Industrial Revolution never happened.


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## slowp (Dec 5, 2011)

The A/S has been fairly proactive with their fuels reduction and thinning projects. However, some of the communities have been against cutting any trees. One place in particular did not want any work done around their area, until the Rodeo Chediski fire inspired them.


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## forestryworks (Dec 5, 2011)

If those pre-1860 processes (low-intensity fires, etc.) worked before, why couldn't they work now? After all, man stopped those processes (fire suppression), not Mother Nature, so man can sure restore them.

Ponderosa likes open stands and frequent low-intensity burns. Ain't no other way around it.

Thin and burn, boys


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## slowp (Dec 5, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> If those pre-1860 processes (low-intensity fires, etc.) worked before, why couldn't they work now? After all, man stopped those processes (fire suppression), not Mother Nature, so man can sure restore them.
> 
> Ponderosa likes open stands and frequent low-intensity burns. Ain't no other way around it.
> 
> Thin and burn, boys



There are girls working there too!!


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## forestryworks (Dec 5, 2011)

slowp said:


> There are girls working there too!!



Pardon.

Thin and burn, boys and girls!


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## Jacob J. (Dec 5, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> If those pre-1860 processes (low-intensity fires, etc.) worked before, why couldn't they work now? After all, man stopped those processes (fire suppression), not Mother Nature, so man can sure restore them.
> 
> Ponderosa likes open stands and frequent low-intensity burns. Ain't no other way around it.
> 
> Thin and burn, boys



That's a whole different discussion but has been my angle all along. Unfortunately, most people have been programmed to hate fire. 

The loggers around here complain about merchantable timber burning up, and the hippies complain about the woodland creatures burning up.

What the loggers don't realize is that some of the finest and most profitable stands of timber were shaped by fire.


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## forestryworks (Dec 5, 2011)

Jacob J. said:


> Unfortunately, most people have been programmed to hate fire.



Do we partly blame Smokey Bear and partly blame our primeval fear?


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## Jacob J. (Dec 5, 2011)

forestryworks said:


> Do we partly blame Smokey Bear and partly blame our primeval fear?



I think it was the culture of viewing forests as a cash crop, which I'm not against, but fire was an easy scapegoat to blame a lot of early problems on. 

People from my grandparents' generation were totally against fire for the most part. People from my parents' generation were starting to come around 
when I was a little kid (mid 70's.) The culture is starting to change but I see another 30-50 years going by before fire is an accepted land management 
tool to the masses.


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## madhatte (Dec 5, 2011)

Another hurdle to overcome is the NIMBY response to smoke management. Lots of folks can be convinced that fire is useful in theory, so long as they don't have to know anything about it. We get a hundred calls every time we burn grass. It's so silly.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 6, 2011)

A lot of things in life are over-reactions to legitimate problems.

(Oh, about half the "rules" of the Catholic Church, for example.)

Between railroads, casual attitudes, and (though I suspect it was more hyperbole then fact) blaming fires on immigrants out fishing...Connecticut around 1900 in a typical year would burn roughly 100,000 acres.

That was 3% of our land area each year, and since it wasn't evenly distributed it meant many areas saw destructive brush fires every 10-15 years that wiped out young trees before a forest could ever take hold.

We worked that down; the last of the really big wildfires were in the early 1960s. Today if we burn more then 500 acres in fires over an acre in size, it's a bad year.

100,000 acres was way, way excessive and caused by human indifference. That was the story in many areas that had been logged over; I suspect it probably also held true out west.

And like a lot of things, we over-reacted and went from too casual an attitude on fire to one where we keep it too bottled up.


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