More Bush Admin. Brainlessness

[olyclimber]

gotta go climbing

[willstrickland]

Pulp paper, as I understand it, is now almost exclusively farmed in the southeast from whatever trees grow well there.

 

Yellow pine. They also make a load of lumber out of those trees (Georgia Pacific ring a bell?). Althought it accounts for a tiny amount, there is also a good amount of oak harvested for furniture. North Carolina has a lot of furniture manufacturers, likely due to the close proximity of those raw materials.

[JoshK]

Scott, as Winter said above, you just continue to disprove your own arguments. It seems most people are arguing that removing the dead trees not only does not benifit the environment but it leaves the land ugly. There is something to say of a scroched piece of forest. It has an interesting look, and it's way nicer than a bunch of toothpicks and large stumps. Who cares if it's financially viable, so are the giant old growth trees in the grove of the patriarchs, but I think you'd agree it wouldn't be a good idea to cut those down.

 

But Josh, logging is going to happen anyways somewhere. Why not salvage trees which have already been killed rather than ones which are completely healthy?

 

Cause the timber companies already have enough land. That is what renewable forests or whatever they call them are for. rip down the trees then replant. The last thing we need is timber companies encroaching on land they aren't already on.

 

I would think you would give in for the simple fact that two educated people, working on this issue, have told you that you are wrong would be enough to conceed and move on.

[iain]

I think poplar has been used for just about anything at this point. There are some serious poplar farms out I-84 these days. Seems to be the way things are headed.

[scott_harpell]

Josh, I would like to see a reduction in the land the loggers get and have this supplement it. Ideally that is where I see this going.

I would think you would give in for the simple fact that two educated people, working on this issue, have told you that you are wrong would be enough to conceed and move on.

 

Two educated people with an agenda... puporting a black and white issue... thanks, I'll stick to my guns.

[scott_harpell]

start flinging shit and then PM everyone how mean I am when I fling it back.

 

Actually, Scott, I've been flinging out factual information in this thread.

 

You would be the one TALKING out of your ASS about something that you obviously know NOTHING about.

 

No you really haven't. You have spouted oninion and have used ad hominim logic. Not exactly the definition of factual reasoning that I use.

[Winter]

Well yeah I've got an agenda but I don't think Jim does.

 

Consider some numbers:

 

- Logging from our national forests contributes only 3% of the nationa's timber supply.

 

- The FS loses more than $1 billion per year on timber sales.

 

- These economic #'s don't account for the externalized costs of ecological degradation.

 

So how can we justify spending $1 billion/year of taxpayer money to support 3% of the national market? It doesn't add up.

[Dru]

Spouted onion?

[JoshK]

Right Scott, and BushCo doesn't have an agenda!!!

 

I've still got that oceanfront in arizona for sale, you interested?

[marylou]

Yeah, that was a pretty viscious personal attack when I explained to you where the Forest Service gets their money.

[scott_harpell]

viscious attack??!?! are you serious!?!? Oh! You mean when I retorted in kind when you called me an idiot. Gotchya!

 

 

[marylou]

Look, if you are going to make fun of my typos, at least spell them correctly.

 

Do you even know what an ad hominem attack is, or do you just like throwing that term out every time you can't win an argument?

[scott_harpell]

Right Scott, and BushCo doesn't have an agenda!!!

 

I've still got that oceanfront in arizona for sale, you interested?

 

Did I say they didn't? No. Like I said, I would rather the logger give up the rest of the FS land and use the reclaimed timber. I believe in a comprimise between the two sides. I don't know why you jump to the conclusion that I think that Bush does not have an agenda.

[scott_harpell]

Well yeah I've got an agenda but I don't think Jim does.

 

Consider some numbers:

 

- Logging from our national forests contributes only 3% of the nationa's timber supply.

 

- The FS loses more than $1 billion per year on timber sales.

 

- These economic #'s don't account for the externalized costs of ecological degradation.

 

So how can we justify spending $1 billion/year of taxpayer money to support 3% of the national market? It doesn't add up.

 

I didn't say that we should fork the bill. I believe that the loggers should make their own roads into the forest and prep their own area, but that is a different issue entirely isn't it?

[AlpineK]

For paper, sure. But what about structural timber?

 

What is the breakdown in pulp for paper products as a percent of timber use? Just curious, I have no idea. Also, can hemp fiber be used in a similar manner as wood to make pressboard/fiberboard?

 

I wasn't being all that serious.

 

There are a number of things that can be used for pulp. For structural stuff cottonwood is a possibility. As I think you pointed out pine from the SE is used quite a bit. I believe pine from the SE can outcompete anything from a NW tree farm since the growing season is longer down there.

[Skeezix]

Hemp for pulp. Dru can smoke the leaves.

[Winter]

WooHoo! Just got a TRO on a post-fire salvage sale in So. Oregon.

 

***NOTE TO PUBLIC ACCESS USERS*** You may view the filed documents once without charge. To avoid later charges, download a copy of each document during this first viewing.

 

U.S. District Court

 

District of Oregon

 

Notice of Electronic Filing

 

 

The following transaction was received from lae, entered on 6/15/2004 at 8:16 AM PDT and filed on 6/15/2004

Case Name: Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund et al v. Brong et al

Case Number: 1:04-cv-693

Filer:

Document Number: 48

 

Docket Text:

ORDER: Record of Order by Judge Ann L. Aiken. Granting Plaintiff's Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order [9]. The TRO enjoins defendants from proceeding with the Flaming Rock and Smoked Gobbler timber sales on the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management, and orders defendants and its agents and contractors to immediately cease any ongoing operations, including logging, pending resolution of the preliminary injunction filed in this case. It is further ordered that no bond is required in this case. (lae, )

 

[Fairweather]

Meanwhile, a UNANIMOUS US Supreme Court ruling today that will limit enviro group's penchants for twisting the intent of good law and putting the cart before the horse!

 

Court restricts scope of environmental lawsuits

 

Los Angeles Times

 

The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit by environmental groups Monday that accused the federal government of failing to safeguard Western wilderness areas from an onslaught of off-road vehicles.

 

The unanimous decision said environmental groups cannot use the courts to compel the federal Bureau of Land Management to take more aggressive action to protect land that is under study for protection as wilderness.

 

The case directly involved about 2 million acres of "wilderness study areas" in Utah, but legal experts said the decision could more broadly affect the legal treatment of wild lands across the West. The ruling will significantly limit the ability of citizen groups to use the courts to enforce a broad range of environmental protections, the legal experts said.

 

Los Angeles Times

[cj001f]

Meanwhile, a UNANIMOUS US Supreme Court ruling today that will limit enviro group's penchants for twisting the intent of good law and putting the cart before the horse!

Heaven forbid they do what they are supposed to

[Jim]

Here's a good example of the crap that is constant under the Bushies. They are always looking for opportunities to toss out agreements that have been hammered out by opposing groups in favor of the resource extraction industries. There is no balance in this administration.

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/177937_woods16.html

[Winter]

Ok well if we're starting a little press war here, here's the Oregonian story on the TRO mentioned above.

 

Judge halts logging of burned timber

 

The order to stop work in an older forest reserve could be a prelude to challenges of cutting in the larger Biscuit fire area

 

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

MICHAEL MILSTEIN

 

A U.S. judge halted the logging Tuesday of trees on federal lands burned by a 2002 blaze in Southwest Oregon after environmental groups argued that plans to salvage the wood sacrificed wildlife and ecological needs for timber company profits.

 

The action may be a prelude to expected challenges of planned logging in the much larger and nearby 2002 Biscuit fire. Those timber sales could begin by early July and have provoked similar opposition.

 

Timber industry groups said the holdup will allow the wood to deteriorate as it has for almost two years, further eroding its value.

 

"We think it's much better to use burned wood that has been standing for two years rather than go out and find green trees to cut or import wood from Canada," said Tom Partin of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland, which intervened in the case.

 

In the Tuesday decision, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene ordered loggers to cease cutting 790 acres of trees killed by the Timbered Rock fire north of Medford until the case can be considered more thoroughly. She provided no further explanation.

 

The cutting was planned within an older forest reserve set aside by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan for wildlife, including the northern spotted owl, thought to prefer older stands. The case may become a test of how much wood should be recovered from such lands following fires such as those that scorched Oregon in 2002.

 

Activist groups argue loggers should stay out of the reserves except when thinning dense tree plantations to aid wildlife.

 

About a third of the timber the U.S. Forest Service wants to salvage from lands burned by the Biscuit fire would come from the same type of reserves.

 

"This is a preview of how the agencies have been captured by the idea of putting timber values instead of environmental values," said George Sexton of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, one of five groups that sought to stop the cutting.

 

The Timbered Rock logging was planned by another federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The 790 acres scheduled for cutting represents about 7 percent of the BLM land burned by the fire. About two-thirds of fire-killed trees of all sizes would be left behind, said John Bergin, a BLM planner who helped design the project.

 

Loggers are expected to cut about 25 million board feet of wood, but about a third would probably be discarded because of damage or defects that would make it unmarketable.

 

The Northwest Forest Plan allows salvage of burned timber from reserves within certain limits, provided it does not undermine the quality of wildlife habitat. An interagency team in Portland reviewed the logging plan and concluded it complies with the goals of the reserves.

 

But critics contend the cutting plan would remove many of the landscape's large trees that, even when dead, would provide habitat for owls and their prey while the surrounding forest grows back.

 

The trees to be cut average more than two feet across at chest height, with some more than three feet across. Trees smaller than 16 inches across would be left behind because they have decayed to the point they are no longer worth cutting.

 

Other groups seeking to halt the cutting include the Oregon Natural Resources Council, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Umpqua Watersheds, and Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

 

Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com