The devil is in the details here - and in this case the express lack of them. Or the express lack of public comment and public engagement and public anything.
But of course when it comes to the dumb idea to kill renewable logging in Oregon and replacing that renewable natural resource industry with funding for public teachers - we have all known all along that Earl Blumenauer, Pete DeFazio, Ron Wyden, et al have been hypocritically stealing timber funds and using them for anything and everything else - in order to keep OUR OREGON, OEA, SEIU and the completely hypocritical dem party as a whole happy, happy, happy.
So today we have a corrected ethical direction for timber funding - after all of these years and years and years? How about you dems replace all of those MISAPPROPRIATED timber monies that went to anything but timber jobs in Oregon and all other states - and instead went to the back pockets of your friends - and then the little people who have been LIED TO about all of this - will pay attention a little closer.
What a shamalam ding dong - the obscenity of extremist environmental terrorist LIARS emboldened by Oregon's democratic party public servants - wrongfully killing the renewable, all nature timber industry in our (once great) state.
Yet another federal government bailout of rural conservative communities. One wonders when these people will ever learn to pay their own way for the services they get from government. Or at the least, show some gratitude to the taxpayers who are supporting them.
recent retiree from one of the big 2 federal land management agencies. USFS/BLM used to funnel 25/50% timber sale receipts (money generated from sale of timber) back to the counties from which the timber was harvested (mostly used for local schools/county road maintenance etc. thus reducing your overall tax bill). It was a great system that balanced multi-use forest management with timber production that benefited a large portion of the population. Millions, yes Millions, of dollars in Western Oregon went to the counties from the federal forests
That system (money to the counties from federal receipts) has been stopped due to the inability of the agencies to wade thru the "top down" legislation (usually politically motivated vs proper management technique), Wash DC Administrative rules (usually politically skewed) and environmental lawsuit shennanigans (usually supported by our wonderful liberal 9th Circuit Court in San Fran) resulting in nearly complete gridlock.
In addition clearcutting, which on federal lands, in years past, were small acreages, and which in western oregon forests is the most logical harvest method for impacting the least amount of ground, economies of scale (better dollar return from easier logging, less road building etc), and enhances good reforestation, has been halted.
In its place is a thinning methodology which requires much more road building and much larger acreages - up to 4 or 5 times- to garner the same board feet as the clearcut method. Thinning acreages are often prone to blowdown and it is not easy to predict where that may occur. So impacts are potentially larger with thinning then the clearcut methods used in the past, reforestation less effective, and subsequent blowdown left on the ground (in addition to the logs already left on the ground, by contract requirement, for the bugs/slugs and other species).
Proper federal forest management, true multi-use management, has become non-existent. Federal forests are now managed by the political whims of the given DC administration, the judges pontificating about issues that few of them have a clue about, and the well paid lawyers of the radical environmental groups, who thrive monetarily by the way, by "crying wolf" and then asking for donations, at every proposed federal lands timber sale.
Unfortunately rarely is the "old way" ever looked at for "what worked". Payments to counties for schools/roads etc, true multi-use management, and small acreage clearcuts worked. Heaven forbid that we look for clues from the past to fix the issues of the day.
The rates of harvest in the 1970s and 80s--what it sounds like Hastings will use as the benchmark--never were sustainable. In those years, I've been told --even by former loggers, rivers were filled with muck and dirt. The cost of lost fisheries were not factored in. If there is to be some sustainable solution, the idea of tying future harvest rates to those of the past is not a good starting place.
The whole system -timber receipt county payment system -was designed to compensate the local counties for the removal of millions of acres from the local tax base. The decisions made by those in DC to set aside this land for wilderness, to build railroads, etc was done with the express intent to compensate the "locals" from the loss of this taxbase.
So before you go bashing the "rurals" and the small counties adjacent to the federal forests for taking the "govt. handout" you need to do your homework.
We have in effect reneged on the promises made to those counties back in the early statehood timeframe. That is timber receipts for reduced tax base.
Ironically with the original system there was less need for the counties to ask for more monies from the individual tax payer. In effect you're all paying taxes for the counties needs because the original system was abandoned. And I would guess that you all like to see your kids educated in the local schools as well as drive on roads that are properly maintained.
Wow, an actual intelligent, informed and knowledgeable post on the topic. Thank you for providing such a grounded perspective. Now if only our elected officials were as intelligent, informed, and knowledgeable, and had enough courage to do the right thing. These federal forests are essentially croplands, and should be properly managed as such, for the benefit if the adjacent counties.
BPR13, you obviously want federal PUBLIC lands managed as tree farms, and despise America's judicial system, which allows citizens to challenge illegal activities by federal agencies. What a crock.
Clearcutting destroys biodiversity and almost all other publicly cherished values that Americans want. Your position is that the timber industry rules federal land, and everyone else rides in the trunk.
The reason we got into this mess in the first place is because the national forests were managed as overcut tree farms. Thanks to Defazio and Walden, we're headed right down the dark path- deja-vu all over again. Only in America!
BPR, your revisionist history is showing. Federal lands contribute mightily to the counties even if they're not being logged-- infusions of recreation dollars, habitat for fisheries and fishing industry jobs, plus PILT payments-- with virtually no demands on county resources.
The counties and politicos were warned over and over and over that the national forests were being overcut, the logging levels could never be sustained, but they chose to ignore the warnings in favor of the short-term big bucks via voracious overcutting. Now they're hey but paying the price for their lack of vision. No sympathy here.
This terrible bill will only resurrect overcutting and eventually we'll see the same scenario repeated a few years down the road. The counties need to pull up their bootstraps and stop begging for either federal money, or federal trees, to pay their bills.
BPR, I'm also ex Forest Service. I have a few disagreements with your historic perspective.
The national forests were established in the 19th century, yet timber harvest did not begin in any quantity until the 1950s. So if counties were being compensated due to "loss of a tax base," what did they do for the 60 or 70 years before the gravy train started rolling? How did they pay for things back then?
We, the Forest Service, were over harvesting the woods for at least 2 full decades. Yes, we had sustained yield in the narrow sense of cutting less than what we thought was growing. But we were not able to sustain native wildlife, fish, and water quality. Our own biologists and hydrologists told forest managers time and time again that too much damage was being done to get those trees out of the woods. Managers failed to listen, failed to obey laws on the books, and people who cared about fish and wildlife and water sued. They won, and the current low level of cut is the harvest reaped from what was sown by over cutting and ignoring environmental laws.
The gravy train is not coming back. People who pay 1/5 the property tax rate others pay need to ante up. This isn't being mean or insensitive. Its being a realist.
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