Posted on 12/30/2005 10:18:05 AM PST by yoe
EUREKA, Mont. -- My friend Jim Hurst auctioned his sawmill in August.
Jim's decision to pack it in after 25 years of beating his head on the wall made big news here in northwest Montana but, alas, not a peep from this newspaper or the New York Times. That's too bad, because the loss of our family-owned mills also signals the loss of technologies and skills vital to our efforts to protect the West's great national forests from the ravages of increasingly fearsome wildfires.
You would think environmentalists who campaigned against harvesting in the West's national forests for 30-some years would be dancing in the streets. ... Railing against giant faceless corporations is easy, but facing the news cameras after small family-owned mills fold has turned out to be very difficult.... across much of the West there is a gnawing sense that environmentalists have hurt a lot of underdogs in their lust for power.
[snip] Environmentalists also face a problem they never anticipated. Recent polling reveals some 80% percent of Americans approve of the kind of methodical thinning that would have produced small diameter logs in perpetuity for Jim's sawmill. We Americans seem to like thinning in overly dense forests because the end result is visually pleasing, and because it helps reduce the risk of horrific wildfire -- a bonus for wildlife and millions of year-round recreation enthusiasts who worship clean air and water.
[snip] ..."Environmentalism increasingly reflects urban perspectives. As people move to cities, they become infatuated with fantasies about land untouched by humans. This demographic shift is revealed through ongoing debates about endangered species, grazing, water rights, private property, mining and logging. And it is partly a healthy trend. But this urbanization of environmental values also signals the loss of a rural way of life...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I'm going to have to take you up on that and I'll get back to you. I've been told there is some kind of logo or sticker related to Agenda 21 at a local outlet of one of the local national parks--Isle Royale.
What I have found disturbing around here is the trend of a unit of the local university that participates in local education. Some of the projects they sponsor are good, hands-on kind of things. Others, pure propaganda. For instance, there is a musician that came to local schools a few years back to sing his songs that humanize trees and squirrels. Walkin' Jim Stoltz.
One line of a his lyrics goes something like: "...if they cut you and gouged you, oh what a deal!..." related to logging trees who "bounce squirrels on their knees." Here, where logging is very much a way of life, I wonder how the 10-year-old whose father works with his hands in the woods felt about that song? But the guy goes everywhere, rural areas, like here, and urban areas, where numbers are greater. Reminds me of a line I read in a book:
it isnt logical to expect expertise from inexperienced urban youth, blinded by fashionable ideology.
If the propaganda is working here, on rural children, imagine the effect it is having on urban youth. We don't have to imagine, do we, we see it all around us.
Just curious. How many and for how long did sawmills operate in your town?
All I know about such things is pretty much limited to pre-1860 East Texas. Would be interested to read what you have to write about a more northernly and more current locale. :-)
Surf Agenda 21; follow the various agencies etc. The La Paz Agreement now runs into Mexico City. It use to be a 120 mile strip of land half on the US side and half on the Mexican side from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. - little colonies have sprung up in this no mans land and American tax dollars fund most of it with nary a vote from We the People. *~*
Which further broke down our sovereignty and nation independence. A great deal for America!
The rural county I live in has one last sawmill, one small one closed a few months ago. Used to have lots and lots. More people used to be gainfully employed. It's a large county with lots and lots of trees.
Perhaps we need to consider a new phrase in the lexicon.
Enviromentalist Harvest........ roll it over, let it gently fall from you lips. A foul crop of weeds needs to be uprooted. The enviromentalist harvest will bring a better crop from the garden.
I'm taking a wild guess that Canadians bought a lot of the equipment. Isn't that where we get most of our lumber these days?
I've often wondered why they do that. But any organization, no matter how evil, will find constituents. Consider all the people who might want to contribute to these environmental obstructionists:
1) Lumber industries in countries that don't restrict logging and can profit by selling to the US.
2) People who want home prices to rise i.e., those who already own homes and apartment buildings.
3) Nature worshipers who think humans are a cancer on the planet.
4) People in other countries who despise the US and will do anything to weaken us.
5) People who sell alternatives to forest products.
6) The obstructionists themselves who will take "contributions" in exchange for going away and bothering someone else.
It pays, and it's all just another form of terrorism.
Jim sold off all of the equipment, piece by piece in an auction, he is still operating a pellet plant, on the saw mill site.He is a great person and he and his employees don't deserve this kind of treatment.
No. It just means things are being run by people far, far, away who have absolutely no f*cking idea what in the hell is going on out here.
I like it. Indeed reminds me of the wisdom of Chancy Gardner.
I know this sounds crazy, but is it possible that plain old competition caused this mill to shut down? While there's expected to be a short-term lumber shortage due to hurricane reconstruction, I'm not aware that there's any expected long-term shortage. Weyerhaeuser alone has more than 39 million acres of managed forest worldwide (which makes for some pretty tough competition all by itself).
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