Death of a Sawmill

Wall Street Journal on Line ^ | December 29, 2005 | JIM PETERSEN

[Texas_Jarhead]

A family member of mine once owned a small rural saw mill. It provided a decent living for about a dozen folks from the nearest rural town of about a hundred people. My family member sunk all their savings into the place and struggled for several years to turn a profit. A change in logging rules (due to Green pressure) for the nearby forests all but made acquiring decent logs impossible. The mill lasted about 5-6 months after the rules change but the cost of essentially importing logs from other areas was too much to bear.

[Simo Hayha]

Just for the heck of it, call your local City Manager and ask if they know about Agenda 21.

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 isn’t 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.

[Racehorse]

I grew up in a coastal Washington logging and lumbering town.

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.  :-)

[yoe]

There is this: (part of the La Paz agreement)
(UN Agenda 21)
BORDER XXI PROGRAM FRAMEWORK DOCUMENT Executive Summary INTRODUCTION The Border XXI Program (Border XXI or Program) is an innovative binational effort which brings together the diverse U.S. and Mexican federal entities responsible for the border environment to work cooperatively toward sustainable development through protection of human health and the environment and proper management of natural resources in both countries.

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. *~*

[B4Ranch]

Which further broke down our sovereignty and nation independence. A great deal for America!

[little jeremiah]

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.

[bert]

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.

[Dan Evans]

So who bought the mill?

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?

[Dan Evans]

It's obvious that they are only after control and imposing their wills on everyone else and not protecting any environment.

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.

[BooBoo1000]

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.

[Smokin' Joe]

But this urbanization of environmental values also signals the loss of a rural way of life...

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.

[Joined2Justify]

I like it. Indeed reminds me of the wisdom of Chancy Gardner.

[atlaw]

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).