Posted on 02/10/2006 7:17:41 PM PST by NormsRevenge
< /sarcasm>
California is a big state. It's overcrowded in some areas because they aren't using enough land.
The feds have no business in states' land issues.
BTTT
This is USFS land.
Many people don't understand that the Forest Service was set up by the govt. to make money from controlled sales of resources (which is why it is a part of the AG dept.)
Keep your federal crap out of my state. I don't want the fed in my home or my state.
Maybe you haven't noticed but it wasn't overcrowded 20 or 30 years ago. And it was nearly empty a hundred years ago. Since nobody is making more of the natural world and - nobody can - it's rare and precious and should be preserved.
So I have a different solution. People like you should be forced to share their space with others. Why should you have 3 bedrooms all to yourself when you'll do just fine in a closet?
The members of these 'environmental groups' should be arrested for their acts of treason against the citizens of the U.S. (their policies hurt the economies and wallets of U.S. citizens) and they would be put on chain-gangs whose jobs are to cut down these forests.
Its NOT your land, its our land. Didn`t hear you crying when you recieved our $$ for your schools.
Siskiyou County has almost 63% of its land base in federally managed lands (USFS, BLM, USFWS refuges.) There is not enough of a private tax basis to adequately fund essential community services. The federal ownership also precludes any expansion of communities so that development could occur and increase the tax base. When the Forests were reserved, Congress recognized that and passed a law that 25% of the revenue that came from federal lands would go to the counties for schools and roads.
When the Northwest Forest Plan went into effect (northern spotted owl and salmon,) the forests were shut down from timber harvest. Back in the 1950s, we had 50 sawmills, now we have zero - just one plywood mill (peeler/corer) and one door moulding mill.
The Secure Schools and Communities Act was passed by Congress to backfill the counties for this lost revenue. The Act sunsets this year. In Siskiyou County, we will lose slightly under $4 million in revenue for schools, half of our road department's operating budget and the funding for our general county fire (Amador Plan) and search and rescue services. It will be a huge and immediate crisis.
The Act is up for reauthorization. The President wants to renew for five years, but decrease the amount of payment to zero. Then the County will go back to its 25% of whatever harvest is allowed, which has been almost none.
I was told today that 33,000 of those acres slated for disposal are in the Klamath and Shasta Trinity National Forests. Sale would release them into private ownership and back on the private tax roles. I understand that most are along the I-5 corridor. I haven't seen the list, so I don't know how I feel about it. They gave me the URL today: http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html
The environmentalists are being their ususal unreasonable selves. They want to preserve all the land they can to the detriment of essential services for rural communities that are handicapped by the presence of a large, unmanaged, highly flammable, overly stocked and brush choked tinderbox at their doorsteps.
I completely agree.
Well said.
Since 1990, the agency has added about 2 million new acres of land...
Now, nationwide, they might sell 10 percent of that 2,000,000 acres.
Money that would go to rural schools.
Most of the land is not easily accessable by the public...surrounded on three sides by private land, etc.
None of the parcels are in wilderness or other protected areas...
The national forest system encompasses about 193 million acres nationwide, and the agency doesn't expect a net loss of lands due to other ongoing acquisition programs.
The law is intended to help rural communities and rural schools that have seen National Forest logging-based revenue drop as timber cutting dwindled across the country.
As a native of northern California and a hunter, occasional fisherman and camper, I disagree with selling any national forest area.
I wish and propose that the government would manage the forests, lands and habitat. Cattle run in the Sierras and are the cause of the death of thousands of deer from antrax!
Read it again! You wont hear about it in the NYTime or Sacramento Bee of SJMurkyNews, but there it is! Deer killed by the thousands from antrax acquired from cattle!
Forests are burned each year that could be harvested as a cash crop! This would add $$ to the Federal and State coffers. But no, Feinstein and Boxer wont support forest management.
So let's do it right! This is PUBLIC LAND! It should remain that way!
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