Posted on 11/17/2016 1:00:42 PM PST by beebuster2000
Hello, All! The oyster hatchery has now been effectively shut down for close to a month and I am delighted to report the joy of lower propane and electrical bills.
I just got back from 5 days chasing elk in the Willapa foothills. We did not get an elk, but it was a magical trip. We hiked around 20 miles a day up and down ridges, through clearcuts and along swirling logging roads. We saw a lot of elk, but no 3 point plus critters, the legal minimum. Anyhow, we need more meat like a hole in our heads. It is wonderful country down there. This year Pacific County went for Trump, the first time they have voted Republican since Reagan, I believe.
Driving around, we saw almost nothing but Trump signs. interesting times, but it makes sense. Over the last 30 years, timber harvest volumes are down by 75% as the federal lands, then the state lands have been shut down. Private lands are subject to heavy buffer requirements, meaning about 30% of private lands are now unharvest-able. So they are trying to hold onto a timber economy on 20% of the land they had available 30 years ago. Productivity is way up on the remaining private land, but it just isn't enough.
Then the state shut down the dairy farms, on the premise that the cattle were degrading water quality. There went another 15% or so of economic activity Then the state more or less shut down the gillnet fishery on the Willapa and Columbia. We visited a hatchery one morning and they were loading surplus fish into a rental truck to take to Andy Vitalik in Bellingham. He specializes in processing nasty river fish. And these fish were horrible. Hatchery staff have been shipping 4-10,000# per day, and they are one of roughly 10 hatcheries around the bay. These are fish that in the bay were worth $2-4#, and in their degraded state go for $.30# or less. So transferring harvest from the fishing fleet to the hatcheries means a reduction in value of 90% or so, spread out over 2-3 million pounds per year. And, of course, the money goes to the state, not to the fishermen.
Oysters are still big, robust business down there, but between the Army Corps and the outlawing of ghost shrimp spraying, the business is at least hobbled, if not crippled.
The next thing coming is federal recognition of the Chinook tribe, and incorporation of the Shoalwater tribe into the fishing mix in the bay. If this happens it will transfer 50% of the still thriving crab industry from current permit holders.
Overall, the region has lost maybe 90% of it's economic potential in the last 30 years to government actions. The only things to replace it have been meth and welfare. Tourism is big, but seasonal and ephemeral.
It is interesting to listen to the various liberal pundits yammer on about the archetypal Trump voter. In Pacific County, it seems, Trump voters are just people who have had almost everything taken from them, in the name of "the greater good" and were asked to choose between more of the same and something different. I can't say that I blame them.
The reconquering of the Left Coast has begun, may take a few decades.
The most frightening words in the English Language:
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”................
Pacific WA, and Pacific County, WA are not the same.
Sounds like agenda 21.in action there
“may take a few decades”
The entire population of the referenced county is 20,000.
That’s not much power in a democracy.
Clinton won Washington easily.
I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one... Those 3 states voted for Hillary over Trump by a total of over 1.5M votes.. Granted most of those were in CA.. but still....
With illegal immigration, will be a lifetime if ever that Cali will ever go red again.
As long as Cali keeps getting the rest of the nation to pump funds to it via Hollywood, and the tech sector... and gets a free tax revenue off Trillions of dollars of goods imported for the rest of the country, but flows through their ports, it will be a long time before they have to pay the financial price for their lunacy.... Basically the rest of the nation subsidizes their foolishness whether they want to or not.
In addition, all of California should be given back to Mexico.
Is there a link or a website to the gentleman?
We Idahoans take in a lot of refugees - white folks from California escaping the utopia.
Shoot for the stars....hit the moon. Not too shabby
Mexico would agree. I’m not so sure...
They have pretty much taken it back. And no one has been stopping them, so why not?
I took a road trip through the west coast and went through that county last year. It was depressing. And the author is exactly correct. Meth has taken the place of once thriving industries. Ever since the stupid spotted owl scam leftists have shut down lumber harvesting. Then the salmon scam killed what was left and wiped out anything water related. And all the while saying stupid things like “We don’t need to cut down trees, I get my lumber from Home Depot” as a spotted owl makes a nest in their neon signs.
I was in Pacific County in the summer. There were a lot of Trump signs.
Washington state has been overrun by the enviro whackies. The little towns out by the coast, Aberdeen and Hoquiam, that used to prosper from fishing and timber have become quiet little left-overs of former prosperity.
The Seattle-ites all think the economy is grand with the tech companies and all the new buildings going up. But we have huge homeless encampments and a lot of unemployed folks. It is a classic example of the elites and the suck up to elites squeezing out the working class and the small business owners to create the kind of scenario of lords and ladies and then peasants with no middle class.
Also, I’m sure the people with electric cars do not realize that for most of the country the electricity is provided by the coal mines that Shillary vowed to shut down. Here in the Northwest we have a lot of hydro power, but the greenies would also like to breach the damns to provide salmon access.
bkmk
Thought the same. Pacific WA is too close to Seattle to go Trump. Pacific County has had a tough go for the last 50 years.
“Overall, the region has lost maybe 90% of it’s economic potential in the last 30 years to government actions. The only things to replace it have been meth and welfare.”
Government’s plan: crush the white communities like they crushed the black communities. The only flaw was they showed their hand while white folks still have enough votes to do something about it.
Their only hope is to take the weed business from the Mexicans.
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