Posted on 04/22/2002 3:14:58 PM PDT by glock rocks
| Court Puts Tree Harvest on Hold |
. |
SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE GUNNISON -- Sam Satterwhite may throw in the towel on being a logger. A recent U.S. District Court ruling on a lawsuit in favor of two environmental groups to stop the sale of contracts to salvage Engelmann spruce trees killed during a beetle infestation in the Manti-La Sal National Forest in central Utah, means Satterwhite cannot harvest the logs necessary for his business of manufacturing components for log homes. "We were really counting on those trees in the Manti-La Sal," says Satterwhite, whose business, Satterwhite Log Homes, is based in Longview, Texas, with a production facility in Gunnison. The lawsuit, filed against the U.S. Forest Service by the Forest Guardian, based in Santa Fe, N.M., and the Utah Environmental Congress, claimed the Manti-La Sal National Forest did not provide necessary information on the populations of blue grouse, an indicator species used to gauge the health of the forest's ecosystem and which relies on forests for survival. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Salt Lake City agreed with the environmentalists that the environmental assessment prepared by the Forest Service for the proposed South Manti Timber Salvage Sales did not adequately address population numbers of the blue grouse as required by the National Forest Service Management Act. A permanent hold has been put on the sale of all contracts to harvest the 27 million board feet of dead wood until the Forest Service complies with the court ruling regarding the blue grouse. In addition, last month the U.S. Commerce Department approved punitive duties on imports of softwood lumber from Canada that Satterwhite regularly buys. The U.S. contends Canada subsidizes logging operations on public lands that drives down the price of lumber by overstimulating production. U.S. homebuilders, who oppose the duties, estimate they could add $1,500 to the cost of the average new home and lock about 450,000 people out of the housing market. Prior to the March 22 tariff decision, Satterwhite reported paying about 12 percent on imported lumber from Canada. That will now probably jump to about 29 percent. "It is becoming a lot harder to make a living as a logger," says Satterwhite. "First, I can't buy wood from the Forest Service because of a small group of fanatics. But now, it has become a lot more expensive to import the wood from Canada making a no win situation." Satterwhite says that the salvage area halted by the lawsuit could completely supply the $23 million-a-year business for nearly four years. Once the timber is delivered to Satterwhite's factory it is milled to specifications necessary for construction of a home which is then shipped to the site where it is assembled. The company, which employs 27 workers at its Gunnison operation, produces about 550 homes a year that are sold worldwide with most in this country being sold in the South. Now Satterwhite is afraid he will have to close down the Gunnison facility which cost $2 million and went into production in 1997. "When we built that plant we made a strong commitment to this community [Gunnison]," said Satterwhite. "There is enough dead standing timber in this state to completely keep us running for many years, if we can just buy the contracts to harvest that wood." To supplement the timber harvested in the Manti-La Sals, Satterwhite imports Canadian "cants," which are logs already partially milled. Satterwhite says that without the timber salvage contracts, he has no choice but to buy wood from Canada until he can find another source of dead trees. The closure of the mill would have a far reaching effect as it trickled down through the economy of Sanpete County, says Sally East, director for economic development in the county of 23,000 residents. "It will be like a domino effect," says East. "As a county we can't afford to lose this business. The mill is a big part but the trucking industry, the wood chips that are sold to [turkey producer] Moroni Feed for bedding, and the boost in housing sales and local business would all be affected by the loss of [Satterwhite's] production." East estimates the impact on local businesses, not including Satterwhite's own productions, to be about $2 million annually. The Forest Service was also disappointed at the federal court ruling, says Elaine Zieroth, forest supervisor for the Manti-La Sal National Forest with offices in Manti. She says the dead trees coupled with dry conditions the past few years has created the potential for devastating forest fires in central Utah unless the dead timber is thinned. "We were counting on [Satterwhite] taking those trees as much as he was," said Zieroth. "If they have to pack up and move on it could mean problems in fire danger as well as economic growth." Such concerns do not deter John Horning, conservation director for the Forest Guardians, who says the financial losses as a result of the ruling in the federal lawsuit must be weighed against the gains of those who benefit. He says his group will continue to battle logging and any other practice it considers harmful to the country's national forests. "It is our long-term goal to end commercial timber sales in the national forests," says Horning. "This will protect the interests of many, but it will also harm the interests of others." Satterwhite, who says the plant milled the last log from its inventory of timber collected from earlier contracts in the Manti-La Sal on Friday, cannot sit idle for long. "We can't hold our breath forever," said Satterwhite. "We will be forced to move where we can find logs if we can't get another sale going here." |
Hope his house burns first. I bet he has a redwood deck and hardwood floors too.
Reminds me of K.D.Lang. Peta spokesperson and almost singer who showed up at a Peta news shot wearing leather cowboy boots, leather belt and a leather hat band. Boy did that male reporter make her look stupid when he asked her if she knew where leather comes from.
...and cost this cash poor state a fortune to take care of... in lieu of other threats. totally asinine.
Could Judge Kimball be taking this personally?
LOL... good observation.
haha
naw, i was just having a regular monday (gack) and came across this article. it wasn't until
i started reading posts that i realized it was earth day, and i remembered that it (not coincidentally)
was "celebrated" (double gack) on lennin's birthday.
however, LOL, we do have plenty of poison ivy and oak, and quite a lot of stinging nettle here,
and hey, by the time fire season is done, maybe i could just roll in the ashes. yup.
earth day, my butt - this is about control. ... and i thought we won the cold war.
Actually, the beetles bore hundreds of holes in the trunks of the ponderosa which causes the trees to bleed out losing their sap and dying.
The lumber from infested trees has gray streaks in it after processing but is otherwise usable lumber.
Does anybody but me think that these enviro groups are bankrolled by companies like Weyrhouser (sp?), who have large tracts of private forest land, and who do not want competition from logging on fed-owned forest land?
Of course it wasn't. Some granola eating, tip toe thru the tulips, tree hugging moron convinces an idiot judge to make a decision that will harm the forest in the long run because dead trees are a big fire hazard and should be removed.
Ping...
Um.
I sorta pinged you to a thread that GLOCK ROCKS put up from ‘02.
(gulp)
Carry on....
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