Bunch of Greedy developers. Al Gore please save the planet! Overharvest of trees is killing our rivers. Bush is destroying our fishing habitat!

Check out how they're screwing up the Chehalis watershed. Check out the second picture, http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.co...m&date=20071209

the title of you topic is truly how i have been feeling

people just do not realize what we are doing to the enviorment...
its just not right...

you just cant take and take and take, and do nothing about it...
it will be too late soon...and we will figure that out like we figure
everything else out too late...
the problem is is that we already know that what people are doing is
wrong, but no seams to care...heartbreaking...c

If you want to blame somebody or something, blame the governmental group that has oversight on those kind of projects. Most companies are going to harvest up to the legal amount, some will harvest more because the legal ramifications are less than the profit.

It doesnt work like that Jerry...Once there is a cutting permit released thats that...These lands are looked at from airphotos or now satilite they are very rarely walked by the peeps giving out the permits...I contracted for Simpson for many years and they do go the extra mile on there own to make sure they are enviro friendly..Dont listen to Wey. Co. stupid comercials on TV that they are enviro. friendly because they are the rapers and pillagers...Logging will never stop no matter what as long as there building like they are nor can all the blame be put on loggers if you people dont realize that the new housing developments and strip malls are a huge problem then you got problems...Remember these areas were logged before and there was sufficient drainage back then but guess what where this water use to drain is all paved now..Go back and look at stats on the amount of timber harvested nowadays vs 20 years ago its mind blowing how its been cut back...


Jake-I havent worked much in the industry since 01.....

How about thinking about it like this 'Supply and Demand' If there isnt a demand from John Q. Public then there is no need for supply...


yes yes there is timber exported but very little anymore..
Let me ask you all a question-Do you wonder why schools are being closed even when we dont have enough now? Lets talk a little about State and forest service land...The export of this timber and a far share of the export tax on private timber use to go to our schools...Now what? They have to close schools because there is very little of state or forest service land logged now...
Everyone keeps talking about watersheds well let me tell you this most of our watersheds are private land...Not state or federal...Buy them out? well thats an option but the state and feds offer pennies on the dollar for the land....Ask yourself this would you sell your home for pennies on the dollar?
Its like plumb creek timber which is a burlington northern railroad or government gave them every square mile checkerboard across the US guess what they do now? rape the land as bad as Wey.Co. does not only that but both companies doent even need to get a permit before the start the state has gave them the power to assess the land and do it on there own..

either way our children will suffer from what we do today but its the big picture you all theres not just one thing to blame....

That's exactly right, however it's solely the fault--SOLELY--of the local Lewis County and Twin Cities gov'ts and it can't be denied. I don't thiink the Lewis County Gov'ts will attempt to blame logging. The local hillbillies would tar & feather them for being Environmental Communists.
Loser County has that BS "It provides jobs" line that greedy officials use to facilitate their "any profit at any cost" mentality. That's the mentality down there--No one cares about what's tomorrow because Billy Bob is making a dollar today, and they are so low class down there a dollar is still an ass-load of money.

80% at or below the poverty level. Appalachia West. Come and see what generations of ingrained Conservativism can do for you. When I was a kid there, there were other kids at school who's parents couldn't even afford them socks and in some cases even bath water.

Night before last I saw a guy I used to party with on the TV with the same old stupid look on his face pointing to his washed out mobile home and saying "I durn near lost everything." Well, I was hanging out with that idiot during the flood of '96 and I can tell you he knows as well as I do where the flood water goes when The Chehalis floods. I'm guessing he got a heck of a deal on that mobile home out there in Doty.

Plus of you build in a flood plain you might get wet. I think the solution is to tie flood events to children. If we "allow" flooding then we will be hurting the children.

Hence the quotation.

Dikes and levies only add to bottlenecking of flood waters, backing it further up where the floods didn't used to reach and provide a false sense of security that allows some knuckleheads to put up houses right next to rivers.

he who dies with the most toys_still dies

Why should we kill them quickly instead of slowly and painfully?

Ohhhh...........never mind. I get it now.

If slowing down the clear cutting means more in taxes so that schools stay open that need to be open, then so be it. If taking the bulldozer to a couple of Snake river dams mean more in taxes to subsidize wind farms, new updated coal plants, and yes even nuclear plants, I say do it. And if asking timber companies to change their logging practices to help keep soils intact, and watersheds from turning into mudpits, I'll pay more. Why? Because doing whats economically expedient, what is most palatable to the chamber of commerce, will mean giving up quality of life. I don't want to do that.

I'd rather be making 65k a year living a couple hours away from anywhere on the Washington coast, than making 150k a year living in the middle of Los Angeles. If people want to Californicate the west end of this state, just keep cutting, and keep paving over the soils. Won't be long till we're the Northern Republic of La Habra.

And for once, in of all the posts possible, I almost completely agree with timber. Gov oversight is responsible for letting the timber companies go hog wild. Simpson cuts a lot of acreage on public land in Idaho. I never see the plowed up, torn up clear cuts there, like I do here.

Here's a thought, if Weyerhouser created an unsafe condition by the way they managed the cutting, and that can be directly proven to have led to landslides, debris dams, and flash flooding which caused property damage and loss of life downstream, can they be held civilly and criminally liable?

It will never happen hows going to say "you were wrong in your doings" with when they gave them to power to assess it on there own? Nobody because the richness outweighs the what the criminal outcome would be.. To many dollars to many dollars!!!

Its a tough nut to crack....The affects could be mind boggling if they were to shut off logging all together...



What I dont understand is why alot of you start at the bottom of the food chain with blame..Go to the root of it all! Its about demand!!! If you had a company and had a product that was in demand would you shut down????

Vince,

Weyerhauser can afford a legal dream team compared to the state DNR. That's relevant because DNR has paid off twice in out of court settlements in Skagit County for mudslides that originated from clear cuts and logging roads owned and permitted by DNR. If timber companies had to just once, come down and scoop up all their soil that is washed downstream and carry it back to their private property, that would put an end to irresponsible forestry. However it would also put an end to any forestry on sloping ground, which is the majority of all forests, thereby putting an end to the vast majority of all economic growth in WA. Up to a point that enhances quality of life, and thereafter adversely affects everyone's quality of life. You see, if there were an easy solution, we would have invoked it by now. There isn't. And society is averse to making hard choices. So it's easier to cut and run. And develop floodways. And then become the victims of the default choices that we've collectively made. Pretty damn depressing, huh?

Sg

Do logging companies donate money to campaign contributions?

Do not forget that this was more than a 100 year event, or at least that is what the talk is around work.
It is easy to point fingers at the logging community as they have had a poor enviornmental record in the past in our state, but our new regulations have kept most operators in check during the past ten years.
The state and private industry ( I cannot speak for the USFS) are harvesting timber today under more restricted enviornmental conditions than ever before. "Most" companies in the private sector I have dealt with have their own "HCP" as well as the state and do not want to screw it up.
My area was hit hard, and now a week later we are already back in business in some of the area. Some roads may take years to fix, and some of the damage makes me sick. The money from the timber I put up goes to our schools, prisons, and counties in this state and I am proud of that. We leave large buffers along our streams, and another 8 trees per acre throughout the cut. We also do not operate during the wet season, as to keep the sediments out of the streams. We did not have one slide on the ground I work on, but we did lose roads and bridges due to the increased water flow from the "rain on snow " event.
Are we harvesting to much? Maybe.

Are we using the best science we have today to keep harvesting? Yes.

Should you build a new Wal-Mart and Home Depot in a flood plain to save a twenty minute drive to Olympia? No.

Could we have predicted that 8 inches of rain would fall on 16 inches of snow in a twenty four hour period, and how it would effect the communities in which we live? No.

I do not think we can put blame on clear cuts for what happened.
Did it play a part? Maybe.

Even if not one single tree were cut in western Washington between now and 2020, we'd still have the last 125 years worth of mess to clean up...the regulations are significantly tougher than they have been in the past, to be sure, but 99% of the damage was done long before those "tougher" standards were ever even a gleam in some politician's eye...

Passing new standards doesn't clean up the existing century+ of poor logging practices.

Fish on...

Todd

Why not? Was it an accident that you had no slides on the ground you worked on? Or was there something done differently that kept the ground from sliding off? You should be proud of your stewardship.

If I gave the impression I wanted all logging to stop, then my intentions were poorly conveyed by my writing. I'm frustrated that there isn't a better way to harvest timber. That's a different thing altogether.

Maybe we were just lucky, or maybe it is how we go about things that kept us from having any slides.
While I can say that I am proud of the work I do when it is complete, I cannot say I agree with the amount of cutting that is still going on today.
99% of the damage was done prior to the new regulations,. I agree with that statement. The whole skok drainage is a wonderful example of past logging practices.

I cannot change what was done in the past, but I will continue the work we are doing now knowing that we are trying the best we can to protect our resources and still provide revenue to the citizens of this state.

Loggers arent out to ruin everyones life is this understood?....

These will work but only on ground that permits...

Lots of new clearcuts will appear in the wind damaged areas from Lake Quinault all the way down to Astoria. Port Blakely, Rayonier, and others say there is more than 200MM board feet down in GH County. Probably 5 times that.

Love watching those FB's work.

I believe it would help to hold timber companies responsible for their practices. But I seriously doubt that it put an "end to the vast majority of all economic growth in WA." I used to work out in the woods, and forestry products are a fraction of the state's economy, compared to what they used to be.

Thurston County apparently banned development in floodplains years ago, yet Lewis County can't? And Lewis County claims that filling the floodplain won't raise flood levels? What idiocy. Neither the county, or developers or any one else should be able to get flood insurance in these flooded areas. THAT will stop future development from going where it shouldn't http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2007-12-09-lewis-flooding_N.htm

these sites might help with getting some facts straight

http://www.city-data.com/city/Chehalis-Washington.html

Dave D,

Of course timber companies donate to political campaigns, just like most major and minor industries do. Everybody's out to protect their interests. You realize that laws are made by and for those who benefit from them, right? Most laws are not passed for the "public good."

Vince,

Todd's point about most damage resulting from practices that occurred under the Forest Practices Act prior to 1987 is important. The FPA since then is the most restrictive by far in the nation I believe. But there's nearly a century of work that occurred under no environmental protection, and the landscape is still far from being recovered.

I should have mentioned above that those DNR payouts were related to mudslides off DNR clearcuts that killed people in their homes. If no one had died, they would have trusted the legal system to get them off for just property damage.

Makai,

The SF Skok is more than a perfect example of what not to do. It's also an example of what strong political connections can accomplish. Simpson arranged a give away of US National Forest timber for the company to manage as though it were private forest land. Ironically it was called a "sustained yield" unit, and of course it's just the opposite. Probably the most devastated forestland in the state. But it sure helps to have friends in high places, and the folks at Simpson did, all the way to the White House.

Timber,

That's a cool machine. How large a stem can it handle? Looks like about 12 or 14" sticks, little more than pecker poles.

Pisco,

I know that forestry is a small part of the state economy. But it takes a forest practice action in order to clear land and convert it to a car dealership, a shopping mall, a condo complex, etc. Even most western WA ag land was once forested. Forestry is everywhere and permeates much of what occurs in WA. And those forest actions may not cause much environmental harm in and of themselves, but permit subsequent activities that bugger up the landscape for profit, and result in increased flood risk.

Comparing Thurston and Lewis Counties is more than just a difference in competence and stewardship. Both are about preserving status quo. The most flood hazard areas in Thurston Co. aren't ripe for prime development, and that's probably as much coincidence as it is intelligent planning. The main developed areas in Lewis Co are in the Chehalis River flood way and flood plain. Rather than move upslope, the city and county fathers want to maintain the status quo and keep developing where they always have, and besides, it's so handy to I-5, which is no coincidence, since the freeway was routed to pass near the cities. If the major development in Thurston Co. had occurred in a major floodway, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that they would have done the same as Lewis Co. and continued to develop where it made poor environmental sense. The human capacity to remain committed to non-viable relationships with the land (and just about anything else) should never be under-estimated.

Sg

Looks to be the evil doing of a gigantic timber company.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004076111_weycologging16m.html

Steelheadman, where is the picture taken that is in your message?

I have not contributed because I did not want to show Timber my obvious ingnorance of the fine logging practices that have been done in Washington State. Bad logging practice is not the full story in this latest event, but it is a major contributor. When we start looking at the habitat issues that our wild salmonid face, bad logging practices are in the top 3 IMHO.

Ed, Just click on the link and they have pics in the upper right hand corner. Just click next to take you throught the map of Stillman Creek and the mudflow, and last the downed trees. There is also a slide show with 12 pics somewhere on there. I wouldn't want to be the geologist that signed off on this.

Weyerhauser owns (owned?) most of the headwaters of the Chehalis basin. They have been slicking off the timber from the toe of the slope to the mountain top for years. Riparian protection is a common joke in the upper Chehalis.

The next big insult that this "upstanding" corporate group will bring to us is selling off the lowlands to developers... coming soon to a stream near you.

It looks like the decision to log those slopes above Stillman Ck (>50 degrees, >100%, unstable soils on unstable slopes) had more to do with extracting $$ from Weyerhauser's land base, and calculating that the risk of negative PR is < the value extracted from the logs. Not gonna' be much of a crop there in 40 years from now.

OK, I revise my previous statement that most erosion problems from forest lands are due to pre-1987 practices, and that sometimes they're due to current practices as well.

Sg

20 inches of rain had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of slides, timber or not. This one was bad, regardless.

huh

OK

A logger works for a paycheck. That's all it is. With the direction the timber industry has been going since the 80's, if said logger has a family to take care of he can do one of two things. Start a new career with a promising rather than declining future, or hang on to logging and hope there is enough work to keep him busy until he can retire.

Timber - the loggers generally don't make the decisions where to log or how to log. At least with the big companies that is. What needs to happen is some fundamental shifts in how we log the land. Clearcutting is efficient, but it is penny wise and pound foolish (as we recently have seen). We all will have to pay more for all of our wood products but it will be better for the environment and we will have less of an impact on the riparian habitat and the fish.

The days of extremely labor intensive logging are going away. Just as the milkman has generally vanished, so will the logger - replaced by a more efficient technology. It's a really old story that will continually repeat. So, some loggers will still be loggers, adapting to the new technology and rolling with the punches. Most will need to find new work, what that is, I don't know. Some will probably find work keeping the logging machines in trim, there will still be truck drivers, some mill workers, etc.

Off OT kinda. Yea, I know - you don't want to wade thru some codger's trip down memory lane but here you go anyway. My Great Grandfather moved to Marysville in about 1892, bought some farm land on Ebey Slough and dug out a log pond. The logs were brought in by rail or later by truck, boomed up into a raft and floated down the slough to be picked up by a tug and taken to the booming grounds in the Snohomish River and the other sloughs in the delta prior to going to the mill.
My Dad had a qypo log outfit with his Uncle. The truck was a WW2 rig with log bunks and a trailer. They had a cat with an arch and a donkey that was rigged to a spar tree on the landing. A gypo is an independent logging outfit.
I worked in the woods with him for a few weeks for a couple of summers at the age of about 9 or 10 as a whistle punk. If the logs were in a ravine, the donkey operator could not see if the logs were ready to highlined to the landing to be loaded on a truck. A whistle punk was used to signal the donkey operator when the log is hooked up to the high line. I was the signal guy.
He did selective logging for property owners or bought the trees to fall and sell to the mill. He logged around Arlington, Granite Falls, Tulalip Rez, among others. He worked from sunup to sundown and in the winter, hand split shakes after dinner.
After Dad decided he was ready to try something different, he bought the land, selectively logged it, subdivided and sold it.
Logging, like commercial fishing, was a whole way of life that most younger people now days, especially new comers, aren't even aware of.There's a street in Marysville named after my Great Grandpa. Dad cut down the town Christmas tree for several years for Mayrsville. Thanks for letting me lay this out. I haven't thought very much about this for a long time. Guess I just miss my Dad. He was 84 when died last December.

I already talked about this earlier.....I know exactly how it works...Been there done that....There needs to be tighter regs for the big companies like I said earlier some of them do there own studies and decide to log it themselves...There are alot tighter regs on the private folks and I'm sure if any of you have ever tried to get a cutting permit to take some trees off your land you would have found this out...

Salmo
"You realize that laws are made by and for those who benefit from them, right? Most laws are not passed for the "public good."

That's the point I was going to make. It's the fault of the politicians.

Sorry about the rambling off-topic post . I guess L'ecole No.41 Recess Red brings out the rambling old man in me. Good wine with a steak though.