m pyre
01-09-2009, 01:35 PM
Historically the state of Montana has had a lot of logging in its western half, and logging has driven the economy for many years. But with newer industrial-typed logging practices (ref. Maxxam and others) the resource has gone from the Weyerhauser-puffery of "America's renewable resource -- trees" to a hell that resembles strip-mined hilltops in Appalachia -- clear-cutting which destroys topsoil and makes landscapes ugly to boot.
One of the large logging businesses operating in Western Montana is Plum Creek Timber. Plum Creek has seen the writing on the wall, it knows that the clear-cut industrial logging is going away because people are fed up with the destruction it wreaks. So Plum Creek is shifting gears. It is becoming a real estate developer. It has decided that its business plan will be to clear cut land, and then build houses on that land.
During Bush/Cheney, Plum Creek and other timber companies have been working with Mark Rey, Secretary of Agriculture, to enable "development" of US Forest Lands. Plum Creek has brokered a deal with Rey to have logging roads paved, so that the accessed clear-cut lands could be "developed" for real estate purposes. From the WaPo recently --
U.S. Forest Policy Is Set to Change, Aiding Developer
Shift Would Let Firm Pave Logging Roads
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 4, 2009; A02
LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.
Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.
The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.
But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.
Scenic western Montana, where Plum Creek owns 1.2 million acres, would be most affected, placing fresh burdens on county governments to provide services and undoing efforts to cluster housing near towns.
"Just within the last couple weeks, they finalized a big subdivision west of Kalispell," said D. James McCubbin, deputy county attorney of Missoula County, which complained that the closed-door negotiations violated federal laws requiring public comment because the changes would affect endangered species and sensitive ecosystems. Kalispell is in Flathead County, where officials also protested.
The uproar last summer forced Rey to postpone finalizing the change, which came after "considerable internal disagreement" within the Forest Service, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report requested by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). The report said that 900 miles of logging roads could be paved in Montana and that amending the long-held easements "could have a nationwide impact."
Tester and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, then asked for an inquiry by the inspector general of the Agriculture Department, which includes the Forest Service.
"I think we need another set of eyes on it," Tester said Friday. "I don't think that's running out the clock. If this is a good agreement, then what's the rush? Why do it in the eleventh hour of this administration?"
Probably because the proposal would die after Jan. 20. Obama sharply criticized Rey's efforts during the presidential campaign, seizing on concerns that a landscape dotted with luxury homes would be less hospitable to Montanans accustomed to easy access to timberlands.
"At a time when Montana's sportsmen are finding it increasingly hard to access lands, it is outrageous that the Bush administration would exacerbate the problem by encouraging prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off," Obama said.
Rey vows to act soon. In a Dec. 12 letter to Tester and Bingaman, he repeated his logic for granting Plum Creek the changes it requested, then closed with a promise to schedule briefings "to describe how we plan to proceed."
In a phone interview Wednesday, Rey said he will act immediately after the courtesy meetings with the lawmakers. "That will probably be in the next week or so, before this goes forward," he said. Tester said he has not yet heard from Rey's office to arrange a meeting.
On environmental questions, the Bush administration has a checkered record of following through on promised eleventh-hour changes, said Robert Dreher, a lawyer with Defenders of Wildlife.
"I suppose it's a legacy issue," Dreher said. "They've already backed off on a couple of things they said they were going to do," including proposed changes on marine fisheries and industrial emissions.
On the other hand, the Bush White House went ahead with controversial changes to the Endangered Species Act, despite opposition from environmentalists.
The Plum Creek deal could be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. Because it amends existing easements, the change involves no 30-day waiting period. But the step carries a political cost that the administration evidently has been assessing since June, when Rey said he expected to formalize within a month the change, which half a year later is still hanging fire.
"It's conceivable they don't want to leave office looking like bad guys," Dreher said. "There's been a lot of concern about the nature of the process and the lack of inclusiveness. You've got the county government in Montana angry over it. If they do this walking out the door, they're kind of ramming it down their throats."
Plum Creek isn't stopping there, of course. Today brought other news of its business status. From a paper in Montana's Flathead Valley --
Logging operations scaled back
By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake
January 9, 2009
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2009/01/09/news/local_montana/news_8768521326_03.txt
With its log yards full and a lower demand for products, Plum Creek Timber Co. is telling logging contractors to stop work in the woods.
"We are not shutting down completely but we are cutting back on the contractors that we need," said Tom Ray, vice president of Montana operations. "We are ahead of pace for putting logs into the mills' inventories right now and we simply need to slow down on log deliveries."
Ray could not estimate how many people might be effected by the temporary shutdown on logging operations, because there are numerous contractors who have fluctuating numbers of employees and subcontractors.
"I would say over 50 percent of the contracting work force will be impacted temporarily," Ray said.
Keith Olson, executive director of the Montana Logging Association, also could not estimate the number of people who will likely be out of logging work until
after the spring runoff season.
Plum Creek has been negotiating with contractors differently, depending on the varying terms of their contracts. Some have been told to stop work entirely, some have been asked to take pay reductions for remaining log loads to be delivered, some will keep operating.
The scaled-back logging operations have filtered down to subcontractors such as Joe Keller, who had five logging trucks and five employees in operation until this week.
"I've got one [truck] going through the end of this week, and then I'm done until whenever," said Keller, who added that many logging contractors and truckers 'saw the writing on the wall" for a work slowdown.
"Right now the mill yards are pretty much full," he said. "They've got a lot of inventory both in logs and lumber."
Ray said the business environment for wood products is "challenging," largely because of significant slowdowns in construction activity that are expected to continue this year.
"Certainly we've seen a downturn," he said. "I think '09 is going to be a challenging year for us. We are hoping that as the building season comes around we will see some uptick in the marketplace."
Keller is also looking to construction as an alternative use for his trucks.
"I have some construction possibilities to put trucks to work," he said, adding that in 2008 he did only about 25 percent of the construction-related work that he did the year before.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com
"Liberals" and "Progressives" at places like New West magazine (http://www.newwest.net/) think that we should embrace this shift and welcome "development" because it's "good for the economy."
They don't even see the harm.
One of the large logging businesses operating in Western Montana is Plum Creek Timber. Plum Creek has seen the writing on the wall, it knows that the clear-cut industrial logging is going away because people are fed up with the destruction it wreaks. So Plum Creek is shifting gears. It is becoming a real estate developer. It has decided that its business plan will be to clear cut land, and then build houses on that land.
During Bush/Cheney, Plum Creek and other timber companies have been working with Mark Rey, Secretary of Agriculture, to enable "development" of US Forest Lands. Plum Creek has brokered a deal with Rey to have logging roads paved, so that the accessed clear-cut lands could be "developed" for real estate purposes. From the WaPo recently --
U.S. Forest Policy Is Set to Change, Aiding Developer
Shift Would Let Firm Pave Logging Roads
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 4, 2009; A02
LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.
Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.
The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.
But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.
Scenic western Montana, where Plum Creek owns 1.2 million acres, would be most affected, placing fresh burdens on county governments to provide services and undoing efforts to cluster housing near towns.
"Just within the last couple weeks, they finalized a big subdivision west of Kalispell," said D. James McCubbin, deputy county attorney of Missoula County, which complained that the closed-door negotiations violated federal laws requiring public comment because the changes would affect endangered species and sensitive ecosystems. Kalispell is in Flathead County, where officials also protested.
The uproar last summer forced Rey to postpone finalizing the change, which came after "considerable internal disagreement" within the Forest Service, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report requested by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). The report said that 900 miles of logging roads could be paved in Montana and that amending the long-held easements "could have a nationwide impact."
Tester and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, then asked for an inquiry by the inspector general of the Agriculture Department, which includes the Forest Service.
"I think we need another set of eyes on it," Tester said Friday. "I don't think that's running out the clock. If this is a good agreement, then what's the rush? Why do it in the eleventh hour of this administration?"
Probably because the proposal would die after Jan. 20. Obama sharply criticized Rey's efforts during the presidential campaign, seizing on concerns that a landscape dotted with luxury homes would be less hospitable to Montanans accustomed to easy access to timberlands.
"At a time when Montana's sportsmen are finding it increasingly hard to access lands, it is outrageous that the Bush administration would exacerbate the problem by encouraging prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off," Obama said.
Rey vows to act soon. In a Dec. 12 letter to Tester and Bingaman, he repeated his logic for granting Plum Creek the changes it requested, then closed with a promise to schedule briefings "to describe how we plan to proceed."
In a phone interview Wednesday, Rey said he will act immediately after the courtesy meetings with the lawmakers. "That will probably be in the next week or so, before this goes forward," he said. Tester said he has not yet heard from Rey's office to arrange a meeting.
On environmental questions, the Bush administration has a checkered record of following through on promised eleventh-hour changes, said Robert Dreher, a lawyer with Defenders of Wildlife.
"I suppose it's a legacy issue," Dreher said. "They've already backed off on a couple of things they said they were going to do," including proposed changes on marine fisheries and industrial emissions.
On the other hand, the Bush White House went ahead with controversial changes to the Endangered Species Act, despite opposition from environmentalists.
The Plum Creek deal could be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. Because it amends existing easements, the change involves no 30-day waiting period. But the step carries a political cost that the administration evidently has been assessing since June, when Rey said he expected to formalize within a month the change, which half a year later is still hanging fire.
"It's conceivable they don't want to leave office looking like bad guys," Dreher said. "There's been a lot of concern about the nature of the process and the lack of inclusiveness. You've got the county government in Montana angry over it. If they do this walking out the door, they're kind of ramming it down their throats."
Plum Creek isn't stopping there, of course. Today brought other news of its business status. From a paper in Montana's Flathead Valley --
Logging operations scaled back
By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake
January 9, 2009
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2009/01/09/news/local_montana/news_8768521326_03.txt
With its log yards full and a lower demand for products, Plum Creek Timber Co. is telling logging contractors to stop work in the woods.
"We are not shutting down completely but we are cutting back on the contractors that we need," said Tom Ray, vice president of Montana operations. "We are ahead of pace for putting logs into the mills' inventories right now and we simply need to slow down on log deliveries."
Ray could not estimate how many people might be effected by the temporary shutdown on logging operations, because there are numerous contractors who have fluctuating numbers of employees and subcontractors.
"I would say over 50 percent of the contracting work force will be impacted temporarily," Ray said.
Keith Olson, executive director of the Montana Logging Association, also could not estimate the number of people who will likely be out of logging work until
after the spring runoff season.
Plum Creek has been negotiating with contractors differently, depending on the varying terms of their contracts. Some have been told to stop work entirely, some have been asked to take pay reductions for remaining log loads to be delivered, some will keep operating.
The scaled-back logging operations have filtered down to subcontractors such as Joe Keller, who had five logging trucks and five employees in operation until this week.
"I've got one [truck] going through the end of this week, and then I'm done until whenever," said Keller, who added that many logging contractors and truckers 'saw the writing on the wall" for a work slowdown.
"Right now the mill yards are pretty much full," he said. "They've got a lot of inventory both in logs and lumber."
Ray said the business environment for wood products is "challenging," largely because of significant slowdowns in construction activity that are expected to continue this year.
"Certainly we've seen a downturn," he said. "I think '09 is going to be a challenging year for us. We are hoping that as the building season comes around we will see some uptick in the marketplace."
Keller is also looking to construction as an alternative use for his trucks.
"I have some construction possibilities to put trucks to work," he said, adding that in 2008 he did only about 25 percent of the construction-related work that he did the year before.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com
"Liberals" and "Progressives" at places like New West magazine (http://www.newwest.net/) think that we should embrace this shift and welcome "development" because it's "good for the economy."
They don't even see the harm.