Governor's timber ties raise fears over fish

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 03/31/2002 | Greg Lucas

[Pokey78]

Sacramento -- Despite criticism from the federal government and his own campaign pledge four years ago, Gov. Gray Davis has done little to strengthen logging restrictions around the state's streams and creeks, pushing Northern California's salmon and steelhead trout closer to extinction.

[EggsAckley]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[forester]

Despite criticism from the federal government and his own campaign pledge four years ago, Gov. Gray Davis has done little to strengthen logging restrictions around the state's streams and creeks, pushing Northern California's salmon and steelhead trout closer to extinction.

Bull-oney! The coho salmon rules that the Davis appointed Board implimented in July of 2000, and have extended every year since, placed severe regulatory restrictions on logging near fish bearing streams. As stated at the end of the article: The rules create 150-foot buffers on each side of fish-bearing streams. Loggers are required to leave 85 percent of the canopy within 75 feet of the stream and 65 percent of the canopy in the remaining part of the buffer.

These rules severely damaged the ability of small landowners to harvest their own land here in Kali. This was not enough for the enviros however, because the big companies still are logging their own company lands.

Since taking office, however, he has raised about $336,000 from timber companies while appointing a majority of pro-industry members to the Board of Forestry who have opposed the tough restrictions that federal officials and environmentalists say are needed to restore Northern California's wilderness.

See, it's not about saving the fish; it's about implimenting the wildlands project in Northern California.

I could go on ripping this article apart because it is down right mis-leading and innacurate. The question I have is: Why is the liberal San Francisco Chronicle ripping into their golden boy Davis?

[Fish out of Water]

index bump and fyi

[KC_for_Freedom]

Why is the liberal San Francisco Chronicle ripping into their golden boy Davis?

Its just a ploy to get the issue before the voters. They will equate Simon with the devil and give Davis a passing grade when the election is near.

I too have observed very high regulatory control in riperian zones around rivers on private land. They regulated our logging and kept us out of river zones. What else could they do except plant spotted owls in the forest?

[forester]

What else could they do except plant spotted owls in the forest?

What they were after was no-cut buffers on the non-fish bearing creaks and seasonal streams. As stated in the article:
The rules do not contain protections for streams without fish or gullies that become watercourses during the rainy season. The large landowners presented maps to the Board when these rules were debated showing in graphic detail how these buffers would overlap one another, thus rendering over half of their land off-limits to logging.

The enviro's are right in that the big companies are benefiting from the status quo. This is because the timber industry has always been plagued by over production. Regulation always falls heaviest on the smallest, thus we now have regional monopolies in California's timber industry - they are the only ones that can afford to do business here. These regulations restict production from the small private landowners thus preventing unwanted competition. Saving the fish hell - it's a protection racket.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Saving the fish hell - it's a protection racket.

Thanks for the info. In our case, the watercourse is not a fish bearing creek. Due to a golf course taking too much water. We are actually interested in bringing the steelhead back on our land, despite the regulations, because we would like to see spawning runs there. The F & G is not helping us get a year round run above ground into the Smith River but they do regulate our cutting in the river zone, and include a river that does not flow all year in the restrictions. Oh well, more trees to grow. (Our trees are not old growth, as the land was logged before we purchased it.) The golf course is signing on to a water district and so may need less of the water from our creek in the future, maybe we will have fish someday soon.

[Carry_Okie]

So many lies. So little time.

My chainsaws are hot and so am I (it's 80° today). Chuggin Gatorade loaded with a couple grams of calciumn citrate. As soon as we both cool off and sharpen up a little we're going back out for more. Only one oak so far today, cut, piled, stumped, chopped, bucked, and loaded. At least two more to go today. Then I plant one more oak in a filtered spot behind an old fart with only about ten more years or so left in it (PG&E pruning and the County side casting ditch cleanings on its root crown have just about killed it). I located my burn piles to scarify the soil for a fill to support the County road. I'll be all set to take their ditch cleanings. It'll take about 40-50 yards of material in just this one swale. Then there's getting PG$E to relocate a guy pole. Once they are done with that I'll put in some ceanothus and manzanita to stabilize the fill. Then there's weeding it for about five to ten years.

That's just one project.

[meenie]

If Davis is trying to make Coho run up a dry river bed, he is even more stuuuupid than I thought. The man isn't too bright.

[Carry_Okie]

That's not what he is trying to do. It is a corrupt real estate scam and a payoff to select timber companies, global agribusiness, developers, and banks. He is trying to use the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) non-point TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) for sediment released from seasonal streams to gain regulatory control of every inch of dirt in the state by calling sediment a water pollutant. The plan to use the Clean Water Act for land use control comes straight out of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Gland Switzerland. The IUCN is the equivalent of the EPA for the United Nations.

[tubebender]

You are right on about the Water Quality Control Board and their heavy handed tactics. WQCB & Fish and game rule the roost when it it comes to logging today. There is just a hand full of independent sawmills left in Humboldt County. Ell River saw mills just sold last week to an unknown group.(a front for some corp?) Barnum Timber Holdings sold out this month and laid off all but two employees. Timber consulting firms are laying off foresters. The pulp mill can't get enough chips to operate. Power generators are running out of wood waste(hog fuel) to run the plants. PL sold all their logging equipment, dump trucks and logging trucks and are contracting out the work. Loggers have payments to make so they are bidding lower to get work and going broke in the process. Schmdbauer Lumber is importing logs from New Zeland and Wash to keek his mill running.

BTW Doug Bosco is married to the daughter of V Guynup a logger and exporter of logs in Humbold Co.

[tubebender]

BE VERY SCARED OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT...you are so right about WCCB.

[SierraWasp]

Because... It's gonna be much easier to intimidate what they think is an inexperienced Governor Simon than one of their own who knows the whole thing is a SHAKEDOWN from the get-go, anyway!

Just look back at how they intimidated George Herbert Walker Bush! They had more fun writing stories to make him embarrassed and supporting all the "romantic activists" escapades. They did a huge amount of it to Pete Wilson and his Resources Agency head, Dougie Wheeler who fancied himself an EnvironMentalCase.

These guys all know where the votes and the money are!!! It's in the dang blue zones with all the blue nosed citified slickers who can only fanticize about living in the rural areas and living off the land by actually caring for it!

They come out here for a few weekends and one vacation per year and ski, raft, kayak, taste some wine, check out a dude ranch, check out the historical stuff, do a little crafting and antiquing... then go back to their traffic choked, crime riddled metro-money makeing enterprise and send their tax deductible contributions to THE NATURE CONSERVANCY, THE AMERICAN RIVER CONSERVANCY, THE SIERRA CLUB, FRIENDS OF THE RIVER, DUCKS UNLIMITED, THE GREAT VALLEY CENTER, THE SIERRA NEVADA ALLIANCE, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitium...

You know what happens to that money. They refer to it in their grant writing applications to the Feds as a "strong show of support for public money to be used in a PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP" between them and the totally infiltrated Federal/State Agency that is "Empire Building" at full TILT by "Rural Cleansing!!!"

[forester]

Ahh, come on Waspman, quit beating around the Bush and tell me what you really think ;o)

[Phil V.]

. . . pushing Northern California's salmon and steelhead trout closer to extinction.

I'm sorry, Pokey. I can't continue. I know that you were not intending to cause damage to fellow freepers - BUT YOU HAVE!

I cannot continue with this piece o' s**t.

Yo, Waspman!!! run!!! Let's go find Barb boxer and take her fishing on Caples Lake . . . show 'er th' wilderness. OK?

[wattsmag2]

Regulation for dollars. The game show format was perfected by Clinton, and now used by Democrats everywhere.

[Redcloak]

Say what you will about Gray Davis but, unlike Bill Clinton, he stays bought.

[forester]

Timber consulting firms are laying off foresters.

Maybe now the professional foresters will finally stand up for their clients and quit seeing this regulatory quagmire as a giant job security program.

I must admit tubebender, I didn't know the timber industry on the northcoast was in such bad shape. I figured that the timber values there would support the new rule package. The effect on those of us inland was immediate...my workload went down 65% almost overnight.

[forester]

Because... It's gonna be much easier to intimidate what they think is an inexperienced Governor Simon than one of their own who knows the whole thing is a SHAKEDOWN from the get-go, anyway!

I have thought about this for a day and must admit I have never thought of it in those terms. I always think the best of folks, but in this case, the reverse in in order.

[SierraWasp]

I understand. I've suffered that naievty(sp?) most of my life, much to my chagrin, at times.

SnoperCod, yew bedder not be stealin my "nobody likes a renegger," phrase an be given it to the Simonize Campaign without no royalties!!!

Well guys, in a couple of years I'll have been a Californian for 40 years. I've watched the EnvironMental Vowell Movement cause big water, power and transportation get arterial sclerosis by pouring salt directly into the wounds they've caused.

It used to be a pretty good natured State that was the envy of the world, since the beginning of the world. Now I think it's going to start enduring congestive heart failure!

Someone I know well once said that "commerce has done more to help humankind that all other forces such as politics, diplomacy, philosophy and even religion. Science is good, but it depends on commerce for it's support as do the others."

I wonder what you guys with your fine minds think about that. The world is still searching for an honest man/woman, but still can't stand him/her when they find one or the other!!!

Did anybody see the article in the LA Slimes about the hatchery salmon clubbing deal and the guy that videotaped it?