Loggers going into Oregon old growth reserve on Biscuit fire

AP ^ | 1/28/5 | JEFF BARNARD

[SmithL]

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) --

A timber company plans to start logging next week in an old growth forest reserve burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire, setting up a confrontation with environmentalists who believe leaving the dead trees standing is better for fish, wildlife and the forest.

John West, president of Silver Creek Timber Co., said Friday he was just waiting for formal imposition of an appeals court order issued earlier this month.

That order lifted an injunction that had barred logging on two timber sales in an old growth reserve until the resolution of a lawsuit brought by environmentalists.

West said he plans to dispatch the first of up to 85 loggers to begin cutting the 14.5 million board foot Fiddler timber sale once the order of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is filed, which could happen any day.

"We really don't want to have a big fight over this," said West. "It's dead, burned timber. It's going to create jobs. We are hiring, hopefully, as many local people as we can. It will add to the truck and fuel business, be good for mills."

[SmithL]

Someone wants to make money off of dead trees?

[JennysCool]

There's a bunch to be made.

[BossLady]

It's better than buying the wood from China....environmentalists need to start doing some research...;)

[Paladin2]

What's the difference as long as they leave a stump?

[SouthTexas]

They should not be cut down. The whole forest should be allowed to burn to the ground because of uncleared underbrush and dead tress. This is especially beneficial to the wildlife. /sar

[FreePaul]

..environmentalists need to start doing some research..

Research would destroy the whole movement. Why do research when you can whip up emotion among the mentally challenged including liberals with too much money?

[Woodworker]

The left abhors logging in part because anyone who has a job is less likely to vote Democrat.

[Grampa Dave]

It only has taken about 2.5 years to get to this. Many of the dead trees have rotted by now.

[r9etb]

These asshole enviro-whackos are the reason the Oregon fires a couple of years back were so big. The so-called B&B complex fires were sustained by large areas of beetle-killed trees that these bastards had successfully sued to prevent being cleared. As a result, the fires burned tens of thousands of acres of beautiful forest, including pretty much all of the humus layer.

As you can perhaps tell, I dislike the Oregon enviro whackjobs a whole lot.

[Grampa Dave]

A group of Freepers created had a bill board posted in 2002 just north on I5 out of Medford. The billboard lays the correct blame of the terrible fires of the 2002 to the Enviro Whackos.

This Billboard is a prime example of what can happen when conservatives join and work together on Free Republic.

[BossLady]

LOL! Yep....that would require some kind of work though...

[henderson field]

"...environmentalists who believe that letting the dead trees stand is better..."
I'd feel a lot more confident in their pronouncements if they said they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this is so.
Or is this just another way for Marxists to undermine a capitalist economy?

[blackie]

Loggers and Free Republic ~ Bump!