Posted on 08/02/2002 4:07:39 AM PDT by brityank
Forest spending $1,000 a day to watch Earth Firster
By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
The Bitterroot National Forest is spending $1,000 a day to watch an Earth First! protester who is sitting in a tree near a salvage-logging operation, a forest official said Thursday.
But deputy forest supervisor Spike Thompson said the 24-hour-a-day surveillance is necessary to ensure the safety of federal law enforcement officers, loggers and the protester.
"We have carefully evaluated the situation and continue to do so on a daily basis," Thompson said.
Last month, two Earth Firsters climbed onto platforms in trees intended for logging in the Big Bull timber sale area, hoping to stop the helicopter logging operation. On July 23, the Forest Service removed the protesters' cache of food and other supplies and began a round-the-clock watch.
"We are committed to enforcing the law and allowing the logging contractors to do their job," said Dale Brandeberry, supervisory law enforcement officer on the Bitterroot forest.
When Joel Wyatt came down from his tree Monday, officers were there to arrest him. He has since been charged with four violations: maintaining a structure without a permit on national forest lands; violating the forest's 14-day camping limit; threatening, resisting, intimidating or interfering with a forest officer; and creating a hazard by stringing ropes through several trees and obstructing a helicopter landing in the Big Bull timber sale area.
A second protester - a female - remains in a tree and will be arrested when she climbs down, Brandeberry said.
"The safety of our law enforcement personnel, loggers and those involved in the protest is a priority," Thompson said, as is enforcing the law and arresting the protesters. "We believe the best way to deal with this situation is to be on site when they come down."
Thompson said he offered the Earth Firsters space in the parking lot outside the Bitterroot forest headquarters in Hamilton, but the protesters declined.
"I told Earth First! I believed in their right to protest without breaking the law and would provide them a place in front of our office to do so," he said. "I asked them to respect the rights of others, including the loggers' rights to conduct business and to not interfere with that right. I told them they would be arrested if they broke the law."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.
Ping.
My simple solution is just to contiinue logging as though she were not there when it becomes time for that tree to be felled cut it down. The crash as the tree trunk hits the ground will most likely shake her loose and if it does not then when the branches are being trimmed by chainsaw she will be part of the detrious. I feel confident there is nothing in her body that could cause a major problem to a chainsaw.
Even when they're doing the right thing, FedGov is screwin' us.
"Is she down yet?" "Nope, so pass me a beer!"
You must know her well, I mean the places some girls pierce themselves these days. ;-)
Two years ago the treasured forests of Montana were on fire and over a million acres were burned thanks to poor forest management, a draught and a series of lighting storms. The tinderbox forests went up with a vengeance and burned the pristine virgin and second growth timber into a blackened wasteland. As most forest people know the current forest fires are so intense that they burn the ground white hot and sterilize that soil up to 18 inches into the ground. This means that nothing will grow in that ground for decades if ever. The old forests would naturally burn every few years and clear out the fallen branches and trees, but not anymore. The forest clutter accumulates not thanks to the lockout by the courts to proper management and control of the forests.
After those fires the forest products industry wanted to go in and harvest the billions of dollars worth of timber and reclaim ate the lands. This would have furnished jobs for the communities of Montana and improved the habitats of the forest creatures and endangered salmon spawning streams.
The legal eco-terrorists quickly moved in and stopped all forest sales and required multiple environmental impact studies. This not only stalled all clean up and harvesting of the dead and dying trees but halted all reclamation projects in these forests. The trees have since become unmarketable and the billions of dollars worth of timber have become nearly worthless. That apparently was not enough for the terrorists; they have stopped any replanting or forest improvements or erosion control. The Congress spent $8 million to reclamation the forests and prepare it for sale. Most of that money was wasted on impact studies to satisfy the ecos further stalling the salvage efforts.
Talking to a mill person in the Hamilton area he explained the boondoggle that the ecologists call reforestation. Now they have teams of people walking around these burned forests and shooting trees with paint guns. Hopefully, this does not hurt the poor dead trees. Behind the paint gun shooters is a team of .22 shooters. These guys find the trees with paint markings and shoot the pinecones out of the trees. They of course do not collect these cones like the pinecone harvesters and then send them to the tree nurseries to grow and then plant into healthy trees. No, that would make too much common sense. The legal eco-terrorists have forced the forest at your service to just let those cones drop on the rock hard ground and lay there waiting for a chipmunk to open it or open on its own, hopefully in a century or so.
There are two major problems with the paintball selection and .22 caliber method. First, as stated before the blast furnace temperatures of the fires leaving the ground about as fertile as a parking lot have sanitized the soil. Second, there are no animals in that sterile environment left to open the cones and scatter their seeds. And what do these cone hunters get for their valiant effort to waste the forests and taxpayers time? They are paid a measly $18/hr to spend a day in the forest shooting pinecones.
When did the Forest Service and Govt become so fearful of the Sierra Club and their fellow eco-mafia? Are they so afraid of having their buildings burned down that they will be forced to make useless symbolic gestures at forest management that they will not actually manage those forests? Or are they afraid of the PC Gestapo to the level of fearing that not saving a dead tree is equivalent of killing a whale? The fact that these eco-gangsters can stop any actions in the nations forests no matter how positive proves how powerful and threatening they have become.
When will we take back our national treasures and manage them in a smart and healthy manner? The destruction of the Montana forests two years ago by mismanagement of these forests was bad enough. It does not compare to the continuation of a forest desert that is being maintained in the name of ecotopia. Oregon is burning from the same malpractice and we will be heading down the same destructive forest path that continues to scorch Montana!
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
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