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Good morning,

I am a retired extension forester with background in research and teaching.  I have worked in Oregon and Washington.  I offer the following observations.  One, The questioning of Gilleland did come off as a bit pointed.  Two, readers should know that while the Mayor of Cannon Beach regarded Weyco as "homegrown", the first thing Weyco did after aquiring Oregon's Willammette Industries was to liquidate WI's standing sawtimber as quickly as possible to pay for the acqusition.  Weyco also subdivided their Snoqualmie Tree farm north of Seattle.  Three, Erin Kelly summarized the current effects of tax laws on industrial timber managment far better than I could; right on. Four; industrial timber managment is driven by financial return, tempered by social concerns as effected by state forest practice rules, local mores and the like.  Oregon has very good forest practice rules.  Five, I am a bit acquainted with the Longfibre holdings in Hood River County, I'd guess what is being harvested to be mostly second growth, likely third growth in many areas.  Moral here, trees usually grow back even when harvests are left unattended, though planting and weed control offers far more certainty of successful reforestation especially on droughty sites or when aggressive weeds (unwanted vegetation) are present.  Six, the current focus on old growth on public lands has led to ignoring thing like managment for meadows and early seral species such as humming birds, butterflies and of course deer and elk.

Bottom line; forests are a renewable resource that provide a wide range of things we humans want.  Timber harvesting can usually be integrated with those other goals or even aid achieiving them.  Replacing forest with houses or asphalt, or not thinning trees (aka fuel) in fire prone east side forests,  however.....  As long as the forest ground stays intact, managment options are good.

Best,  Wecanoe

posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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Greetings,

Pay per mile is a reasonable idea; the fuel tax is a proxy for that. But, GPS tracking is a crummy way for tracking vehicle use based on tracking ease and civil liberty concnerns. Here is the ease of use argument. Infrastructure wear seems to be a function of miles driven and vehicle weight. Vehicle weight is easy to get. And all vehicles have a fairly accurate and increasingly tamper proof goody to track mileage; the odometer. Rather than mess with complicated and error prone GPS systems, why not base the mileage fee on vehicle weight and annual miles driven? I'll submit that county offices could annually check odometers at far less cost that setting up and maintaining. This would work for petroleum fueld and all electric cars. Next, the civil liberty concnerns are real. We do not need mor government in this area.

Happy motoring!

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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Thanks for discussing this important topic. As a retired forester, living in the heart of the Cascades, I was encouraged that you had a balanced set of speakers starting with Dr. Tom Spies. I have missed much of the discussion, but there are a couple of salient points to keep in mind if they have not been mentioned already. First, "old growth" has general regional ecological definitions; next, the amount of old growth changes over time; according to folks who study it, we are now at or somewhat below minimal level, thus attempting to rebuild the extent of "old growth" is likely a good thing, but on the other hand the Pacific Northwest was never a "sea" of unbroken old growth; diversity in forest age is good. Forests, including "old growth" change over time, sometimes very quickly, somtimes very slowly (the point being, this ain't Disneyland). Climate changes could have major effects on tree species distribution and fire in the not very distant future (decades). Tied to global warming and carbon storage arguments is the fact that solid wood is about the most energy effective building product we have, much better than concrete, steel or aluminum. Last, pressure from non-native weeds (scotch broom, garlic mustard, holly, etc) and animals (possums, barred owls, etc) have likely changed "old growth" and other forests in ways that we may not fully perceive, the changes brought about by these and native organisms, such as bark beetles and black pine scale may be amplified by global warming. Bottom line? Using strict age or size definitions of "old growth" is counter productive. Forest ecologists and managers will need all the flexibility they can get to protect all of our forests from impending ecologic and social changes. As for Oregon's Congressional delegation attempting to legislate a cutting limit based on age or size, that makes about as much sense as them passing a law requiring pigs to fly. We would likely be better served, in fact if they did the latter.

Wecanoe
Carson, WA

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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