Rob Neff (No Trees? Blame Congress on 8/25) was ahead of his time in blaming the Timber Salvage Rider for the logging at Bell Smith Springs. The timber sales at Bell Smith are not currently classified as salvage sales, although they likely will be in the future.

Several years ago when the trees surrounding Bell Smith Canyon were first offered to the timber industry, the Forest Service made the mistake of being honest about their intentions. They called those timber sales commercial pine clear cuts and admitted that they were below cost. That is, they were going to lose tax money stripping all the trees from the hills. The public went ballistic, and sales were withdrawn.

In a backlash against Forest Service policies, Congress prohibited the agency from using funds for clear cutting on the Shawnee National Forest. The agency responded by saying that they would not clear cut; they would shelterwood cut. Shelterwood cutting is in fact a two-stage clear cut. However, the benevolent-sounding euphemism fooled some folks.

Advertisement

Members of Congress tried to further protect our forest and our treasury by prohibiting below-cost sales on the Shawnee. Thus was the Ecological Restoration scam born.

In order to sidestep the intent of Congress and avoid the wrath of the public, the Forest Service said, We are still going to cut the same trees, and we are still going to lose the same $454,000 in tax money. But these are not timber sales; this is Ecological Restoration.

Ecological Restoration more accurately known as Illogical Deforestation is not going to fly either. Lawsuits by concerned citizens are burying it.

This sequence of events recalls a conversation I had several years ago with the district ranger who signed all the various decision notices for attempts at logging Bell Smith. He said, We may have to cut those pines as a salvage sale. When I inquired how he could justify salvage logging if no fire or natural disaster had damaged the trees, he said Pre-infestation salvage we may have to cut those trees before they have a chance of being infested by insects.

Stay tuned. There is no depth to which people won’t sink to profit from public land.

Friends of Bell Smith Springs

Graduate student in elementary education

Advertisement*