Anybody else getting tired of A) Forest Service and BLM burning slash, while other government agencies insist that heating with wood is BAAAAD? B) Very boring subjects on this forum lately, like who is mad at whom, etc?

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Anyone out there share my concern? Anybody from a timber state?

At least when we burn wood, we're heating our homes, and even though it pollutes, we're polluting with a renewable resource, rather than a fossil fuel. These government slash burns aren't doing anything but wasting wood. They should be chipping the slash, not polluting our air (not to mention causing wildfires (e.g. Los Alamos)

If you don't know what I'm talking about in the boring subjects department, so sorry....

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.neet), May 25, 2000

Answers

>> They should be chipping the slash, not polluting our air... <<

I'm from a timber state: Oregon. A 3rd-generation native Oregonian.

I must agree that chipping would be better than burning. Slash burning is cheap. Chipping would require gas engines and pollute, too. But it would be a net gain over slash burning.

Furthermore, I'm ready for a moratorium on cutting in national forests, redirecting the financial aid to timber-dependent communities. We already subsidize logging to the point where it's a net money-loser for the government. We would be better off using the same subsidies to build up sustainable economies in resource-harvesting areas, rather than spending tax money to build the roads to log the forests.

Just my two cents.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), May 26, 2000.


At the risk of sounding like a former Doomer (which I was, until late 1998) I still see the value in having a lifestyle that's not totally dependent on the "grid". Guess that's just the old deep-woods camper talking.

Someday I'd like to have solar power pay for a good part of the total; wood heat a good part of the house, if not all. And so on. But I'm not saying this as a panic pusher who sees this as a do-or-die thing. Saving money and environmental resources just makes sense, that's all. And if anyone's worried about wood-burning/creosote pollution, let's talk about radioactive emissions from coal-burning plants....(forget the nukes)....that's been a hot-button for twenty years. But ya hear nothing about it.

-- Chicken Little (panic@isover.now), May 26, 2000.


Brian, isn't it amazing that the Feds can take a forty acre piece of land with a half million board feet of timber on it and LOSE money? If you or I did so, our families would have us committed!

I personally had a timber beast remove a PORTION of my fairly low density forest (for a bug infestation). I received over fifty thousand bucks, after all expenses, and I not only didn't have to do any of the work, but also the loggers built almost a half mile of driveway and installed a sixty foot flat car bridge as part of the deal! (and this was for only about 100K board feet of timber)

The way some of the federal forest managers operate is like advertising that you're willing to pay someone to own your house, or your car, or something!

C Little, I THINK I agree with you on all points.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.neet), May 29, 2000.


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