Loggers protest in Salem, Oregon 2019

[Riwaka]

Loggers protest in Salem, Oregon 12th June, 2019, the proposal to introduce CARB type rules for Oregon.

Timber families protest climate bills at Oregon Capitol | Timber | capitalpress.com

Timber industry protests climate bills at Oregon Capitol | Timber | capitalpress.com

Does the EPA rules that allowed glider trucks to continue with old engines over-rule the state rules that might ban the old engines?

Have to leave the logs on the landing, if the Forest Owners/ Companies do not wish to up the logging rate to a level that would allow new emissions compliant logging trucks to be purchased.

[Southside]

Rural Oregon and the I-5 corridor are two different worlds, sadly it's the corridor that runs ramshot over the rest of the state.  Take away ranching, farming, and logging from Oregon and there is not much left for about 85% of the state.  Fools they are.  

[barbender]

That's true everywhere. 

[Skeans1]

This state is getting to be a pretty grim future, the valley looks at the rest of it as their nature park. The only thing this state wants is tourism and tech jobs it's getting to be pretty sad to live in such a beautiful part of the country, but it's starting to make a lot of us look at selling out and leaving. Heck one of the mills we deliver to is about an hour or so out of Portland been there forever announced last week they laid of 60% of their work force with no intention of restoring it or any of their other mills plus they are working on selling all their tree farms. One other thing that wasn't talked about in the bills that has been brought up this effects equipment as well kiss all the little guys goodbye unless Aunt Kate hands us all a big check to replace everything like California did to their industry.

[Southside]

Maine did the same "tourism" thing in the '90s. Call centers were going to be the new "good paying job". Well, those all left a few years later and tourism works for what, three months a year?  They keep complaining the population of the state is aging, I wonder why. 

[bushmechanic]

Hang tough guy's, the future looks very bright the forestry industry...when they ban all the plastics they will need to switch to something else to package everything in. Oh wait then the tree huggers will chime in and grumble about all the overcutting and not enough trees to clean the air! Never mind I guess we are all going to be on the welfare . 

[tule peak timber]

Watching........for quite a while. Can't comment as we are trying to figure out what to do...... >:(

[Skeans1]

It's too bad this state isn't an electoral system there's 4 or 5 counties in the whole state that control everything.

[tule peak timber]

A good job this year is real estate broker in Idaho or Montana. Second best job is real estate agent Idaho, Montana. That's a fact...

[barbender]

I don't want to get this moved to the restricted topics area, so I'm trying to not be political. MN is a lot the same as other states, we have several counties with high populations that lean hard left that control the rest of the state. 

[Southside]

Same here in Virginia.  Looking at the last election by county it's a sea of red with dots of blue, but those dots have more population.  

[reride82]

A good job this year is real estate broker in Idaho or Montana. Second best job is real estate agent Idaho, Montana. That's a fact...

Ugh, I know this dilemma all to well. I live in one of the last areas in SW Montana to be bombarded by the influx of out-of-state money, but if the last year is any indicator then our real estate market is about to explode >:( As an engineer/Surveyor it is good news, but as a woodsman and guy that likes the small town it is less than desirable.
Levi

[Autocar]

I am a down to earth kind of guy and our whole problem in our country is most people don't have any common sense. My feelings are big city's yes I agree there's a air issue so most of the  big company's all ready have newer equipment that haul into New York or L.A. So get some common sense my 1987 Autocar with a 300 Cummin's is probably the oldest truck I see every day on the road. In my area it is hard to find a manual trasmission in a class eight truck most young folks can.t shift gears so manual transmission's set on the lot. so I do contribute to the greenhouse gases but my dad years ago remarked the sky's just as blue as it was when he was a young man and he was 90 at the time so here I am at 71 and looks blue to me also. When the E.P.A. got there noses into chainsaw pollution I knew then we were up a creek without a paddle.Like I said at the top of my post Common sense will we ever find it back ? 

[Bruno of NH]

States can't live on tourism alone.
Can't do it NH , Vt or Maine
They are all trying to its not going to happen.
We have the biggest and best liquor stores in Nh

[snowstorm]

Maine did the same "tourism" thing in the '90s. Call centers were going to be the new "good paying job". Well, those all left a few years later and tourism works for what, three months a year?  They keep complaining the population of the state is aging, I wonder why.

not all the call centers closed. on process in belfast has 400 working there. the flash in the pan as i called it was mbna. they built huge office buildings. for around here. there big retreat with cabins and all. he spent a lot of money and made a lot of enemies with some of his land grabs. and then they closed everything. mbna the credit card co 

[Wudman]

In the long run, Rural America holds one trump card.  We feed those urbanites.  When the food truck doesn't roll into the suburban grocery stores every 48 hours, those folks are going to figure out that maybe they should have had a little more respect for those "deplorables". When they reach for something to wipe their butt and there is nothing there......they may get the picture. 

I'm headed out to finish cultivating the tomatoes.  May run to town and grab another case of ammo.  We can hold our corner of the world for a little while and I won't starve in the next six months anyway. 

Wudman 

[thecfarm]

I am stocking up on 22 shells. They are cheap.The first one might not kill them,but it will slow them down enough so the next one will.   :D  :D

[tule peak timber]

reride 82,,, I have tried multiple times to PM you. Thanks  Rob

[reride82]

reride 82,,, I have tried multiple times to PM you. Thanks  Rob

Sorry Rob,
I've been away from the computer for a few days. I left you a voicemail this morning.
Levi

[tule peak timber]

Thanks !  Rob

[gdaddy01]

looks like it made national news , if that means anything .

[Southside]

Yup, Auntie Kate is so desperate to destroy everyone she will intentionally violate the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. I hope it backfires hard on them and complete cahos ensues in her world. 

[DMcCoy]

This isn't entirely about carbon, it's about the money.  This is a bill to raise taxes all wrapped up in environmental protection. Ever since the Dem's got complete control on the legislature they have been raising taxes everywhere, and they are not going to stop because....
It's the public employee retirement system, the proverbial 900 lb. elephant in the room.  26.6 BILLION underfunded.  New hires are not getting good enough pay and the benefits are not good.  It's the Tier 1 people who made out like bandits and continue to do so.  Some will admit it but don't really care.  This isn't over by a long shot.  It is setting up a generational divide that I think is dangerous.  Fix PERS - hahaha.  It's becoming talked about on TV news (finally) as schools are trying to balance budgets. No they will raise taxes until it explodes, you should expect more and more bills like this.  Buckle up!

PERS’ unfunded liability grew by .3 billion in 2018. And the situation may be worse than it appears. - oregonlive.com

A lot of people are a couple of pay checks away from financial ruin.  There will be a full on assault on actual wealth to balance budgets.  

[nativewolf]

So why is the pension system underfunded?  What did the previous 40 years of govt do?  If they are raising tax's to make up for pith poor past financial management I don't see that it is 100% the blame of the current govt, if anything it seems that they are being fiscally responsible.

Our current national budget deficit is out of control, like crazy bad.  Nobody is talking about it but the last few years of growth has come about with a corresponding sickening amount of debt.  

Personally forestry is just so few few machines that I don't get why it is regulated at all.  I mean there are what, a few hundred logging trucks in the state of OR?  Maybe 1000?  That's such a drop in the bucket with serious negative business impacts to so so many people that it seems very shortsighted to a state with large budget deficits.  If the issue is about budget's being blown then the right way to fight this would be to show that this particular rule would, in fact, increase the problem rather than decrease the problem.

[quilbilly]

Oregon has over 1k logging trucks guaranteed. Probably over 5k pieces of machinery in the woods part of the timber industry in Oregon, maybe 10k. Oregon is a big state with tons of timber.

[Skeans1]

So why is the pension system underfunded?  What did the previous 40 years of govt do?  If they are raising tax's to make up for pith poor past financial management I don't see that it is 100% the blame of the current govt, if anything it seems that they are being fiscally responsible.

Our current national budget deficit is out of control, like crazy bad.  Nobody is talking about it but the last few years of growth has come about with a corresponding sickening amount of debt.  

Personally forestry is just so few few machines that I don't get why it is regulated at all.  I mean there are what, a few hundred logging trucks in the state of OR?  Maybe 1000?  That's such a drop in the bucket with serious negative business impacts to so so many people that it seems very shortsighted to a state with large budget deficits.  If the issue is about budget's being blown then the right way to fight this would be to show that this particular rule would, in fact, increase the problem rather than decrease the problem.

They use to pay for it by logging the state forests that now do nothing but burn down and then cost money to clean up.

[nativewolf]

I don't think if you cut all the forest in OR would close a $20+ billion dollar ...well I say that but I guess I could do the math. EDITED:  So I was wrong.  It would if you could find a buyer.  It does contribute about 5% of the States GDP and for only a few thousand pieces of equipment this still seems ridiculous to me.

[nativewolf]

Oregon has over 1k logging trucks guaranteed. Probably over 5k pieces of machinery in the woods part of the timber industry in Oregon, maybe 10k. Oregon is a big state with tons of timber.

Ok so looking it up, there were 9800 folks in the forestry & logging sector in OR and 5.6k or so were in logging.  1 machine per person is probably a bit high, certainly there would not be more than 1 machine running/day/person.    Anyhow, it is interesting and you might well be right about 10k machines of all types.  What proportion of loggers workforce is the trucking?  Are logging truck drivers counted as loggers or truckers?  They are counting the log truck drivers as loggers.  So, if 1/4 are truck drivers that would put about 1400 log truck drivers.   Just curious ...and I have some cracked ribs so I'm trying to take as easy as I can.

[Skeans1]

I don't think if you cut all the forest in OR would close a $20+ billion dollar ...well I say that but I guess I could do the math. EDITED:  So I was wrong.  It would if you could find a buyer.  It does contribute about 5% of the States GDP and for only a few thousand pieces of equipment this still seems ridiculous to me.

Over half the state is government ground and a good share of that is state ground. Of the amount cut we're no where near a yield what actually need to be cut most of it is standing rotting or dying from mismanagement. The Elliot state forest is a perfect example of this they could of logged X amount of it per year and it would of made a good dent in the debt same with the Tillamook state forest.

[nativewolf]

Govt forest management tends to swing around, that will surely change given time.  Cutting 2 million acres would add what to the budget?

[Southside]

Look at the Dead Red as a perfect example. 300,000 acres of beetle killed pine, 20 years in the making, and not a single stick of timber harvested. Now you can't drive a D-8 through the blowdown. Wait until that burns, and the cost of it. So change has not swung much. 

[Skeans1]

What has changed here is more of the land has been locked up since the spotted owl in the 80's. If we logged it at least we wouldn't have these huge fire costs, last year the fire budget was almost 500 million that doesn't include the cost of what was lost either.

[Mike W]

Skeans1 totally agree, the tree hugging owl loving loons that pushed this agenda through destroyed the Oregon logging industry and countless families in the wake of it all.  As you mention, now it just burns without any gain to be had, only loss.  I still remember the cans of "spotted owl" for sale that hit the market shortly after

[nativewolf]

Well I am sure some significant amount of land has been locked up the numbers show that the recession of 2007/8 was terrible for employment...some progress was made led by exports to China.  Now that has taken a hit too and employment fell again.  Spending 20 years in management consulting, well I got used to looking at numbers.  

Not a popular opinion but in a state with such a high amount of govt forest land ownership if environmental regs were the primary cause of change in employment you would not have seen such a drop off due to the recession.  Sounds like they need to get Intel to build another fab facility if they want to dent a $20+ billion dollar hole.  

Even though Virginia is a much smaller state we have about the same amount of privately held land but unlike OR most of the land in VA is held by small landowners and most is hardwoods.  Most of the forest in VA has been cut multiple times over the last 200 years and forest cover today is quite a bit higher than 1940 and much higher than 1920 but the quality of the forest is crap.  Conversely much of OR harvested land has been scientifically replanted and managed so yield and quality are increasing.  

Man OR has a lot of forest, shocking how ownership is concentrated ..even private ownership is mostly in big owners hands.  

I need to get back out there...no time no time...

[Skeans1]

The recession and the government regulations have nothing to do with each other there. The industry especially the state/county side of timber industry have been hurt since the 70's, what you don't see is private ground burning up left and right. How much of their timber goes up in flames and is producing emissions? If this bill goes through I know I'm not the only one that will clear cut 100 acre areas at a time with 5 acre scenic strips between clear cuts and will sell out to a big boy or even better more houses that can't be single family households. Our family has been in the industry with the land for over 100 years in this state, our wood is what PDX is floating on these people are doing their best to drive industry out that's for sure.

[nativewolf]

@Skeans1 oh I agree the bill seems stupid.  Actually shortsighted and likely achieve opposite of intended effect.  Just seems that looking at numbers that the recessions are the real whammys compared to gradual changes caused by govt regs.  Despite changes in govt regs the board foot of harvested timber has been pretty hight except for the recession.  Not living there I attribute it to that wonderful super super productive DF belt that is now getting harvested/thinned.  Does that makes sense?  Despite regs your forest harvest are at 1995 harvest levels ..give or take a bit.  That's freaking impressive.  

Once Federal forest harvest recover fully, there is going to be some serious harvest turned loose, I would not be surprised to see that happen within 30 years.  30 years is not very long..I might be dead but that's another story  :D.  In the meantime I bet they spend money like crazy on burning and thinning.  You know forestry, can you make money burning?  You already are experts at thinning.  

[quilbilly]

Federal forests will never be cut, if you lived here you would know almost all federal clear cuts get protested, especially ones involving old growth. It was estimated at one time just the Olympic, baker-snoqualmie, and Gifford-Pinchot national forests held enough timber to pay off the entire national debt, I believe this was the early to mid 00's. There is plenty of ground in Oregon to make serious headway on the state debt.

[Skeans1]

@Skeans1 oh I agree the bill seems stupid.  Actually shortsighted and likely achieve opposite of intended effect.  Just seems that looking at numbers that the recessions are the real whammys compared to gradual changes caused by govt regs.  Despite changes in govt regs the board foot of harvested timber has been pretty hight except for the recession.  Not living there I attribute it to that wonderful super super productive DF belt that is now getting harvested/thinned.  Does that makes sense?  Despite regs your forest harvest are at 1995 harvest levels ..give or take a bit.  That's freaking impressive.  

Once Federal forest harvest recover fully, there is going to be some serious harvest turned loose, I would not be surprised to see that happen within 30 years.  30 years is not very long..I might be dead but that's another story  :D.  In the meantime I bet they spend money like crazy on burning and thinning.  You know forestry, can you make money burning?  You already are experts at thinning.  

I think you misunderstand what I mean by burning we don't do control burns in Oregon only burning here is in the summer when a whole forest is lost. Best way to prevent a forest fire is to clear cut, thinning helps but is no cure for a good 120 acre clear cut. I wish they would still allow the 500 acre ones you hardly heard of fires or land slide issues then.

[nativewolf]

Federal forests will never be cut, if you lived here you would know almost all federal clear cuts get protested, especially ones involving old growth. It was estimated at one time just the Olympic, baker-snoqualmie, and Gifford-Pinchot national forests held enough timber to pay off the entire national debt, I believe this was the early to mid 00's. There is plenty of ground in Oregon to make serious headway on the state debt.

We as a nation had a pretty crappy job sustainably cutting our national forest.  The US govt hardly made anything from that, just a few billion ($1.5 billion for OR and WA in 2018 dollars was pretty much the high point and that was in 1980) and for reference the national debt was already about $6 TRILLION by 2000.  The entire harvest of the OR and WA forest would might covered 1 day of interest payments and not touched the principal.
The low value of the harvest was laughable and one of the reasons it was so easy for preservationist to shut down clearcuts.  If they had been making real money the arguments would have been stronger, I had friends on both sides as economic experts but the economic argument for harvesting was usually weak.  This will likely change as the forest matures and pricing improves.  If pricing does not improve than there is not much reason to harvest.  State and local rules to improve the salmon fisheries will, over time, reduce the "costs" of harvest.


I love forestry, I enjoy and am proud of what we do with forest harvesting.  At the same time we are pretty small potatoes on the scale of our nations economy.  But also in terms of environmental damage due to things like emissions which is why this bill is just crazy stupid.  1 cement plant is doing more damage than all the logging trucks in OR and WA.  OR and WA need more harvest and harvest of marginal forest is clearly going to be required for fire safety.  If they pass this bill who the heck is going to do the thinning on national forest lands.  
Personally if I were you guys I would form a union and blackball the govt entities and refuse to contract with them at all.  No thinnings, no fire work, no harvest.  Let them sit and stew in their own terrible policies.  I bet at this point that they need you more than you guys need them.

[nativewolf]

@Skeans1 oh I agree the bill seems stupid.  Actually shortsighted and likely achieve opposite of intended effect.  Just seems that looking at numbers that the recessions are the real whammys compared to gradual changes caused by govt regs.  Despite changes in govt regs the board foot of harvested timber has been pretty hight except for the recession.  Not living there I attribute it to that wonderful super super productive DF belt that is now getting harvested/thinned.  Does that makes sense?  Despite regs your forest harvest are at 1995 harvest levels ..give or take a bit.  That's freaking impressive.  

Once Federal forest harvest recover fully, there is going to be some serious harvest turned loose, I would not be surprised to see that happen within 30 years.  30 years is not very long..I might be dead but that's another story  :D.  In the meantime I bet they spend money like crazy on burning and thinning.  You know forestry, can you make money burning?  You already are experts at thinning.  

I think you misunderstand what I mean by burning we don't do control burns in Oregon only burning here is in the summer when a whole forest is lost. Best way to prevent a forest fire is to clear cut, thinning helps but is no cure for a good 120 acre clear cut. I wish they would still allow the 500 acre ones you hardly heard of fires or land slide issues then.

No controlled burns?  I did misunderstand.  I love burning, we burn all we can, mostly to improve hunting.

[Southside]

As far as the thinning goes, I kid you not, on Federal ground it's summer help picking up sticks by hand and putting them into piles so later on govt will come in and do a "prescribed" burn of the sticks. They used to be called "controlled" burns but too many private landowners lost ranches due to the lack of control so that name went away.

Think that's crazy? There was a biomass plant in the eastern part of the state that broke ground, the fuel source was going to be the same pickup sticks, loaded by hand, to feed the plant. I was on a committee involved with the planning and I was asked to leave when I told them it would never work and would leave when the subsidy money dried up. Footings were poured, grants fell through, nothing more ever became of it. That's the special kind of crazy out there guys face. 

[quilbilly]

Federal forests will never be cut, if you lived here you would know almost all federal clear cuts get protested, especially ones involving old growth. It was estimated at one time just the Olympic, baker-snoqualmie, and Gifford-Pinchot national forests held enough timber to pay off the entire national debt, I believe this was the early to mid 00's. There is plenty of ground in Oregon to make serious headway on the state debt.

We as a nation had a pretty crappy job sustainably cutting our national forest.  The US govt hardly made anything from that, just a few billion ($1.5 billion for OR and WA in 2018 dollars was pretty much the high point and that was in 1980) and for reference the national debt was already about $6 TRILLION by 2000.  The entire harvest of the OR and WA forest would might covered 1 day of interest payments and not touched the principal.
The low value of the harvest was laughable and one of the reasons it was so easy for preservationist to shut down clearcuts.  If they had been making real money the arguments would have been stronger, I had friends on both sides as economic experts but the economic argument for harvesting was usually weak.  This will likely change as the forest matures and pricing improves.  If pricing does not improve than there is not much reason to harvest.  State and local rules to improve the salmon fisheries will, over time, reduce the "costs" of harvest.


I love forestry, I enjoy and am proud of what we do with forest harvesting.  At the same time we are pretty small potatoes on the scale of our nations economy.  But also in terms of environmental damage due to things like emissions which is why this bill is just crazy stupid.  1 cement plant is doing more damage than all the logging trucks in OR and WA.  OR and WA need more harvest and harvest of marginal forest is clearly going to be required for fire safety.  If they pass this bill who the heck is going to do the thinning on national forest lands. 
Personally if I were you guys I would form a union and blackball the govt entities and refuse to contract with them at all.  No thinnings, no fire work, no harvest.  Let them sit and stew in their own terrible policies.  I bet at this point that they need you more than you guys need them.

They would love not having any loggers on their land. I used to deliver firewood to the head of the local ranger district, his office was head of a few hundred thousand acres. He said if it was up to him he'd close down every road and only allow horses and hikers, that's no joke.
On the forest value thing, I was talking about total value of harvestable timber in the forest not what gets sold in a year, or what makes it to the gov. For an example the national Forest in Western WA produced 500 billion bd ft of timber in 1990, that was down to 8 billion in 2002. That's a lot of $ and all because they switched to environmental concerns. It wouldn't take long for 500 billion ft of timber to make a dent in the national debt, even if only a fraction directly made it to the federal gov.

[Riwaka]

I suppose it is difficult to count incinerated owls, but there seems to be a few in the 'burnover'.

http://theconversation.com/many-native-animals-and-birds-thrive-in-burned-forests-research-shows-94808

[Skeans1]

@Riwaka 
Does that look like an old growth to you? Who's a better steward of the land a logger that makes a living off the land? Or an environmentalist who is wanting a burn that will dry up a stream with fish ect? We have smoke every summer from these burns it's either state or federal lands that are burning not the lands that are used for production. I don't remember the last time I saw a Federal sale but I can say living in this state it's part of our constitution they have to log but they aren't, the state policy is to let a wildfire burn timber vs log it.

[nativewolf]

Federal forests will never be cut, if you lived here you would know almost all federal clear cuts get protested, especially ones involving old growth. It was estimated at one time just the Olympic, baker-snoqualmie, and Gifford-Pinchot national forests held enough timber to pay off the entire national debt, I believe this was the early to mid 00's. There is plenty of ground in Oregon to make serious headway on the state debt.

We as a nation had a pretty crappy job sustainably cutting our national forest.  The US govt hardly made anything from that, just a few billion ($1.5 billion for OR and WA in 2018 dollars was pretty much the high point and that was in 1980) and for reference the national debt was already about $6 TRILLION by 2000.  The entire harvest of the OR and WA forest would might covered 1 day of interest payments and not touched the principal.
The low value of the harvest was laughable and one of the reasons it was so easy for preservationist to shut down clearcuts.  If they had been making real money the arguments would have been stronger, I had friends on both sides as economic experts but the economic argument for harvesting was usually weak.  This will likely change as the forest matures and pricing improves.  If pricing does not improve than there is not much reason to harvest.  State and local rules to improve the salmon fisheries will, over time, reduce the "costs" of harvest.


I love forestry, I enjoy and am proud of what we do with forest harvesting.  At the same time we are pretty small potatoes on the scale of our nations economy.  But also in terms of environmental damage due to things like emissions which is why this bill is just crazy stupid.  1 cement plant is doing more damage than all the logging trucks in OR and WA.  OR and WA need more harvest and harvest of marginal forest is clearly going to be required for fire safety.  If they pass this bill who the heck is going to do the thinning on national forest lands.  
Personally if I were you guys I would form a union and blackball the govt entities and refuse to contract with them at all.  No thinnings, no fire work, no harvest.  Let them sit and stew in their own terrible policies.  I bet at this point that they need you more than you guys need them.

They would love not having any loggers on their land. I used to deliver firewood to the head of the local ranger district, his office was head of a few hundred thousand acres. He said if it was up to him he'd close down every road and only allow horses and hikers, that's no joke.
On the forest value thing, I was talking about total value of harvestable timber in the forest not what gets sold in a year, or what makes it to the gov. For an example the national Forest in Western WA produced 500 billion bd ft of timber in 1990, that was down to 8 billion in 2002. That's a lot of $ and all because they switched to environmental concerns. It wouldn't take long for 500 billion ft of timber to make a dent in the national debt, even if only a fraction directly made it to the federal gov.

Are you sure you have the right number at 500 billion ft of timber?  Because I think the stats for maximum harvest for national forest in the PNW and Rockies is something like 10 billion bdft.  That is cherry picking the highest harvest ever for each state so not at all accurate.  Avg harvest price used to be much higher back then, about $300/thousand in today's dollars.  Today it is less than $100 on average across that region.  You are still looking at only $3 billion at the highpoint if my math is right and memory (i had to look up pricing).  I just don't see $3 billion mattering to anyone in congress.  Now this is just national forest #s.  I don't think all the loggers in the USA could cut 500 billion bdft though. Just glancing at the stats on total harvest in the US we are cutting less than 20 billion bdft of timber altogether.    National Forest sales generated less than 175 million/year recently. 
Basically...our national forest are not worth that much $ to congress but they are worth a lot of votes and in a democracy that's not a bad thing.  I'm a great fan of good private forest ownership and a cautious optimists that given time our national forest management will level out from the extreme over harvesting of the 40s-80s to no harvest of today finally into something that everyone can agree is sustainable and workable.  Scandinavia does it pretty well and I am sure we'll get there.  We just have gone through two classic action/re-acation cycles.  

[nativewolf]

As far as the thinning goes, I kid you not, on Federal ground it's summer help picking up sticks by hand and putting them into piles so later on govt will come in and do a "prescribed" burn of the sticks. They used to be called "controlled" burns but too many private landowners lost ranches due to the lack of control so that name went away.

Think that's crazy? There was a biomass plant in the eastern part of the state that broke ground, the fuel source was going to be the same pickup sticks, loaded by hand, to feed the plant. I was on a committee involved with the planning and I was asked to leave when I told them it would never work and would leave when the subsidy money dried up. Footings were poured, grants fell through, nothing more ever became of it. That's the special kind of crazy out there guys face.

That is another level of crazy.  In the dry forest zones I'd be burning like banshee and tell all the folks who were idiots and put houses in fire country to bugger off.  Once I had all the dry forest burned I'd burn some more :D.  

[quilbilly]

My numbers come from UW, where are yours coming from? Especially the highest amount of money ever brought in?

[quilbilly]

BTW I believe the 500 billion had an extra 0 sneak in and it should be 50. I'll go back to the article to make sure though.

[nativewolf]

BTW I believe the 500 billion had an extra 0 sneak in and it should be 50. I'll go back to the article to make sure though.

Forest products lab, U Wisconsin and the USFS and headwaters econ.  They are al in rough agreement but then again I used to be fairly familar with the numbers from my own work, I'm a failed PhD in business with a focus on efficiency of forest management.  Couldn't stand the constant writing so I left with the masters and went into the cold hard real world  :D...that was over 20 years ago.  It was a very topical subject when I was in graduate school.