Re: Federal Government and Liability

["Duncan Fletcher" <dfletche@gte.net>]

Whether logging loses money depends on how it is calculated and what
National Forest you are referring to. The building and maintenence of roads
into trailheads is charged against logging. Now perhaps abandoning those
roads would be a good idea, particularly if the trailhead is moved and the
trail extended - but then they will need more money to maintain that longer
trail - and there are no logging funds to cover that cost. Then there is the
issue of money paid to local governments in lieu of property taxes. That is
also charged against logging in those calculations that show logging losing
money (because that has been the source of those monies). Those local
jurisdictions supply services to the USFS: road maintence for roads leading
to them, police services, search and rescue services.

One of the other issues that needs to be addressed is the bueaucracy that
has grown up under logging. There are probably a lot of employees that are
no longer needed, but still on the payroll. One of the Forests in Washington
has recently reorganized from 5 ranger districts to 3 ranger districts in
response to that issue. I would suspect that there is room for a lot more of
this, but it takes a real hard look at the budget details to get a handle on
this.


Duncan Fletcher
dfletche@gte.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Teddy Lancaster <Teddy@runningbear.com>


>AH, but it is still OUR land.  AND, according to the USFS Chief, the focus
of the
>USFS is shifting from logging to recreation.  We DO have that much clout.
Bear in
>mind that the USFS has been LOSING money on logging.
>