Gehrke's Grand American Fly-Fishing Reels ~ George Gehrke's Bamboo Fly Fishing

~ Wildlife Environmental Thesis ~

Wildlife: An American Ideal and Her Values: Continued: #4

By GREG LAKES Correspondent HAMILTON ? "A year after the nationwide controversy over below-cost sales erupted, Forest Service Region I officials are responding with new accounting measures and a change in policy.

"The policy statement, issued by Regional Forester Tom Coston this month, may result in some sales being shelved until the market improves and the sales' bottom lines take a turn for the positive.

"Coston's letter gave forest supervisors the option of deferring below-cost sales those that cost the agency more than they return - until lumber prices rise.

"He told officials to examine those sales, weigh what other benefits management might bring, and decide whether to sell them or shelve them.

"Dave Wright, a forester in the agency's regional office, said Thursday that it's to soon to gauge how many sales will be held up.

"Still, he predicted some forests would be deferring sales - the Lolo, and forests east of the Continental Divide where much of the volume is relatively low value lodge pole pine and where lands are less productive.

"At a meeting between agency officials and timber industry representatives Thursday in Corvallis, Wright depicted the below cost as an accounting problem the agency is trying to remedy.

"The agency traditionally figured road, reforestation and mitigation costs against the first timber sale in an area. Costs often outstripped the initial sale's timber receipts.

"Critics say if the sale costs more that the timber is worth, the Forest Service is subsidizing the timber industry with tax money.

"Wright said the new accounting measures will more fairly and consistently amortize those up-front costs against all sales in the area. For example, instead of assessing the cost of access roads against the first cut, they will be balanced against all future sales, which depend on that road.

"Some series of sales will return a profit over the long term, he said. And while some will stay negative, they might have other benefits - wildlife habitat improvement or less risk of fire or beetle infestation - that justifies a call for bids?"

That these news reports are in direct contradiction of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft Environmental Impact Statements) as presented and with many of it's statements, makes the Draft Environmental Impact Statement a set of covers filled with many lies and rigged researched facts. We have reason to believe that many of the facts are presented without the Forest Service ever setting foot on the areas they wrote about.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement is NOT A FACTUAL Draft Environmental Impact Statement, IT LACKS INTEGRITY and dangerously, omits ecological issues that the Forest Service ADMITS it's not qualified to report upon because it has not done any real homework regarding the after-affects of a provable, dangerous proposal.

COMMON SENSE REVIEWING OF NEWS REPORT:

1) The report quotes the Forest Service timber giveaways as "SALES" which they are not.

2) It costs more to make the sale than what the sales brought in.

3) The road cutting practices are terrible as it is, and now the Forest Service intends to lower those standards in the bargain.

Regarding Champion International, our National Forest Timber was sold so cheap, with so many "gifts attached" and "concessions allowed and given" that they are hidden from the public record. Especially the financial exchange rate records. It takes hard investigative reporting to find the truth.

4] Including stands of higher-value trees," means another concession for private companies to bid on trees more valuable than what they were sold for.

Allowing more bulldozers and tractors means greater mountainside damage and soil erosion and stream losses. This is again in direct contradiction to the Draft Environmental Impact Promises. Doesn't the Forest Service understand English? We don't want more bulldozers and tractors in our forests.

Regional Forester Tom Coston told Tom Peterson to examine those sales, weigh what other benefits management might bring, and decide whether to sell them or shelve them. In defiance to the American People's better interests, they sold SIX MILLION board feet of prime American Timber at a total loss anyhow!

Dave Wright said Thursday that it's to soon to gauge how many sales will be held up. Timber sales should be stopped immediately, Nation Wide. Wright depicted the "below-cost" issue as an "accounting problem the agency is trying to remedy" which means to me, "Now you see it, later you won't." In my opinion, there are excessive amounts of accounting problems in the Forest Service that should have been investigated decades ago. "Accounting," and the Forest Service are spooks at work.

Those who cannot talk straight are dangerous. How are timber sale costs going to be "adjusted" in the future? Wright's statement is a classic example of how the Forest Service operates in these times. Are his remarks plain enough to reveal whose side the Forest Service really is on?

As long as the Forest Service remains unchecked with our National Forests, there is no such thing as management in terms of National Preservation. Frankly speaking, there is deep-rooted corruption in the Forest Service. The reason for this is there is just too much money involved.

For example, when we complain of bull dozers ripping open entire mountain sides, or complain of excessive stump heights up to three times legally allowed, or when citizens complain about topsoil being allowed to wash away by hundreds of acres at a time, or when the public complains about the vicious clear cutting practices, and the out of state logging companies being allowed to employ out of state workers, and when complain sof slash deep enough to bury a house, or of your last virgin timber being hauled off by thousands of huge track loads each week, and when we complain about clear cuts reeking with ugliness and the Forest Service still has the guts to call it "visual quality" and none of it stops and no one does anything about it!

(Roads cut into the mountains and dries mountains out)

When wildlife is displaced with the sounds of great tractors howling and grinding in a peaceful national forest such as the Bitterroot or Salmon National Forest, with haste and waste rampant everywhere, everything dies.

When I see clear cuts where once great trees stood for centuries and where not another will grow with such magnificence again, it's irresponsible where no one is held at fault. When I complain to state senators, and then they ask me "Which logger got the bid?" And I tell them, and all I get is a "Well, don't you worry about it." I worry about it. I regard this as a conspiracy by innuendo. The logging companies can take the profits from ONE TREE and donate it to a Senator's reelection campaign. That amount could easily match the maximum amount allowed. For you, as an individual to match those funds by going door to door, is impossible work. Senators that condone clear cutting are guaranteed reelection. Max Baucas is a perfect example of this alliance.

When I ask a Forest Supervisor if he has gone up and looked at an area that is being ripped from here to Thunder Bay, he answers, "I haven't been in the field to check anything in years," I call this incompetence. When machinery of huge size, is allowed where in the past it would never be permitted, I call that degrading and, when no senators will come here, and no investigations are asked for, I would definitely say something is terribly wrong.

When the Forest Service considers local "specialized meetings" that are filled with nothing but organized loggers as being "the ratification of the American people," I call it rigged protectionism. Lastly, when the size and amount of America acreage that is involved is kept from public balloting on a national level, I say this is wrong.

There are more Forest Service personnel hired to serve logging than what there are hired to service and save our National Forests for the American People. Biologists are proportionally out of balance in the Forest Service. As one Forest Service Manager pointed out, when you remove National Forests there is no need for biologists.

The Forest Service is long overdue for a Congressional Investigation. Our National Forests and Wilderness Areas needs to be removed from the Department of Agriculture's watch.

If this looks like a war zone, your right! As far as the eye can see the entire mountain range is denuded without the public being made aware of it. All the top soil is gone and this MoonScape will last for the next several thousand years. This is your U.S. Forest Service at work on your public lands every day and no one is stopping them. This area that looks like a hydrogen bomb waste site is between Hamilton Montana and Salmon Idaho. The Deerlodge Forest area has the same massive clearcut mountain ranges. These crimes against our Continent need to be stopped immediately.

CONTRADICTIONS TO DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT:

The Forest Service wants to boldly log large tracts of the forests that it admits should be deferred because it is steep, Lava Mountain sided terrain that NEEDS forests to keep it glued together. Only timber holds it together, and it's taken Billions of years for it to thicken into the situation that is now in balance as remaining National Forests. To touch it, condemns everything natural. "NATURAL" is; Genuine, real, authentic, honest, actual, unartificial, inartificial; unaltered, pure, unmodified, unchanged, untouched, unaffected, unmixed, uncombined; crude, raw, unrefined; wild, untamed, uncultivated. The Forest Service detests these standards as unworkable and therefore attack and negate them under a weapon called "Multiple Use".

FOREST WIDE MANAGEMENT DIRECTION:

This states that the Forest Plan is: "The goals and objectives of the alternative are the basis for Forest management goals for the next 50 years that may result from this management direction are also displayed."

Let's look at what is written and what isn't written by the Draft Environmental Impact Statement about the past, what "history teaches us," and what we all should recall and pay attention to.

Forest-wide Management Goals

The Proposed Action addresses SIX (6) major issues and management concerns:

1) Timber
2) Harvest Level
3) Visual Quality
4) Fish & Wildlife Populations
5) Water Quality and Soil Productivity
6) Roadless Area Management

Some recommendations for Managing Wilderness Study Act areas.

1. Timber

Maintain the 1971-80 average annual timber sale level, (but doesn't state what that average is) but achieve a species mix more nearly proportional to standing volume, (verified new method to give away more valuable timber as reported in news report) while providing for access and removal of lodge pole pine. (Which this rougher wilderness cannot tolerate, as hinted at in the newspaper report)

"Species mix" which means injecting only commercially biased trees. This means these areas will never again see the variety of forest growth it now has, doesn't it?

What mountain deserves such permanent damage?

Constructing road access and removal of lodge pole pine east of the Valley, in country where it takes forever for one tree to find a foot hold in pure rock is a contradiction to the productivity sections which verifies the Draft Environmental Impact Statement to be self serving and irresponsible mirrored by newspaper facts reporting Forest Service lies.

2. Visual Quality

"Maintain a scenic landscape in the portion of the Forest that is visible to many people. A high level of visual quality will be maintained in the foreground and middle ground, near densely populated areas and major travel corridors," is not true in the face of thousands of contradictory examples in Arkansas, Montana or Idaho.

In light of these facts, how can the U.S. Forest Service say they abide or will abide by the above Visual Quality remark?

Why does the Forest Service use such untrue remarks in the first place? It doesn't apply and the Forest Service hasn't applied it. This section is not true and on these grounds we ask that the Forest Service be denied all Alternatives in full excepting all wilderness status for our remaining national forests under Rare 11.

This is the same thing said for the forests west and north of Missoula, Montana, or on the ridge-backs of Arkansas, and many other areas to which the Forest Service has allowed not one, but rather hundreds of examples of the exact opposites.

The Forest Service uses "Visual Quality" as something to be believed when daily evidence shows it to be a cover-up to forestry crimes.

There are millions of Americans who fly over and across the United States. Why doesn't anyone consider "His or her senses of Visual Quality?"

These citizens have just as much right to visual beauty and disciplines and enjoyment as any others. Who likes to see an American Landscape tom asunder from aloft?

Does the Forest Service believe these citizens have no appreciation of how their forests are punched out of shape, squared and triangles into open wounds, and criss-crossed with roads so insanely built as to make Americans weep with despair?

America the Beautiful was not written with the Forest Service in mind as an example of how to maintain that beauty. The U.S. Forest Service are murderers of virgin Forests belonging to the American People.

Senators and Representatives would never allow a D-9 Cat through their living rooms. Yet, they are allowing Forest Service vandalism to occur on your lands.

VISUAL QUALITY MEANS HIDING THAT, WHICH YOU MUST NOT SEE:

3. Wildlife and Fish

"Maintain or enhance elk winter range habitat; maintain at least viable populations of all wildlife species in intensively developed management areas; maintain existing populations in other management areas; and maintain trout populations at existing levels."

The U.S. Forest Service is not involved in responsible wildlife management because the Forest Service destroys major forest habitat.

The Forest Service is NOT qualified to manage wildlife, water quality, soil conservation, nor fish. In fact, the Forest Service IS the very cause of all the destruction everyone here wants to stop.

Forest Service Alternatives will increase soil erosion in our steams and rivers, and since the Forest Service is the responsible parties involved regarding all the above mentioned items, complete denial of Forest Service plans and protection from the Forest Service is recommended, for the entire area.

It's impossible to accept the Forest Service statement of intent to "maintain at least viable populations of all wildlife species in intensively developed management areas."

This is impossible.

1) Any intelligent person knows that wildlife needs space, peace, and undisturbed conditions to survive, and quiet; if not, they become extinct. The Pileated Woodpecker is but one species that qualifies along with the Pine Marten and Fisher.

a) There are many other endangered species involved.

2) How can the Grizzly Bear and Grey Wolf be introduced into solitude areas such as those proposed if roads and human traffic are increased and our timber is all gone?

At this time, report the sightings of Grizzly Bears, plus their tracks including the timber wolf and several other endangered species in all of the involved areas within the last two years. (Wolverines including) Now, this public statement is enough right here to change everything regarding Forest Service plans that cannot afford to recognize that these species DO EXIST in these areas, isn't that correct? But the Forest Service lies or ignores that these species do not exists here. Where in the world did the Forest Service write these reports, in a bathroom?
RARE as it seems, we have enough Wapiti for these forests and for the valley area. Wilderness and untouched National Forests maintains a perfect balance such as ONLY NATURE can provide. Why does the Forest Service want to upset that balance?

To open the forest canopy where it would support larger numbers of Wapiti around the Valley population to exceed 15,000 or above any of the present number is social suicide.

History documents at West Yellowstone, the preponderance of Wapiti must be hayed and tractor fed to the point that these animals are NOT the wild Wapiti of ancient times. The Wapiti COMPETE for there NATURAL WINTER GRAZING LOW-LANDS now owned by private citizens. To even imagine doing anything that would repeat this situation in and around the Valley, south to the Salmon River, is a deranged policy.

Ibis establishes the unprofessional temperament of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement as presented. It's impressive to the uneducated, but like a sieve, it holds a lot of noodles.

A DEAD TREE IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS A LIVE ONE

Without them, many rare birds could not exist. The PILEATED WOODPECKER7 depends 7pileated means: (pffe-a-ted),a. 1. Same as pleate. B 2. In ornith., crested; having the feathers of the pileaum elongated and conspicuous: as, the Pileated woodpecker. ---Pileated Woodpecker, Hylotomus (or Ceophloeus) pileatus, the largest woodpecker of North America excepting the ivorybill, locally known as logcock or black logcock. It is usually 16 to 18 inches long, and about 28 in extent of wings; the color is slaty-black, conspicuously striped with white or pale yellowish on the head and neck, this color also varying the hidden parts of the wings; the male has the whole pileum scarlet; in the female the crest is scarlet on the posterior half only. This fine bird inhabits all the heavily wooded and forested regions of the country, where it represents the great black woodpecker of Europe, Picus or Dryocopus martius.

The North American Pileated Woodpecker, by nature is a very active, nervous bird. Its size requires heavily infested forested regions for survival. It can only be usually approached by happenstance as it flies its territorial routes.

The Pileated Woodpecker seems to enjoy the forests it inhabits with loud, confident, and raucous noises but seems to instantly become quite upon it becoming easily disturbed and flying off silently for escape. It is only after a long period of silence that its confidence returns, believing its area is once more left to itself that it will become openly active and even most times, playful, for the very nature of the Pileated woodpecker and its movements is that of seemingly to be glad to be alive.

In the half dozen times in my life that I've seen this bird, the Pileated woodpecker, it never seems to stay still on the same tree for longer than a half minute, before bounding off to the next.

Early Michigan had Pileated Woodpeckers before the large White Pine Forests of that State fell to the axe of timbering. After much activity cutting the largest white pines known at that time to exist in the United States, a massive fire consumed another large portion of the Michigan Forests. Michigan, a long upright shaped State trapped between two large fresh water lakes made the ancient Michigan Forests what they were. Requiring Centuries to grow, eons of time as a matter of fact, and in less than 100 years, nothing remains of them excepting stump corpses exceeding 15 feet in diameter. With extermination of these forests, the Pileated Woodpecker vanished instantly.

Because of its size, it's not uncommon for hunters to want to shoot them. Curiosity, not ever having seen, or not believing ones eyes has laid waste many of these rare, and beautifully large birds.

This writer made the last known sighting of a Pileated Woodpecker in Michigan, 34 years ago. I watched a male and a female cavorting in the last large untouched remains of the once great forests of Michigan. When they flew off into the timber, it was as if seeing them fly away into eternity. A tract that had begun to be cut away due U.S. Forest Service practices. With it, I'm sure, went this last pair. The year: 1941 upon them as does a majority of other species from ducks to songbirds, from eagles to martens and supporting rodents and tree dwellers. The Forest Service has no proven track record, in recent times, of doing anything of depth or of significance to maintain at least a viable population of all wildlife species in intensively developed management areas. The Forest Service cuts the timber then walks away from the wildlife to fend for itself, after massive mountainside destruction.

More information on Pileated woodpeckers: Audubon Nature Encyclopedia, Volume 12 see pages 2292 -2294 Copywrite 1965.

Pileated Woodpecker Other Common Names - Great black woodpecker, good God woodpecker, wood Kate Scientific Name - Dryocopus pileatus, Family - Piciformes Size - Length, 15 to 19 inches Range - Forested areas from southern Canada south to central California, central Texas, the Gulf Coast, and southern Florida.

The big, crow-sized pileated woodpecker, is the largest relatively common woodpecker in the United States and Canada. Only the ivory-billed woodpecker is larger, but the ivorybill is so rare that very few people will ever see it.

When the eastern deciduous (hardwood trees) forest were cut by early American pioneers, the pileated woodpecker declined in numbers. At the turn of the century, and for a generation thereafter, it was thought that this bird would decline to extinction, as the ivorybill was doing. But fortunately, the pileated woodpecker adapted to the new conditions created by man and is now much increased in numbers compared to the 1920's. One reason for this is that much of the croplands developed between 1750 and 1850 in the northeastern United States have been allowed to revert back to forest again, and that much of this second-growth woodland is now approaching maturity. It thus furnishes an enlarged habitat for the pileated woodpecker. Today, those who feed birds in winter and live near good woodland sometimes experience the thrill of entertaining this large woodpecker at a suet board.

The presence of pileated woodpeckers in an area is most quickly detected by the large rectangular holes these birds dig in trees as they grub out carpenter ants and other wood-destroying insects. The damage they seem to do to trees is therefore illusory.
Unquote.

In my opinion, the name "good God woodpecker" seems most appropriate because this is exactly what goes though almost every sportsman's mind when thy first view his magnificent bird, alone in a thick, virgin forest. "My God. What in the world is THAT (?) the mind questions itself.

Scientific research proves the PILEATED WOODPECKER needs large tracts of timber and buffering from intensive intrusions in order to survive. This is such a remarkably large and beautiful bird, it boggles the mind how casually and ignorantly the Forest Service has treated the PILEATED WOODPECKER, MARTEN, and rare FISHER for example, is inexcusable. The PILEATED WOODPECKER is so unusual; it's not listed in many dictionaries. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement Study does NOT fit the history, the biography, or characteristics of either the PILEATED WOODPECKER or MARTEN, nor even identifies them.

Marten: [Formerly also "martin"; L. martes (found but once, in a doubtful reading), of Teut, origin: OHG. marder, MHG. marder, mader, G. marder ' D. marter [with formative], ' OHG. mart ' AS. mearth ' Icel. Mordhr ' Sw mard ' Dan. maar, a marten; no Goth. form recorded.] 1. A digitigrade carnivorous quadruped of the family Mustelidae, subfamily Mustelinae, and genus Mustela or Martes, of which there are several species, all inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere. The name was originally given to the common pine-marten, Mustela martes or Martes abietum, of the northerly parts of Europe. This animal is about 18 inches long, with a full bushy tail 12 inches long, and thus rather larger than a house-cat, but standing much lower, on account of the shortness of the legs. The fur, consisting of three kinds of hairs, is full land soft, and has an extremely variable shade of brown, usually paler on the head and under parts. A closely related species is the stone - or beech-marten, Mustela foina, of Great Britain and many other parts of Europe; it is, on the average smaller in size, with a whitish throat and inferior pelage. The American Pine-marten, M. americana, is similar, but specifically distinct; it inhabits the northerly United States and the whole of British America, (Canada) and is commonly called the American sable! The Siberian or true sable is M. zibellina, of blackish color and with an extremely rich and valuable fur. The pekan, fisher, or Pennant's marten, Mustela pennanti, much larger than any of the foregoing and of a blackish color, is a very distinct species peculiar to northerly North America.

Other characteristics observed in the wild, is its active and nervous nature. One is impressed with the haste and pace of the pine-marten. When on the feed, i.e. hunt; it appears to throw all caution to the wind and will chase its prey such as pine squirrels past a human and right up the tree one will be near or leaning against. Its bravery approaches the tenacity of the wolverine and it will fight and take on other animals four times its size.

It frequents and hunts burrows and tree holes and simply sticks its head into every crevice and cranny when hunting. It's a quick and fearless tree climber and requires the support of dead trees that support the lesser species it hunts for survival.

Rudely interrupted, the pine-marten escapes quickly and many times I've noted they do not fear humans because they are so private in the thick forests they inhabit. Once bothered given one lesson to fear a human, it rarely is seen again as with all wild birds, mammals, and wildlife in general. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement doesn't even give definitions of them in the GLOSSARY. This is a responsible Draft Environmental Impact Statement that is fully researched in terms of ALL WILDLIFE SPECIES it states will maintain at least a viable populations of what?

A DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT is supposed to contain all the biological information about any and all damages known to be possible and which could or would occur on any and all precious plant and animal life. The total lack of even IDENTIFICATION all the species of plant and wildlife that WILL BE affected PROVES no in-the-field identifying or inventory process took place. That this Draft Environmental Impact Statement is no more than a lot of rewriting of previous reference works. Commonly called S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure)

Therefore, where is the TOTAL INVENTORY IDENTIFYING ALL PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN EACH AREA AND LOCATION OF EACH AND EVERY SPECIES OF VITAL CONCERN TO OUR PLANET AND THE HABITAT EXPLANATIONS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT THEM AND THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT THEM?

Supply this research in full.

There are few areas in the United States that have perfect balance of Wildlife and Natural National Forests that exist in these areas for all Americans. We should not support larger Wapiti herds, as a selling tool to accept Forest Service Alternatives instead of Wilderness is not reasonable to unless winter range, free from polluting cattle is provided to accommodate the increases.

4. Water Qualities and Soil Productivity

"Meet or exceed State water quality standards and maintain water quantity and soil productivity."

REMOVE FOREST CANOPYS & YOU INCREASE WATER QUANTITY AND DECREASE WATER QUALITY. YOU CREATE MUDDY RIVERS THAT ONCE RAN CLEAN AND PURE.

This researcher can provide hundreds of pictures and slides of aerial photographs of case after case of tens of thousands of acres of mountainside erosion that goes with the steep grades due to clear cut timbering practices initiated by the Forest Service.

Given one lesson to fear a human, it rarely is seen again. As far as meeting or exceeding the water Quality Standards of the State of Montana is concerned, water quality standards are forgotten on a daily basis. Otherwise, the increasing pollution of the Salmon River along with increased levels of silt would be eliminated almost instantly.

If the Forest Services proposes that it makes no difference because, supervised or not, they would meet or exceed "the standard" anyhow, is a historic lie. As an answer, Draft Environmental Impact Statements would have to show, how it will be verified against all the past soil losses it hasn't seen fit to correct, after many years on plots which the Forest Service has allowed complete timber removal and soil losses.

NATURE'S BEST WATER QUALITY STANDARDS ARE IN WILDERNESS:

The safest water to drink is that which agriculture has not been allowed its presence with timbering and grazing isn't found around or near wilderness springs.

5.Roadless

"Provide high quality semi-primitive recreation opportunities and security for elk during hunting season."

Semi-primitive is a degraded standard of Primitive.

The Forest Service cannot provide anything that is better than wilderness.

Wilderness as it now exists is occupied by a vast number of sportsmen year around, excepting winter trapping season. Wilderness as it now endures is occupied and USED by thousands of people for hunting, fishing, and hiking, throughout the vacation seasons, and year-around. The campfire smoke sites salt-and-pepper these wilderness areas and are seen every time this researcher flies over them during hunting seasons.

Average yearly flying time over the entire Montana Rocky Mountains each year was 450 HOURS using a Piper Comanche PA-24-250 averaging 172 mph each year totaled 78,368.08 miles of Business and Outdoor Research covering the massive clear cutting and forest fires set by the Forest Service each year.

WILDERNESS is the path to reality. Man-built road scars are a Sublimated Hell to all who care to visit their history. Wilderness is the mirror and history of everyone's past.

6. Wilderness

Forest Service quote: "Recommend areas to Congress for addition to the wilderness system that have high wilderness attributes, diverse ecosystems, long-standing support for wilderness, good topographic and legally definable boundaries, and a low effect on market outputs produced from the Forest."

There are few laymen who will understand what the Forest Service IS saying here. What it says is, if you can't use the timber due to low effect on market outputs produced, it's the worst land possible and the Forest Service will recommend the low valued timberlands for wilderness instead of the best. The Forest Service will probably get away with it.

B. Forest-wide Management Objectives

I point out under this section, how the Forest Service uses the art of making subtle statements that in reality, hide insidious future activities.

The term, "semi-primitive motorized" is counter to all that wild timberland stands for.

77,000 acres of the 400,000 of currently roadless area and 743,082 acres of existing wilderness will remain roadless means terrain that the U.S. Forest service cannot timber. THEN, to state the Forest Service is capable of maintaining "Visual Quality" is a subterfuged lie.

If annihilating an area the size of Dallas, Texas is the Forest Services idea of "Visual Quality" then the Forest Service concept is correct. The preponderance of opposites are so striking that words of explanation are almost impossible to correctly explain the Forest Service mind.
There is no such thing as "Visual Quality" in contrast to the finest remaining virgin timber the Forest Service proposes to cut and destroy. There is no integrity in the definition when thousands of soil eroding road miles is promised under all Forest Service proposals.

WASTE, is not Visual Quality at any angle. Because it is hidden is not justification for America to be forced to embrace it.

WASTE means: squander, fritter away, fool away, dissipate, lose, misuse, misspend; expend, consume, use up, drain, exhaust, deplete; throw away, bum up, run through, go through, S1. Blow; disperse, scatter, spill, muddle away; splurge, lavish, play the profligate, hang the expense; misapply, misemploy, overdraw, impoverish, spend recklessly; throw money away, spend money like water, throw good money after bad, play ducks and drakes with, spend money as if it grew on trees or were going out of style; (of time) kill, while away, pass. Wear away, erode, dwindle, eat away, gnaw away; reduce, diminish, decrease, lessen, lower, cut, cut back, shorten; ablate, corrode, wash away, rub away, disintegrate. Deteriorate, degenerate, worsen, regress; decline, fall, slip, go downhill, run down; decay, wither, atrophy, wear out, crumble, molder; run to seed. Destroy, devastate, ruin, lay waste, demolish, wreck; ravage, pillage, plunder, sack, spoil, spoilage, despoil, sack, loot, gut, strip, ransack, rifle, maraud, rape, harry, wreak havoc upon, smash, crush, annihilate, eradicate, raze. Unthriftiness, overspending, overindulgence, gluttony, pillage, desert, wasteland, emptiness, rubbish, remnants, Brit. leavings, leftovers, scraps, litter, hogwash, etc.

No term explains the Forest Service more perfectly in the 20th Century in your National Forests because the U.S. Forest Service uses all the above definitions of "WASTE" every day. FACT.

Visual Quality
The American Public doesn't understand that roads into the very heart of the Bitterroot and Salmon National Forest areas, and the total removal of their timber, are what must be stopped. By the time you read this, it will already be too late. This is now the year 2000.

Wildlife and Fish

HOW does the Forest Service propose to manage "about two-thirds of the elk winter range to optimize cover/forage ratios through timber harvest activities?

The Forest Service talks elk on one hand, and then gives the elk and deer habitat away to cattle. When I go into my National Forests, I don't want to see deficated soiled cattle in and around my camp, streams and springs.

We know the majority doesn't want cattle in our national forests but the Forest Service ignores the majorities' wishes?

How can the Forest Service "minimize sediment entering fisheries streams" when it's a known fact the Forest Service supports the construction of over 2,500 miles of new dirt roads in our forests to have it timbered out? In addition to this, The Forest Service DOESN'T have a budget to guarantee anything. When the Forest Service removes the buffering wilderness forests and build sroads, the FOREST SERVICE destroys the zone of separation between "potential grizzly bear recovery and the gray wolf recovery.

The Forest Service doesn't want the introduction of grizzly bears and the gray wolf because they require the habitat they need to survive in the Forest Service wants to get rid of. The Forest Service doesn't care about endangered animals if it has a choice between them or access to the best remaining timber stands.

Range

"Transitory forage will be maintained by timber harvest" because the Forest Service associates this term with livestock grazing. "Forage" is a cattle term designed to displace wildlife with livestock, unauthorized by the American People. The U.S. Forest Service is a maverick agency gone amock against the better interests of the American Landscape and People.

Water, Air, and Soil

"Water Quality and soil productivity will be maintained by applying silvicultural systems, road density, road construction, and unrecovered areas."

This is such an ignorant concept and statement I can't believe whoever made it, gets paid.

Minerals and Energy ' Resources

To allow Ninety EIGHT PERCENT of this wilderness to be gutted with roads and then have all of this virgin timber cut and the mountains gouged is totally wrong.

Under present Forest Service financial policies of, "now you see it, later you won't," it's the American People who will build these roads for the loggers and financially, it's the American People who will subsidize the rape of it's own country.

ALL Forest Service Draft Environmental Impact Statements, today, is like asking wilderness to hang itself.