To USFS Klamath National Forest:

July 7, 2012

Dear Ms Meneks,

It would seem that the goal of any Klamath National Forest Project would be to help the economy of Siskiyou County.  The Sugar Creek Project appears to contribute nothing to our economy that has already been damaged by Federal and State Agencies’ regulations.

I do see as one of the goals of the Proposal is to “develop a transportation system to transport Forest commodities”.  I assume this means a timber sale.  Is there a timber sale associated with this Project?  Any agreements with the DFG, NCWQCB, or NMFS should be accompanied by the stipulation that you (USFS) are going to do your job and manage the timber on public lands.  That means harvest timber and help the PEOPLE with the much needed Timber Receipts that should be coming back to the County.

Spending a huge amount of money to stormproof roads seems frivolous, considering the state of the economy today.  You know that, eventually, a major weather event is  going to wash all those improvements right into the Scott River anyway.  Erosion is natural, even without the roads.

With regard to the old mines and ponds, it is all part of our history, whether its on private property or on public land.  Leave it alone.  It’s not hurting anything.

Another stated goal pertinent to the Proposal includes “managing human activities….”.  I don’t believe its the Forest Service’s job to manage human activities.  That is a goal of the UN Agenda 21 for sure.  It should not play a part in USFS activities.

Although this may seem to be a minor issue, I thought the type of maps included in the Proposal were a bad choice.  They are hard to read and lack labeling that allow me to figure out where the different project activities would take place relative to Scott Valley itself.   A map without all the elevation lines would be much easier to read.

In summary, this project appears to be a waste of taxpayer money, driven by out of control Federal and State Agencies.  It does nothing to help the economy of Siskiyou County.  My recommendation is to take no action on this Project.

Thank you,

Andrew Hurlimann

PNP comment: The US Forest Service is really stretching to claim this watershed needs any kind of “improvement” except and really good Timber Harvest Plan. — Editor Liz Bowen

To USFS Klamath National Forest:

July 7, 2012

Dear Ms. Meneks,

I live within a half-mile of Sugar Creek. It needs no improvement, except to remove the over-growth of trees near the creek and in the upland.

My recommendation is to “do nothing” on this project and do not spend tax dollars on this inept project.

Any storm-proofing of roads should only be done with a Timber Harvest Plan ready to go.

Old issues from mining are just that “old” and should not be touched as nature is naturally growing over the left-overs.

It looks like you are trying to combine several “projects” and that does not follow NEPA.

So I claim you are NOT correctly following NEPA on this Sugar Creek Watershed Improvement Project.

The only true benefit to doing a project up Sugar Creek that would be an “improvement” is a thorough thinning of the over-stocked trees. These trees are up to 10 times the “natural” amount and are a huge threat to wildlife and homes, if a forest fire were to occur. Lightning does slam that upper Sugar Creek area quite often during summer storms.

Once again, Timber Harvest is the only project that would be an “improvement” to Sugar Creek area.

You must follow NEPA and you are not.

Sincerely,

Liz Bowen, land owner

P.O. Box 1527

Callahan, CA 96014

530-467-3515

lizbowen@sisqtel.net

PNP comment: I have been concerned over their lack of good ol’ fashioned patriotism, when they doodle their” Google” on holidays and events. — Editor Liz Bowen

From Godfather Politics.com

posted on July 7, 2012 by Giacomo

Mountain View, California is home to Google, the most popular search engine on the Internet.  Started in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google has grown exponentially with the rampant addiction to the Internet.

In the most recent news from Google, they have announced that they will be excluding firearms and other weapons from their shopping search results.  In a letter sent out to firearms retailers, Google stated that their new policy was made to help ensure family safety and comply with legal regulations.

What part of family safety are they referring to?  They can’t be referring to the type of family safety like that of a Phoenix, Arizona family.  An intruder broke into a house carrying a rifle.  A 14 year old boy was home babysitting his younger siblings at the time of the break in and used a family gun to shoot the intruder, thus protecting the safety of his family.

I’ve personally known people who have had to pull a gun out to protect themselves or their families from others that intended to harm them.  Some years back, I was driving alone on the highway when a car full of Hispanics began harassing me.  I did everything I could to get away from them, but they were relentless and began to try to force me off the side of road.  That was when I pulled out my Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 mag revolver and aimed it at them.  They hit their brakes, slowed down, turned around and drove away.  Without the gun to protect myself, I may have ended up several hundred feet down in the canyon that bordered the highway.

Nah, that’s not the family safety Google is talking about.  They believe that legally purchased guns are responsible for domestic violence, so in order to protect families from one another, Google will no longer help families locate and purchase a gun to protect themselves from intruders.

On the Google home page, they give a list of ten things that they know to be true and seem to be of utmost importance to them.  In light of the anti-gun news from Google, I find items 1 and 4 on their list to be hypocritical.

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/6052/google-goes-anti-gun/#ixzz205NFF5wO

From:

About every 15-20 years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rewrites a Resource Management Plan for areas that include not only rural areas, but big cities like Los Angeles.

Then, for the next 15-20 years, every proposed project, plan and Environmental Assessment is based on this Resource Management Plan (RMP).

HOW BLM CLOSES PUBLIC ROADS

With these RMPs, the BLM (along with the Forest Service) has ramped up limiting & closing off public

access to public roads and lands. In RMPs (Route of Travel Designations), the BLM designates public roads as “open,” “limited use” or “closed” to Off-Highway Vehicles (OHVs). This can include 4 wheel drive pickup trucks, not just All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and dirt bikes. Public lands can also be designated as “open,” “limited” or “closed.” Designations can change from “limited” to “closed.”

Supposedly, BLM and the USDA’s Forest Service are closing and limiting use of public roads and public lands to protect the resources of public lands. But, it’s important to consider the EXTENT to which they’re doing this. It goes far beyond protecting habitat.

For instance, at the Tavaputs Plateau in Utah, the BLM has been trying to close roads that lead to some of the most popular routes and scenic vistas in that county. It’s also the area where Bill Barrett Corp. is conducting a massive natural gas field development The BLM intends to close the roads for 30 years.

If these road closures are really about protecting habitat, then how can BLM possibly justify how your 4 wheel drive truck could cause more harm to the environment than a massive extraction project that has about 488 well pads (with 20 well pads in Wilderness Study Areas and 218 well pads in areas with Wilderness Characteristics), 164 miles of new roads, 3,390 acres of initial disturbance (before reclamation) and 1,705 acres of long term disturbance?

It seems that BLM, Forest Service and Congressional concern for protecting the environment is selective. While you’re being shut out, other “uses” (that are more likely to cause harm to the environment) are allowed to take shortcuts.

THE BIG CHANGE IN RMPs

RMPs used to be about 160 pages or less. Now, the new RMPs can be over a thousand pages (with an additional CD of Route of Travel Inventory Maps). The old RMPs had straightforward topics in the table of contents like land use allocations, livestock grazing, land tenure adjustments, oil and gas lease stipulations, and areas of critical environmental concern.

Read it:

http://ppjg.me/2012/06/05/blm-closes-public-roads/

Slim Majority Passes Funding Over Bipartisan Objections,                

Refuses to Allow Voters a Say

(SACRAMENTO) – Senator Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) today released the following statement after the state Senate passed a plan to spend $8 billion on rail projects, despite bipartisan opposition:

“Today Sacramento sent California speeding down the tracks to one of the largest fiscal boondoggles in history. With the appropriation of over $8 billion in largely borrowed money, California will construct a non-high speed track in the middle of the Central Valley that can’t even be used for decades.

“The worst part of today’s choice to spend billions California doesn’t have is that this just the beginning.  We can’t afford to start high-speed rail today and we won’t be able afford to finish it in the future.  Our state teeters near bankruptcy, yet this proposal spends even more than the Governor’s tax hike would bring in.

“California’s spending reflects the legislature’s priorities. Unfortunately, this vote prioritizes a train California can’t afford over our children’s education, health care and public safety. Every dollar we spend on debt service for this bond is a dollar we don’t have in the budget for real priorities.

“The plan has changed, the price has more than doubled, and California is broke.  Now that the legislature has rubber stamped this financial gamble, California’s voters deserve a do over.  I will redouble our efforts to allow California’s voters to put an end to the biggest public works fiasco in our state’s history, an idea two-thirds of voters agree with.”

The proposal to spend about $8 billion, even more than Governor Brown hopes to raise taxes by this fall, passed out of the Senate by just one vote. Democrats in the Senate voted against LaMalfa’s motion to send the project to the voters, now that the price tag has more than doubled.

Senator Doug LaMalfa is a lifelong farmer representing the fourth Senate District including Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Siskiyou, Sutter, Del Norte, Placer, Trinity, Yuba and Nevada counties.

EUGENE — A federal judge has granted a request by several logging industry firms to join Gov. John Kitzhaber and other state officials in defending Oregon’s plan to allow more logging in Coast Range forests.

The lawsuit filed by three environmental groups — Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Audubon Society of Portland — claims the state’s logging goals in the coastal Elliott, Tillamook and Clatsop state forests illegally harm the habitat of the threatened marbled murrelet, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act. The seabird lays its eggs on the large, mossy branches of mature and old-growth trees.

State officials have said they have a forest management plan to protect the seabird. However, they have voluntarily suspended logging on 10 timber sales until District Judge Ann Aiken rules on the environmentalists’ motion for an injunction.

The state protection plan includes designated buffer zones of protected forest where murrelet activity is detected and curtailed logging schedules during the April-to-September nesting period.

The industry groups expected to help defend the state’s forest policy include the Oregon Forest Industries Council, Douglas Timber Operators, Scott Timber Co. Inc. of Coquille, Hampton Tree Farms Inc. of Salem and Seneca Sawmill Co. of Eugene.

The council represents more than 50 logging and wood products companies, including Seneca and Scott.

Seneca legal affairs director Dale Riddle told the newspaper on Friday that the company is joining the suit because it bought one of the contracts that has been halted, the Millicoma Lookout timber sale, from the Elliott State Forest in Coos County.

The logging industry firms have an interest in the case because they rely on timber sales from state and federal agencies and because the public lands case could set a precedent restricting their “use and management” of private lands for timber production, attorney Dominic Carollo wrote in their motion to join the suit.

Of the 10 suspended timber sales, three were due to go out for bid in June; two were due to be put out to bid in the next few months; three were sold in the last two years but have not yet been logged; and two have already been partially logged.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/viewart/20120707/UPDATE/120707010/Timber-firms-help-state-defend-logging-plan?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home