What a day!!!!! Gulf Coast oil wells to be auctioned. Tongass logging green light.

[peacetalksforall]

"Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration will auction off a new batch of oil-drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico next month, in spite of a court ruling earlier this year that threw out the nation's offshore leasing plan.

Officials from the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, gave notice Thursday that they would take bids for drilling on 18 million acres off the coast of Texas. The leasing tracts are as close as 9 miles from shore and as far as 250.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6084796

Then ......
"Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave his personal approval for a 381-acre clear-cut in America's largest stand of temperate rain forest.
The Obama administration has approved the sale of timber from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The 17-million acre forest is the largest stand of continuous temperate rain forest in the U.S. and contains a lot of old-growth trees. It's basically a snapshot of what the world looked like before we rolled heavy onto the scene."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3971999

News without an explanation. Please help me feel better. Tell me how it's OK. Is this part of the stimulous? What's going on? Is this constitutional? Decent? Benefiting whom?

[sandnsea]

1. 380 acres. Seriously?

You think they will stop logging altogether??

I wish they'd stop clear cutting, but this is nothing compared to the millions of acres they saved in Oregon.

[enough]

2. plus ca change (nt)

[flvegan]

3. Drill baby, drill!

[peacetalksforall]

4. Kick - still need help with my questions.

[ensho]

5. there is no way to feel better over what has been done

or to understand Obama's reasoning or non reasoning

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. The Tongass thing is bad, not because of a 380 acre clearcut

but because it requires building 6.9 miles and rebuilding 1.9 miles of road. The roads are far more damaging to habitat than the logging is. It seems crazy that they couldn't find a parcel to cut which didn't require so much road.

Although, most of the jobs involved in this sale are roadbuilders, not loggers or sawmill operators.

But there's a lot of hyperbole. The national forests (not to be confused with national parks, of which there 54 million acres worth in Alaska) are intended to be working forests which serve a number of purposes, including habitat, recreation, and yes, lumber. Every working forest contains "some old-growth", if for no other reason than you cannot cut within 200' of fish-bearing streams. There is nothing in the news to indicate that any of this timber is old growth.

[Palin delenda est]

11. If there hasn't -been- logging there, it isn't likely there are lots of out of work loggers

or sawmills either. Why not repair the roads, build campsites (more jobs) and staff them (even more)

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. There is active logging throughout SE alaska.

Plenty of loggers, plenty of mills. Problem is the low prices for logs. It makes little sense for landowners to sell timber at such low prices, which means there are lots of idle people.

[Kaleva]

16. I can't find any info on if old growth will be cut.

[Joe Fields]

18. Don't be silly. It's the first thing they'll go after.

They are, after all, the most lucrative trees. This is just an outrage. Stabbed right in the back.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. Not necessarily.

In my area, all the large-log mills have been closed. Large logs must be transported at least 100 miles to be milled.

This provides perverse incentives to forest managers. Although trees add volume faster between age 40 and 75, it is not cost effective to let them grow to that size. Better to harvest 35 year old trees.

... it's worse for wildlife, it's worse for habitat, it's worse for streams.

People see three large logs in a truck and they think it's a tragedy. I see (60), 8" diameter logs in a truck and I see that as a bigger tragedy.

[Joe Fields]

17. There may be some hyperbole, but we we do know that clearcutting

380 acres is harmful, no matter what. Sustainable logging is the only responsible way to log. But that isn't how the fuckers at Pacific Lumber work. Just a reminder, they are the company that has been responsible for clearcutting most of the remaining redwoods in California. They don't give one shit about the environment.

380 acres of clearcut forest is plenty to ruin a watershed, clog a stream with silt and rock and ruin fish breeding grounds.

But the MAJOR problem is that this is just the beginning. We have worked really hard to keep logging out of Tongass. This is the beginning of a flood of logging operations and road construction. Before I die, Tongass, mark my words, will look like the west side of Vancouver Island.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Clearcutting isn't inherently unsustainable.

Sustainable simply means that you can cut, replant, cut... etc for the foreseeable future.

The wildlife biologists I know seem to agree is that clearcuts of moderate size (about 100 acres) strike the best balance between habitat, minimal damage to streams and a diverse canopy.

Some of the most adversely impacted streams in this area are those adjacent to forests with a history of LOTS of small logging operations, tiny clearcuts and intensive selective logging. Heavy and constant usage of the roadsystem is much more damaging to the streams than the clearcut itself.

On the other hand, very large clearcuts provide barriers for wildlife, and create a uniform canopy, both of which are bad habitat.

Like I said, I don't object very much to a 300 or 400 acre timber sale (particularly if the sale is broken up into two or three discrete sections), but I do think that 9 miles of road to service it is foolish.

If you build roads on ridgetops, stay 200 feet away from rivers and streams, don't create habitat "islands" or create barriers, work to maintain a varied canopy and avoid steep-slope logging, there is nothing wrong with clearcutting.

Much more soil is lost to crop agriculture than forest agriculture, yet I never hear anyone suggest that selectively cutting cornstalks is appropriate.

[Joe Fields]

21. Pardon me, I meant to say "selective" instead of sustainable. My bad.

There is no good argument for clearcutting. It damages the land, causes loss of windbreak, causes soil erosion, loss of habitat, damage to watersheds, etc...

But it just isn't "profitable" to log selectively. That's it, in a nutshell. All arguments for clearcutting are just lame excuses to "legitimize" the wholesale destruction of forest and habitat.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. That's not true.

There are many good arguments for clearcutting. The most important of which is avoiding abuse of the roadsystem.

There are aguments against, as well, but too many of those arguments are aesthetic.

To my knowledge, none of the certification systems in use even discourage, let alone prohibit, clearcutting.
FSC for instance, is no mere greenwash. Here are their basic governance principles;

Principle 1: Compliance with all applicable laws and international treaties.
Principle 2: Demonstrated and uncontested, clearly defined, long–term land tenure and use rights.
Principle 3: Recognition and respect of indigenous people’s rights.
Principle 4: Maintenance or enhancement of long-term social and economic well-being of forest workers and local communities and respect of worker’s rights in compliance with International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions.
Principle 5: Equitable use and sharing of benefits derived from the forest.
Principle 6: Reduction of environmental impact of logging activities and maintenance of the ecological functions and integrity of the forest.
Principle 7: Appropriate and continuously updated management plan.
Principle 8: Appropriate monitoring and assessment activities to assess the condition of the forest, management activities and their social and environmental impacts.
Principle 9: Maintenance of High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) defined as forests containing environmental and social values that are considered to be of outstanding significance or critical importance.
Principle 10: In addition to compliance with all of the above, plantations must contribute to reduce the pressures on and promote the restoration and conservation of natural forests.

FWIW, here's Oregon's Oregon's forest practices act

[central scrutinizer]

7. on the other side of the ledger

http://registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/17206288-41/story.csp

Good news for Oregon's forests - Bush's plan to triple the cut was scrapped

[femrap]

8. This is how a

'bought' administration behaves. It's that simple, unfortunately. WASF.

[Paladin]

9. It's Oil & Gas LEASES That Are Being Auctioned Off, Not Oil WELLS.

Big-Assed Difference---like the relationship between having a bag of golf clubs vs. winning the British Open.

Offshore Petroleum LEASES are just chunks of water-covered sand, for which energy companies fork over billions of dollars annually to the feds for securing a few years of exploration rights, with the hope of ultimately establishing producing WELLS. And the press release indicates that the tracts to be auctioned are offshore Texas, which nobody generally gives a shit about, offshore Texas not being nearly as pretty as, say, offshore Florida or offshore California. Look up the acronym "NIMBY" if you're not familiar with it already.......

[mimitabby]

10. 20 years ago

we fought and won the fight in the Tongass forest. It makes me sick that it will be clearcut anyway.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Obama just saved 2.6 million acres of forest in Oregon.

So suck on it.

[Palin delenda est]

13. They weren't going to log 2+ million acres, they were to get 3x the prev cut

in an AREA that size.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gmoney]

23. Friday news dump?

Sigh...

Change?