I am so very sad about this, Southern Utah is my very fave place in the world.

Strip Mine

Here is the press release:
Press release strip mine

Man its stuff like this that really makes me angry. People don't know what we have till its gone. I swear, as time goes on and I keep hearing stories about our messed up politics, greed, and how we completely destroy nature for ones own profits, more and more I want to get out of this country. Especially now that we are sticking our noses back in North Korea, Pakistan, and who knows where else b*tt h*le. I cant express how angry I am!

I was looking forward to going to Bryce Canyon when I had the money to go out west, but now I know this is going on...I second think that. I bet the small businesses will suffer, all so this company can make money. This is one small example of many.

A National Park's purpose is to conserve nature so people can enjoy it ecologically friendly. How can you approve strip coal mining in one!

It's hard to believe the intermountain West can't stop chasing boom-and-bust resources extraction, which has left such a legacy of devastation. They've been in this trap for the better part of two centuries and just don't seem to get any smarter about it. Of course blasting out more coal means they'll be burning it for electricity generation.

Natural gas drilling sounds more benign, until you see the pictures.

http://skytruth.mediatools.org/node/23082

The reason is that there isn't much of a choice. No one wants a nuclear plant. I don't know why. It is not like we don't have the space.

That's cuz you haven't been to northern Utah.

I thought this topic would be about mining for strippers. My mistake.

You are right!!! I will hopefully remedy that situation soon!

It's too bad we have to destroy something to get ahead. Mining and farming keeps America rolling. In many communities, mining/exploratory work is all that brings extra money in. Where I went to High School in NV, ranching and farming was the main livelihood with hopes mining would start again. I just got back from WY, I'm sure it wasn't the ranching that built all those new homes. If our small towns had to depend on tourism all the time we would have to fold up. You don't make enough to get ahead. You may be able to make the initial investment, but don't make enough to keep things up. I don't see anything promising here in N. CA where logging has all but died. Here in Plumas County, we are on the public dole to maintan our schools and roads. Always have been, but when logging was going strong we earned our keep so to speak. Now, we are dependent on the US Legislature to keep us afloat every year by passing bills to finance our schools and roads. If Utah is like Nevada, mining doesn't pay much in taxes if any, they only add to employment.

Mining and logging on federal and state lands represents some of the biggest subsidies extant, even ignoring the "price" of the damage left behind, so the economics are quite horrid indeed. And because of the boom-and-bust extraction cycle these activities create jobs then discard them. It's the trap.

Sustainable forestry can partly overcome the problem but it's seldom practiced and of course, takes decades to truly establish. I suppose there's no such thing as sustainable mining.

Collins Pine Co. in the northern part of our county has been practicing sustainable logging for years. They are very well known for this around the country if not the world. Years ago, polar opinions over some logging sales, if they lose money, why go thru with them?

Sustainable mining? We run out, we run out.

Wind power, solar power, nuclear power, hydro? Can't make everyone happy, too much of "not in my back yard!".

Yea, Nimby...I personally have plans to buy land and would like to make my home as off the grid as possible. I know a few people that get all there power needs through solar. Theres a few people on the coast that take advantage of the constant breeze and set up windmills...not sure how much of a percentage of their power that supplies, but at least its something. Recently they have been testing tidal power in Eastport, and in the East river in Manhattan. Pretty neat stuff.

But your right, industries pop up, make people money, then go bust, and leave behind poverty and people relying on socialist care. It happened here in downeast Maine. The paper mills and lumber companies, and of course the loggers, built these towns. Starting in the 1700's with the building of ships, Machias was a huge producer for ships (the first naval battle of the American Revolution happened right here). That created an economy and a boom up here back then. But now the paper companies and logging mills shut down, loggers lose there jobs, and there are signs of a better economic past everywhere. I see a ton of homes for sale, and cheap! Eastport, which I love, has a lot of abandoned buildings. It must have been a sweet bustling place back in the day!

I've been fortunate to work on permitting for several solar-thermal and wind power projects, several hundred megawatts worth all sited in "impossible" California. Never believe anybody who tells you "it's impossible" so therefore, we have to continue to keep things as they are. It's a lie of the most profound sort.

The system as set up is to continue the status quo. What we've learned quite recently from Massey Energy (Big Branch Mine) and BP in the Gulf is that we--the citizens of this fine country and of the planet itself--need to step up and insist the status quo is unacceptable. Strip mines next to national monuments or perched above the world's most productive salmon fishery are signs that desperation to maintain the status quo is leading to utterly stupid acts, acts we can and must halt.

Cheers,

My family has worked in the timber industry for over 100 years. We own a 2600 acre ranch that's main sources of income are timber and cattle.

Sustainable logging is very much practiced these days, especially where I live (Northern California). Also, logging is simply a necessity. There are dozens of products made from timber. In fact, the only thing more diverse that I can think of is plastic (which of course is derived from oil). People have this NIMBY attitude regarding it because they like walking in redwood groves and pine forests, and believe me I completely understand, but we have to harvest these resources.

Once we make it impossible to do so at home we have to get it somewhere else. I am surrounded by 100 miles of forests to the south and east and probably 300 miles to the north, yet timber comes in on barges because it's too expensive to harvest it here.

So instead of using our own resources, we buy from Canada or Brazil (where they have no regulation), and in addition have to pollute more to ship the product to America.

My point is, we need coal, gas, oil, timber, food, etc. It would be stupid of us to no harvest it from our own land, and depend on foreign sources like we do for oil. Just my two cents.

I agree with all your points but regrettably, western state-owned and especially federal lands have not been logged with an eye towards sustainabilty. Logging leases have historically been sold at a loss (well below the cost to the government), leading to horrible practices.

The proportion of private forest in the west is pretty small by comparison, but many companies have excellent track records of careful management for the long haul. (Then you have a good company like Pacific Lumber being bought by corporate raider Maxxam, who cranked up the cut and then essentially ransomed the remains back to the government for half a billion dollars.)

After the many decades of public lands mismanagement the high-quality timber available in the west is a tiny fraction of what it was historically. The problem hit its zenith in the '80s under James Watt's reign of ecoterror, when the cut was raised dramatically. And it will likewise take decades for the forests to recover. For more on a possible approach, see the Quincy Library Group.

On a related topic I'm very curious as to what's to happen with the pine forests in the Rockies being killed by bark beetles. What's to become of those millions of acres of strssed and dying trees?

The Sierra Club keeps blocking anything the QLG trys, even when it is just a five year pilot. Local environmentalists have signed on with QLG, but the Sierra Club won't relent.

I saw loads of dead trees on my trip out of Pinedale into the Winds. Can't log a wilderness. What I saw also along the road were Lodgepole, little commercial value.

What's their status today? I can find a 2007 petition from 18 organizations (including Sierra Club) that was denied in October of that year ( court decision ) and a 2009 congressional appropriation extending the Herger Feinstein Quincy Library Group Act through FY 2012, but nothing current other than this USFS statement:

The Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Pilot Project is being implemented over approximately 1.5 million acres across the Lassen and Plumas National Forest and the Sierraville District of the Tahoe National Forest. The Project is designed to test and demonstrate the effectiveness of fuels and vegetation management activities to meet ecologic, economic and fuel reduction objectives.

I absolutely agree with you. First, Maxxam did have very terrible management practices. I actually live very close to Scotia, CA where Pacific Lumber was founded. It has since been sold to a Mendocino County company, so at least the operations are local again.

Secondly, the management of federal land is a joke. I don't see how the largest landowner in the country should be operating at a loss... they have more resources available to them than anyone else.

What I would like to see is perhaps less involvement in timber and other resource harvesting operations by the federal government on federal land. To me it would be more cost effective to issue long-term leases to private entities, who then manage the land in accordance with their business plans and government regulation. Private entities are held accountable much more for their business practices than the federal government, and if someone purchases a 50 or 100 year lease they have more motivation to practice sustainable management.

Ya know up until recently I didn't realize how different the woods look now than what they must have say in the 1600's or 1700's and downward. Now I knew we clear cut the area (Maine) and I knew the woods were fairly young, my college level of wildlife biology could tell me that, but I didn't realize how different it must have looked.

I was white water canoeing with my buddy along the Machias River from Whiting to Machias, which conveniently is on the corner of my block. It was beautiful, a beautiful day, beautiful scenery, so much wildlife. As we dodged the deadheads and rocks and navigated the rapids, I was taking notice to the flora and fauna around me. There were a few HUGE White Pines that were just not quite perfect for the logging companies, so they didn't cut them down. But I mean these things were huge, among the tallest trees I have seen. Then my imagination wandered. To the times before logging companies and right to the Native Americans who must have took the same route in there rustic canoes. Seeing huge white pines and spruces way bigger than I could imagine. A whole forest of them. I tried imagining the whole place like that. Most of the times I wish I lived way back in the day before electricity and the industrial revolution. Must have been something!