I'm having flashbacks of Gaylord Perry!!!

"If the checks and balances are working so well, why are so many salmon and steelhead runs extinct"

Guys like you and I building homes,roads and support systems on the slopes facing the Snoqualmie river for example. All the trees that were cut down to make way and frame this infrastructure since the mid 1800's. Well intentioned environmentalists stopping the dredging of the river channel that was silted by this development. The willow scrub ecosystem that lined the river valley that was removed to make the river more accessable and to clear Farmland to grow food for a growing community. We asked that the checks and balances be set up to make it easier and more affordable to live the way we want. We are still doing it with our comsumer choices.

It would seem that we should learn from our mistakes and strive to do better; not use them as a rationale for doing continued harm.

Regarding Bush's abysmal environmental policies... who took 'conservation' out of the so-called conservatives?

"It would seem that we should learn from our mistakes and strive to do better; not use them as a rationale for doing continued harm."

Very true. But I prefer actions over words to prove one's true heart.

Lets use Aluminum as an example of this statement.

If this were ture in our lives as fisherman we would use less Aluminum because we know that it take massive amounts of electricity to process the material from raw sources to recycled. TYet in our lifetime Aluminum use has gone up some 15,000 times for the avg. person in the US. think about all the beer and soda cans you use in a year, auto parts,home uses,foil for cooking, how many here have aluminum boats? How many here use less aluminum in there lives today or demand with a dollar vote that their products be made from recycled materials? Or is it easier to focus on what the other guy is doing or not doing?

The Columbia River once held the largest Salmon runs in the history of the world. The dams that provided cheap electricity made the use of inexpensive Aluminum possible in our lifetime. So the foil you use to cook that hatchery fish killed the wild fish it replaced.

The same argument could be made about commercial fishing and tribal netting.

Until we/I stop fishing all together than we/I cannot complain about commercial fishing industry.

Until I stop fishing all together than I cannot complain about the tribes netting.

Am I missing the point?

It just seems a bit short sighted.

How are you different than the commercial guys. Because it takes more sport fisherman to do the same amount of damage? So your individual impact is less by degrees making it more palatable? Hard arguement for the guy to swallow that wants all fishing banned.
Commercial fishing is a symptom.


The argument IMHO is pointless for various reasons. One you cannot live in this country and not consider yourself part of the problem. You cannot be part of a consumer economy and recycle your news paper and cans and call your contribution even with your impact. The rest of the developing world is trashing the lragest % of the planet to fuel their econmies by selling us stuff. Secondly at best we are delaying the invetitable. Like all organisims we will suffer the consequences of our existance in a closed ecosystem. It's been too late for a long time. It might seem fatalist but given the population forecast for the next 50 years it's more realistic.

Envrionmentalism does not exist as far as nature is concerned. Nature can and will exist with out the presence of man. We only want to shape to suit our needs not it's needs.

I take it then that you do not believe in conservation?

Are you advocating using all of our resources until they are no more and the human race is left to die off? Awfully fatalistic.

I would think managing our resources would allow us to prolong that "inevitable" and possibly prevent it from truly being an inevitable. That to me seems to be the argument, that some people here disagree with the way Bush has decided on managing the resources.

Absolutly I believe in conservation. But on the same flip of the coin I do not deny my role in the destruction of the environment. I consumed $500 in manufactured goods to go catch a few trout last weekend. Not a conservation minded adventure even though I did not litter or foul the water where I fished.

Bush from my view is providing only for business owners what all of us expect for our selves. Basic constitutional freedoms. If they own land or can procure contracts to extract natural resources that have a market they have the freedom to pursue this. We can stop it if we do not agree by a variety of mechanisms. Laws and regulations, negotiation,ecomimic pressures, legal recourse ,out right boycott of the end product and those associated with it's production. HArd to accomplish when we say no emotionally and then support the devlopment economically. Then say to our elected officals you will provide us a higher standard of living at a lower cost and with no environmental impact . Btw We also want to buy American as long as it is at the lowest price. If Bush came into office and instituted enviromental policies that raised your cost of living cost you more in taxes but protcted the enviroment at un precenented levels I think the howling would be much louder.

I am just saying walk the talk and don't be two faced even if it plays in a partisan crowd.

Your arguments hold NO water. In this case we are talking about public lands - wilderness in fact. They do not own this land we the taxpayers do!

As far as walk the walk, that is too silly an argument. All of us waste resources and all of us are to some extent hypocritical . But one need not live in a cave and consume no resources in order to be concerned about wilderness areas.

I am in fact a partisan. I favor those who will protect our environment. If that is a republican he will get my vote, as have several republicans in the past. But this one is trying hard to dismantle protections signed into law by previous republicans. I can assure you I have and will continue to speak out against anyone of any political persuasion who trip to give away our national resources.

Do you support letting a land owner drain a river killing all the fish in that river just because the river flows through his land and he can make a bigger profit selling his apples to South Korea, if he does so? How about clear cutting the National parks? Can one be against any environment wrecking problems and not be a hypocrite in your book?

P.S. My truck did get better than 20 MPG on the last trip. Is that some magic hurdle that now allows me to be concerned about the environment?

P.P.S. Be sure to save your posts for your grandkids. They may want to know what kind of thinking let our national treasures slip away.

Dave You fish on public owned land using a public resource. With a license that allows it. Just as an oil company would have to have a licsense to drill on public land. You talk like they just drive in the dozers and do what they want. I cannot think of many industries that are more heavily regulated than mining and oil drilling. I cannot think of areas that are more heavily regulated than public lands or more cloesly watched by environmental groups. If a timber ,oil,gas or mining company farts in the woods it's on the nightly news in Seattle and Portland.

Your Dodge has more impact on the decison to drill in wilderness areas than any other decision you can make. So don't blame the govt. for your vote to use more oil.

Another quick question (which will probably be ignored again):

Are we talking about punching in new roads or re-opening existing fire/logging roads?

I don't know about Idaho, but when I look at the state Gazetteer for Washington, I can't find anywhere ouside the National Parks that are not already riddled with roads.

Dave BTW you left this whole section out of the quote in your rebuttal. would that be becaus eit give s a soultion to the question you raise instead of just poiting a finger in a freidly room?

"We can stop it if we do not agree by a variety of mechanisms. Laws and regulations, negotiation,ecomimic pressures, legal recourse ,out right boycott of the end product and those associated with it's production. HArd to accomplish when we say no emotionally and then support the devlopment economically. Then say to our elected officals you will provide us a higher standard of living at a lower cost and with no environmental impact . Btw We also want to buy American as long as it is at the lowest price. If Bush came into office and instituted enviromental policies that raised your cost of living cost you more in taxes but protcted the enviroment at un precenented levels I think the howling would be much louder. "

Slab,

I have not seen any new proposals. The old ones called for the use of existing roads and if any new ones were built they had to be reclaimed and restored at the end of the project.

Slab: Here is a brief blurb on the current roadless areas in Idaho. There are in fact several new proposal to develop this area for energy exploration. Please see my original post. The proposal to allow energy exploration and extraction were the reason for my post. Also please see the link I provided above.

I have photos as well and will psot some ASAP.

"Approximately seven percent of Idaho is protected by the 1964 Wilderness Act. That’s a little more than 4 million acres of wilderness. But nearly 9 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Area exists in Idaho’s National Forests along with another four million acres of roadless lands under the management of the Bureau of Land Management - nearly all 13 million acres has excellent wilderness potential. No other state, outside of Alaska, has that much remaining unroaded and undeveloped land just sitting virtually unprotected in the public trust."

Theking: I did not respond to your entire quote as I thought it was illlogical and off topic. My lack of respoinse should not be taken as agreement.

BTW. Buying my truck did little to encourage the push for natural gas exploration, which is the primary thrust of this plan. Did you read the link I posted or do you not want to understand this issue?

Here are FACTS:

Responsible Energy Development

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service are proposing unprecedented levels of gas and oil development on public lands, with potential for severe impacts on crucial fish and wildlife habitats, and hunting and fishing, throughout Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

The ecological effects of gas, oil, and coal bed methane (CBM) development on public lands are extensive. Although the actual “footprint” of a well or pad may be relatively small, production requires a pervasive infrastructure of roads, transmission lines, holding facilities, ponds, and so on. This development can contaminate ground and surface water supplies, reduce water quantity, degrade fish habitat, and fragment wildlife corridors, calving grounds, and nesting areas.

The cumulative effects of energy development spread throughout such a large landscape, and proposed on such a large, unprecedented scale, will almost certainly have significant impacts on fish, wildlife, water, and hunting and fishing.

The White House has cast increasing development of public lands energy supplies as a matter of national security. Their argument is that by increasing domestic production of oil, gas, and coalbed methane, we will no longer need to rely on energy resources from the unstable Middle East. The U.S. consumes 25% of the world’s produced energy. Yet, only 3% of the world’s known energy resources underlie domestic soil. In other words, we could develop every National park, wilderness and roadless area, and wildlife refuge and never come close to meeting our energy demands. Clearly, conservation must play a significant role in our national energy plan.

Certainly our nation needs energy supplies, but at what cost to the public lands that sustain some of the cleanest water, healthiest habitats, and finest fishing and hunting in North America? TU believes that we should be careful never to allow short-term energy production to diminish the long-term productive capacity of the lands and waters that sustain us. Our public lands should be managed for all multiple uses. Oil and gas development is but one use, and it should not take priority over clean water, wildlife and fish, and hunting and fishing interests. We believe that potential impacts to fish and wildlife and water resources must be thoroughly examined and disclosed in regards to gas and oil development on public lands. Where development does occur, proper mitigations, stipulations and monitoring plans must be in place, funded, and enforced, to protect wildlife and fish. We also need to insist that some places—such as crucial winter range, spawning habitat, riparian areas, and migratory corridors—remain off limits to development. In other places, our land management agencies need to slow down, and develop a better understanding of potential impacts before proceeding with such ambitious, wide-scale developments across the landscape.

Working with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Izaak Walton League, the Wildlife Management Institute, Montana Wildlife Federation, Wyoming Wildlife Federation and others, Trout Unlimited is leading an energy campaign called Hunters and Anglers for Responsible Energy Development, informing anglers and hunters about the threats of expansive gas and oil development and what they can do about it. For more information, please contact Dave Stalling (dstalling@tu.org), TU’s public lands field coordinator at 406-721-4441.
Stay Tuned

In the fall of 2003, we will release a comprehensive mapping and analysis report that analyzes the intersection of important fish and wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing opportunities with public lands most likely to see accelerated development. Our objective in releasing this report is twofold. First, to arm sportsmen and women with the information they need to meaningfully in BLM and Forest Service energy development plans. Second, to assist the agencies to develop energy resources on public lands in a manner that protects scarce water resources and important fish and wildlife habitat.


More Information
Oil / Gas Slideshow
Western Public Lands Gas and Oil Development Report
Gas and Oil Development on Western Public Lands Fact Sheet
Oil & public lands: Hunters, anglers beware
Talk About Traveling Network
Energy ad that ran in Congress Daily
Ad campaign questioning Energy Bill which ran in MT and ND

The mapping has taken longer than originally anticipated, but should be done soon. I saw a draft of the report which is why I made my original post.

Thats hooey. I have hunted every county in Idaho since 1977 and you cannot go 10 miles in any direction with out hitting a road or a cat track or right of way of some sort. They are talking about FS roads and city ,county ,state designated highways and rail road right of ways. It sells better in Liberal cities. Name any area in Idaho and I can pull up terra server photo that will show a road into the area.

BTW I would like to see as few roads as possible and most of them shut down to access but the truth is the truth.

If the average sportsman had to walk more than a hlf mile it would cut down on 95% of the use IMHO.

"10 miles in any direction" is a roadless area of at least 314 sq. miles or ~196,000 acres.

That sounds like something worth keeping intact.

At the end of it all, what we continually honor in this country, across the generations is what we leave behind - as opposed to what we use up. Be it battlefields, or national parks, or wilderness areas, or salmon runs; those are legacies that define our nation.

The Bush Adminstration's proposals for maximum exploitation are simply Un-American, and it's time to call them exactly for what they are!

GaryK

"At the end of it all, what we continually honor in this country, across the generations is what we leave behind - as opposed to what we use up. Be it battlefields, or national parks, or wilderness areas, or salmon runs; those are legacies that define our nation."

"The Bush Adminstration's proposals for maximum exploitation are simply Un-American, and it's time to call them exactly for what they are!"
---------------------------


Well said Gary! Nice to see that we are not all so selfish and self-centered and do care about what we leave for the future of our children's and our children's, children.

Heritage Forests Campaign's partners include:
Alaska Rainforest Coalition, American Hiking Society, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, National Environmental Trust, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, US PIRG, and The Wilderness Society.

Now that is a trustworthy group!

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule witholds 58.5 million acres of wild national forest land from access through roads. The rule was intended to allocate one third of our national forest land as a haven for hikers.

The National forests were zoned as perpetually unaccessible wilderness to all but a few who have the time and ability to hike many miles in order to visit them.

This is part of the Clinton/Gore legacy environmentalist extremism.
The anti-road rule puts preservation before conservation.

It was expected that Bush would overturn this bit of Clinton's extreme anti-conservationism immediatly but, in fact, he and his cabinet took some time in studying the rules and impacts before reversing a few of the more extreme rules.

The peple called foul when this rule was proposed and when it went in to effect and should praise those who would modify it today.

What good our forests without access?

Great joke Plunk. Ha ha ha. I hope no one thinks you were serious.