The Other Oregon Story (Portland, Wilsonville: transplants, how much, new home)

[Ditchmonkey]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

That is the real problem in Oregon. This old mindset, that won't give up on a way of life that ended 30 years ago when the last big trees were cut down, and have no vision for the future.

There's a video somewhere showing every step of a gigantic milling operation somewhere in the PNW and almost the entire thing is automated. There's hardly a person in the whole video. If people want jobs they better start thinking about how labor fits into a high tech future, not about how forest are managed. Most blue collar jobs are about to be automated out of existence. Who cares if we cut down more trees when self driving trucks drive them to automated mills?

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

Leave them be. Trees do not need to be farmed. They can live to be thousands of years old. They absorb carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide from the air and produce the oxygen that keeps humans alive. That should be more than enough reason not to cut them down.

They can also provide economic benefit in the form of tourism, from people who actually appreciate them as something more than a product.

The PNW is a fire climax ecology. With the exception of a small strip along the coast, any trees that don't die a natural death will burn. PNW forests are horribly overstocked. Leaving them be is the worst possible option.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Ditchmonkey

I'm not sure what trees you are talking about. 99% of old growth is gone, and those were the trees that built the timber industry in its heyday. Today we have much poorer forest to harvest, and lots of industrial systems and established transportation networks to get the work done. More logging only means a handful of new jobs in these conditions.

What I would like to see is the export of raw logs be made illegal, so that we would have more milling jobs available.

Finally, as long as the logging industry insists on aerial spray of herbicides, poisoning schools. rural water supplies, and the timber workers themselves, they will continue to lose support of average Oregonians.

Old growth is not big trees, old growth is a pattern. For that matter, mills now dock heavily for any tree over 26" in diameter. You are reading fairy tales about the lumber industry from a century ago. BTW, there is lots of old growth left in Oregon, though the Biscuit Fire managed to wipe out about a quarter of Spotted Owl habitat in the state. If there had been logging roads available as pre-built firebreaks and for moving equipment, it could have saved that habitat. You may have noticed that the fire stopped as soon as it reached well managed private forests.

Lumber mills have been importing Canadian timber to stay open during log shortages. Not much is exported from Oregon any more. The Canadians pretty much have that market sewed up.

I would like to see the state require a pesticide license and testing for anyone to purchase lawn and garden chemicals. I would also like to see it made illegal for any city to discharge untreated sewage into any waterway. You couldn't trust Portland residents and businesses to shut down during rain events, but if you just shut off the city water supply during heavy rains it would take care of the problem. Cities should also be forced to take their drinking water downstream of their sewer outfall. Urbanoids want to preserve everyone else's environment, but their own is disposable. While they are at it, they can move all the highways off the river bank and tear up all paving within 100' of a waterway, including the six streams that run through downtown Portland in concrete.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

That is the real problem in Oregon. This old mindset, that won't give up on a way of life that ended 30 years ago when the last big trees were cut down, and have no vision for the future.

That's the typical urban mindset, promoted by people who have never set foot on the land and have no idea that a 40 year old tree that burns up is wasted wealth. Multiply those trees by 100 million and you owe rural people a lot of money. Assess every Portland resident $10,000 a year and we could call it even. You are rich. You can afford it.

[Ditchmonkey]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

I would like to see the state require a pesticide license and testing for anyone to purchase lawn and garden chemicals. I would also like to see it made illegal for any city to discharge untreated sewage into any waterway. You couldn't trust Portland residents and businesses to shut down during rain events, but if you just shut off the city water supply during heavy rains it would take care of the problem. Cities should also be forced to take their drinking water downstream of their sewer outfall. Urbanoids want to preserve everyone else's environment, but their own is disposable. While they are at it, they can move all the highways off the river bank and tear up all paving within 100' of a waterway, including the six streams that run through downtown Portland in concrete.

I haven't been here long but you're "smarter than you are city boy" attitude is already tiresome. Apparently I don't know enough about the Rogue Valley to comment on that, even though I grew up near there. I don't know enough to comment on logging, and you go on some long rambling tirade about Portland and roads along the river bank, even though I live in the woods with timber farms all around me. My neighbors are logging just a few hundred feet from my house right now. Can we just declare you the king of non-Portland Oregon and get it over with?

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

It's a living, and a low-wage job on the Oregon Coast is a hell of a lot better than a comparable paying job in San Francisco, with 3X the cost of living. Those "low-wage" workers are able to rent an apartment, and maybe even buy a home. A low-wage worker in San Francisco will need two jobs just to be able to rent a single room, if they are lucky. Who has the better quality of life?

There are plenty of alternatives in between these two scenarios that make better sense than either one, but at least those in San Fransisco can aspire to something besides low wage work. The Oregon Coast communities that have little to offer seem pretty hopeless and sad.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

The PNW is a fire climax ecology. With the exception of a small strip along the coast, any trees that don't die a natural death will burn. PNW forests are horribly overstocked. Leaving them be is the worst possible option.

California is drier and more fire prone than Oregon, and that state has trees as old as 5000 years. If a tree can survive 5000 years without burning in California, fire is not that big a problem for them. The entire west coast was filled with thousand year old trees before 99% of them were cut down, in the last hundred years. Logging is the threat to trees, not fire.

By your argument every single tree should be cut down, to eliminate any possibility of a forest fire. Unfortunately for you, that would be the end of life as we know it. Since we can't exist without trees.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

There are plenty of alternatives in between these two scenarios that make better sense than either one, but at least those in San Fransisco can aspire to something besides low wage work. The Oregon Coast communities that have little to offer seem pretty hopeless and sad.

Well San Francisco is right down the road. If you don't have a car, just get out on the road and put your thumb up, and you will be there in no time. I lived in San Francisco and loved it. But when I got to the point where I couldn't work 16 hours a day anymore to pay my rent and I was facing being homeless, I decided to come here. For me San Francisco was hopeless and sad. I love the Oregon Coast and have never been happier. Every body should move to where they are happiest.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Ditchmonkey

I haven't been here long but you're "smarter than you are city boy" attitude is already tiresome. Apparently I don't know enough about the Rogue Valley to comment on that, even though I grew up near there. I don't know enough to comment on logging, and you go on some long rambling tirade about Portland and roads along the river bank, even though I live in the woods with timber farms all around me. My neighbors are logging just a few hundred feet from my house right now. Can we just declare you the king of non-Portland Oregon and get it over with?

Since you are such an expert on Southern Oregon, maybe you can explain why Rough 'n Ready in Cave Junction can't find enough logs to keep the mill running, even though it is surrounded by a million acres of timber. The big problem with provincial urbanism is that they don't consider rural people to be human beings. They regulate the lumber industry out of existence, and then point out that there's no reason to be concerned about lumber because it doesn't employ anyone any more.

The tirade about roads and river banks is a factual account of the way urban people pass environmental laws that don't apply to them. You dump untreated poo directly into the Willamette, but if a dairy farmer has a problem during a flood event he is hit with fines that put him out of business. You require 100 foot riparian setbacks from all streams, except the ones inside the city limits. I'm just waiting for some president to declare Forest Park is a national monument, forcing you to close all roads that run through it and banning people from walking their dogs there. That's the level of disruptive regulation that rural people face all the time.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

California is drier and more fire prone than Oregon, and that state has trees as old as 5000 years. If a tree can survive 5000 years without burning in California, fire is not that big a problem for them. The entire west coast was filled with thousand year old trees before 99% of them were cut down, in the last hundred years. Logging is the threat to trees, not fire.

By your argument every single tree should be cut down, to eliminate any possibility of a forest fire. Unfortunately for you, that would be the end of life as we know it. Since we can't exist without trees.

A bristlecone pine in the desert is not likely to have to deal with a forest fire. I don't know who told you the entire west coast was filled with 1000 year old trees, but they lied to you. In the PNW the climax forest is spruce and western red cedar. Only a narrow strip on the west slopes of the coast range were wet enough for them to survive long enough to reach old age. Douglas fir doesn't live much longer than 500 years, and that was only in small pockets. In the high Cascades there is still quite a bit of old growth fir/hemlock. At low elevations, there never were ancient forests. The Indians set fires regularly to clear the land and provide wildlife habitat.

You might be surprised to learn that logging does not cause deforestation. The causes of deforestation are agriculture and urban sprawl. After a century of vigorous logging, there are more trees than ever in Oregon, which is a real problem. They are too densely packed. The phony "environmentalists" are opposed to forest management because their mythology stresses "natural processes." The fact is that those "natural processes" lead to firestorms and destruction of a valuable resource.