February 24, 2000 Missoulian Letter to the Editor by Norman Kingsley, P. O, Box 1795, Whitefish: Show me the profit. Hotlinks and comments added by Concerned About Grizzlies, CAG, a grassroots organization.
Once again, Scott Daumiiler writes letters published in all local newspapers,. damning environmentalists. This time, it's the environmentalists' fault that American Timber in Olney closed its doors. Daumiller writes: "I challenge the environmental movement - to prove you care about more than the money you're conning people out of."
He builds strong arguments that enviros sue to stop timber sales, and make money from such. Would he explain how one makes money from stopping timber sales? Is there a trust, federation or industry that'll pay for closing down a stud mill? ' Who are they? Name some names, Daumiller. In a nation governed solely by profit motives, show us ignorant readers where there's profit to me made shutting down business. Show us how to get rich filing those lawsuits they're "shoving down our throats."
CAG Comment
Mr. Kingsley, you are looking in the wrong direction. Try the Friends of the Bitterroot, The Audubon Society, Serria Club, National Wildlife Federation, to name a few of the hundred of environmental groups that profit from naming spotted owls, grizzly bears, wolves, bull trout, the list goes on and on and on, as being threatened or endangered. Have you traveled through Washington, Oregon and California to see the havoc created by 'the spotted owl" which is neither endangered or threatened. And now that cancer has crept into Montana and is turning our world upside down; the Olney Mill being among the first 8 or 9 casulties, not to mention the sattelite industries around these mills.
CAG suspects that large companies donate to these clubs to buy what they think is the good will of all of the public. The auto industry would do well to look at what roadlessness has planned for their SUV'S, a major portion of their business.
Who pushes these projects. Business? Labor? who? The environmental radicals, that's who like Dave Forman, founder of the radical ecoterrorist group Earth First!. For those of you who don't know who Dave Foreman is, he is the scoundrel that was spiking trees and destroying logging and road building equipment back in the 1980's, and is the current director of the Wildlands Project and Dave advocates the optimum human population be zero.
Do you suppose anyone will profit from cleaning up the sediments behind Mill Town Dam??? You are pretty naive. [By the way it might be better to let a sleeping dog lay]
End CAG Comments
Maybe it's the polemicists for extractive industries who profit from negative economic cycles. Who's paying Daumiller, Stone, Sturm, et al., to bombard local media with weekly anti-enviro propaganda?
My opinion: Timber is a commodity. lt's produced worldwide. Worldwide, commodity markets fluctuate to extremes. Interest rates rise, timber prices drop, One year they're up, next year they're down. Price drops have forced mill closings for 140 years, some to reopen once market conditions change. Today, only mills that convert their commodity into "engineered lumber" on site seem to be able to weather crises. Enviros have little to do with it.
It's supply, demand and interest rates that govern markets, not "enviros.'