Letter: Forest partnership is no guarantee for logging

By The Standard Staff - 01/29/2008

Multiple abuse of every single acre. Take over and destroy the rest of the Beaverhead like they have the Pipestone area. Detractors, radicals, pro-ATV goons and Hitler’s Brownshirts. These are the words that have been used to describe some or all of us that do not want to give up motorized access to large areas of our national forests and other public lands.

I’ll say it again, the partnership strategy proposed by lumber companies and environmental groups does not guarantee that one tree will be cut or that one job will be created. It only guarantees that we will have approximately 1,146,123 acres of non-motorized land in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.

As examples, on May 2, 2007, a Forest Service plan to thin trees on 180 acres in the Crazy Mountains was withdrawn following an appeal by the Native Ecosystems Council and Wildwest Institute. Also in 2007, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed suit in Federal Court in Helena asking for a temporary restraining order to halt logging on 241 acres in the Meridian Creek drainage in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and for it to be permanently abandoned.

It is plain to see as long as the environmentalists can use the courts there will be no logging.

To Richard Turner of Dillon, in the letter that you put in The Montana Standard on Jan. 18, you said we promoted virtually unfettered ATV use in our national forests. Not true. Since the 2001 OHV three-state off-highway rule went into effect, the motorized community has been restricted to the roads and trails that the government agency gave us. What we don’t want is to lose the roads and trails that we have worked so long and hard to keep open.

Also your comments about and I quote “pro-ATV goon” and “Hitler’s Brownshirts” are offensive and disgusting. By using these words you are doing exactly what you accuse others of doing.

On Jan. 19, my wife and I attended our first annual Beaverhead Outdoors Association fundraising dinner in Dillon, where the members were kind, courteous and outgoing individuals who welcomed us and made us feel at home. I only wish the rest of us were as up to speed and knowledgeable about forest issues as the people in the Dillon area are.

Frank Kriewald 562 Elkhorn Lane Butte