OR Snowmobilers Use Heavy Equipment/Damage Forest Lands

[Firedogg]

  Are they trying tontell us that heavy equipment operations went on for five weeks and not one Forest Service person ever knew or saw it happening?

  I call BS on that story, someone in the local FS district knew it was going on.

[Stalker]

In the original post "Erik Fernandez, wilderness program manager for Oregon Wild" states: “They had a permit to be brushing."  Areas that I have been through where there is "brushing" going on there is a lot more then light brush clearing and tree branch cutting going on.

Maybe someone with logging experience can clarify what a permit to "brush" may possibly entail. 

[CAMPMEAT]

Seems to me that the State bears the preponderance of the responsibility in this. I say this because I would have to think that whenever a project is being submitted for review that it would be assigned a supervising official (SO). This SO would be responsible to work with whatever group leader, contractor or volunteer, to ensure that the government property and interests are protected. The SO would also be responsible to walk the project with other leads to ensure all parties are on the same page in order to avoid issues like this. SO would also be required to do a periodic walk through and keep proper reports on the project.  If manning is such an issue for these agencies then volunteers could very well relieve some of their pressure when it comes to grunt work. But this would not relieve the agency of their oversight responsibility. Seems like basic project management. 

The state has zero say on the FEDERAL LANDS as far as I know. The problem is total mismanagement within the Forest Service itself. The FS is totally infested with greenie, eco-terrorsits, land grabbing people, who do not want anybody recreating our OUR lands. It's pretty plain to see if you watch what's going on. The FS is restricting land use, road use for ORV's, de-commisioning roads, horrible timber management and horrible under growth, which caused the largest fires in the history of Washington State.

[Buzz2401]

The trees will grow back.  The people who did it will most likely never do it again.  Not sure where all this restoration money is supposed to go.  But it all seems like a big waste of time and money.  Not news worthy.

[KFhunter]

They're probably getting way too much snowmobile traffic for the size of the road and grooming being done.  This is usually a direct result of public lands managers forcing more and more people into smaller and smaller tracts of land. 

I can totally see this happening too, someone volunteered and went nuts on some equipment without really knowing how to even read a contract.  It was probably gibberish to a non-professional equipment operator.

[Labredog]

As an owner of a company that has done several trail and road maintenance contract jobs for the USDA, and the Army Corps of Engineers, I find it hard to believe that there was no governmental contact at any time while work was being performed in their district. Any time I have ever had crews on site in WA state on federal land there has been a site visit at least once a week by the contract representative for the USDA, or the USACE??? The documents issued to the snowmobile club should be treated as a contract, saying you did not read what was written in the work to be performed provisions is a pretty thin excuse at best! Shame on everyone involved!

[MisplacedAlaskan]

We need pictures to clear this up. Pushed over trees could have been leaning alders that would have fallen in the road at some point. It's a lot easier to remove those trees when you have the equipment in there that after the fact. I doubt the trees they pushed over were 24" firs. I would also need to see the culvert damage. I agree that this seems to be written with an agenda.

[mfswallace]

Gotta agree with P-man on this... ignorance is no excuse and admitting to not reading "contract" should be the only thing needed to prosecute

I have performed alot of winter and summer trail maintenance for Nordic skiing and snowmobile riding. I knew exactly what was acceptable! I also knew the consequences to the companies usfs/states relationship if  I deviated from permissible actions....

[Humptulips]

 

We need pictures to clear this up. Pushed over trees could have been leaning alders that would have fallen in the road at some point. It's a lot easier to remove those trees when you have the equipment in there that after the fact. I doubt the trees they pushed over were 24" firs. I would also need to see the culvert damage. I agree that this seems to be written with an agenda.

[pianoman9701]

There are pictures in the article if you follow the link.

[elk247]

I didn't see any damaged culverts. 

Here is a direct quote from the article;

Bob Keller is the grooming chairman for the state snowmobile association. Where the Forest Service sees damage in the trees that were pushed over and the roads that were widened, he sees a better route for his groomers. 

 "It’s like you and I, we can stand on the corner and watch an automobile have a wreck and we will both give a different story about the same thing we’ve both seen. We feel that we've done it right."
End quote.

This appears to be a case of environmentalist being sensitive and making an issue out of nothing. The irony is that it cost 200k to "fix"  (move a few rocks, trees and slash likely taking limited funds away from other environmental projects like spotted owl restoration or this months endangered moth.

[mkcj]

The carnage and devastation in those picture is amazing.

[pianoman9701]

The carnage and devastation in those picture is amazing.

Someone had asked if the trees were actually down of if they were just brushed. The picture of the downed tree answers that question.

[grundy53]

Those pictures don't look bad to me. I think the greeners are trying to make this a bigger deal than it is.

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[pianoman9701]

OK.