Last time I checked, trees grow back, don’t they. So what is the big deal? Brahmin trust fund environmentalists can’t stand the common folks making a living.

Of course trees grow back John. So let's clear cut the whole Gorge so a few can make some easy money while the rest of the Gorge economy loses tourist dollars for decades.

"trees grow back, don’t they" Quite often they don't. Especially clear cuts in steep terrain with poor soil conditions.

Good we need to see more cutting and less talking to keep the forest healthy and safe from all of the environmental extremists who are legislating the healthy forests away, with laws that have nothing to do with forest health, and everything to do with furthering their political agenda.

I'd be all for selective harvest, but clear-cutting's a bit too extreme Given all the hue and cry and years-long legal action because somebody (the Bells?) built a home on their property in the Gorge, roughly across the river from Mutnomah falls, this development seems especially surprising.

Clearcutting is not needed and selective management has proved that fact.
It is the difference between the blow & go landscape guy and a gardener. They both do the same thing, but the gardener like selective management, plans how the future looks and acts accordingly. The blow & go could give a rat's ass and collects paycheck after everything is cut down in the fastest semi-orderly fashion, been there, done that.

Max

Close. It was the Bea's Brian and Jody.

SDS = Same Destructive S#!t. Welcome back to the 1970's.

Shabby, to say the least!

And what is the price of shabby?

Disappearing tourist dollars.

John Benton,
First, I have no connection to any environmental trust fund. As far the environmental groups here, I don’t necessarily agree with some of them that have certain political connections. That is another issue.
I am a citizen concerned with stewardship, and that clear cut right in front of majestic Mt. Hood is an eyesore for generations and a reminder that the protections we thought were in place are in jeopardy. I am concerned that the public commons is getting less and less, until compromised into just tiny parcels here and there, I guess for remembrance sake, such as a few acres of old growth in Michigan.
http://www.midwestguest.com/2011/11/visiting-one-of-michigans-few-remaining-old-growth-forests-at-hartwick-pines.html

Oregon is noted for taking care of the environment, although, granted lately it seems more in words than reality. People do come to Oregon for tourism and beauty, because in many other places what once did exist is no longer. They will not come to see clear cut in a national scenic area. What is next? OK to go into National Parks now to extract whatever? That would provide more jobs. We had out of state visitors recently and on the way to the coast they were very puzzled and concerned when they saw the extent of clear cutting that this would be so evident in the state of Oregon. It was awkward to answer their questions, but worse yet if we would have had to explain why this happened in our National Scenic Area.

As to your remark about trees grow back....
well, how do they grow back, we used to have trees of huge diameters, go to the Historical Society to look at photographs, the trees are getting smaller, and what happens after how many harvests?
This is not a tree farm situation. This is a national scenic area. By the way, it would be interesting to find the tracking of where these logs went to, China?
So people need to make a living, at some point, the question needs to be asked, at what expense. How many days of work did it provide or is it more about a nice sum of money for the corporations?

I thought tourists came to Oregon for no sales tax and our world class pan handlers? Keeping Portland Weird and entitled!

I am a citizen (not that the non-citizens are all evil) also concerned with stewardship.

But what the enviro-terrorists did to the Santiam, leaving it to die to the bark beetle, and then get torched when Bush's black-hawk choppers flew in, was no good either. Maybe a few hundred acre clear cuts are okay, compared to the hundred thousand acres of blackened Ponderosa.

So what part of the Santiam is a National Park? National Monument? Scenic Area?

And what is unnatural about the bark beetle? Fire?

Are the woods the exclusive domain of humans?

What ever became of discrimination?

Unfortunately, people want the cycle of life to stop at a particular moment of well being.

I drove through Mosier on Sunday and didn't even notice it. I look forward to the next time I drive through and looking at the gorgeous green color of a healthy forest growing there again after the tree planting.

Thousands of trees were clear cut along eastbound interstate 84 between Warrendale and the Bonneville dam for some ODOT construction project. Why have Friends of the Gorge been quiet about that activity?

Before tossing clear cutting vs selective, maybe an acquaintanceship with the practices and results is in order:

http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/olympia/silv/publications/opt/418_Curtis1998b.pdf

Of course not the last word.

Google is your friend.

Randy orders things cut whenever his contractors want to, right?

Public and private entities both get F's on paying proper attention to erosion risk, from time to time.

How bad this is going to be will not be evident until after the monsoons start in earnest again.