Before selling lands, get industry's input

Mr. Anderson,

I think you have tackled quite a job here, but I don’t quite agree with you on getting rid of federal land. I believe our fore-fathers were thinking ahead and came to a good conclusion. We can’t sell or give away this land to some fat cat like Mr. Ted Turner to add to his collection, that’s crazy!

Do think it needs tuning up a bit though. The sections that were given to the state and in an isolated location, I think, and here I really don’t know if it’s a law or not, but say you own 20 acres and want to sell a 5-acre plot in the middle, isn’t there a rule that you have to give a right away to the buyer to access his property?

These school sections were a very good idea and a good source of income for our schools. You know trees are a renewable source of income, and our Forest Service was doing a very good job of managing this until these odd-balls like the Sierra Club that has come along and has practically demolished the forest service management. Doing away with these folks would go a long way in returning this area back into something profitable to everyone.

My idea would be for you to get in touch with someone in the forestry business, and get their view of what has taken place. My understanding was when an area was clear cut it was because of infected trees that were causing them to die off. Not all areas were clear cut, there was selective sales also where only good sized marketable trees were taken and smaller ones left to continue their growth. They had a very good record of replanting, so we had a product everyone benefitted that was never ending. The lumber business to me was the lifeline to this country, and shutting down this industry has put more people out of work than it did some owl that lost a nest!

For the life of me I cannot figure out how a handful of these nuts can destroy our economy, we gotta come to our senses and do something about it.

Thanks for listening to an old man spout off.

GROVE SCHOOLCRAFT

Sandpoint