August 2004     

Sawdust & Splinters...

"Highlands" Low Blow

By Douglas E. Carlson

During the year 2003, the Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964) was introduced and moved from the U.S. House to the Senate. Like so many bills of its type, the primary purpose of the bill is to provide funds for the purchase of private property for public ownership.

Some claim this is conservation, but conservation is the wise use of natural resources. Once government owns land, it no longer serves any useful purpose. Once the government owns land, cycles of mismanagement and lack of management begins, with "green" philosophy dictating policy, rather than science and experience providing needed stewardship of our national lands. Depending on which version of the bill, the price tag ranges from over

Photo from the "Hearts Content Scenic Area" in the Allegheny National Forest (ANF).

100 million dollars to over 250 million dollars. The bill will only affect four states, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Also, like so many bills introduced in Washington and in our state capitols, the true effect will be to fund "green" organizations that target rural areas in order to benefit urban and suburban areas.

The bill references critical habitat, for 247 threatened and endangered species. It speaks of historical resources. It states that the so-called "Highlands" region provides recreation resources for 14 million visitors, and that it provides "other significant ecological, natural, tourism, educational, and economic benefits." It also gives impressive population numbers, in that 15,000,000 people get water from the region, and 1,400,000 reside in it. That last data should provide us with an understanding of how well the 1,400,000 rural people will fare against the potential voters found within the 15,000,000 people getting water from the area. This bill could be dismissed as just another bit of "fluff," and political catering aimed at the urban/suburban citizen/voter. The real calamity is that every piece of legislation like this damages another part of rural America. If rural America were a skeleton, it would be referred to as being disarticulated, scattered and shattered by the "green" jackals and their cooperative stealth government agents.

What a disgraceful federal monument of magnificent neglect. Hearts Content is called old growth, and very little is done in the area except for crude trails and clearing trails of downed trees. What is happening on the tract is that the large beech trees are dying from the Beech Bark Disease, the white pines are dying of old age, as are the hemlocks. Last year, high winds damaged a good portion of the trees as well. The canopy of this stand is choppy at best, due to the large numbers of dead and dying trees. Regrowth is a problem due, in part, to the white tail deer. If this stand continues to be managed as it is today, the future of this old growth is finite. The forest floor is littered with large decaying trunks of trees, as dead trees fall, they damage the few left living, and with little regrowth, fern, and a variety of shrubs are taking over. According to the literature provided by the Forest Service for tourists, this is how the forest used to look. In the same literature, it states that there are problems due to deer, and so the seedling and pole stage, and the middle layers are missing. The area is supposedly a tourist destination, but the trails are overgrown with grass in places, and have numerous trees fallen across the trails. The few benches provided for people to rest, have rotted to the ground, and foot bridges crossing small spring runs are rotting fast, as well, and are close to being dangerous.

Just as the environmentalist claim that not all the costs are factored in when an environmental issue is considered, neither are the true costs to rural citizens considered with land purchase bills like H.R. 1964. The first impact is the erosion of the rural tax base when private property is converted to public ownership. Blather about the need for open space, green space, recreation trails, and an endless list of environmental consequences, becomes inconsequential with what rural America faces every day. Rural America faces high unemployment, population drain, increase of average age, decreasing tax bases, and onerous environmental rules and regulations. Throw in governmental agency flakes affecting the use of rural private property, and we have a recipe for dwindling hope and increasing despair with a growing desperation in rural America. H.R. 1964 may seem like a great idea to some folks, including state officials greedy for more money and greater influence, but the consequences are going to yield results that will cause real harm to rural citizens.

Considering the integrity of State agencies, giving more money to corrupt State agency systems is hardly defensible. In Pennsylvania, we have a State agency (unnamed on purpose) that is literally blackmailing County governments. This agency is threatening to withhold grant funds, under its influence, unless Counties allow a western Pennsylvania Conservancy group to do "Natural Heritage Inventories" within the County. This same agency had as its chief administrator the former Executive Director of that conservancy organization. Something smells, and it isn't road-kill. Placing more money into the hands of these crooks is tantamount to giving a baby a loaded revolver.

Another issue of landowner rights that will be subjugated is that of "takings." In the supreme wisdom of Federal Court Justices, it has been decided, under the Tucker Act (the Act regulating "takings"), that unless a landowner proves a 92% loss due to government regulation, no "takings" has occurred - nor is the landowner due "just compensation." That's fair! Right.

A practical and real example is needed at this juncture. H.R. 1964 claims it is based on U.S. Forest Service Regional studies. The flaw in those studies is simple, the people living in those areas, the rural people, were not asked what they thought. The basic flaw in H.R. 1964 is the assumption that Federal ownership will protect the land. Today, due to the last four decades of poor environmental legislation, Federal land managers are not able to, are not allowed, to do their job, the simple job of natural resource management. The Forest Service is not allowed to cut trees, even when the harvest of trees involves sound judgement, wisdom, and excellent resource management strategies. Radical environmentalists routinely "paper monkeywrench" the system, causing the expenditure of millions of dollars in legal fees and wasted man-hours spent creating environmental impact statements, and fighting lawsuits.

Practical examples are easily seen in a National Forest near you. Dead trees are not allowed to be salvaged, diseased trees are ignored, forests with dense vegetation are not thinned to reduce wildfire hazards, and visitor infrastructure is permitted to lapse into disrepair and uselessness. Western friends tell me that there are mountains covered with dead pine, due to an insect infestation, waiting for the next electrical storm. Once sparked, these dead forests will threaten and destroy rural homes, ranches, towns - and people. The Federal Government can not protect all the land it owns due simply to lack of manpower, and the lack of properly trained and qualified personnel. Hiring quotas have created a Forest Service without very many foresters, but if you want archeologists, recreation specialists, interpretive guides, and closet radical environmentalists, the Forest Service has more than an equal share.

The fact that H.R. 1964 also wants to create a system of partnership with the Federal government is even more disturbing. Employees of the Fed owe loyalty to the job (Uncle), and ignore the localized impacts of their decisions on rural neighbors. In many places, Uncle Sam is the worse kind of neighbor. Here in northwestern Pennsylvania, we have two rivers designated as Wild & Scenic Rivers. The Forest Service is the managing agency of the Official River Management Plan. In the Plan, it states in over 30 different places that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction over private property. Today, however, the U.S. Forest Service exerts control over private landowners along the Allegheny River by influencing other government agencies charged with issuance of permits for activities by private landowners on the river.

Recently, a private riverfront property owner wanted to protect their property by placing riverbank stabilization using rock riprap, something God has been doing for years. Normally, the Army Corps of Engineers issues a permit for this common and effective practice. The Forest Service has been able to insinuate itself in the permit process, and blocks the issuance of permits based on very arbitrary criteria, by simply stating that the practice of riprap bank protection has a "direct & adverse" effect on the free-flow characteristics of the river. State officials are not allowed any control or influence in the matter, local officials are not even consulted, so the private landowner is forced to surrender and capitulate. The issue is no longer if the activity is really harmful to the environment; the issue is about who is going to control private landowners. It's not about the environment, it's about who has the power and who wields control over free rural citizens.

As recently declared by Professor Harry V. Jaffa, Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School, in speaking about how some in our society manipulate our Constitution, "We see it as well in the rise of an environmental movement, which, like communism, claims the authority of spurious science as a means to despotic control of our lives." In practice, the "despotic control" of rural lives exercised by federal officials and by radical environmentalists is insidious and unjust. The first thing communists do after revolution, is to nationalize all private property. The drift from private property to public property grows like a cancer across our nation. Local impacts are ignored over policy decisions made in Washington; decisions based on advocacy by so-called environmentalists, rather than on honest assessment of natural resources in a local area.

Likewise, on the Allegheny National Forest (ANF), Forest Service decisions continue to be undermined through frivolous lawsuits filed by radical environmentalists. Even though these same environmentalists are not successful in the Courts, the Forest Service responds with inaction. During the last few years, wind has downed thousands of valuable hardwood trees in the ANF, yet few have been salvaged for fear of upsetting the radical "greens." Soon, all value, except as firewood, will be gone from those trees. Simply put, the Federal Government is a poor steward and lousy natural resource manager, thanks to onerous environmental law, rules and regulations. Over and over the story is repeated, the Federal Government performs poorly as a land manager, most State Governments are not far behind in their abilities to perform poorly, as well.

The fear that the urban/suburban citizen experiences about ruination of the environment is real; they see it out their windows. The solution to that "problem" is not looking to their country cousins' land; it is in cleaning up their own backyards. Fix the ruin of the cityscape, and leave the country to those who have acted as good stewards to the land out of necessity, rather than out of mandated law. Most rural folks I have met love the land deeper than any "greenie" ever conceived of. The hubris that urban citizens hold against rural citizens translates to more idiotic legislation aimed at taking control of private property from those who know it best - rural people.

The land is our life, not our god. The land is God-given, and our response should always be stewardship. Taking care of the land takes care of us all. H.R. 1964 is not the solution, but it is part of the Wildlands Project - a green plot to control rural America. Wake up Rural America, they're coming to take us away! Sorry, that's no news flash now, is it?

Douglas E. Carlson is the Executive Director of the Conservation District Planning Department, Forest County, PA, and is a founding member of the Allegheny Forest Alliance.