Disconnect in reporting of fire costs
I am struck at the disconnect in reporting of the “cost of the fires” to Montana and the Feds - let alone other states... The only reports are of what it costs to fight and/or contain them until nature can help.
Meanwhile, the LOST VALUE of trees are never (seemingly) factored into any equation. And certainly there seems to be a dearth of reporting on that aspect.
Consider, if 50,000 acres of prime timber go up in smoke, the only cost EVER reported by the media is what it took to suppress, contain, and then extinguish the blaze. A fraction of the true cost.
A hypothetical 100 acres of trees could be worth $250,000 [base on my knowledge from 1990 of the price of lower quality timber in coastal Virginia]. Take that value x 500 = $50,000,000 [that’s 50 million dollars of lost potential income-producing value “on the stump”, far more than the cost to put out a fire - a mere fraction of the value of the timber lost]. And that translates into even greater lost income throughout the stream from stump to final consumer.
National Forests were established to provide a sustained harvest of products for housing and other human consumptive needs. Not grizzlies. Not Bull Trout. Not tourism. Not “dicky birds”.
The lost income from the lost trees translates into lost TAX revenues for school districts in the respective counties, and across the state. These have to be made up somehow, and it is the “rigor” of modern politics to do so on the backs of people on limited incomes - or in case of those on welfare, to whomever they pay their meagre rent checks.
We are now locked into a lose-lose situation thanks completely to the political parties and their cronies who are busy running the state into the ground with ever-increasing costs and more government “swarms of officers sent hither to harass our people” - all while closing more and more resources to the people of Montana. If you want tourism, but you burn down the forests, who the hell will want to come here to look at a waste land? They can stay in their urban concrete jungles for that!
Not only are the trees that are now burning across the NW being lost as produce for American and other markets, but they are also emblematic of lost jobs that environmental lobbies have cost this nation.
It is time for this nonsense to stop!
Tell Governor Bullock to step forward and ASSERT, in no uncertain terms, that all lands within Montana belong to Montana as they were promised upon the granting of statehood. They do not belong to the Sierra and other clubs, or sandal-wearing vagabonds on bicycles or in our colleges, and most certainly they do NOT belong to the Federal government.
Jim Greaves
Thompson Falls MT