Eureka,
mt log haulThis story appeared on Fox News Channel
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EUREKA, Mont. -- Thousands of Westerners have
been rallying to the aid of a struggling sawmill, with the hopes
that this show of rural solidarity will send a message to policy
makers in Washington, DC.
Stiff environmental regulations imposed during
the Clinton administration have taken a heavy toll on Eureka, a
logging community of about 1,000 people in Northwest Montana.
"I had to lay off 40 employees and a lot of
them were friends," said Jim Hurst, co-owner of the Owens
& Hurst sawmill. "It's real hard for me to choke that
down."
Federal regulations have kept loggers out of the
nearby Kootenai National Forest.
"You picture a dog on a short leash that
starves to death because he can't reach his food dish," Hurst
said.
Adding insult to injury, thousands of acres of
trees killed in last summer's wildfires are in plain view of the
mill. Hurst estimates it is enough timber to keep his business
open for another five years. But federal logging restrictions have
blocked efforts to salvage the deadwood.
Some have decided to take matters into their own
hands, cutting trees on their own private land and donating them
to the mill. Many are hauling logs for hundreds of miles in small
pickup trucks.
What has been dubbed the "Eureka Log
Haul" had its busiest day on May 17, when more than 3,000
people from 12 states descended on the town for a spirited rally
and parade.
"It almost brings tears to my eyes,"
said Eureka resident Doug Newmaster, as he unloaded an old pickup
truck filled with small logs.
In addition to helping the mill, the Eureka Log
Haul packs a political punch.
"The message we're trying to get to
Washington is that there are reasonable people who live in our
rural areas and they've been sitting in an unreasonable situation
for a long time with the previous administration," said Bruce
Vincent, a fourth-generation logger.
Eureka shares its economic woes with hundreds of
rural communities throughout the West. Rally organizers say
current logging restrictions are not only costing thousands of
jobs, but leaving America's national forests cluttered with
underbrush that has been fueling the devastating fires of recent
years.
"Our biggest problem in this country isn't
that we don't have enough trees. It's that we have too many
trees," said Ed Eggleston, one of the organizers of the
Eureka Log Haul. "We need to go in there and remove some of
those trees so that the rest of the trees can be healthy."
Participants in the Eureka Log Haul are urging
the new president to reverse what they consider serious mistakes
of the previous administration.
"I think most of the West would describe
the Clinton-Gore years as the years in which the federal
government did indeed wage war on rural America," said Jim
Petersen, editor of Evergreen Magazine.
With their small populations, hundreds of
Western communities like Eureka often find it hard getting the
attention of federal policy makers. Eureka Log Haul organizers
hope by gathering these people together, their collective voice is
loud enough to be heard in Washington, D.C.
DAVE SKINNER REPORTS ON THE LOG HAUL
Folks, it's been a long day and my hands were too full of ESA
petition letters to take notes. But I think the Eureka Log Haul
was a success, in what has been a long war to get the
propagandized general public to catch on to the Mean Green Lying
Machine.
First, a little background. Eureka, Montana is a town of about
eight hundred on Highway 93 about 7 or 8 miles south of the
Canadian border. The main employments are forestry and tourism,
and there's not a heck of a lot of either. There are two sawmills
in the neighborhood. One is Plum Creek's Ksanka mill about ten
miles south, and then there is the Owens and Hurst sawmill. Ksanka
is not doing that well, either, even though Plum Creek has private
railroad grant land to harvest from. Owens and Hurst, however, is
being hammered. It is the last locally-owned sawmill in the
neighborhood, American Timber shut down last spring after 72 years
in nearby Olney. 72 years!
Like American Timber and most other smaller mills, Owens and
Hurst has no private holdings. The land was never available for
purchase after the Forest Service was established. So, Owens and
Hurst is totally dependent on Forest Service timber offers, but
nothing seems to get past the Green Lawyer Gauntlet. Not even
trees from last year's Pinkham Notch fire about 8 miles away. No,
the nearest wood was 500 miles north in Canada...stuff the
Canadian mills didn't want.
I talked to Hurst a few weeks back about a bunch of stuff, the
Brigade, the mill, the Canucks, what have you. Bottom line is,
this mill and the town that depends on it, are nearly at the end
of their options
So, today we ran a convoy to thank Jim Hurst for sticking his
neck out. (Editor: Jim was the originator and principal sponsor
of "Shovels of Solidarity" for Jarbidge, NV). He
took a huge political and business risk, and has laid his
reputation open to slaughter by Green character assassins. But
they haven't been able to do it.
The front of the convoy was 34 miles from Kalispell when the
rear finally cleared town. By the time it got to Dickey Lake near
Trego, it still took 17 minutes to go by at about 50 miles an
hour. And was two miles long backed up on the highway at Eureka. I
would guess 510 vehicles (2 second spacing for 17 minutes), and
most of the cars and truck cabs were full, so at least 2500 people
were just in the convoy. And there were about 4000 people all told
at the fairgrounds. Considering this was a Thursday, work day, 50
miles from any town of any size, that's just epic.
Hopefully, and we won't know until the evil mainstream media
barfs, it was epic enough to "report." And I hope the
message is that the natives are restless as hell, and they have
legitimate reasons for being restless. I won't cover the
speechifying, most of you can guess what it was all about. I felt
pretty good about what I was hearing. And Bruce Vincent himself,
who has been fighting this war for the soul of rural (the real)
America for 13 years, said he felt better about our (yes, OUR)
chances than he ever has.
The most interesting moment I caught was when Bruce Vincent was
letting it rip. Turns out the wind was blowing. So Bruce was
having a hassle with the pages of his speech, and Governor Judy
Martz walked up there next to Bruce and held the papers down for
him for the whole speech. Now, most folks would think that a
governor would be "too good" to do something like that.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, that little gesture shows that in
Judy Martz, Montana picked a governor who is way more than good
enough. Damn, I'm proud to be an American today.
Dave Skinner
