Logging roads do not require environmental regulation

I wonder if Brian J. Boyle is as concerned as much about the fact that the American taxpayers actually paid to build many of those logging roads over the last century [“Don’t subject logging roads to environmental regulation,” Opinion, Sept. 4].

Indeed, the timber industry is a lot like the bankers on Wall Street; they come begging for more government assistance from the taxpayer, and then complain about any regulatory enforcement.

Boyle crows that “The cooperative (read, weaker state regulations) approach has produced real environmental benefits in Washington.” Perhaps he could explain how even less regulation would have softened the impact of poorly built and maintained logging roads on the Chehalis flooding of 2007?

Any Chehalis third-grader can point to the barren hillsides and blown-out logging roads dumping massive amounts of sediment into the creeks and predict the result.

– Phil Cochran, Seattle

read more