Good folks of Grant County, we have an enemy among us. An enemy that is destroying our forests, tearing the guts out of our economy and fractionizing the ability for our citizens to continue living and doing the things that they revere here in Grant County.

That enemy is spelled S-I-E-R-R-A Club. The Sierra Club, Oregon Wild, (formerly ONRC) and some other so-called environmental groups are putting stops, by continually threatening legal action, to very nearly all attempts to salvage the resources that we have available in our forests.

A crisis has been established when the federal legislature has refused to fund payment in lieu of taxes, for the thousands of acres of forestland that we have here in the county. The sad part of it is there is no need for most of it. It is estimated that the Shake Table Fire killed 165 million board feet of timber. It has also been stated that this timber would have been sold for around $150 per thousand board feet. The gross would have been in the neighborhood of $8 million, of which $2 million would have gone to the county. But the Sierra Club continues to rob this money from our economy by continuing to threaten lawsuits if we don’t do things their way, which is virtually nothing.

Now consider the Egley Fire of last summer. This is more absurd. It is estimated that there is 500 million feet of merchantable timber destroyed in that fire. This timber could sell for around $200 per thousand, or more, because it is tractor/skidder-type logging. (Shake Table had a lot of helicopter logging in it.) Figure that out. That is about $25 million that our counties are going to be deprived of if the Sierra Club promotes their do-nothing policy, and they probably will. Money that is desperately needed and is being provided by Mother Nature herself.

Another thing that might be humorous, if it weren’t so serious is this: The environmental groups are now complaining that the Forest Service roads are deteriorating and they MIGHT cause silting of steelhead streams, and they are demanding that they be fixed. The Forest Service says there is no money. The money for those road repairs and probably a lot of other programs, is locked up in the salvage programs that these very people are putting a stop to all the time.

Yes, there is an enemy among us. It doesn’t carry a gun; it carries a book on how to litigate, as well as a book of stamps. It is about time somebody listens to the sensible side of this situation before it is too late. Letters, letters, letters. Write lots of letters to our legislators. We need to defeat this enemy before it totally destroys us.

Dean Elliott is a Canyon City resident.