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‘Illinois Valley News’ encourages letters to the editor provided they are legible and not libelous or scurrilous. All letters must be signed, including name, address and telephone number. The latter need not be published, but will be used to verify authenticity. The “News” reserves the right to edit letters. Letters are used at the discretion of the publisher.
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact are strictly those of the letter writers.)
Dear Editor:
Hundreds of miles of roads pioneered through the Siskiyou National forest over roughly a twenty five year period from the late 1960s through the 1980s.
These were effectively put in at taxpayer expense (in that the cost was deducted from the timber sale revenue) and justified as fire access.
However the following thirty five years have shown that without maintenance these roads have become impassable and regrown into a jumble of highly flammable brush and reprod.
The Forest Service has demonstrated over and over again that it doesn’t have the will or funding to do this maintenance but now it is proposing to clear a 400 foot buffer along 194 miles of roads which will only grow back into more of the same. Again the timber industry gets free road access and the public gets stuck with the bill. Blaming Fire Control for “putting out too many fires in the past” is a shody excuse for Timber and Silviculture having created the fire hazard by over-roading and over-cutting in the first place.
Robert Hirning,
Takilma