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Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, President Trump, Henry Heimuller, VP Pence, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia’s dog, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Standard Disclaimer.
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It will grow Back
The Crown Zellerbach Trail
The old Crown logging road which originally started from Vernonia, located near the intersection of Hwy 47 and Scappoose, Vernonia hwy. or Crowns main hub. This old rail line was converted into a main line Rd which was used exclusive by Crowns logging trucks. This kept the busy stream of logging trucks off the county road. Increasing Crowns ability to get their logs to the mills faster and added safety to the citizens and the log trucks by keeping the truck traffic off the county rd. As Crown’s logging business slowly went down and logging curtailed, the company stopped using the mainline. Then Crown sold out to Longview Fibre another logging company, Fibre did not use the old mainline. People began using the road to walk, ride bikes for years. County Commissioner Tony Hyde made it his legacy to convert the old mainline into a trail for people to use. Commissioner Hyde began the work to procure the entire line, after several years working with Fibre Hyde succeeded, and grant money was used to purchase the entire road, thus the Linear Trail was born. People have been walking, riding bikes, horses along the entire trail or parts of the trail. Don’t get me wrong there has been some issues along the way. Some were from the people living right along the trail, there was problems with garbage, berry briars growing along the trail, and some walker and bike riders griped about mud and horse poop on the trail. In my opinion big deal walk through it, around it, after all you are supposed to be on a nature walk for Christs sake. All these are small issues. Fibre sold out to Weyerhaeuser, and things were quiet for several years. Then came the outrage from the users of the trail, they found out that the new logging company Weyerhaeuser was going to log their property along the trail. The Linear Trail people want to stop the logging company from logging their own property. They want a buffer along the trail, they want it to remain trees. They consider the trail beautiful. Well I agree it is pretty along the trail. But the timber along the trail belongs to the logging company and it is their right to log it, it is their business to log and if you figure in the $$$ amount the trees are worth along about 21.7 miles of the trail it adds up to quite a bit of money. The logging company will have to leave buffer along the creek, which is the home to silver salmon, and trout etc. it is a state mandated law and a law which I agree with. But the users feel that there are other sensitive areas, I guess areas which they consider beautiful. The Linear trail is the old mainline not the areas on either side of the road people. You get the road that’s it. They are afraid of clear-cuts, well folks clear-cuts will increase the amount of deer and elk in the area as clear cuts provide more food for these animals. More animals, more ability for you to see them on your walk. These people do not understand that if they leave a small buffer there will be blow downs landing on the trail, because these trees are used to having trees surrounding them because a forest depends on each tree for its support and inner trees are not as strong as outer trees, plus alder and maples that are left , which were inside trees and not exposed to the sun will have their bark sun burnt and they will die, and will eventually fall over as well. The next thing the trail users will gripe about is the fact that there are people who hunt around that area and they will try and stop that as well because they don’t want an animal killed. Again, not your business. You believe clear-cuts are ugly well not so much, the company must re-plant(re-prod) and the young trees will grow and the area will be green in a few years. Then the area will turn into a mass of jack firs and it will be lush thick and green so thick you wont be able to see three ft. into the forest, or over the top. That’s why it is called a RE-NEWABLE RESOURCE. I have been in arguments with several of the people using the trail or supports tourism on the rail. You keep forgetting the fact that you don’t own the property along the trail/road. So you have nothing to say about what happens on the said property. Look at it this way, if it was your property and you wanted to say cut some trees along the property and I threw a fit about it and was trying to stop it, you would tell me to go to hell. If I did not like a walnut tree on your property and came over and sawed it down you would throw a fit and file suit against me because it’s your property. The same with the logging company it’s their property and you have zero influence or right to demand anything from them. Here are a few people upset with me because they are saying that I am standing up for the logging company. In this case I am… They are saying that I get upset that the logging company gets so many tax abatements, or money back they don’t pay into and that is correct, but the trail is a completely different issue, so they need to stay on track. People are talking about how we provide roads for the log trucks, well we don’t provide roads exclusively for log trucks, no more than we provide for rock trucks, garbage trucks, gas trucks, or individual cars. I will say there are a few roads in Columbia County the county has gated off, that goes through logging company lands which I do not agree with again different issue that can be addressed later, or these same people need to fight that one as well. But they won’t because it would take too much of their time and it don’t personally affect them at the moment, so they really don’t care. One individual tried to bring in the issue of logging on public lands and the Forest Service provides roads for the logging company, well the Forest Service builds roads through portions of public lands for fire patrol, and when it’s logged the logging company of course uses the road. If I am a private person and I sell my timber and there is no access to the timber a road must be built and the cost of that road is usually ironed out in the agreement between the two parties. And frankly what does this have to do with the Linear trail --- nothing. Personally as far as tourism, I don’t give a crap about people from Portland coming out here to ride bikes, they can ride their bike along the trail with or without trees, or maybe Portland should have kept some land for city dwellers. The people who depend on logging for their jobs need the trees to cut they are a valuable resource, and more valuable than the few tourists who ride the trail. I am on the side of cutting the timber- O My- is that a surprise for many of you, Well again the owners of the property get to choose what they do on THEIR property, not local trail users, or the tourists. Trail users need to be happy that they have a trial to use period.
Tammy
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