Rust Never Sleeps
Jul 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am by Susie
“MISSOULA, Mont. - The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation’s largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.
The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.
“We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months,” said Pat O’Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter.
The deal, which Rey said he expects to formalize next month, threatens to dramatically accelerate trends already transforming the region. Plum Creek’s shift from logging to real estate reflects a broader shift in the Western economy, from one long grounded in the industrial-scale extraction of natural resources to one based on accommodating the new residents who have made the region the fastest-growing in the nation.”
Real estate developing?!
That’s such pre-Bush thinking.
So what banks are going to loan what money to what borrowers to make this Pottersville wageslave nirvana possible? nada. zip. squat. dingus. null.
Poor Montana.
In the 2004 election just six Montana counties went for Kerry. Fifty went for Bush,by anywhere from 52% to 90%.
Not that I’m feeling any lack of sympathy for O’Herren’s obvious pain — and not to ignore that Missoula County went for Kerry — but after four years of Bush, that’s how it was in Montana. Fifty to six. What did they expect — to be left out of the Bush administration’s schemes? Is this in some way a betrayal, or even a surprise?
With kind regards,
Dog, etc.
… searching for home …
Just ’cause they build ‘em, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll sell ‘em.
Ooh, right in forest-fire country, too.