Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 30, 1992                   TAG: 9203300206
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHY TIMBER SALES ARE `BELOW COST'

A private forest landowner who wants to sell timber simply hires a forester who surveys the saleable timber, marks the sale boundaries or individual trees, draws up a contract that protects the land and the rights of the landowner, and sells the timber to the highest bidder. This process never results in a "below-cost" sale.

The U.S. Forest Service hires a forester to survey the saleable timber and mark the timber sale boundaries or individual trees, then hires a landscape architect to analyze the "viewshed," hires a wildlife biologist to analyze the wildlife, hires a hydrologist to analyze the water, hires an archeologist to analyze the history of the area, hires a logging engineer to analyze the logging, hires an administrator to administer the timber sale, and finally sells the timber to the bidder who can afford to operate under all the rules and restrictions imposed by all these "experts" - only to find they must go through the entire process a second (and perhaps third) time when the timber sale is "appealed" by some citizen environmental group.

This is why the largest landowner in Western Virginia, owner of millions of acres of the best and highest-value timber in the region, cannot effectively sell timber to a market that is paying record prices for timber from every available source.

This is also why the 25 percent of the Forest Service timber sale income earmarked by Congress to go directly to schools and roads in the counties where the National Forest owns land is such a pittance. LYNN B. SHAFFER RINER