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Blame must be shared

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SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/bitterrootstar/Desktop/Opinion5-29-13.doc

Blame must be shared

I have been quiet for a long time but that doesn’t mean that I have not been watching and reading.

We moved to the Bitterroot Valley 44 years ago. At that time there was a lot of logging and lots of PILT money from logging for schools and for roads. There were also several log home businesses in the valley. So no logging, no PILT money. (PILT – payment in lieu of taxes) on forest government land. All of the lumber mills and log home places went out of business because of the many lawsuits to stop logging and also against spraying the trees. Now we have a lot of bug infested timber, all dead and dry. If there is a fire it will be bad, as we are in a dry cycle.

Climate change is a natural event and a very small percentage is human caused (0.04 percent). Would we not have climate change, which is now warming, we would still be in the Ice Age.

True, they are finally allowing some logging of bug-killed trees, but it should have been taken care of years ago, but it was always obstructed

So don’t blame the Republicans for everything; it seems to me that the Democrats did their share.

Rosemarie Neuman

Stevensville

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  1. Keven Roth says

    PILT funding is not related to logging.

    Please see http://www.doi.gov/pilt/index.cfm for more details – quotes below are from that page.

    “Payments in Lieu of Taxes” (or PILT) are Federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable Federal lands within their boundaries.”

    “The formula used to compute the payments is contained in the PILT Act and is based on population, receipt sharing payments, and the amount of Federal land within an affected county. PILT payments are in addition to other Federal revenues (such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing, and timber harvesting) that the Federal Government transfers to the States.”

    In 2012, Ravalli County received $1,868,478 to compensate for the 1,115,675 acres of non-taxable federal land. Only Flathead and Lewis and Clark County got more PILT funds.