>" ... where is your proof. Lay it out."

Anyone who has traveled, worked or grown up in the west and paid attention knowns the lumber industry, for various reasons, has been decimated.

Mechanization and automation has reduced the number of employees required for output. Modern rail cars carry twice as much compared to the 1970s, so even if you originated the same amount of wood products the car count would only be about half - less what has been lost to trucks. The housing market has been up and down, but wouldn't today's "McMansion" sized homes take far more wood products to build compared to 25-50 years ago? All the shook and other woods to build boxes, crates and other packing materials have been replaced by cardboard and plastics, but then again much of our consumer goods are imported so the origin countries supply the materials.

Let's see - Boise-Cascade basically imploded in Idaho, closing mills at Cascade, Emmett, Horseshoe Bend and Council. There is a small independent mill above Council and one or two on the edge of Boise I can think of. Haven't several of the mills on the rail lines out of Lewiston closed in the last few years. Baker County, Oregon doesn't have any mills left - there was a reload in Baker for mills in John Day and Prairie City. The mill in Prairie City is mothballed as well as the co-gen, one mill scrapped out in John Day leaving one running. Seneca is long gone, as well as the ones in Hines/Burns. Wallowa COunty had three mills, I pulled the last railcar of studs out of the county around late 2006, the mill closed a few months later and was auctioned off a while back - the owner blaming the lack of a supply of logs. The mill reopened as a small post, pole and firewood plant using parts and pieces from the mill at North Powder that was auctioned off. Preineville lost their big mill, the railroad barely survived until new traffic was found. Lakeview used to have three mills in 1990, now there is only one and perlite makes up most of the current traffic. Nearby Alturas and Canby had mills all long gone, though I heard one is supposed to have been built in Alturas. The western Sierras and northern California - very few mills left. I'm not sure there is even a mill left on the old McCloud which led to their demise. At least two mills in the Yreka area are gone. Oroville has had some mills close, as well as Susanville and several in the Portola region. The big mill at Truckee is gone as well as other smaller mills in the region.

Now I agree that many of the past practices were unacceptable and there is little doubt that we all need to take better care of this planet of ours (at least until we can get to Mars and trash it). But the only way we can meet the standards that some of the more extreme environmentalists demand is to start removing the human race. The extremists seem to have the political influence to demand whatever they want based on corrupt science.

For instance, in this region there is a fight over the health of the forests. The wackos want to see thick forests and insist on extreme logging restrictions, including that any log over 21" in diameter is "old growth" and can't be cut. This isn't like the region from the coast up the west slop of the Cascades that gets 50-100" of precipitation annually, the east side gets far less, as little as 15" in some forest areas. Around here we don't want thick pine forests, because in drought years (as in now) these forests become stressed due to lack of water. Too many trees means some become week and susceptible to insects, diseases and mistletoe. These dead trees don't do anyone any good but are quick to change to charcoal along with everything around it. Forest fires started by lightning used to be a natural occurring event, but are now stopped (when possible) - however there is no longer enough logging to emulate what lighting did. The result are horrific fires of such intensity that they cannot be controlled and burn so hot as to actually sterilize the soil in places.

Another area to look at is the Eureka, California region. NWP/SP used to originate 100+ car trains out of the area almost every day. Even the bankrupt EUKA was able to get at least 100 cars a week as long as they were staying on the track. Now throw in that Palco had been taken over with junk bonds and they were cutting everything in sight 25 years ago, but now there are hardly any mills left. I don't think Palco is doing much if anything, Eel River is closed as are all the mills at Blue Lake and on the old Annie and Mary. A friend of mine go the contract to scrap the machinery out of the flakeboard plant that used to be good for several railcars every night.

Just for Oregon - try these facts:

The 60% of Oregon's forestland that is owned by the federal government contributes only 12% to Oregon's total timber harvest.

The 35% of Oregon's forests that is privately owned accounts for 76% of Oregon’s timber harvest.

Current timber harvesting rates are the lowest since the Great Depression.

The supply of timber from private lands has remained fairly consistent (some now being exported), but from government owned lands has dropped to almost nothing, hardly any from federal lands and a limited amount is still coming from state lands.

Some sources:

http://www.ofic.com/facts.php

http://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2012/01/23/historical-look-at-oregons-wood-product-industry/

www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr868.pdf

I wouldn't blame all of it on the spotted owl, but the last I heard biologists had found that the barred owl was pushing them out of protected forests. For some reason we think everything is supposed to stay exactly the same, but with or without human impacts evolution will continue. We need to carefully nurture and reasonably utilize our natural resources, not just "protect" them.