Logger, USFS at odds about logs from Plumas County fire
By Jane Braxton Little, Sacramento Bee
GREENVILLE – Four years after the Moonlight fire roared through 65,000 acres of forest near this Plumas County town, the damage continues to sear the rural community.
A local logger is challenging the U.S. Forest Service about logs removed from the burned area.
How this dispute is resolved could affect the economic future of this timber-dependent town, and local leaders are waiting on the outcome of a meeting today between the logger and the agency’s regional forester to try to resolve the issue.
Randy Pew, owner of the logging company that bought the charred timber, has criticized the Forest Service for “grossly erroneous estimates” of the quantity and quality of the material he harvested to sell to a local sawmill.
The agency overestimated the volume of marketable logs by as much as 90 percent, Pew said.
In August, he filed a claim with the Forest Service for partial damages totaling $375,725. He plans to file another one claiming damages of an additional $1 million or more, he said.
“Their estimates were off by thousands of truckloads of logs,” said Pew. He was recognized by the Forest Resources Association as national outstanding logger of 2001.
Forest Service officials in California have rejected Pew’s claim, citing loggers’ responsibility to make their own estimates of the material available before submitting bids to buy it.
He signed a contract accepting responsibility for his bid. Now, he wants the USFS to pay for his mistake.
He knew the risk in signing the contract but didn’t do the footwork to confirm what he was bidding on.
I would say it’s his responsibility to gather data, and make his own estimate, it was his mistake to rely on USFS estimate. What business person would rely on anothers information?
He was either lazy, or made bad estimates, and is now trying to make up for it.
The USFS had 700 days to evaluate and study this timber sale, Pew had 7 days. This is nothing more than another successful attempt by the USFS to destroy another logger. The USFS unofficial mission is to remove all mankind from our forest. Loggers, Ranchers, miners, atv’s, skiers, hikers, hunters etc. Laugh all you want, just wait 20 yrs and look back. There is a direct correlation to the growth of the USFS and the ever increasing and devastating effect of wildfire.