ORV enthusiasts want more roads to ride. I can sympathize with the loggers and mill workers, but I don't understand the logic of the motorheads. If you build a road into a wild area, it loses its mystique and becomes just like any other roaded forest. If motorheads aren't happy with the 380,000 miles of forest roads that already exist, they never will be. Sign of the times.
Loggers have more legitimate concerns.
Since those layoffs occurred when the Forest Service drastically cut timber harvesting, industry spokespeople blame the federal government. In response, the agency canceled timber sales on adjoining public properties. While Montana's wood products output increased from 1979 to 1986, employment in the wood products industries declined by 2,400 jobs, according to the Department of Commerce. Even if federal timber harvests were to increase by 55 percent in the next 50 years, industry employment still would drop by about 27 percent because of mechanization. That's according to a 1990 General Accounting Office report.