National Forest System Land Management Planning Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Draft Programmatic EIS

Out of Control Wildfire in the Payette National Forest.
Our atv ride got cut short by an 850,000 acre wildfire
which destroyed trees as old as 2,000 years
and as large as 8 feet in diameter.

In the Northwest, as the USFS is more than aware, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in direct association with the Northwest Forest Management Ruling.

Up until this time, the USFS had a net surplus budget of almost $87 million per year. Today, the USFS must make payments to county, cities, and states which were promised that logging or mining jobs would be replaced by more lucrative recreation jobs.

The recreational jobs were just a pipe dream, or they would have materialized in the last 20 years that have gone by since destroying a vital part of the west's livelihood by the USFS.

Not only has this created a financial crisis, this has created a national security crisis. I would like to submit the following link along with it's entire contents into my comments, as it shows how USFS actions directly impact and have created a national security crisis involving rare earth elements.

On October 21, 2010, the Chinese government stopped shipments of rare earth elements to the western world, including Europe, Japan, America, Mexico.......but continues shipping them to Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.

Which is sad: There are NO producing mines for rare earth minerals in the free world. Not in Europe, Japan, Canada, or even America. Even though the largest deposits of said minerals (more than $5 TRILLION total, a 450 year supply) are right here in the north west, and are off limits to development via the USFS Northwest Management Policies.
Story continues: http://usfspayettenationalforest.blogspot.com/2010/10/rare-look-at-common-sense-thrown-to.html
Note: Follow links to New York Times verifying China controls 98% of all active deposits on earth.
What happened to the USFS that could be reasoned with? Or that acted in America's best interest? When did the USFS turn into a single-use-management agency and a permanent branch of the National Park Service? Please follow your charter and founding principles: To enhance the prosperity, wealth and overall well-being of the American people, not locking all their land away from them for your personal uses.
Part two of my complaint against the USFS: When the Northwest Forest Management act came into being, all it did was accelerate the rate of spread of the bark beetle infestations and the intensity of wildfires.

My personal observations. Especially the Payette National Forest, which has been 82% destroyed by wildfires, including trees as old as 2,000 years and more than 8 feet in diameter.

More than 850,000 acres burned during the 2007 wildfires alone, and caused/is causing major damage to roads, bridges, rivers, lakes, streams, and wildlife habitat. I noticed the USFS has come into the Payette with an "active agenda" of destroying all roads, including county owned RS-2477 roadways (like the only access road to my private property!!!!).

Yet, while the USFS wastes millions of dollars per year, to spread new gravel on an old road (estimated by the USFS to put 12 tons of year of sediments into the river), they do NOTHING when entire mountain sides destroyed by fire slough off into the river inundating endangered salmon spawning beds with MILLIONS of tons of arsenic, mercury laden sediments.

Not even seedlings or grass seed was spread across MUCH of the burned area, while the USFS tells me I can't drive to my property anymore because my 1/2 mile long driveway is to blame for putting filth into the river? What the hell are you people smoking, besides endangered wildlife carcasses smoldering from fires you have no clue how to manage?

Scott Amos