4/15/08
Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Dear Editor:

In response to the Bohemian Club President’s recent letter:

1. No one opposes removal of dead hardwoods from the Bohemian Grove to reduce fire hazard. This activity makes good sense and does not require a permit from the state. The Bohemian Club has embarked on such a program, and it is unrelated to the current logging application.

2. The Bohemian Club seeks to gain perpetual rights to log 1.1 million board feet of redwood and fir annually. Logging these trees will not reduce fire hazard. The Bohemian Club is using fire as a scare tactic to justify heavy commercial logging.

3. The conveyance of a conservation easement was never mentioned earlier. In fact, the Bohemian Club originally failed to disclose the very existence of much of the 160 acres of old growth it now proposes to protect. The easement idea only surfaced when the CA Department of Forestry determined that the Bohemian Grove may be too large to qualify for an NTMP. The easement is nothing more than a mechanism for the Bohemian Club to reduce its overall acreage enough to qualify for an NTMP. The tactic can accurately be called an “end run.”

Sincerely,

Jay Halcomb,
Chair, Forestry Committee, Redwood Chapter, Sierra Club
17760 Old Monte Rio Rd.
Guerneville, CA 95446 707-869-3302

John Hooper,
Bohemian Redwoods Rescue Club
PO Box 394 Point Arena, CA 95468 415-626-8880/707-882-3046