The 100 year sustained steal by Simpson aka Green Diamond aka Olympic Panel aka Solomon

Simpson fouls the air over Evergreen Elementary School 24/7

In 1941 Simpson Timber Company based in Shelton Washington and the US Forest Service entered what was called the Cooperative Sustained Yield Agreement. This agreement gave Simpson free reign to clear cut on forest service land in what was called the Shelton Cooperative Sustained Yield Unit.

The agreement was very controversial because it excluded all other timber companies from the opportunity to bid on timber in the area. (Source, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 281, “The Future of Our Natural Resources. (May, 1952), pp93-98) for this reason many locals refer to this agreement as the one hundred year sustained steal.  Simpson, as the only bidder, bid low and subtracted the cost of road building from what it paid us for the trees.

Typical Simpson aka Green Diamond Clear-cut

By 1941, Simpson’s private timber lands had mostly been cut over and it was feared that many jobs would be lost in Shelton and Mason County.

But under the Cooperative Sustained Yield Agreement more timber would be available to Simpson so that jobs would not be lost. This timber was all in the National Forest.  Simpson promised us one thousand jobs for one hundred years in exchange for destroying our National Forest.

The idea was that by the time Simpson had clear cut all the forest service land under the agreement, Simpson’s own tree stands would have grown enough to reach a marketable size. This way the supply of timber to Simpson would be uninterrupted and Mason county and Shelton residents would have a steady source of employment for years to come.

Instead of "sustainably" cutting the forest for one hundred years Simpson Timber Company savagely clear cut the southern flank of the Olympics in just forty  years. Many recreational trails were destroyed and 90% of the Skokomish Basin was clear cut, leaving it as the most flood prone river in the state. The Cooperative Sustained Yield Agreement turned out to be very unsustainable.

Our National Forest is starting to grow back but will it survive under the pressures of biomass extraction?
 The clear-cut marks the property line between Simpson aka Green Diamon and our National Forest

The Cooperative Sustained Yield Agreement provided a real, but short boom to the cities of Shelton and McCleary and the county of Mason. Mason County prospered until the timber ran out. The timber ran out because Simpson had already cut most of it and what little was left of the old growth finally began to receive protections. When the forest service realized that what Simpson was doing was not sustainable it introduced roadless areas and told Simpson that they could not cut down every last scrap of old growth on forest service land.

A tree farm is not a forest!  Simpson liberally sprays Oust in our foot hills.  Ous is toxic to fish fry and has a half life of 8 months in akaline waters (our water is alkaline) This was above Lake Cushman
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/pyrethrins-ziram/sulfometuron-methyl-ext.html  Accord is a trade name
for the herbicide "Round up".  Round up is also harmful to fish.

A hint of what our National Forest looked like BEFORE Simpson destroyed it. 

Simpson tried to sue the Forest Service for what it perceived as a breach of contract. Simpson had been promised timber and that timber had been taken away. There was a prolonged legal battle that culminated in a mutual agreement between Simpson and the Forest Service to terminate the 100 Cooperative Sustained Yield Agreement. The agreement was terminated in July of 2002


During the hey days of logging Simpson timber company used to be not just the main employer in Mason County and Shelton, but the largest source of jobs in the entire state state. (Source http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7730 History Link .Org article “Mason County – Thumbnail History)

Today the Simpson is only the 7th largest employer in the county. The forest products industry still employees the largest number of people in the county but the top ten employers in Mason County in 2006 were:

Top Ten Mason County Employers

(Mason Shelton Journal)

1) Little Creek Casino

2) Washington Corrections Center

3) Shelton School District

4) Wal-Mart

5) Mason General Hospital

6) Mason County

7) Simpson Timber Company

8) Taylor Shellfish

9) Olympic Panel Products

10) North Mason School District

Simpson is now nothing more than a filthy dirty anachronism that the county would be better off without.  But some of our politicians want to turn Simpson loose to create another boom and bust at the expense of our health and our forests.

Each time they log they cut smaller and smaller  trees and now they want to haul the brush out of the forest!

Celebrate 100 years of environmental destruction!