5.23.6 - Spokane to Seattle

I gotta tell y'all about this meeting I was at the other night, where a lot of us found out about the latest threat to our nation's old-growth. It wasn't the "evil-timber-corporations" greedily raping our forests for profit as a lot of you might suspect...uh-uh. It's actually meth addicts looking for fast cash to fund their habits. (sigh)

Apparently, in the Olympic National Forest, forestry authorities believe more than 44 trees--including a 400-year-old western red cedar 7 feet across--were destroyed by methamphetamine users, according to the Seattle Times.
Six men from Grays Harbor County, Washington, were charged with first-degree theft from forests. The men are accused of having stolen wood from numerous sites and cutting down at least 19 old-growth trees to pay for their drug habits, the Times reported.

Crimes and other incidents have doubled on national forests and grasslands in the past five years, but the number of Forest Service personnel and investigators available to deal with them has remained the same.

Lack of Federal funds.

Losses on public lands in Washington alone total more than $1 million each month, says Dennis Heryford, chief investigator for Washington's Department of Natural Resources.

So it is clear to me, (and a lot of others as well) that the 21st century meth-user is a different breed of drug addict. Aside from their psychotic, sociopathic behavior, there is still the on-going scourge of mobile meth labs damaging our rivers and streams with toxic byproducts from their meth-manufacturing waste.

Talk about terrorism.

Which begs me to wonder here: just where is the right-wing/Neo-Con outrage, and subsequent "war" on this actual terrorism that is happening right here on our own homefront every day?
It seems all our worry around the "manufactured" war over "people's freedoms" in the Middle-East, (yeah...right) has led to a complete cease-fire on the war on drugs here. This nonsense has in turn produced a real, tangible form of terrorism that is wreaking havoc on us everyday, and which now looks to be taking a significant toll on our forests and land.

And this says a lot, if you ask me. Because afterall, I see meth-addicts everyday - in every state I pass through. And I still haven't run across any Al Qaeda "terrorists" yet. Not a one.

-Tom

5.18.6 - Denver to Seattle

Wish I were there to watch this!! -Tom

On Sunday at 7am, the ol' eyesore cooling-tower at the Trojan "noo-cue-ler" (as Dubya says) power plant along the Columbia River is being brought down.
Demolition crews are busy getting ready for the big day having nearly completed the task of mining the tower with explosives. More than 3,300 holes have been drilled into the concrete, holes that have been, or will be, filled with a nitroglycerin-based dynamite.

Doug Loizeaux with Controlled Demolition, Inc., is the man in charge of the project.

"Cooling towers have been taken down all over the world," he says. "But this is the largest one that's ever been taken down and it's the only one that has a double reinforcing mat."

The walls were built extra thick so they could withstand an earthquake and it will take 2,500 pounds of explosives to bring them down. The dynamite is being placed in two horizontal layers, one at 100 feet up and the other at 250 feet up. They are connected by several vertical lines of explosives and when they go off, the tower will be knocked off balance by a few degrees.

The tower will come almost straight down, 150 feet off center, and far away from the radioactive spent fuel rods that are still stored at the site.
The entire demolition is expected to take just 14 seconds.
Interstate 5 and Highway 30 will be shut down immediately before and after the demolition.

If you want to see the demolition, the best way to do that is from your own livingroom because there will be no public viewing spot.
Most local-news stations will be airing this live Sunday starting at 6 a.m. The demolition is scheduled to take place at 7 a.m.

5.9.6 - Worthington, MN

More and more drivin' in the upper-midwest. Ugh! Don't want to even spend any time writin' about it, though I'll tell y'all: I miss the NW terribly.
Lorraine tells me that last Friday marked the reopening of the Johnston Ridge Observatory and if ya take a drive up there, you'll get a spectacular view (depending on the weather, I suppose) of a huge slab ("fin") of rock that's been growin' out of the Mount St. Helens' crater since last November, steadily pushin' rock and other debris out of its way.
"The fin-shaped mass is about 300 feet tall and growing 4 feet to 5 feet a day," said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. The current growth of the new lava dome has been accompanied by low seismicity rates, low emissions of steam and volcanic gases and minor production of ash, the USGS adds.
"Given the way things are going now, there's no hint of any sort of catastrophic eruptions," USGS geologist Tom Pierson said. "At any time, however, things can change."
Scientists flew a helicopter into the crater late last week to adjust equipment and take photographs that will likely be used to determine just how much the new lava dome has grown the last several months.
You can sorta make out this new slab formation if you visit the volcanocam-link on sthelensupdate, where they also have some fascinating additional info:

Finding The Fin Before It Finally Falls With A Flourish
Since November 2005, a fin (or spire) of volcanic material has been growing out of the new dome. The current size is in excess of 300 feet. This is often a regular occurrence in volcanic dome-building. The fin will only grow so far before the inherent weakness in its structure, along with gravity, causes it to collapse. Since the current volcanic activity began in October, 2004, there have been several fins and spires that have grown and collapsed. However, this is the first one visible from the VolcanoCam.
This image was taken on May 5, 2006, at 10:45 am PDT. You may click on the image to view it full-size.

So again, you'll just have to take a nice spring drive up to the newly opened observatory. The Johnston Ridge Observatory, which closes down every winter, is the closest observatory to the 8,364-foot peak. It is named after David A. Johnston, a volcanologist killed in the 1980 eruption. It sits about five miles north of the mountain and offers the closest views of the volcano's horseshoe-shaped crater.
Enjoy the spring! Hope I see y'all soon when I get some runs into that pretty lil town y'all got.
-Tom