A acquaintance of mine asked me to post this.

[Craig Sweet]

TPAUL....I'm curious, does anyone here know whether the tree removal program at NGLA targeted native trees or non-native invasive species?

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
The same families often sit on the Town Boards to further complicate development."

MikeS:

If some of those old potato farm families sit on some of the Town Boards that monitor permitting restrictions and those families are inclined to do things that promote the conservation of that land environmentally and space and development-wise, then God love those old potato farm families, in my opinion.

Some of them may want to just sell out to the highest bidder regardless of maximum development aspects and problems but those who don't I think are admirable.

As I said, some of those families have owned that land for over 300 years and I'd much rather defer to them than to some high rolling mega millionaire f....ing smuck who has no earthly idea what's going on down there environmentally.

[Craig Sweet]

Tom...you have to be careful even with families that have been on a piece of land for 300 years.

I don't know if you've ever traveled down the Bitterroot Valley here in Montana, but it is one of the most scenic valley in the lower 48....high, snow capped Bitterroot Moountains to the west, the Skalkaho range to the east....the valley has been home to orchards and hay/alfalfa fields since man first arrived here...

Through this valley flows the Bitterroot River...simply a marvelous trout river....

The old families in the valley that live along the river use to take old cars and cable them onto the river bank to keep the river from moving onto their property....

Now, when you float along this river, fishing and taking in the mountain vistas, you float past miles of rusted car bodies hugging the bank, falling into the river.....very pretty.  

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:  What National built 90 years ago is history.  What I was referring to was the removal of 20-25 acres of trees over the past three years well documented on this website, done without any town oversight or input, at the same time Sebonack was being told we had to restrict our clearing to a certain percentage of the total site acreage.

I do agree with you entirely that it's up to the town to decide what to permit, I just think that having different standards for different golf courses is a bad precedent.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick...first of all I WORK on a golf course, so I am aware of what enviromental impacts they have. I also am aware of what many golf courses are doing to lessen impacts and preserve wildlands on their property.

I'm aware of where you work, and that's not the function of a golf course anymore than it's the function of a residential community, municipal complex, shopping mall or a farm.

As for Long Island and the Hamptons, you are much closer to that part of the world than I am and you can no doubt speak more intellegently about any impacts occuring out there.

Are you aware of the issue Mark Hissey was referencing ?
It's not about the displacement of species.

Natural disasters have tremendous impacts on wildlife. But to my knowledge, with the possible exception of large meteor impacts, natural disastors have not eliminated entire species. Man has.

Could you cite one instance where a golf course or golf courses have been responsible for the extinction of a species ?

Where I live I have seen forest fires char hundreds of thousands of acres and have extremely positive impacts on wildlife....Smokey Bear and his message of stomping out every fires is probably one of the single largest wildlands mistakes ever promoted. Someday over some beers I'd be happy to discuss with you the benefits of fire in our wildlands....once again, its about a balance that does exist and man's constant tinkering with that balance screws it up.....and it comes back and bites his ass.

So, man should continue to live in caves, safe from forest fires ?  What's more important, humans or insects, reptiles and animals ?  Should civilization cease so that the lower orders of life can live ?

Species adapting thru migration?  Mucci...now it is you that is out in left field!

I would wager that 80% of the song birds in America use to make the open grassland hills that ring our communities their home in the summer for breeding and nesting....what happens to them when those hillsides are developed?  

They fly elsewhere.
Birds are migratory.  Each fall they fly south and each spring
they fly north, finding the appropriate area for nesting and breeding.
My highly developed neighborhood and surrounding towns in Metro NY are full of them.

What happens to whales that have been "migrating" for 1000's of years to areas for breeding only to find oil spills, pollution from the fishing industry and the US Navy?

Do you mean the fishing industry that feeds millions of Americans each day ?  The one that provides a livelihood to millions as well.  Or, were you refering to the U.S. Navy which protects you 24/7 ?

How did those songbirds fare when Mt St Helens blew.
Do you think the 700 degree temperatures kept them in harmony ?   How about the trees for thousands of square miles, the trees and shrubs necessary for birds to nest and feed in ?  How about the lakes that were destroyed ?

The hand of man has inceased the life expectancy and the quality of life for all of us.  But, if you want to return to cave dwelling so you can hear the songbirds, that's your perogative.

How far do you think whales are gonna move to avoid that?

Whales migrate thousands of miles, mostly underwater.
Whales became endangered because they were hunted, not because of the fishing industry or U.S. Navy.

Had it not been for the U.S. Navy, you'd be speaking Japenese.  I'm sure that the thousands of men and women who died or were wounded defending America, and their families appreciate your distaste for their service to our country.  Colonel Nathan R Jessep wasn't all wrong.  

Where I live the song birds disapeared. Where did they go?

They went to a more stable environment.

Are they staying one step ahead of the developer?

YES

What impact does a golf course have on those birds when the habitat is constantly mowed?

Probably a lot better then when their habitat is altered into a school, hospital, airport, grocery store and a clothing store.

It's not the function of every piece of land to support wildlife.
Human needs come first.

While you are busy worrying about the plight of humans, just remember this, as the climate warms, the areas of frozen tundra thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere....and this carbon adds to the warming and more tundra thaws....and it adds to the warming....

Are you aware that Glaciers once covered an enormous part  of the U.S., including Long Island.

So, was it better back then, with NO songbirds and no humans, or is it better now ?

This planet began warming LONG BEFORE the hand of man was involved.  How do you account for that ?

They call these areas ecosystems for a reason Mucci...perhaps you should pay attention to them....there is a cause and effect...gee...kind of like "firm and fast"

I do pay attention, but, I don't take an extremist, lunatic fringe approach to my views, that's TEPaul's job, and apparently yours as well.

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick, so you do value humans endevors above all other life on this planet?

You make so many stupid arguments and none are really worth replying to. Your knowledge of fire ecology is zero....your knowledge of the needs of song birds is even less...do you even have a clue as to the role songbirds play while they are flitering about?

You do not see any co-existance possible when push comes to shove.

You definately need a lesson in natural history. I suggest you start with Rachel Carson...

Patrick, its only a matter of time before man eliminates the wrong species and then things will snowball until man himself is gone....

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick, so you do value humans endevors above all other life on this planet?

Unequivically, YES.[/color]

You make so many stupid arguments and none are really worth replying to.

They aren't stupid, they only seem stupid to you because you can't understand them.

And, you can't reply to my questions because you don't know the answers.

Your knowledge of fire ecology is zero....your knowledge of the needs of song birds is even less...do you even have a clue as to the role songbirds play while they are flitering about?

My knowledge on specific topics is limited only by my interest in them.

As to the role songbirds play as they're flittering about, it's to provide food for the hawks in Manhattan when the pigeons aren't available.

You do not see any co-existance possible when push comes to shove.

NO.

As an extreme example, venonmous snakes can't exist side by side with man, neither can fire ants or killer bees.  
There's an inherent conflict in the existance of those species in close proximity to man.

If a child dies because of an attack by any of the above are you more concerned about the eradication of the creature causing the death, or the loss of the human life ?

You may choose to protect the cause, I choose to protect the human.

And please, don't tell me that the question is stupid or beyond your ability to comprehend.

You definately need a lesson in natural history. I suggest you start with Rachel Carson...

Patrick, its only a matter of time before man eliminates the wrong species and then things will snowball until man himself is gone....

Bullshit.

Is the world any worse because the Wooly Mammoth isn't parading around Minnesota, or the Saber Tooth Tiger in some other location ?  Give me a break with all this doom and gloom nonsense.

And again, answer my question about the fact that the planet started warming up millions of years ago, long before man had a hand on anything other than his own organ and a few rocks.

Tell me how the glaciers melted absent the hand of man.

Man has improved civilization, his standard of living, health and life expectancy, all through his own efforts.

If you want to live in the woods and commune with nature, that's your decision, but, please, spare me these absurd examples of petrochemical plants in Louisiana or the U.S. Navy in the Pacific..  

[Voytek Wilczak]

The answer to the discourse between Patrick and Craig is very simple.

There has to be a balance.

Protecting some 1.5"-long little fish which is on the "Endangered Species List", while depriving the local humans of their livelihood is as stupid as GE dumping millions of pounds of PCBs into Hudson.

The GE executives who ordered this dumping should be hung by the balls, as should the Sierra Club extremists who deprive humans of their livelihood in favor of little worms or fishes.

The truth is in the middle, folks.

"The lunatic fringe" has been borne out of unspeakable excesses of the (mostly) chemical industry. I am a PhD chemist, I know chemicals, trust me. The bastards who polluted the Hudson, the Passaic River, the Hackensack River, half of Hudson County, who indiscriminately dumped thousands of tons of nasty chemicals into OUR ENVIRONMENT are much more dangerous than the loony tree-huggers.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Voytek,

I'd agree, that balance, a prudent approach is required, not some knee jerk reaction to the unknowing sins of others decades, if not centuries removed.

Do you really believe that the textile mills in Paterson, NJ, that diverted water from the Passaic River, vis a vis canals, and then returned that used water, laced with colorants and chemicals, really understood the environmental impact in 1810 ?  1850 ?  1900 ?  1940 ?    During World War II ?

Do you think towns understood the peril of living down stream from other towns, or the benefits of living up river ?

And making golf courses, or anyone else jump through hoops for questionable purposes is a waste of resources and an impediment to progress.

It's easy to have 20-20 hindsight.

[Craig Sweet]

Voytek...the thing is, there is nothing really wrong with extracting minerals, making plastic, building golf courses...THE PROBLEM is how you extract, how you extrude, how you develope.

Here in Montana taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the various toxic sites left by the extraction industry, the railroad, and various timber companies....each of which provide the USA, and the world, with the raw materials need to grow....but they took every shortcut, cut every corner, used methods that they clearly knew where toxic and hazardous and would be a problem for decades to come, to maximize THEIR profits in the near term.

As someone in the chemical business I am sure you know there's often more than one way to get the job done....and the best way often costs more money....up front....but when its done right, 50 years later someone isn't paying five times as much to clean up the mess.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Craig Sweet,

The flaw in your premise is the assumption that making people jump through hoops and spend additional sums of money is "the right thing to do".

It may not be.

It may be a waste of time, money and resources with the benefit for going through the hoops, negligible to zilch.

I asked you before if you were familiar with the issue that Mark Hissey raised ?  Apparently you're not.

It remains questionable as to whether jumping through hoops will have a beneficial effect, let alone be cost justifiable.
And, if the benefits are zero, but the costs are driven up, causing an enterprise to fail, who benefits, the lunatic fringe that don't want civilization coming to their neck of the woods ?

On an unrelated topic how do you feel about those environmental groups in Oregon that want to kill the Sea Lions in order to protect the Chanook Salmon ?

Isn't that tampering with nature ?

The balance, and theory of letting nature, not man, take care of itself ?

Yet, "environmental interests" are pushing to slaughter the Sea Lions.  What do you think of that ?

[TEPaul]

"TPAUL....I'm curious, does anyone here know whether the tree removal program at NGLA targeted native trees or non-native invasive species? "

Craig:

I don't know if anyone on here knows that---I know I don't. But if there were native and non-native trees on NGLA three years ago I guess they targeted both since they basically took all the trees off the interior of the site. Targeted probably isn't the right word anyway. It was more like Al Capone's St Valentine's day massacre---they basically just wiped out all the trees.  

They restored and returned the course to its original design state---the state of C.B. Macdonald and his definition of the "ideal" golf course---eg one without trees.  

[Voytek Wilczak]

Voytek,

I'd agree, that balance, a prudent approach is required, not some knee jerk reaction to the unknowing sins of others decades, if not centuries removed.

Do you really believe that the textile mills in Paterson, NJ, that diverted water from the Passaic River, vis a vis canals, and then returned that used water, laced with colorants and chemicals, really understood the environmental impact in 1810 ?  1850 ?  1900 ?  1940 ?    During World War II ?

Do you think towns understood the peril of living down stream from other towns, or the benefits of living up river ?

And making golf courses, or anyone else jump through hoops for questionable purposes is a waste of resources and an impediment to progress.

It's easy to have 20-20 hindsight.

I think they knew it was wrong. All the managers of these mills had to do is to ask themselves a simple question: would I want this chemical-laced effluent to be flowing in the stream that is in the backyard of MY OWN HOME, where MY children play?

I think they'd answer NO, regardless of the year you quote. But they thought it's quite alright to pollute other people's environment.

Corporate criminals, is what they were.

Properly disposing of toxic waste is extremely costly. It is far easier to dump millions of pounds of PCBs into the Hudson, as GE has done.

Patrick, "the lunatic fringe" which you observe today is a direct outgrowth of the criminal, poisonous activity of (mostly) chemical companies in the past.

Again, killing sea lions to save the salmon is JUST AS CRAZY as what I described above.

We are talking extremes in this thread. And golf course construction is also a victim to these extremes.

I follow the Liberty National construction (because I live nearby), and there were people who claimed it was better to leave the industrially-polluted land alone than to build a $150 million golf course and remediate the land because of the potential effluent from the pesticides used on the grass would go into the already PCB-laced Hudson River.



     

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick....I believe the sea lion in question is the California sea lion??  Regardless, I also believe they are protected. As is often the case with these things, once a species is protected the population can soar.....especially if its only preditor is a Killer Whale....and I'm not too sure Killer Whales are doing all that well....so...I do believe populations can be managed, though that will often make some people unhappy....once politicized you're asking for all kinds of trouble....this "problem" with the sea lion is they impact both commercial and recreational fishing.

Unfortunately for the salmon, the dams on the Columbia, farm irrigation, development in spawning areas etc....have provided plenty of obsticales...once they get past the sea lions....

Closer to my home is the issue of wolves....many interesting things have happened since they were reintroduced into the ecosystem....fascinating reading.....if you recall they were hunted and pushed out of their range in the lower 48's....