After a year of work, the Chip Mill Advisory Committee, established by Governor Carnahan to study the impact of chip mills, has issued its draft report. On December 20, a public hearing to comment on that draft report will be held at the DNR’s Conference Center, 1738 East Elm Street, in Jefferson City. Please attend if you can. If you can’t, you may send written comments before December 31 to:

Advisory Committee on Chip Mills
c/o Llona Weiss
Dept. of Natural Resources
P. O. Box 176
Jefferson City, Mo. 65102

A letter which you can sign, detach and mail is attached at the end of this newsletter. Chip mills have already destroyed the forests of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and other Southern states. It is not too late to save the Ozarks, but we must act quickly. Please write today.

Two chip mills are already up and running in Missouri: the Willamette plant in Mill Spring and the Canal Industries plant in Scott City. Chip mills grind up forests into chips, which are then converted into paper and related products. This not traditional Ozark logging, in which large trees are harvested to produce recognizable timber to be used in enhanced wood products. Chips mills eat everything - large mature trees, skinny young trees. A chip mill can consume 300 acres of trees in a month, leaving a devasted wasteland of exposed dirt that will erode and send muddy waters into the pristine streams of the Ozarks. Chip mills encourage clearcutting, because a chip mill can grind up any kind of timber fed into it. Clearcutting is devastating on many levels. The forest that once provided habitat for deer, turkey, songbirds, mammals, butterflies and wildflowers is completely exterminated. Bare dirt means runoff into nearby streams, thus polluting our clear Ozark waters that attract so many tourists.

Another issue that demands our attention is a proposal by the US Fish & Wildlife Service to allow the capture of wild Peregrine Falcons for use in falconry. Please send your letters opposing this proposal to:

Chief, Office of Migratory Bird Management
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 North Fairfax Drive
Room 634
Arlington, VA 22203

Fax: (703) 358-2272

There is no evidence that wild Peregrine Falcons have recovered. Their population was decimated by pesticides and the subspecies found east of the Rockies (anatum) has been extirpated. The Peregrine Falcons we see here are primarily birds raised in captivity which are then released to establish breeding colonies. Because falconers can obtain birds raised in captivity, there is no reason to allow Peregrine Falcons to be taken in the wild. Please write today to protect this bird.

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