This is in response to Jeffrey T. Olson’s letter of July 16.

I have just recently moved back to Maine after being in the state of Washington for 8 1/2 years. I can tell you that what Olson said just isn’t true. The environmentalists are the big reason for thousands of people losing their jobs. He also said that there wasn’t a single restriction on logging between 1979 and 1988. This is not the case.

The “sustainable economic development” he spoke of actually consists of a part-time, minimum-wage job of dispensing toilet paper to tourists.

In the northwestern part of our country there are millions of acres already set aside in parks and wilderness areas that will never be logged … ever. Right now our government is in the process of locking up another 12 million acres of both public and private land. The private landowners aren’t even being paid for it. It’s just being stolen from them.

If the estimates I’ve seen are true, 50,000 people stand to lose their jobs. Can you imagine 50,000 people standing around dispensing what little toilet paper remains? Realistically, what are all these people supposed to do if all they’ve ever done is work in the woods?

The worst part of all this is yet to come. Because of all the lost tax revenues and the extra burden this will put on government services, what will happen to tax rates? These unemployed people will have to get along with much less, but you can bet your bottom dollar the government won’t.

It doesn’t make sense to let those trees rot in the woods and then turn around and import logs from Russia, which is exactly what is happening right now. Doug Thomas Dover-Foxcroft