AG's APPROACH TO CHIP MILLS IS TO OVERSTATE ISSUE TO INFLAME ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Attorney General Jay Nixon says the governor's committee assigned to study chip mills was too wimpy. He said the committee's recommendation to urge voluntary compliance with good timber-harvesting practices wasn't enough. The only way to save the state's forests, in Nixon's way of thinking, is to sue and prosecute.

It would be interesting to know where the attorney general got his training in timbering. But his wild claims that international conglomerates will clear-cut the Ozarks just don't hold up. Chip mills don't cut down trees. They buy timber from contractors who harvest trees from forests in the hands of private landowners.

And there was a demand for timber from Southeast Missouri long before the arrival of two chip mills, thanks to the paper mill near Wickliffe, Ky. Would NIxon also like to post guards at the our borders to keep Missouri trees from leaving the state?