The Ragged Edge Overregulation Bursts Couple’s Lifelong Dream

My view

One fall day in 1991, our doorbell rang and there stood an official from the Environmental Protection Agency who informed us that we were not in compliance with the Clean Air Act. We later learned that unless we replaced the teepee burner at our sawmill we would face a $25,000-a-day fine.

We had owned our sawmill, Mesenbrink Mill, for almost 30 years and we hoped to retire comfortably down the road. Instead we used our savings, and substantial loans, to replace the teepee burner with a chip facility that processed the mill’s wood waste.

We had worked hard all our lives at that sawmill and we always assumed we would be able to retire reasonably on our savings, but that assumption was catastrophically diminished the day the doorbell rang.

We haven’t much trusted the federal government since. The people we elect to Congress don’t really run things. It’s the bureaucrats appointed by our elected officials who are running things now. They make up all these regulations and if you don’t follow them, they can fine you, take your assets and put you in jail. We would have liked one of our four boys to take over the sawmill, but Herman discouraged them because of all the regulations in the lumber industry, the environmental movement and NAFTA’s bad effect on the U.S lumber market.

Despite our anger with the federal government, we still vote, still pay taxes and would never think of joining a militia. We love our community here in Boundary County and feel very connected and committed. Herman has served on the Moyie Springs Council for 25 years and we raised our six children here.

Carol can never forget the time when she was 15 years old and her grandparents’ home burned to the ground. The community built them a new home, from the ground up.

And in 1981, when Carol’s father passed away, her brother’s wife was amazed at the food, the flowers and the visits we received. She lives in California and she told Carol: “We don’t even know our neighbors.”

That’s why we will always live here, despite some bitterness that our children cannot keep the family sawmill after we retire. Our dream died because there are too many government regulations and too many bureaucrats running things they don’t understand.