For a decade of my life I was deeply involved in the fight to get compensation for downwind victims (most from Utah) of the fallout from U.S. atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. In the course of that time I saw a variety of amazing fibs told by the government — hoaxes that injured and killed people. I grew to respect those whistleblowers who had the guts and patriotism to cry foul on the hoaxes.
Leroy Lee died about a month ago in Santa, Idaho. He was a seasonal government worker, a timber stand examiner — a tree counter. As low guy on the totem pole, it was not his job to take the global view. Still, he noted that there were fewer growing trees in the forests than the U.S. Forest Service claimed, and much more cleared land, too, clearcut.
The Forest Service was lying to Congress about millions of dollars of harvests on public lands. Lee blew the whistle. Officials had hoaxed up on paper, forests that didn’t exist, in 15 of the west’s National Forests.
It wasn’t a big scandal as scandals go, but the Kootenai National Forest still works to straighten things out, mostly in litigation. Most hoaxes are exposed by honest, hard-working people like Leroy Lee. They are heroes of our republic. Many of them remain unsung, like Lee.
In his “day job,” Lee taught physics, chemistry and biology at St. Maries High School, St. Maries, Idaho.
More information:
- Lowbagger.org, “Scientist who unearthed ‘phantom forest’ scandal dies”
- Spokane, Washington, Spokesman-Review, “Forest Activist, Leroy Lee, 50, Dies.“
- Demarcated Landscapes, “Update, Leroy Lee Ceremony” and “Leroy Lee, 1956-2007“
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 