Coos County Watchdog


  • Home >>>
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Links
    • Whistle-Blower’s Page
  • Blog >>>
    • Info Blogs
  • Issues >>>
    • Johnson Creek Dam
    • Jury Nullification >
      • Jury Nullification on Facebook
    • More Choices in Bandon
    • NO Bandon Marsh Expansion >
      • Bandon Marsh Expansion on Facebook
    • Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance >
      • S.A.S.O on FB
    • State of Jefferson >
      • State of Jefferson on Facebook
    • The Coos County Charter
    • Urban Renewal Information

Road closure foes take to the street----Good Idea for the Bandon Marsh

4/24/2012

Comments

 
Maybe it is time to OCCUPY THE BANDON MARSH 
Road closure foes take to the street
                 Written by
Terri Harber April 16, 2012 08:48 am

By TERRI HARBER
 http://www.bakercityherald.com/Local-News/Road-closure-foes-take-to-the-street  


tharber@bakercityherald.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots,
you need JavaScript enabled to view it



Council chambers at Baker City Hall overflowed with people on Saturday afternoon as U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden hosted a town hall meeting. 

As was the case last week when Oregon’s other U.S. senator, Jeff Merkley, visited Baker City, most of the inquiries for Wyden — and some frustrated periods of venting — were about the recently announced Travel
Management Plan (TMP) for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.


Anger about the TMP — which will ban motorized vehicles (except snowmobiles) from about 3,600 miles of roads on 1.3 million acres that are open now — has spread across Northeastern Oregon and other parts of the state over the past month.

 Opponents gathered Saturday morning to march through Baker City, many of them holding signs protesting the TMP.

 Many members of the group attended Wyden’s town hall meeting later in the day.


“We feel betrayed,” Jan Kerns, chair of the Baker County Natural Resource Advisory Committee, told Wyden. Her husband, Tim Kerns, is a Baker County commissioner. Jan Kerns cited motorized access to irrigation diversion  dams as just one issue related to the TMP that “needs serious discussion.”


Jan Kerns said she and other volunteers worked hard to give the Wallowa-Whitman information about how forest roads are being used in Baker  County.


But the TMP that Forest Supervisor Monica Schwalbach announced seems not to have taken the volunteers’ work into account.


As a result, Kerns said, they are finding it “hard to keep people motivated when government doesn’t listen.”

 People with questions and comments about the plan are being asked to quickly get them to their county representatives. Baker County’s representative is Commissioner Fred Warner Jr.


Warner’s email is  fwarner@bakercounty.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  and his office telephone number is 541-523-8201. 

Also taking information is Holly Kerns, county planner. Email her at  hkerns@bakercounty.orgThis  e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or call 541-523-8219.


Forest Service officials and representatives from Baker, Union and Wallowa counties will meet this week to talk about specific issues and concerns. Then the county officials will report back with the answers.

 “They will go item by item,” Wyden said.

A member of Wyden’s staff will monitor the progress by attending the meetings. 

Though a Wallowa County official suggested the idea to Wyden, Warner is willing to give it a try.

 However, “we need to look at legislation. Enough is enough,” Warner said as the crowd burst into applause. “Everybody wants to protect (our forests) but we can’t protect them to death.”


“It just struck me as an approach that potentially has an upside.  I couldn’t see much of a downside,” Wyden said about the idea.


This effort could “magnify” individual opponents’ voices — which  would make it a good way to potentially influence decision making.


Wyden agreed with Warner that laws governing the forests need to be reviewed and potentially changed.


“Stop it or give us six months to straighten this out,” said Philip Scheler, who wondered what could be accomplished in a week after the plan has been in the works for five years.


He wasn’t the only person in the room who voiced this opinion.


“This is happening all over the country,” Wyden said of TMPs being created for national forests across the nation since the U.S. Forest Service in  2005 embarked on a campaign to deal with motorized recreation. “We’re going to  stay at it until we’ve got common ground. I’ve heard and seen how angry people  are with this process and I want to help fix this,” Wyden said.


“With these guys you have to fight … just a week?” Scheler asked  Wyden. “What’s it going to cost you to give us a month?”


“That may well be appropriate,” Wyden said, but also pointed out  that in a week “we’ll know what’s going to happen. There will be an account of all items we’ve heard raised.”


With users of the forest cut off from motorized travel to many  areas, the Forest Service is “forcing us” closer together to hunt, gather wood,  pick huckleberries and do other things. This could result in conflicts,
pollution and other damage to the land and potential danger to people, said  Carrie Matthews.


“It’s wrong. It’s a bunch of crap. We weren’t only ignored — we  were flat-out denied. We’re pretty ticked off. Someone made a decision to start  it. Someone can stop it,” Matthews said.


“Our town is at great jeopardy,” said Teresa Brown, a member of  the Halfway City Council. “You’re taking our legacy away.”


Brown provided details about the conflicts in forest management that are affecting people who rely on the land. One example: They were told there was a need to preserve the elk habitat but then “you bring in wolves to
kill them off.”


“They’re carrying off our dogs,” she said.

Closing roads makes people have to walk farther and risk being in  life-or-death situations with wolves — albeit far away from the safety of being inside of their vehicles.


“I can’t outrun them. What the heck am I supposed to do?” she  asked. ‘You can’t shoot ’em.”


Although the discussion focused on the TMP, Wyden also highlighted  another Wallowa-Whitman project — the Snow Basin plan, which calls for five  timber sales, totaling 48 million board-feet of logs, over the next five
years.

 Wyden touted the project, which is in eastern Baker County north of Richland, as a way to improve forest health.

 Forest Service officials estimate that Snow Basin would create 80  jobs: 46 in harvesting and 34 in noncommercial forest thinning. 

The project would override an 18-year policy of the Forest Service not cutting live trees larger than 21 inches in diameter in Eastern Oregon  national forests. Most of the larger trees cut are grand firs.


Wyden, who has introduced legislation designed to increase logging in national forests east of the Cascades, said he hopes the Snow Basin plan is  implemented with little or no difficulty and asked that anyone seeking to appeal  it contact his office first to discuss why.


Several people with mining interests addressed Wyden on Saturday.  The TMP is one more thing among a variety of use and access issues making it  difficult to mine in Baker County, local miners say.


“In our zeal to protect our environment we’ve regulated our country out of business,” said Kenneth Anderson. “All new wealth comes from the  ground.”


Anderson also said that mining is the “most important industry in the world.”

 Wyden said that mining would be the next issue to consider after the TMP.

 Those who questioned the draft environmental impact statement in  2009 are eligible to repeat the process and appeal pertinent contents of the  final Travel Management Plan. This needs to be done by April 30.


Mike Ragsdale, an organizer of the protest walk and gathering that drew about 200 people total, also serves on the county’s Natural Resource  Advisory Committee.


“Who has standing? As far as I’m concerned everybody has standing,” Ragsdale said after the town hall meeting.


He described Saturday’s protest as the “new walk of tears.”


Many of the same faces visible in the crowd Saturday also were seen at the Baker City town hall held last week by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, which was preceded by an opponents’ strategy session as well.


Other issues that came up during Wyden’s town hall included Medicare, the federal budget, the economy and political campaign financing.


Suzanne Moses of Baker City commented about the large amount of money sent to political campaigns as well as the existence of money coming from “undisclosed sources.”


“How do we get out of this situation?” she asked the senator.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision about the Citizens United case,  which extended personal election funding rules to corporations and allowed  copious amounts of campaign money to be amassed and spent without identifying donors, “took the hinges off the doors of democracy,” Wyden said.


The latest version of the DISCLOSE Act includes an extension of  the “Stand by your ad” provision written by Wyden and Sen. Susan Collins,  R-Maine, as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.


It requires any organization or Super PAC that spends at least  $10,000 on campaign activities to report that spending to the Federal Election  Commission within 24 hours and to file a new report for each additional $10,000  spent, according to Wyden’s website.


He’d also like to see a limit on the amount of time spent campaigning. This might require a change in the House and Senate rules so incumbents are regulated. 

Wyden suggested that people ask candidates for state and federal offices what issue (or issues) they’d most willingly work with members of the opposing party to do something about.

Before the meeting began a woman was passing out fliers. One had a picture of a pack of wolves. Underneath the picture it said “Thanks USFS for dinner!”

 “Please Don’t ruin Eastern Oregon. We were just coming back from the recession and you want to take away one of our best resources? We don’t want a bail out … just leave our land alone.” 


Comments

    Categories

    All
    A.F.P.
    Agenda 21
    Bandon
    B.I.A.
    B.L.M.
    Coos Bay
    Coos County
    Coos County
    Coquille
    County Charter
    Curry County
    C.W.A.
    Democratic Party
    D.E.Q.
    Eco Devo
    Eco Devo
    Economic Development
    Educational
    Elections
    E.P.A.
    F.D.A.
    F.E.M.A.
    Individual Rights
    I Spy Radio
    Jury Nullification
    Legislation
    Letter To Editor
    Mary Geddry
    N.D.A.A.
    News Wave
    N.O.A.A.
    North Bend
    O&C Land
    O.D.F.W.
    O.D.O.T.
    O.F.F.
    O.H.A.
    O.P.R.D.
    O.R.C. Mining
    O.W.E.B.
    P.E.R.S.
    Petitions
    Port Of Coos Bay
    Public Comments
    Public Events
    Regulation
    Republican Party
    S.A.O.V.A.
    State Of Jefferson
    The Bandon Marsh
    The Economy
    The Rob Taylor Report
    The Supreme Court
    The Tea Party
    Urban Renewal
    U.S.A.C.E.
    U.S.D.A.
    U.S.F.S
    U.S.F.W.S.

    Sign-Up Now to Stay Informed

    * indicates required

    View previous campaigns.

    Send Letters to:
    ​cooscountywatchdog@gmail.com​

    Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor and other opinions published in The Coos County Watchdog blog are not necessarily the views of the Editor, Publisher, or possible anyone else in their right mind.  The Watchdog reserves the right to edit, omit, or copy any and all submissions. 
    Letters to the Editor must be attributed with a name, address, and contact phone number. 

    WARNING:
    Political correctness is not practiced on this
    page & some content is inappropriate

    RSS Feed


    Archives

    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo used under Creative Commons from DieselDemon