Sierra Club Statement on Wyden Eastside Forest Bill

Sierra Club statement on Senator Wyden’s

The Sierra Club recently succeeded in stopping the controversial Farley and Cobbler timber sales in the Umatilla National Forest using the 'administrative appeal' process in order to hold the agency accountable without having to go to court. The Forest Service abandoned a third project - Wildcat - based on arguments raised in our appeal before having to defend it in federal court. The appeals process would be abandoned under Senator Wyden's bill during the first three years of the legislation.

“Oregon Eastside Forest Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act”

While the Sierra Club is not party to the deal announced by Senator Wyden today, we have been aware of the discussions for some time and have provided Senator Wyden written comment on previous versions of his forest restoration legislation. We will be reviewing the details of this most recent legislation in coming days and weeks, but believe that any legislation intended to comprehensively deal with forest restoration, old growth protection and job creation in central and eastern Oregon  should include provisions to:

-          Provide stand-level protection for old growth forests as well as codify existing rules that protect individual large diameter trees on national forests in central and eastern Oregon.

-          Protect older forests and large diameter trees after they have burned – post-fire logging is by far the most scientifically unjustifiable and damaging type of logging that takes place in central and eastern Oregon, and was at the root of numerous lawsuits during the Bush administration.

-          Require aggressive watershed restoration activities that reduce road mileage, improve fish passage, protect riparian habitat from soil damage associated with logging, and contribute to the recovery of threatened fish and wildlife species while improving water quality on hard-hit 303(d) listed streams.

-          Protect the roughly 5 million acres of unprotected roadless forests on national forest land in central and eastern Oregon from logging activities, as well as other ecologically significant forest stands.

-          Create economic diversification through watershed restoration. The historically low timber prices over the past two years make it clear that creating economic activity around non-timber forest restoration activities such as culvert replacement, logging road obliteration, and invasive species removal should be a key component to create new jobs and contribute to long term economic stability in rural Oregon counties.

-          Require the Forest Service follow the best available science and avoid scientifically controversial logging activities such as mechanically thinning moist mid to high elevation mixed-conifer stands where there is strong evidence that logging does far more harm than good.

We hope that Senator Wyden’s latest forest restoration effort addresses what we consider to be key components for a successful forest restoration, old growth protection and job creation effort in central and eastern Oregon.

For background on the Sierra Club’s most recent successful efforts to uphold strong scientific standards for eastside forest management, please visit http://orsierraclub.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/umatilla-national-forest-rescinds-third-controversial-logging-project/

The Oregon Chapter Sierra Club is one of the state’s most effective forest conservation organizations, representing over 20,000 members statewide. We play a leadership role in holding the Forest Service accountable for protecting watersheds and using the best available science to guide management across millions of acres of National Forest and BLM lands in central and eastern Oregon.

Hey NW Natural! Stop the Palomar Pipeline!

The NW Natural Gas company has proposed developing the controversial Palomar Pipeline, which would carry imported fossil fuel from a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal near the mouth of the Columbia River, across Mt. Hood, to a California-bound gas pipeline in central Oregon.

As a member of the public, you too are an affected landowner, as public lands and waterways will be forever damaged in the process of building and maintaining this unnecessary pipeline.

Click here to sign the petition to NW Natural to get them to stop the Palomar Pipeline!

The Palomar pipeline would stretch over 200 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River to Central Oregon, forever damaging family-owned farms and forestlands, threatening hundreds of rivers and streams including the Wild and Scenic Clackamas River, and creating a 120 foot-wide, 47 mile-long clearcut across the Mt. Hood National Forest.

Click here to learn more about the Sierra Club’s efforts to stop LNG in Oregon.

Just like the Portland family in the video below, you too can say: “Hey Northwest Natural – Stop the Palomar Pipeline!”:

D5: Mobilization Against the World Trade Organization

Join the Oregon Sierra Club and our partners for a March to the World Trade Center on
Saturday, December 5th * Downtown Portland

12:00 Noon – Gather at Tom McCall Waterfront Park (under the Hawthorne Bridge)
1:00 pm – March to the World Trade Center, Federal Building and Wells Fargo Building
2:00 pm – Indoor Rally and Concert at Portland State University

As part of the global days of action against the new World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, people from across the Pacific Northwest will be converging in downtown Portland to speak out against the proposed expansion of failed “free trade” policies and to demand the prioritization of human needs over corporate greed.

That week, the World Trade Organization will be holding its largest negotiations on international trade and investment in many years.  During the new WTO conference, government officials and corporate lobbyists will be promoting the expansion of business-as-usual trade policies as a solution to, rather than a cause of, the economic and climate crises.  On their agenda is the expansion of pacts that would:

* Cause further offshoring of industry to countries with weaker environmental standards
* Force global warming policies to conform with restrictive commercial agreements
* Expand agricultural practices that push small farmers off their land and force migration
* Require countries to accept imported foods and consumer goods that fail to meet local safety standards

We need to fight back.  This latest WTO conference — only the fourth in the past decade — falls on the exact 10-year anniversary of the hugely-successful Seattle WTO protests.  It is time to reclaim the “Spirit of Seattle,” come together as affected communities and take control over the policy decisions that affect our economic and ecological well-being.  As part of this resistance, a broad coalition of over 60 environmental, labor, faith, human rights and community organizations across Oregon are organizing a large-scale march and indoor rally in Portland for Saturday, December 5, 2009.  More than 200 similar events are being held around the country, and hundreds more around the globe.

Join the global movement saying “NO” to the WTO by participating in the “D5″ march and rally.  For information on buses and caravans, volunteer opportunities, educational events and other background items, please visit: www.december5.org

Molalla River Wild and Scenic Passes House!

On November 19, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill (292-133) to protect 21 miles of the Molalla River in northern Oregon’s Cascade foothills as Wild and Scenic. The bill now heads to the Senate for action, likely early next year.

Home to threatened steelhead and chinook salmon, miles of non-motorized trails, and rapids popular with kayakers and rafters the Molalla River is a largely undiscovered jewel just an hour southeast of Portland.

The passage of the bill through the House was spearheaded by Congressman Kurt Schrader, who recognized the dual positive economic and environmental values for rural Clackamas County in protecting such a prime recreational river. The designation of the Molalla as Wild and Scenic is supported by diverse constituencies ranging from the City of Molalla and Clackamas County, to local, state and national environmental groups.

Please take a moment to thank Congressman Schrader for his hard work in passing this bill through the House and listening to the people of Oregon to move this bill forward!

Help us Meet this Challenge! Give a Year End Gift Today!

		Help us stop a 47 mile-long clearcut through the Mt. Hood National Forest! Please give an end of the year gift to the Oregon Chapter today! You can help us protect Oregon’s most special places. Please give a year end gift today!   Dear Sierra Club Supporter, This past year, contributions from people like you have helped us save tens of thousands of acres of old-growth and mature forest, stall plans to locate liquefied natural gas terminals and pipelines in Oregon, play a critical role in passing a pro-environment agenda at the Oregon legislature, and much more.  You can read more about our recent successes by clicking here. Thank you for making our work possible! Looking forward, we face a number of challenges and opportunities: • At the end of the year, we will lose funding for an organizer who is coordinating our efforts to stop the Palomar Pipeline, which would create a 150 foot wide, 47 mile long clearcut through the Mt. Hood National Forest.  With the help of people like you, we will continue to retain this position and stop this reckless proposal. • We have begun an aggressive campaign to hold the Governor and the Oregon Board of Forestry accountable for protecting salmon strongholds in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests, and we need your help to fund this important program. • We are launching a new effort to permanently protect the Owyhee Canyonlands – an amazing, two-million acre tract of public land in southeast Oregon that is threatened by overgrazing and all-terrain vehicle abuse. We can only do this with your generous support. To take advantage of these opportunities and to meet these challenges, I am writing to ask you for a contribution of $50 or more today. I appreciate that this is a big commitment, but your gift will make a tremendous difference in our efforts to protect Oregon’s environment and our most special places.  Your contribution to the Oregon Chapter is especially meaningful because 100% of your donation will be spent protecting our environment and natural resources right here in Oregon.  I hope you will consider this important gift to support the Sierra Club’s conservation work in Oregon. Warm regards, Brian Pasko Oregon Chapter Director P.S.   Times are tough for many of us, and that means your gift has never been more important. If you have any questions about the work we do or how you can become more involved in our work, please call me directly.  I can be reached at (503) 238-0442 x301. Please make your contribution to the Sierra Club’s Oregon Chapter today!

Open Letter to Governor Kulongoski – Time to Push for a Coal-Free Oregon

Last week, the Sierra Club, the Northwest Energy Coalition, and numerous other Oregon conservation and ratepayer organizations sent an open letter to Governor Ted Kulongoski, asking him to work with other Northwest Governors to push the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) to set a plan to phase out coal as part of the regional energy mix over the next decade.

Every five years, the NWPCC sets a plan in motion that helps guide energy decisions at the Oregon Public Utility Commission, which oversees the resource plans for major utilities such as PGE, Pacificorp, and NW Natural. During the development of the draft ‘6th Plan’ of the NWPCC, the Sierra Club mobilized hundreds of Oregonians to turn out to hearings to call for an end to burning coal, which amazingly still provides 40% of Oregon’s electricity. PGE’s Boardman coal-burning power plant is Oregon’s largest stationary source of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The NWPCC’s draft 6th Plan contained laudable goals to get 85% of new energy over the next 20 years from energy efficiency and conservation, but didn’t address the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing energy sources in order to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals on the books in Oregon and other states.

Governor Kulongoski has been a leader in developing renewable energy policies and green jobs for Oregon, spearheading the effort in 2007 to adopt some of the nation’s strongest greenhouse gas reduction goals. Now its time for the Governor to push for the phaseout of outdated and dirty coal-fired power plants, like PGE’s Boardman plant, while working with other regional Governors and the NWPCC to create a coal-free Northwest.

Sierra Club Stops Third Controversial Logging Project in Umatilla National Forest

(Pendleton, Oregon).  For the third time in recent months, the Forest Service has withdrawn a scientifically-controversial large-scale timber sale sparing beautiful forests, wildlife, and spring fed salmon waterways from damaging logging. The Umatilla National Forest Supervisor withdrew the Wildcat timber sale before the Forest Service had even defended the action in Federal District Court. The Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club had challenged the project in which the Forest Service had proposed logging steep slopes, roadless areas and its claims in its analysis ran against available science. The withdrawal is the third Umatilla Forest Service timber sale recently rescinded in the face of challenges from top scientists.

The Wildcat logging project was located in remote forest within the Heppner Ranger District. The Forest Service proposed thousands of acres of logging, thinning, road building and pile burning. “The project would have degraded essential habitat for a diverse array of wildlife species, many of which are already imperiled due to widespread habitat loss and population declines as a result of past logging” said Karen Coulter director of Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project. The logging was proposed for steep slopes that are the headwaters of a number of important salmonid waterways that are tributaries to the North Fork John Day River.

In late October, in response to an appeal raising similar issues the Umatilla Forest Service withdrew the Farley logging project in the North Fork John Day District. In August, the agency withdrew its decision on the Walla Walla District’s Cobbler timber sale in the Grande Ronde watershed.  In all three projects, the agency was targeting remote interior forests that provide habitat for elk, bear, cougar, wolverine, goshawk, lynx, pileated woodpeckers and numerous other birds and wildlife species. The Farley and Cobbler logging projects were located where returning wolves are establishing new territory. Waterways in all three areas provide clear cool waters needed by imperiled redband trout, steelhead, and salmon.

While the science tells us there are benefits to light on the land thinning in low elevation dry ponderosa pine forests, the previous administration confounded the need and pushed through these projects to try to triple timber quotas.  Under the Bush administration, the agency claimed that the logging was planned to restore forest health – even though there is no scientific support for these claims. Over half of the Wildcat project, and most all of Farley and Cobbler, would have logged naturally complex moist mixed conifer and ecologically important roadless forests located at moderate to higher elevations.

Two renowned scientists conducted field and research reviews, and provided expert declarations on the project impacts and ecological harms. Dr. Richard Waring declared that the Forest Service’s claims are not in accord with natural cycles essential to forest well-being, noting that the planned logging would incur far more harm than benefit. The Forest Service also failed to consider climate change and the importance of forest carbon sequestration. Dr. Waring’s declaration cited research by Dr. Mark Harmon and others which demonstrate that logging results in a far larger carbon release than periodic wildfires. (Declaration of Dr. Waring attached)

Jonathan Rhodes, Planeto Azul Hydrological Consultants, noted the harmful effects of sediment from “temporary” and “rebuilt” roads and logging on the survival and recovery of wild fish in already stressed watersystems. Rhodes refuted erroneous agency claims that logging would help “reduce the risk of fire,” noting well documented logging harms for no measurable benefit.

The Sierra Club Oregon Chapter’s Asante Riverwind stated that: “Scientific research recognizes that natural disturbance is healthy, not a reason to log. To build resilience in an era of climate change, we need to protect the last remaining roadless areas, reduce the damaging network of roads, and halt scientifically misguided logging of the few old growth trees, living and snags, which remain on the land.”

Hey Northwest Natural!

The Northwest Natural gas company has proposed developing the controversial Palomar Pipeline, which would carry imported fossil fuel from a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal near the mouth of the Columbia River, across Mt. Hood, to a California-bound gas pipeline in central Oregon.

The Palomar pipeline would stretch over 200 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River to Central Oregon, forever damaging family-owned farms and forestlands, threatening hundreds of rivers and streams including the Wild and Scenic Clackamas River, and creating a 120 foot-wide, 47 mile-long clearcut across the Mt. Hood National Forest.

Click here to  can learn more about the Palomar Pipeline and the Sierra Club’s efforts to stop LNG in Oregon.

This past week, the Sierra Club and our conservation partners released a video and launched a corporate accountability campaign to say “Hey Northwest Natural – Stop the Palomar Pipeline!”:

In the mood for a good book?

Oregon Sierra Club volunteer Dan Cobb is so passionate about protecting our most special places, he wrote a book about it!

Set in Portland, the Wallowa Mountains, and Washington State’s San Juan Islands, THE MINE is a chilling thriller that captures the live and death struggle of a young Portland couple as they work to close down a massive illegal gold mine in eastern Oregon. The story is loosely based on the Summitville Mine disaster, where in 1990 a massive flood of cyanide, sulfuric acid, arsenic, and heavy metals decimated 17 miles of the Alamosa River and contaminated downstream farmland.

And Dan has graciously agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds from THE MINE to the Oregon Chapter!  Montana has banned cyanide heap leach mines. What is the future for such mines in Oregon? With gold over $1,000 per ounce, it’s anyone’s guess.

Click here to purchase “The Mine” and support the Sierra Club’s work in Oregon!

Ryan Evans doesn’t know it yet, but he’s in serious trouble. High in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains, an open-pit cyanide leach mine is churning out gold by the ton, plus arsenic, cyanide, and a list of heavy metals. A biologist working for Oregon’s DEQ, Ryan is shocked when DEQ approves the mine’s expansion from 1,800 acres to over 10 square miles. Against his wife’s advice, Ryan investigates. His digging reveals deep corruption, fraud, and the likely murder of a DEQ investigator. But his tenacity catches the attention of a whistle-blower, along with the company, which will do anything to silence them both. Sometimes youthful idealism can bring a deadly penalty.

Background

In 1990, the Summitville Gold Mine in Colorado released a flood of cyanide and heavy metals into the Alamosa River, decimating 17 miles of the river. The company, Galactic Resources, quickly filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the site.  The mine soon became an EPA Superfund Site and to date, the EPA has spent over $200,000,000 for ongoing cleanup and recovery—arguably the most expensive EPA cleanup on record.

Also in 1990, the Brewer Gold Mine, near Jefferson, South Carolina, spilled over ten million gallons of solution containing cyanide and a long list of heavy metals. The spill killed over 11,000 fish and decimated 50 miles of the Lynches River. The Brewer Company later abandoned the site and the mine is now a Federal Superfund Site. Taxpayers will be paying many millions of dollars for cleanup into perpetuity.

While fiction, THE MINE is based on Colorado’s Summitville Mine disaster, Europe’s mammoth Aurul Mine catastrophe (labeled “the worst disaster since Chernobyl”) and the coming debacle: Alaska’s 20-square mile Pebble Mine.

Click here to read more!

Sierra Club and Partners halt Farley Timber Sale!

In response to an appeal filed by the Sierra Club and the League of Wilderness Defenders, the Umatilla National Forest has withdrawn their decision to pursue the Farley Timber Sale.  Similar to the Umatilla’s Cobbler timber sale, which was also withdrawn after our appeal earlier this fall, this means the Forest Service will have to conduct new environmental analysis with a new public comment and appeal period should the agency decide they still want to log this area.  This presents the Forest Service with the opportunity to revise their management plans to incorporate the recommendations of science and comply with the nation’s environmental policy laws and ecological recovery objectives.

Click here to read the appeal!

The Farley Project as proposed would have logged over 7,000 acres of land and built 9.5 miles of new road and 36 mile of reconstructed road. The project was located in important mid and high elevation remote forests, which provide  some of eastern Oregon’s best remaining wildlife habitat, including lands needed by far ranging wildlife species like wolverine, lynx, and wolves. The area is also important habitat for imperiled species such as  goshawks, forest woodpeckers and cavity nesters, and migrant birds. Located on steep slopes above essential salmon habitat considered to be among the best remaining salmon waterways in the west, the logging and road-building proposed by the Forest Service would have harmed salmon recovery, wildlife habitat, and the ecological integrity of the region’s forests.

Science experts relied on by the Sierra Club in our appeal recommended strongly against the type of logging actions planned, emphasizing that natural processes are the best  way to maintain and restore long-term forest resilience and recover imperiled wildlife and fish. Additionally, forest ecosystems play an increasingly significant role in helping counter the exponentially harmful impacts of climate change. These imperative ecological values would have been irretrievably degraded by the Farley logging and road building plans.

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Umatilla Ranger District Rescinds Scientifically Controversial Logging Project
For Immediate Release – October 23, 2009
Ralph Bloemers, Crag Law Center, 503.525.2727 email: ralph@crag.org (For Contact Info & Images)

(Dale, Oregon).  Earlier this week, the District Ranger of the North Fork John Day Ranger District, Umatilla National Forest issued a one line statement pulling the Farley logging project in the face of objections from scientists.  The Farley project proposed thousands of acres of logging in the rugged high elevation headwaters of the North Fork John Day River.  The agency claimed it was restoring health to drier Ponderosa pine dominated forests at lower elevations, but it was mostly logging more complex moist and sub-alpine forests located at moderate to higher elevations. This landscape is home to the last best strongholds of wild fish in the interior, wildlife like wolves and goshawk and marked by steep roadless areas.

Karen Coulter, the executive director of the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project (based in Fossil, Oregon), worked with a team of volunteer surveyors and two top scientists to field verify the project. Dr. Richard Waring surveyed the scene and submitted his declaration along with relevant scientific studies.  Dr. Waring has worked cooperatively with various state and federal agencies for decades on ecosystem responses to climate and natural disturbance. He is one of the world’s top scientists in ecosystems and has extensive knowledge about the plants that grow in these areas. Dr. Waring has worked for decades conducting field experiments and publishing scientific papers on the natural patterns of disturbance like wind, disease insects and  fire on trees and forests.  Dr. Waring offered to bring his expertise to bear and through his field review and knowledge of the key science, he pointed out statements directly counter to the Forest Service’s claims in the Farley environmental impact statement regarding climate and insects. (Declaration of Dr. Waring attached)

Dr. Waring concluded that the Forest Service had the carbon balance wrong, and cited to studies by Mark Harmon and other top researchers demonstrating that logging, whether by clearcutting or by extensive landscape thinning, results in large carbon releases far more than any periodic natural disturbance like fire. His declaration underscored how the agency used fire as a scapegoat to go in and “treat” the area.  Disturbance, whether by fires or insects, as the science shows helps recycle nutrients, restores the systems  natural processes do the best job of storing carbon.  The second significant shortcoming that Dr. Waring identified resulted from a gross oversimplification of the core question – how does building additional roads and landings and logging of the mature (future old growth) using a variable density (thinning approach) in remote moderate to high elevation interior forest increase forest resilience?  During the last administration, the Forest Service made it standard policy to conflate the scientific evidence and use the potential for some benefit from thinning lower elevation Ponderosa pine forests as an excuse to go in and thin the moderate and higher elevation lands dominated by moister mixed-conifer and sub-alpine environments. The goal was not forest health but using an excuse to obtain commercial logs. Dr. Waring’s declaration underscored how the proposal was counterproductive.

Jonathan J. Rhodes, Planeto Azul Hydrological Consultants, looked at the vast increase in “temporary” and “rebuilt” roads, landings and the negative impacts these operations would have on the survival and recovery of wild fish.  The definition and expansive use of the term “temporary” roads has in reality permitted more and more new roads to become existing roads – bringing weeds and damage from continued use. As Rhodes pointed out, even if the use of the road is temporary the negative effects from sediment bleeding into the stressed aquatic system is permanent.   Rhodes submitted a cutting analysis on the claim of “fire risk reduction” and squarely presented the scientific dispute over the effectiveness of fire risk reduction “treatments” in these forests.

The Sierra Club Oregon Chapter’s Asante Riverwind stated that: “I am very thankful for the work of the scientists who have shared their knowledge with our field staff and the agency.  The science tells us where we can focus to get things done. To reach agreement on policy solutions, Oregonians must recognize that natural disturbance is healthy, not a reason to log.   To build resilience as we face climate change, Oregonians need to protect the last remaining roadless areas 1,000 acres or greater, honestly account for the built road network and halt scientifically misguided logging of the few old growth trees, both live and dead, that remain on the land.”

The appeal can be found at:
http://oregon.sierraclub.org/groups/juniper/library/Documents/Farley%20Appeal%209-11-2009.pdf

The Farley Appeal, scientists’ declarations, and science exhibit list are available on the website.

For a beautiful pictorial adventure and in-depth background on the ecology and management issues of Oregon’s eastside forests, from ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests, fires, dependent wildlife, and the foundational soil microbial communities upon which resilient forests depend, see our 57 slide photo and text compilation:  Forests Fire Resilience and Restoration (pdf).