Timber plan parties looking for best ‘WOPR-tunities’
From our weekly issue dated November 19, 2008
With a final decision on the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR) due by the end of the year, both sides in the natural resources debate are jockeying for position in what could be a protracted battle.
That continuing political conflict was on stage before the Josephine County Board of Commissioners during the weekly business session at Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass on Wednesday, Nov. 12. Members of the Grants Pass-based Southern Oregon Resource Alliance (SORA) presented a petition for an order on the WOPR.
Prior to that group’s planned PowerPoint presentation, the board took requests from citizens.
Guenter Ambron gave his address as that of the Community Media & Education Center in Downtown Cave Junction. He asked the board to take a more “neutral” stand on the WOPR.
Kerby resident Jill Talise compared the plan to poor countries where people sell body parts for money.
“I feel that taking these big trees is actually equivalent to selling the lungs of our children and grandchildren,’’ Talise said.
Selma resident Bill Waggoner expressed support for SORA’s position.
“Personally, I’m a conservationist from the old school that we treasure our natural resources and that we have plans to use our natural resources,” he said. “We don’t treat them like they’re some kind of gods or things of this nature, but we treat them as exactly what they are -- natural resources.”
SORA Vice Chairman Jack Swift presented the board the proposed order. He said that it is critical that the county maintain its legal standing with regard to protesting the WOPR.
“We certainly hope that you will protect the best interests of the county,” he said.
Jon Jordan, Grants Pass Chamber of Commerce executive director, expressed his support for increased timber harvests.
“It’s a multifaceted solution to helping the county get back on track financially and economically,” he said, “and the chamber does support the WOPR and managing the forests.”
Jordan mentioned that more than 500,000 acres of forestland burned during the 2002 Biscuit Fire, which he said released “the equivalent of one year’s greenhouse gases of New York City.
“We almost lost Cave Junction in the Biscuit Fire,” Jordan said. “That could be catastrophic, and I think we are good stewards if we manage our forests.”
Other audience members, who spoke in support of SORA, included Lyle Woodcock, Margaret Goodwin, Trenor Scott and Gerard Fitzgerald.
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Commissioner Jim Raffenburg said that he’s tried to look at all sides of the natural resource issue, and that he can speak freely about the matter because his term in office nearly is concluded.
“The environmental movement on the ground locally is made up of people who believe,” Raffenburg said. “But on a bigger scale, it’s not about trees. It’s about political power. And they use people who believe to attain and abuse political power on a national and state level.”
Raffenburg cast aspersions on the claims of “environmentalists” that the harvest levels proposed under the WOPR are unsustainable. “We can cut 1.2 billion board feet of timber on the O&C land every year and not have any diminished volume of timber year in, year out,” Raffenburg said. “The only thing that’s sustainable is zero-cut in these people’s minds.”
Raffenburg’s remarks prompted a standing ovation from many audience members at the auditorium.
The board next considered SORA’s order during its administrative meeting on Friday, Nov. 14.
Commissioner Dwight Ellis summarized the order as saying that the WOPR doesn’t comply with the 1937 O&C Act, which called for permanent sustainable timber production on those lands, and that the county wants legal standing with regard to the plan. To maintain that standard, the county has to file comment with BLM during the WOPR protest period, which will end Dec. 8.
Ellis mentioned that the board planned to spend Monday, Nov. 17 through Friday, Nov. 21 at an Association of Oregon Counties conference in Eugene. He added that he wants to see what commissioners from other counties think about the WOPR issue.
Ellis moved to pull SORA’s order from the agenda of the board’s Nov. 17 meeting and move it to the Wednesday, Nov. 26 agenda. Chairman
Dave Toler seconded the motion, which passed 2-1, with Raffenburg opposed.
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