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BOF proposal Pitchfork Demands Pitchfork WOPR |
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To: Ed Shepard, Oregon/Washington State Director of the B.L.M., with a Copy to: Western Oregon Plan Revisions, P.O. Box 2965, Portland, OR 97208 From: Pesticide Poisoning Victims United, a Division of The Pitchfork Rebellion Mail: Pitchfork Rebellion, Box 160, Greenleaf, Oregon, 97430 Note: We are old-fashioned country folk and prefer ‘snail mail’ to e-mail. Or give us a ‘holler’ at: (541) 927-3017 Date: Winter Solstice Eve (December 21st, 2007) Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Revision of the Resource Management Plans of the Western Oregon Bureau of Land Management Districts (Wow, what a mouthful! Henceforth the Draft Environmental Impact named above will be referred to, for sake of brevity, as WOPR (the humorously apt acronym that we pronounce ‘Whopper’ as in ‘the Giant Unhealthy Burger’, and ‘Don’t tell whoppers!’) and, also for brevity, the document you are now reading will henceforth be referred to simply as: Counter Proposal to the B.L.M. in Regard to the WOPR by The Pitchfork Rebellion PROPOSAL NUMBER ONE: A Proposal to Extend the Public Comment Period to May, 2008, to Enable Greater Public Input as Public Awarenss of ‘WOPR’ Continues to Build Background to Our Proposal for an Extension For this reason, Pesticide Poisoning Victims United, a division of The Pitchfork Rebellion, hereby calls for a further extension of the current January 11 deadline. We are aware of previous extensions but consider them profoundly inadequate due to the fact that the public is being asked to specifically comment on the merits or inadequacies of a three volume Draft Environmental Impact Statement that totals 1,606 pages of difficult reading. We point to the fact that the first two pages of volume 1 – where BLM State Director, Ed Shepard, invites the public “to participate in a planning process” that is important to our interests, Mr. Shepard directs the public to specifically comment on one or more of four extremely complex issues (highlighted by bullets in the fourth paragraph of that two-page invitation to the public at the front of volume 1), and then, in paragraph five, asks the public to address those four issues in the context of at least one of the following three bulleted formats:
Our Proposal in Regard to Extension 1) The task of reading the 1,606 page Draft Environmental Impact Statement is an absolute prerequisite to the formulation of a well-reasoned comment on that document, especially the sort of specific and sophisticated comments as called for by Mr Shepard in the first two pages of Volume 1, and would take most serious and able readers several months to read; and, 2) The development of a well-reasoned, well-researched response to the 1,606 pages of reading would take most serious and able members of the public another several months upon completion of that reading; 3) It must be noted that few (other than the already ‘in-the-loop’ Timber Industry ‘public’ and a few – not many – somewhat ‘in-the-loop’ environmentalists) members of the general public would have gained awareness of, and access to, the 1,606 page document immediately upon its August release; thus, the several months required for reading and the additional several months required to form a well-reasoned response to that reading, reasonably estimated to be a combined minimum of six months, should commence only after a ninety day period called ‘Public Awareness Outreach Period’ during which the availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement document is made available to as many members of the general public as possible, allowing time for public awareness of the issue to reach a reasonable level. Thus, November 9, your original announced end of what would have been a ninety day public comment period (which you have since extended, we believe, until January 10) would be an appropriate end to our proposed ‘Public Awareness Outreach Period’ and the start of a six month ‘Public Comment Period’ that would culminate in May of 2008. THUS WE ASK THAT THE PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD BE EXTENDED TO MAY 2008. Proposal to Remedy the Lack of BLM Analysis of Increased Traffic of Logging Trucks on the Highway 36 Corridor Due to WOPR and How that Traffic Impacts the Safety of Residents of the Highway 36 Corridor that runs between Junction City and Mapleton and Includes the Rural Communities of Cheshire, Low Pass, Horton, Blachly, Triangle Lake, Greenleaf, Deadwood, Tide, and Brickerville Background to Proposal Number Two Try to get this picture: The only paved-road that we can take to go any significant distance from our driveway is Highway 36. For we rural folk that live along the Highway 36 corridor, that ‘highway’ is, literally, our ‘Main Street’. We have to take it to go anywhere, even to run the kids to school or grab a carton of milk. Most of us have to get on Highway 36 even to visit our closest neighbor. Now get this: Highway 36 is a VERY narrow, two-way traffic (one lane each direction) mountain road with the glorified designation: ‘Highway’. In fact, this narrow, windy mountain road is not what city-folks think of when they hear the term ‘highway’. This narrow road is extremely dangerous, as it repeatedly winds its way around blind ‘extreme bends’. If the car coming toward you from the other side (which you can’t see until it is right on you) of the bend is even a couple inches into your lane you are dead. We also have lots of mudslides (due to Timber cuts), black ice, and tumbling rocks to contend with. Now add this to the picture: Dozens of logging trucks racing dangerously along Highway 36 EVERY DAY. That is what we currently experience due to the heavy logging along Highway 36 by the private timber industry. If the BLM increases their logging along the Highway 36 corridor it will increase the traffic of log trucks on our already over impacted ‘Main Street’. This is a serious matter of public safety concern; we know people who have been killed by these trucks, most recently the owner of our local cafe (she was killed, coincidently, shortly after a photo of her cafe was pictured in a news article about The Pitchfork Rebellion; in that article her café was identified as the location of our meeting with the reporter). In your Draft Environmental Impact Report you do not address the issue of increased traffic of log trucks in heavily logged communities; thus, we offer this proposal: Proposal to Study the Increased Exposure to Herbicides of Forest-Dwelling Humans that Would Result if the Clear-cutting of Public Forests called for by the W.O.P.R. ‘Preferred Option’, Alternative Two or Other Options were Implemented Background to Proposal Number Three Picture this: We residents of the Highway 36 corridor are surrounded by 50% private timber industry lands and 50% BLM lands. Most of our exposure to herbicides has been related to the private timber lands. This exposure includes aerial spraying by helicopters. We are so saturated by herbicides already that the prospect of increased exposure to these dangerous – often cancer-causing – chemicals is absolutely opposed by most members of the community, Republicans and Democrats alike. Our movement includes hunters, fisherman and even loggers concerned about their exposure to these poisons, not just the typical ‘environmentalists’. Many Republican, church-going, conservative mothers are every bit as concerned about this issue as any environmental activist. Why? Because: Concern about deformed babies, cancer, and other illnesses related to chronic herbicide exposure crosses all party lines. In your Draft Environmental Impact Report you do not address the issue of increased exposure of forest dwellers to herbicides related to the various options on the table including BLM’s preferred option Two; thus, we offer the following proposal. Proposal to Study the Impact on Watersheds that Increased Use of Herbicides by the BLM will Have according to the Various Alternatives Described in the WOPR Background to Proposal Number Four The Endangered Species Act and Increased Use of Herbicides by the BLM Background to Proposal Number Five The Pitchfork Rebellion ‘Preferred Option’ WHEREAS 50% of our forests are privately owned and treated as industrial tree farms by Big Timber companies who clear-cut the trees and then spray the soil with toxic, cancer-causing herbicides made by Big Pesticide companies; and, WHEREAS most of the other 50% of our forests are on public lands managed by the federal Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); and, WHEREAS most of the private and public forestlands described above were intentionally divided into a giant ‘checkerboard’ in which each square of privately owned timberland (e.g. Weyerhaeuser) is adjacent to a square of BLM-managed public timberland thus forming a ‘Whole Forestland’ that consists of alternating squares of private and public forestlands that directly interact with one another by virtue of being inherently linked; and, WHEREAS the above described interlinked squares of private forestland and public forestland that form the ‘Whole Forestland’ are separated only in the minds of people and not in actual reality (by reason of their being forever and unalterably linked biologically as one interconnected ecosystem consisting of interacting life forms and interconnected watersheds); and, WHEREAS the 1937 O & C Act, despite having been written by friends of Big Timber in an era of little awareness of environmental issues, an era before today’s watershed-harming herbicides had been invented, an era in which today’s ability to build roads in hard to access timberlands did not exist, an era in which logging hard-to-access trees on steep slopes by helicopter was not possible (all of which means that the Oregon State Senators who made the O&C Act law could not have imagined the intensive, high-technology logging practices of today on either private or public timberlands and the environmental impact this would have) does nevertheless charge the BLM with ‘protecting watersheds’ in public forests; and, WHEREAS BLM spokesperson Brad Keller has publicly stated that the 1937 O & C Act is trumped by the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act; and, WHEREAS we believe that the privately owned 50% of the checkerboard that is managed by Big Timber companies as a network of industrial tree farms featuring clear-cuts and heavy use of herbicides is so heavily worked and overburdened that the interspersed publicly owned (mostly BLM managed) squares of forestland should be managed primarily as Old-Growth Tree Reserves so as to act as a much needed balancing factor within the context of the ‘Whole Forestland’ interconnected ecosystem described above; and, WHEREAS we believe that the management of BLM forestlands exclusively as Old Growth-Tree Reserves is required if real protection of watersheds and endangered species is to occur according to existing laws (the O&C Act watershed provision, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act), this requirement being due to the high-intensity industrial logging of the interconnected squares of private forestland that demand a counter-balance to salvage the ecosystem of the combined ‘Whole Forestland’; We, The Pitchfork Rebellion, hereby declare that: 1) Our preferred option in regard to those alternatives offered by the BLM in relation to the WOPR is whichever option will result in the least logging on public lands, which, at present, we believe is the ‘Take No Action Alternative’; 2) We do not consider any of the BLM-offered alternatives to be satisfactory in protecting watersheds, clean water, clean air, or endangered species and therefore offer our own ‘PREFERRED OPTION’, which we call: The Pitchfork Rebellion ‘Preferred Option’. 3) Our ‘Preferred Option’, written by The Pitchfork Rebellion on behalf of any and all forest-lovers who wish to rally around this option, consists of the following provisions: a) BLM-managed public forestlands will be managed exclusively as Old Growth Tree Reserves as a counter-balance to the severely over-burdened private timberlands; b) When we achieve ‘a’ above, the O&C Act-related funds that currently help support eighteen Oregon counties will be replaced by payments to those counties by the Department of the Interior for ‘Global Warming Reduction Services Rendered’, that service being carbon capture and storage in Old Growth Trees, a service that is accomplished by permitting the publicly owned forestlands of Oregon to be managed as Old Growth Tree Reserves, a service to America and the world that deserves just compensation, the just compensation being the equivalent of the lost O&C land revenue that those eighteen counties have historically received by virtue of the fact that the forestlands being referred to are located within the bounds of those counties and were, in 1916, seized by the federal government in a manner that harmed the tax-income of those eighteen counties; c) Until and unless ‘a’ above is achieved – the condition that all BLM-managed public forestlands be managed as Old Growth Tree Reserves – the following plan for payments to the eighteen O&C counties will be implemented (by an Act of Congress that the BLM will request) rather than the above described ‘b’. We want a decrease in logging in public forests from current levels (year 2007 = current) coupled with an increase in the percentage of money the counties get from timber receipts on O & C lands from 50% to 75%. (Currently, the feds get 50% for ‘management fees’; we think they deserve 25% and the counties where the trees are located deserve 75%.) This way, the eighteen O&C counties will receive more money than now – schools, parks, and other worthy public services can be better funded – and we can decrease current levels of logging in public forests to protect the watersheds as required by the O&C Act of 1937 and the Endangered Species Act. And, at the same time, the Federal Government will have taken a real step toward Global Warming carbon reduction. The following bulleted facts are based on our initial research into the history of the O & C lands and depend largely on an article titled BLM Seeks Public Comment on Revisions to ‘O&C’ Land Use; the article appeared in the Tuesday, October 23, 2007 issue of The Hillsboro Argus and lends heavily on comments attributed to Brad Keller, the BLM Tillamook Field Office manager.
Our answer to the county funding crises is simple: Rather than increase the timber harvest – which we will argue cannot be done without violating The Oregon and California Lands Act of 1937 provisions in regard to protecting watersheds and without harming various endangered species in violation of the Endangered Species Act – we propose an increase in the percentage of the timber harvest funds paid to the counties from the current 50% to %75, and a decrease of the Federal percentage from a 50% share to a 25% share. This proposal is based on the following analysis of the above bulleted facts. The original deal between the Federal government and ‘O&C’ Railroad had not promised 50% of timber harvests to the Federal government; rather, the ‘payment’ the Federal government wanted and received was for ‘O&C’ to agree to build a railroad line between Portland and the California border, as it was deemed that this would result in an economic and development boom (which it did). When the Federal government re-acquired (by force) the ‘O&C’ lands, they said it was to prevent fraudulent land deals from occurring. Thus, it was a policing issue, and, because the Federal government had already received their payment (in that the railroad line was built as promised), they were not really entitled to seize the land for financial gain, but only to prevent fraudulent deals as they declared in 1916. Nevertheless, the Federal government, twenty-one years after re-confiscating the land, passed a law giving themselves 50% of the money from Timber Harvests on those former ‘O&C’ lands, the other 50% going to the counties. The BLM is entitled to some percentage of the harvest funds by virtue of the fact that they manage the lands, but we propose that 50% is an excessive management fee – especially when one realizes that they retook the land supposedly to prevent fraudulent land sales and then kept the land so as to profit not only from its timber resources but also from its mineral resources. We propose that the eighteen counties should either: a) collectively sue the Federal government in demand of an increased percentage of the harvest money; or b) Seek the assistance of a State Senator in drafting a bill that would increase the county’s percentage of that pie. Note: Although our ‘preferred option’ is 75% to 25% split of the monies, other percentages less that 75% but more than 50% that can be shown to make up for the ‘lost revenue’ due to decreased timber harvests are on the table. The numbers need to be ‘crunched’ but the principle is this: Increase the percentage of the pie that goes to the counties enough to make up for the decreased timber harvests on BLM lands, rather than increasing the harvests. The Bureau of Land Management is now planning a huge increase in the logging of old growth trees on public lands. The Western Oregon Plan Revision, known by the very appropriate acronym ‘WOPR’ (pronounced ‘whopper’), would increase the clearcutting of old growth on public lands by a whopping 700%, according to the Old Growth Legacy Campaign. The BLM is required by law to make no plan revisions that are detrimental to endangered species. The BLM is a part of the Department of the Interior, as is the Fish and Wildlife Service. As reported in the November 28, 2007, issue of the Portland Oregonian newspaper (the article is provided below), a scandal has been uncovered within the Department of the Interior that directly relates to endangered species. A Bush administration appointee, Julie MacDonald, repeatedly overruled recommendations by agency biologists on endangered species, including Northwest species such as the marbled murrelet, northern spotted owl, and bull trout. MacDonald had no background in endangered species, being from the private sector. According to the Oregonian of November 28, Sen. Ron Wyden views the Interior Department as “riddled with ethical lapses and corruption” and is calling for an outside investigation. He is calling for the outside investigation because he does not trust the Interior Department to conduct an honest investigation. A reading of the following news article should cause all persons interested in the WOPR to ask: Did the scandalous behavior of Bush appointee Julie MacDonald affect the endangered species analysis within the WOPR Draft Environmental Impact Statement? We believe the answer is yes, and, therefore, WOPR is dead and needs to be completely redone, or, better yet, abandoned. We hereby endorse Senator Ron Wyden’s call for an outside investigation into corruption within the Interior Department. Of the many major faults of the WOPR Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the biggest is the failure to analyze how the plan would impact Global Warming. Your statement that a consideration of the WOPR in the context of Global Warming is beyond the scope of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is PROFOUNDLY UNACCEPTABLE. Serious scientists are declaring that civilization as we know it may collapse due to Global Warming; in such an era, how can an environmental impact statement not address that most serious issue? This is a serious enough omission to warrant a stop to all WOPR plans until a scientific study on the impact of the various WOPR alternatives on Global Warming are analyzed. The fact that it is a difficult job that will likely take a minimum of two years is no reason to leave the job undone. We hereby call for a complete suspension of all WOPR plans until this analysis is completed. |
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