Group wants full Bull Run type closures in the coast range

[Rand Man]

Oct 2, 2015

"Good morning. I’m Meg Eastman Thompson and I’m here on behalf of the Oceanside Water Protection Committee and the North Coast Basin Coalition. We are a group of citizens representing the drinking surface watersheds in the North Coast basin working to develop full Bull Run type protections for our drinking watersheds"

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... -Joint.pdf

[Bosterson]

Are you really trying to stir the pot by dropping a context-less quote from a 2015 Board of Forestry meeting, cited within a paper that was co-written by Oregon Forest Industries Council (timber industry lobbying group), Oregon Farm Bureau (agriculture industry lobbying group), Oregonians for Food and Shelter (lobbying group with a board of directors pulled from the timber, agriculture, and chemical industries*), and the Oregon Small Woodlands Association (a group of small forest landowners, "a noteworthy 74 percent of [whom] harvest timber during their ownership"*), the purpose of which paper was to badger the DEQ about assertions in their published Resource Guide that these trade association groups found objectionable, not to mention that later in the quote you cited, Meg Eastman Thompson also specifies, "these are very tiny acreages ranging from about 200 acres to 12 to 1600 acres," and that what her group most likely is concerned about, w/r/t watersheds, are negative effects caused by deforestation, road building, and ag runoff? Please elaborate on your outrage.

[Aimless]

If the Rand in 'Rand Man' refers to Ayn Rand, then the owner of such a moniker would no doubt favor the unfettered laissez-faire philosophy of Ms. Rand, which could be accurately summarized as "capitalism should not be restrained by government in any way whatsoever, including any and all regulations concerning food and drug safety, setting bank reserves, anti-trust regulation, minimum wage, worker safety, the creation of personal 'security forces', or anything else, for only in that way will we achieve perfect competition and therefore perfect economic efficiency." But which I would identify as the quickest path to breaking our entire society into the violent fiefdoms of multiple warlords competing to be our supreme emperor.

But for all I know, he is merely declaring his affection for random numbers or random acts of kindness.

[miah66]

But which I would identify as the quickest path to breaking our entire society into the violent fiefdoms of multiple warlords competing to be our supreme emperor.

We already have our supreme emperor, now we're just waiting for the violent fiefdoms and multiple warlords.

[Rand Man]

Here is another document where the same group is calling for "full Bull Run". It's a formal, written letter to EQC and DEQ. The formality suggests that the group really does means "full Bull Run". People hear are probably aware it is illegal for citizens hike within Bull Run including hiking on existing trails and hiking offtrail. It's patrolled full time for this.

To state the obvious, closure of 10 feet of trail can be problematic. Supposedly, 20% of the Oregon Coast Trail is on trails and dirt roads (not on the beach).

Here is another quote of the letter:

"Private forest landholders should be incentivized to release their properties for drinking water protection. Structures need to be developed for low-cost ..., land-swaps, ..."

Depending on the particulars, the group's land swaps which would convert public land to private land could hinder future work to reroute the 40% of the Coast Trail that is currently on paved roads.

More generally, Bull Run type protection on the existing public lands, as well as land swap conversion of public land to private land, could hinder creation of new trails that would connect peopled areas to the network of existing hiking trails in the Coast Range.

http://www.oceansidefriends.org/wp-content/uploads/ONAmin150606.pdf

[Rand Man]

basin map from DEQ,

for scale, look at the inset map of oregon

http://i.imgur.com/t7ZDoHM.jpg

from

http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/watershed/Docs/NorthCoastPlan.pdf

[miah66]

I don't think they'll ever get these lands out of the hands of the logging companies that continually pillage them. How much are they in companies pockets? Well the Oregon DEQ is in the habit of shelving reports that threaten logging interests, specifically the one that deals with this exact water quality issue.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon- ... ity-risks/

When the agencies that are suppose to protect the public are beholden to the industries they regulate, I would not be too concerned with these areas every going "full Bull Run". It's kind of laughable, really.

Which Timber industry do you work for, again?

(emphasis mine)

"Public records also show Peter Daugherty, now the state forester, sent four pages of comments to DEQ after the agency solicited his feedback. In them, he questioned both the science and the purpose of the report.

Daugherty, who was the department’s head of private forests at the time, said “the document seems to be responding to citizen group concerns about forest management, rather than doing an unbiased analysis of threats to drinking water.

Forestry officials suggested DEQ remove language about the connection between timber harvests and landslides or sediment in streams. They said the report needed to be reworded so that it didn’t suggest the state’s forestry laws were too weak to protect clean water."

[Rand Man]

"At times, the document seems to be responding to citizen group concerns about forest management, rather than doing an unbiased analysis of threats to drinking water."

[Rand Man]

"Summary of EPA/NOAA January 30, 2015 Disapproval of Oregon's Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program

The EPA/NOAA disapproval made findings on four logging issues: (1) riparian buffers on small and medium fish and non-fish bearing streams; (2) legacy logging roads; (3) high-risk landslides; and (4) herbicide applications to non-fish bearing streams. (Note that so-called Anon-fish-bearing@ streams support fish other than salmon and steelhead, frogs, salamanders, and clean water for ecosystem health and drinking water. These streams comprise at least 70 percent of the stream network in coastal watersheds and are currently unprotected, allowing for vast areas of clear-cutting.)"

http://northwestenvironmentaladvocates.org/oregon-coast-czara/

also:

http://coast.noaa.gov/czm/pollutioncontrol/media/ORCZARAdecision013015.pdf

[Rand Man]

"... Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments (CZARA), a law Congress passed to persuade coastal states to control so-called nonpoint source pollution—the run-off from logging, farming, grazing, and urban development that is not restricted by the Clean Water Act. CZARA required the two federal agencies to approve Oregon’s coastal pollution control program by 1996 or to begin withholding 30 percent of federal grant funds from the state."

http://northwestenvironmentaladvocates.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/CZARA-disapproval-news-release.pdf