-editorial
esters not worth it
The General Faculty tried its hand at tilting at windmills
Wednesday by voting to adopt a semester system for the
University. Luckily for everyone, the plan’s chances of
being implemented are slim: a similar motion was passed
in 1972, only to be quietly vetoed by then-Pres. Robert
Clark.
Precedent, however, is not the chief reason the Uni
versity is unlikely to switch to a semester system. The chief
reason is that the problems of conversion would be over
whelming.
Faculty would have to completely redesign their
courses. Departments and schools would have to overhaul
their curricula and requirements for graduation. Students
caught in the process of conversion would have to revise
their plans. Catalogs would have to be rewritten from
scratch. Every aspect of University operations would be
disrupted, and the problems of adjustment would be incal
culable.
And the messiness of changing to a semester system
wouldn’t be confined to Eugene. As it is, it’s quite simple to
transfer credit from one state institution to another;
Oregon’s colleges and universities from an interdependent
network. A semester system at the University would be a
barrier separating it from other state schools, a barrier the
State Board of Higher Education won’t be enthusiastic to
erect.
A semester system does have a few advantages over
a quarter system. Semesters cost a little less to administer
because there are fewer registration periods, grade mail
ings and so on. Students get a little more instruction time
because less time is taken up with final exams. But stu
dents voted against switching the University to a semester
system in 1972 by a margin of better than 2 to 1.
Students don’t like the semester system because it
cuts down on their flexibility. Under the quarter system
students can stay out of school for a term without disrupting
their progress toward graduation, while taking a semester
off means being half a year behind. Course offerings are
more varied under the quarter system, and shorter courses
make it less risky to experiment with courses in unfamiliar
departments. And if students want to pursue a particular
subject they can take the next course in the sequence or
the upper division offering.
So everyone is lucky that the General Faculty’s vote
for a semester system won’t get very far. The administra
tion and the faculty don’t need the headaches of conver
sion, and students like things the way they are.
V
Duck Soup
“Aren’t you guys taking this a little hard?”
-opinion
Preserve disappearing roadless areas
Lisa Bamhardt’s recent opinion,
“Wildlands Not Endangered," re
flects a widely-held belief that it is
wasteful to leave our valuable
natural resources undeveloped or
unmanaged. This philosophy,
deeply rooted in American tradi
tion, is at least in part responsible
for the damming of many of our
wild rivers, the filling of valuable
wetlands, and the overcutting of
most of our timber resource.
Barnhardt accuses conser
vationists of using “scare tactics."
Fifty years of timber management
history indicates otherwise. Be
fore World War I, virtually all of
Oregon’s forested lands were de
facto wilderness areas. Today the
percentage of roadless acreage is
small and rapidly diminishing.
Only one and one half per cent of
-opinion
Ratepayers shouldn’t finance plants
The summary attached to Senate Bill 453
consists of a single sentence prohibiting inves
tor owned utilities from charging their rate
payers for construction work in progress. But the
issue encamped around that uncustomarily brief
piece of legalese is a good deal less concise.
Some arguments seem more concerned with
labeling the issue than clarifying it. Opponents of
the bill have called it the legislative equivalent to
Ballot measure #9, or what they consider a ban
on further nuclear power plant construction in
Oregon.
Testimony for the bill, on the other hand, ig
nores the questionable merits of nuclear power
per se. Instead, the arguments hinge on terms
like “cost inefficiency,” “economy of scale” and
“energy conservation.”
At the heart of the matter is the fact that the
State of Oregon (through the Public Utilities
Commissioner) allows investor-owned utilities
to finance construction of expanded generating
facilities through the rate base (a process called
CWIP, for construction work in progress). Any
expansion these days is mainly in the form of
thermal plant construction (nuclear, coal fired
etc.) and such projects are so capital intensive, it
is held, that they wouldn’t get off the ground at all
if they were not subsidized through this form of
involuntary investment.
PGE recently sank 50 million dollars of their
rate payers’ money into the Pebble Springs pro
ject (site of Oregon s next two nuclear power
plants), even though there is no building permit
as of yet. On the fat chance that the individual
ratepayer were ever to see any kind of return on
this investment (in terms of not having to pay
even higher prices in the future), he or she would
have to wait around for about 38 years at some
thing like 2.5 per cent interest, according to
David Hupp of the Oregon Environmental
Council. Since Utilities in Oregon have what
amounts to regional monopolies, there is little
V.
recourse for the individual.
Traditionally, utilities were only allowed to bill
their customers for “used and useful energy.’’
This practice was dropped in 1975, when suc
cessive cost overruns threatened to shut down
construction of the Trojan facility after several
hundred million dollars had already been sunk
into it.
From a cost efficient perspective, CWIP
seems like a disaster due to the fact that under
present tax laws utilities must increase rates by
$2 to raise $1 of capital. The O.E.C. has pointed
out that at present rates of inflation, it would be
cheaper to borrow the money.
CWIP also disallows for an economy of scale,
because there is no incentive to bring the new
power plants on line in time to pay for the capital
that went into construction.
Finally, CWIP is a negative incentive to con
serve, because the rate payers are being billed
fa expanding facilities to meet peak loads 20-40
years from, now, regardless of whether they are
inclined to cut down on consumption. A strong
conservation orientation would vastly reduce
the need to expand present generating facilities.
Elizabeth Frenkel of the League of Women Vot
ers has testified that such an orientation could
reduce the power consumption faecast for
1995 by 60 per cent at one sixth the cost of
expanding present facilities.
President Carter’s message gave a high prior
ity to energy conservation, but before such a
path can be seriously considered, we have to
reconsider the present orientation toward unli
mited growth. There is serious evidence that the
two paths are mutually exclusive.
If you wish to express your opinion on SB 453,
write Senata Ed Fadetey, S217, State Capitol,
Salem 97310; or Senator George Wingard,
S312, State Capitol, Salem 97310.
Paul Williamson
Survival Center
Oregon's total land base is offi
cially “wilderness” now. If all road
less lands in the state became
wilderness, the total would be
about 6 per cent. This means that
the vast majority of forested land
in Oregon today is being used for
the production of timber.
The “scare tactics" charge re
veals r’se irony of the situation: the
timber interests control nearly all
of the resource, yet they accuse
conservationists of asking too
much. What the conservationists
seek, in reality, is very little.
The issue is raised whether an
“undeveloped roadless” designa
tion for roadless areas like French
Pete adequately protects the
lands so classified. It does not;
administrative agencies may
change this designation at any
time. For example, in 1957 the
Forest Service decided to remove
the 56,000 acre French Pete area
from the Three Sisters Primitive
Area. Had it not done so, French
Pete would be wilderness today.
Now the Willamette National
Forest wants to make French Pete
an undeveloped roadless area.
This offers the area only tempor
ary protection. In five or 10 years
the Forest Service could change
its mind and recommend the har
vesting of French Pete. Only the
wilderness designation gives
permanent protection to these
areas. Wilderness is created by
Congress and can be changed
only by Congress. It leaves no
thing to the discretion of the forest
supervisor.
Now is the time for us to pre
serve these lands for our grand
children, much like our predeces
sors preserved the Oregon
beaches for us. It is the best thing
we can do with these roadless
areas.
There are other good reasons
for creating more wilderness. No
other land use designation better
protects our watersheds and soils.
Wilderness also provides critical
old growth habitat for wildlife
species like the pileated wood
pecker, the spotted owl, and cer
tain species of raptors, which re
quire such conditions. It preserves
the gene pool for the forest. And
wilderness provides certain price
less intangibles, like aesthetics
and the “wilderness experience.”
Aside from the wilderness
issue, other aspects of
Barnhardt’s opinion deserve at
tention. She implies that uneven
aged harvesting methods, like
selective cutting, are frequently
employed on western Cascade
forests.
Unfortunately this is not wholly
accurate. The use of even-aged
cutting techniques, like clearcut
ting or shetterwood cutting, vastly
exceeds the use of selective cut
ting. 70 per cent of the total timber
yield on the Willamette National
Forest is the result of dearcutting.
Uneven -aged cutting is the excep
tion, not the rule.
Also, Bamhardt implies that our
forests are regularly replanted.
Reforestation is a sound policy,
but it has yet to be fully im
plemented by the Forest Service.
There is a significant backlog of
areas in need of reforestation
throughout our national forests.
Had these areas been properly re
forested in the past, the demand
to harvest roadless areas would
be less intense today.
A recent study by Kurt Kutay of
the Oregon Wilderness Coalition
indicates that the allowable cut
could be increased if money
saved from roadbuilding in road
less areas were applied to inten
sive management of existing
timber areas. Techniques such as
precommercial and commercial
thinning can significantly increase
timber yield from these more pro
ductive lands. The cost of a new
road approximates $52,000 a
mile.
Besides monetary costs, sig
nificant environmental hazards
exist These roadless areas have
remained this way until now be
cause their soils are unstable,
their slopes are steep, and their
timber is less productive. Why
spend the money and risk en
vironmental damage when we can
get more from the areas already in
production than we can from the
roadless areas? It makes sense
(and cents) to keep these areas
roadless.
Oregon citizens should support
the wilderness legislation cur
rently before Congress. It is criti
cal that everyone quickly write
Senator Hatfield, Senator Pack
wood, Congressman Weaver,
Governor Straub, and especially
President Carter, requesting their
support of Hatfield’s Omnibus
Wilderness Bill (S. 658) and the
Endangered American Wilder
ness Bill (HR 3454, S. 1180). Urge
them to support these bills in their
entirety. By doing so we can leave
a wilderness legacy for future
generations.
Mark Greenfield
3rd Year Law