Rocks,
not riches
Prospecting is its own reward
By JIM GERSBACH
01 the Emerald
Paul Vollum doesn’t own a burro, but
he’s been to more goldfields than many
an old sourdough prospector. He’s
even struck paydirt.
Vollum, a geologist with the Wil
lamette Science and Technology
Center, came across his big find in the
Mojave Desert.
After a storm he noticed some crys
tals in a clump of bushes. They proved
to be lead sulphite, a silver-bearing ore.
Vollum started digging and ran across a
vein of silver.
But striking it rich has never preoc
cupied Vollum, who dresses in worn
jeans and mud-spattered tennis shoes.
‘‘Like a lot of people who are into
prospecting, I'm not really into posses
sions,” he says, “nor have I any desire
to accumulate great quantities of
gold.”
Searching for the metal is its own
reward, he says.
Vollum will teach others how to seek
elusive metals as part of a WISTEC
science class beginning the third week
of January. Call 484-9027 for registra
tion information.
Originally from northern Minnesota’s
mining region, Vollum came to the
University in 1966. But he didn’t
become interested in Oregon’s
geologic riches until two years later
when a friend offered to take him to an
old gold mining area near the
Bohemias, 35 miles east of Cottage
Grove
Vollum went for the exercise but
became fascinated by the minerals he
found.
"I took to rocks like a duck takes to
water,” he says of the outing.
Vollum spent the next several days in
the University science library reading
about rocks.
After graduating in 1972, Vollum
prospected for a time on a claim he’d
staked out in Alaska. While propsecting
for precious stones in a remote section
of the Yukon a year later, he made his
most exciting mineral find — a topaz in
flawless smoky quartz crystals the size
of a thumb.
“I couldn’t bring myself to take them
out, even though they would be worth
quite a lot of money as specimens,”
Vollum says of his decision to leave the
rare find intact.
Vollum describes himself as “envi
ronmentally sensitive.” Despite the
outcry over mining’s impact on the
environment, he sees mining as less
destructive than logging.
”1 don’t characterize miners as
ecological rats.”
Mining’s poor image comes from the
highly visible devastation strip mining
causes, he says. But unlike strip-mined
land, many areas of intense gold mining
have reverted to forest without expen
sive restoration, he says.
Oregon’s geology is particularly rich,
Vollum says with a characteristic flour
ish of his hands.
“I don’t think there’s a place in
Oregon where you can’t find something
interesting.”
Near the southern Oregon town of
Riddle, for example, is the only operat
ing nickel mine in the the United States.
Agates can be found throughout much
of the state, and both Fastern Oregon
and the Cascade foothills contain vol
canic rocks and gold. The Willamette
Valley holds fossils, quartz and gas
cavities containing jaspers and agates.
That variety explains Oregonians’
generally high level of interest in
geology, Vollum says.
"A lot of people here have a box of
rocks they drag out and are proud of.”
For many Oregon rockhounds, in
cluding Vollum, prospecting for miner
als is a chance to get closer to nature.
“You can’t fail to notice the greenery
and plants. It’s sort of a gestaltic activi
ty, more than people realize.
”A lot of people use hunting for rocks
as an excuse to go out into the woods
Photo by Debby Abe
Paul Vollum
and then find they get a lot out of just
going.”
Vollum also finds pleasure in the
aesthetics of rocks and the millenial
processes that formed them. He’s
especially taken with one formation on
a mountainside in the Wallowas of
northeastern Oregon.
Ages ago a dark layer of rock was
bent into curves by upward pressure.
Eons later, lava flowed over the curves.
Erosion later exposed the rock layers
that now resemble a giant snake etched
on the cliff.
“It looks like some giant temple,” he
says.
Vollum, who holds a degree in philo
sophy, describes himself as a believer
in the mystical. Rocks definitely do
have a certain magic, he says.
‘‘I’ve been in some places in the
Yukon where you can see 80 miles in
each direction. The wind's whistling
around you and you’re sitting on a
mountain made up of granite rocks as
big as a planetarium and the feeling is
wwwooo."
After the recent Voyager trip to
Jupiter's moons a friend asked Vollum
if he would go to outer space to study
the geology of other worlds, even if it
meant never returning.
“Sure,” replied Vollum.
Would he miss Earth?
“Sure, but it would be worth it. I
would do it for the awe.”
Illegal crews cut out treeplanting co-ops
By STEPHEN KNIGHT
Of the Emerald
Undocumented Mexican workers are creating
heavy financial burdens for treeplanting co-ops in the
Northwest.
Northwest Forest Workers representative Rick
Coven told about 30 people at the Emerald Baptist
Church Thursday night that many co-ops are going
bankrupt because they can’t compete with low-paid —
Feds limit loans
A new law will prohibit the state Veteran’s Affairs
Board from making some home and farm loans.
The 97th Congress amended a housing bond bill to
prevent the VAB from refinancing mortgages, land
contracts or farm loans held by institutions other than
the veteran’s board.
The law, which went into effect Jan. 1, applies to all
uncompleted loans, regardless of whether applications
were filed before that date.
The new law limits the uses to which receipts from
tax-exempt bonds may be put. In the past Oregon’s
veteran affairs department has used receipts from
tax-exempt bonds to finance home and farm purchases
by thousands of veterans who live in the state.
However, agency officials say they can foresee little
trouble because of the law.
“It will work to everyone's advantage,” says Don
Meyers of the VAB. “There will be some delays until they
re-tool their program.”
Meyers says his office can help any veteran having
a problem with a loan.
The law does not prohibit the financing of home
purchases or the refinancing of construction loans or
mortgages already held by the department.
or in some instances unpaid — undocumented workers.
But Coven blamed ‘‘unscrupulous contractors"
instead of the undocumented workers, called UWs, for
the co-ops’ lack of jobs.
Treeplanting jobs are awarded to the lowest bidder.
Because contractors using UWs have lower labor costs,
they can underbid other contractors, Coven explained.
Coven said treeplanting wages should not drop
below $6.50 per hour, but he charged that UWs aren’t
even paid minimum wage. In some cases they are
deported instead of being paid, he said.
But while UWs are being exploited and a few
contractors are making "extraordinary profits," most
treeplanting co-ops are having trouble surviving.
Coven said one group of treeplanters, the Home
grown Co-op from Days Creek, lost 40 straight bids last
year.
“They ended up taking jobs just so they could feed
themselves."
Coven claimed that along with a few dishonest
contractors, various government agencies “create an
atmosphere where the UWs problem can thrive.”
The forest service refuses to investigate su
spiciously low bids, he said, describing the agency’s
philosophy as "the government does not have the right
to tell a contractor he can’t lose money.”
The labor department has the power to stop
fraudulent contractors but claims it can't get witnesses,
and the Bureau of Land Management lacks the juris
diction to deal with the problem, Coven explained.
Coven said one forest service official was quoted
as saying the reason no one investigates UWs is
because "they don't talk back, and they don’t take
coffee breaks.”
Because of the nature of treeplanting, there aren’t
many clear-cut solutions to the undocumented worker
problem, Coven maintained.
Photo by Hank Trotter
Rick Coven
UWs are almost impossible to organize because
they live in constant fear of deportation, and any union
tactic would be of little use to the UWs, Coven said.
"It’s hard to boycott a forest.”
However, Coven said he believes a work-card
system for UWs, an immediate investigation of ex
tremely low bids and getting the aid of Oregon's
congressmen in the matter would help the co-ops
survive.
Meanwhile, "we’ve circled up the wagons,” he
said. "We have enough supplies to last about a year.”
Coven’s appearance was sponsored by Clergy and
Laity Concerned.
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