4A
MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019
The Observer
OUR VIEW
Third time
a charm
for Blue
Mountains
plan?
Maybe the third try will be successful in cobbling
together a roadmap for the management of three
sprawling national forests in Eastern Oregon.
The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the 5.5
million acres of forestland in the Malheur,
Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national forests,
has stumbled terribly in its previous attempts to re-
vise its 29-year-old plan. It’s supposed to be updated
every 15 years, so the agency hasn’t even been fol-
lowing its own timeline.
Updating the Blue Mountains plan has turned
into an old-fashioned goat rope. In rejecting the lat-
est 5,000-page version, Chris French, the reviewing
offi cer and Forest Service deputy chief, said it was
diffi cult to understand and implement.
That’s not good, but the biggest problems ap-
peared to be that Forest Service managers had
their own priorities that didn’t mesh with those
of the people who live, work and recreate in the
forests.
One such issue is transportation within the
forests. Logging roads and other access are critical
to getting around in the forests. Many of the roads,
built with public money, have been targeted for
closure not only in the Blue Mountains but other
national forests.
Closing the forests to logging, fi refi ghters, hunt-
ers, hikers and other users made little sense, the
Forest Service was repeatedly told in forum after
forum.
Now, the managers have apparently come to un-
derstand the people who live and work in the Blue
Mountains deserve a place at the table as a third
iteration of the forest plan is developed. Represen-
tatives of the region’s counties, tribes and others
will join the discussion.
It is our hope the words “multiple use” will be
top of mind as those discussions proceed. The na-
tional forests were established under the U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture in part to provide a source
of building materials and the jobs associated with
them. In addition, other uses were to be allowed.
But most important, the forests were to be man-
aged as a resource, not locked up.
Locking up the forests, specifi cally, is what the
new round of negotiations needs to avoid. As a
public resource, the national forests of the Blue
Mountains must be open for many types of uses,
and accessible to all.
Otherwise, they will fail to fulfi ll their purpose
and stifl e the economy of Eastern Oregon and
southeastern Washington state.
Your views
Farmers and ranchers
will miss having
Walden around
As someone who owns and
operates a cattle ranch, I take
pride in saying Congressman
Walden is working harder
than anyone in D.C. to cut
through the red tape that we
farmers and ranchers live
with every day.
Greg has supported the
Trump administration as they
work hard to renegotiate trade
deals and expand access for our
farmers and ranchers to foreign
markets — like the newly
negotiated USMCA and the
U.S. trade deal with Japan — a
great win for Oregon agricul-
ture.
In Congress, Greg has
passed legislation that would
improve forest management
and decrease the risk of wild-
fi re by utilizing tools like graz-
ing and thinning to reduce fuel
loads on public lands. Greg has
fought hard to ensure farmers
and ranchers can continue to
rely on the protections pro-
vided in the Farm Bill. He has
worked tirelessly to advance
legislation time and again that
would federally delist the gray
wolf and give the states the
ability to better manage wolf
populations.
I’ve watched Greg as he has
spoken with leaders in the
agriculture industries from
Eastern Oregon throughout
his career in Congress. His
passion for the industries is
clear in those meetings, and
he has always carried the
message he receives in those
discussions back to D.C. I have
had the pleasure of working
with him in Oregon and in
Washington, D.C.
The farmers and ranchers
of Oregon are going to miss
having Congressman Walden
around. Thankfully we still
have one more year.
Matt McElligott
North Powder
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 900 Court St. N.E., Salem, OR 97301;
503-378-4582.
Oregon Secretary of State Bev Clarno: 136 State Capitol. Salem
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Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Reed: 350 Winter St. N.E., Suite
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Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum: Justice Building,
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Website: www.oregonlegislature.gov/hansell. Email: sen.billhan-
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La Grande, Oregon 97850
Publisher........................................Karrine Brogoitti
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