Opinion
A4
Thursday, April 28, 2022
OUR VIEW
Coming clean
on gambling
in Oregon
he Oregon Lottery and other state-
sanctioned gambling has brought more
than $12 billion in revenues to the state
since it began in the 1980s.
Big money. It’s right behind the state income
tax as one of the state’s largest sources of rev-
enue. And there is a thirst for more.
Other states, such as Pennsylvania, allow much
more freedom for people to gamble on more
things — right from their phone.
Why not Oregon?
A new state committee is going to look at
Oregon’s gambling regulations and its mix of
off erings.
There are the usual issues. The committee
should also address transparency. Oregonians
deserve to know where the money is coming
from and how it is spent. There is, at least, a tem-
porary step back from the Oregon Lottery. More
about that in a few paragraphs.
The issues that are sure to get the attention of
the committee include: What is the right mix of
gambling? How much state-sanctioned gambling
is too much? Is Oregon doing enough to battle
gambling addiction even as it encourages people
to gamble? Should gambling machines be allowed
at horse tracks? Are Oregon tribes losing out as
the state expands gambling beyond their control?
This past legislative session Senate President
Peter Courtney tried to get passed a bill to allow
state-sanctioned betting on college sports. People
already bet on college sports, after all. Why not
capture some of the revenue for the state? The
proposal was to take the revenue from gam-
bling on college sports and put it into the state’s
program that provides grants to college stu-
dents. Legislators balked. It got one hearing and
then nothing. Gambling opponents didn’t like
it. Oregon tribes argued it would eat into their
casino revenues.
We hope the committee also fi rmly backs
transparency. For instance, the Oregon Lot-
tery recently became less transparent about its
money from sports betting. You used to be able
to fi nd on the Oregon Lottery’s website monthly
reports showing how much was bet on various
sports from cricket to chess to surfi ng to foot-
ball and the state’s margin on each. Here’s a link
to information for August 2021: tinyurl.com/
ORsportshistorical.
Now if you want to see that, the website directs
people to a public records request. Why the added
hassle? We asked the Oregon Lottery. A spokes-
person wasn’t immediately sure. Understand-
able. “I do know that our agency philosophy with
public records is to be as transparent as possible,”
Patrick Johnson emailed us. “So I will look into
this further.”
He also swiftly sent us a link to the fi les. That’s
here: tinyurl.com/ORsportsbetting.
So we got them. But there’s less detail in
the new reports and that added hassle in get-
ting them. Jess Nelson, public records specialist
for the Oregon Lottery, later told us there’s less
detail, in part, because the lottery is transitioning
to a new vendor for sports betting, DraftKings.
She said it is not the intent to require a formal
public records request for the data. The Oregon
Lottery just has not gotten around to putting the
link on the webpage yet, she said.
Right now, the Oregon Lottery is providing
less data and more hassle. It’s not the biggest deal,
but it should be a reminder to the new state com-
mittee that any changes to state gambling regula-
tions should not come with less transparency.
T
Logging and carbon — another viewpoint
BRUCE
WILCOX
OTHER VIEWS
s a young adult out hunting, I
still can remember the sounds
of chainsaws and timber
falling in my favorite hunting area. I
was upset: Why was my spot being
logged? Now, 45 years later, I can
walk through this area to a healthy
stand of fi re-resistant timber.
In January, I read a column
by George Wuerthner (Logging
and carbon — The best manage-
ment for our forests is to stop log-
ging, The Observer, Jan. 22). I felt it
was necessary to provide the other
side of the story on logging and
carbon. I reached out to Healthy For-
ests-Healthy Communities for help
in writing my column. This orga-
nization promotes healthy timber
management, and through their arti-
cles, people are educated so they can
develop their own opinions.
George Wuerthner should
really see the forest for the trees.
Researchers have consistently found
that the use of active forest manage-
ment helps reduce the intensity of
wildfi res. It also gives fi refi ghters
better and safer opportunities
to contain fi res before they gain
strength and destroy our forests and
communities.
Thinning is a key management
tool, because reducing stand densi-
ties to sustainable levels helps pro-
mote the health and resiliency of our
forests, so they can better withstand
fi res when they inevitably ignite.
The problem with such agen-
da-driven “research” that Wuerthner
shares is that it fails to account for
the carbon losses and emissions that
occur from the lack of active forest
A
management, and when we choose
not to plant, grow, harvest and
manufacture wood products here
at home.
For example, the study cited
by Wuerthner doesn’t account for
carbon emissions that occur when
we outsource our timber harvesting
and wood products to other coun-
tries that don’t share our high envi-
ronmental standards. Would we
really reduce our carbon footprint
by importing wood from Brazil or
Russia, rather than Oregon?
According to the University of
Washington’s Forest Carbon Study,
Washington’s private forests and for-
estry sector are a “Below Net Zero”
carbon emitter. Although the pro-
cesses associated with manufac-
turing wood and paper products emit
some greenhouse gasses, growing
trees and using wood products
store more carbon than is emitted,
reducing Washington’s carbon foot-
print by 12%. Forestry’s carbon
footprint is further reduced when we
convert low-value woody material
into renewable energy.
Our Western forests are facing
what one scientist calls an “epidemic
of trees,” where we have more trees
than the landscape can support.
The intense competition for sun-
light and nutrients can weaken trees
and reduce their ability to withstand
severe wildfi res. It can also result
in insect attacks and disease, which
contributes to high tree mortality
and more fuel for severe wildfi res.
Thinning forests — yes, that
means removing some trees — con-
tributes to the growth and vitality
for remaining trees and enables
them to sequester and store more
carbon. When it comes to thinning
forests the only question is why
we’re not doing more of it.
Research also shows that trees
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Bruce Wilcox was raised in Eastern Oregon and
has enjoyed recreating in the Blue Mountain
forests, near Heppner, for more than 60 years.
He is very concerned about the future of these
forests, hoping they will be around for several
generations to follow.
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are dying at alarming rates, due to
wildfi res, insects, disease, drought
and other impacts of climate
change. Dead trees do not sequester
carbon, they only emit carbon and
other greenhouse gasses over time.
Walking away from our forests only
serves to continue that trend.
One researcher found that wild-
fi res emit greenhouse gasses at a
rate equivalent to 48 cars per acre.
In this scenario, the researcher sug-
gested we’d need to park 1 million
cars for an entire year to account for
greenhouse gasses from a 21,000-
acre fi re. Interestingly, the decay of
the dead trees following a wildfi re is
more signifi cant in aff ecting the cli-
mate than the fi re itself.
If we choose not to manage our
forests, we may lose 100% of the
trees to stand-replacing wildfi res,
and then we will lose all of that
stored carbon over time as trees
rot and decompose. The problem is
made worse when forests fail to nat-
urally regenerate after a severe wild-
fi re, and instead convert to shrub-
lands that do not sequester carbon
at the same rates. Dead trees don’t
sequester carbon, only vigorously
growing trees do. Dead trees and
sterilized soils from severe wildfi res
only release carbon over time.
We have tried passive forest man-
agement for the past 30 years, and it
has resulted in more severe wildfi res,
unhealthy forests and more carbon
emissions. There is only one “guar-
antee”: Walking away from our for-
ests and choosing not to manage
them will result in more of the same.
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