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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 2016)
6 CapitalPress.com March 11, 2016 Editorials are written by or approved by members of the Capital Press Editorial Board. All other commentary pieces are the opinions of the authors but not necessarily this newspaper. Opinion Editorial Board Publisher Editor Managing Editor Mike O’Brien Joe Beach Carl Sampson opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion O UR V IEW for not taking this as the last word on the subject from an administration that has raised nuance to an art form. With 10 months and change left in President Obama’s tenure, there’s plenty of time for the plan to move forward. While the administration has previously said it would work collaboratively with Congress, local interests and elected offi cials in making such designations, because the land in question is already owned by the federal government the Antiquities Act of 1906 requires only that Obama pick up his pen and proclaim it so. No fuss, no muss. In February he designated three such monuments in the California desert covering almost 1.8 million acres. The fear on the ground is that the White House will play coy, carefully denying what is not true, not addressing what is true. Then, somewhere after the election and before Jan. 20 the deal will be done. Walden said the angst many rural westerners feel over government management of public lands and federal overreach would be made worse by such a declaration. We agree. The president and his representatives should just say no. Absent that, they should honestly telegraph their intentions and engage in an honest debate with the people of Malheur County and the West. Ore. Id aho Jewell downplayed it during her testimony. “It’s been kicking around, it’s one of the things people have recommended to us,” Jewell said. But she said the Interior Department, which includes the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has held no community meetings or discussions about the idea. “People haven’t been actively in my offi ce asking about it,” Jewell said. Walden asked if there has been any coordination between the White House and Department of Interior on the issue. “Not that I’m aware of,” Jewell replied. You would think that she would know. But forgive us Proposed national Ontario conservation area Nyssa R and regulations that would prohibit or severely complicate grazing, mining, hunting and recreation. While proponents say traditional uses of the land will be allowed, a local group called Citizens in Opposition to the Owyhee Canyonlands Monument does not believe them. There’s quite a bit of opposition to the plan in Eastern Oregon. A lot of people see it as another example of the federal government putting the desires of distant special interests ahead of the local community. While supporters are well organized, have money, have a website, have drawn up maps and detailed proposals, Ore. BAKER 78 Jordan Valley Burns Junction Idaho Ore. ecretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, responding to questions from Rep. Greg Walden during hearings March 1, said she’s unaware of any active plan in the administration to designate an Owyhee Canyonlands national monument. That’s good news, as far as it goes. Backed by the Oregon Natural Desert Association, the proposed Owyhee Canyonlands wilderness and conservation area would cover 40 percent of Oregon’s Malheur County — about 2.5 million acres of what is now controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Residents believe the designation would be accompanied by restrictions Area in detail Ow Nuance can’t replace ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on monument S 95 Ore. McDermitt Nev. 95 N 20 miles Alan Kenaga/Capital Press Another case of EPA overreaction T Rik Dalvit/For the Capital Press O UR V IEW Where water quality, property rights meet Washington state’s hunger for land insatiable T he Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife owns or manages a million acres, and has its eye on 10,000 more. The price tag is $13.3 million. The 10 parcels range from a 5,542- acre ranch in Lincoln County in Eastern Washington to 13 acres of wetlands in Snohomish County in Western Washington. Most of the properties have been used for livestock grazing or crop production. WDFW says most of the land will be used for recreation — hunting, fi shing, hiking — and wildlife conservation. Some could be leased to farmers and ranchers. A million acres under management, and it wants more. It wants land now in productive, private use. Land on the tax rolls. Once it has one million and ten thousand acres, how much more? In addition to the WDFW holdings, the Department of Natural Resources has 3.1 million acres. There are 112,282 acres in state parks. The federal government owns 12.7 million acres. To the state’s credit, it’s buying from willing sellers. We can’t fault property owners for making a good deal. Good for them. But does the state really need more? The Washington Farm Bureau is concerned WDFW is driving up land prices and gradually taking land out of agriculture production. “It’s death by a thousand cuts,” the Farm Bureau’s government relations director, Tom Davis, said. At a time when Washington residents are questioning the state’s management of wildfi res on public lands, and when there’s a growing dissatisfaction with the size of public holdings, we wonder if enough isn’t enough. Goal is to get people to leave rural West By LOREN STOUT For the Capital Press I n all the news coverage about the incident in Burns, Ore., I have not seen any reporting on the main driving forces behind the occupation. What has been kept quiet is the involvement of our federal senators, government agencies and environmental groups in driving a bunch of ranchers to such extreme measures. During the last 20 years a huge amount of lawsuits has been fi led by the government and environmental groups to try and put the miners, farm- ers, ranchers and loggers out of business. During one of the lawsuits I was involved in, the envi- ronmentalists were called out for using inadequate data and unqualifi ed personnel to fur- ther their claims. At this point it became very apparent the lengths the environmentalists and some federal and state em- ployees would go to put rural people out of business. To alleviate this situation, we got the bright idea to meet with Sen. Ron Wyden. During this face-to-face meeting, he told us these practices were wrong and to give him a call anytime and that he would help us. About a month later one of the ranchers that was at the meeting met with the senator’s staff. He asked for some help and was told that the ranchers were not on the senator’s prior- ity list, and would not help us. New secretary A real blow to the rural West came when Sen. Wyden decided lawsuits were not crushing the rural people fast enough. They saw their open- ing when the Secretary of the Interior lost his job. The confi rmation hearings for the new person amounted to noth- ing.... It appears this person’s only relevant qualifi cation was the ability to go after the rural lifestyle with whatever means it took. This person is now secretary of Interior. It has paid huge dividends. All of the court cases that have been won by the citi- zens of the U.S. can now be circumvented by regulations. A perfect example is the sage grouse. The people thought there was fi nally some justice when it was not listed as en- dangered but as it turns out they are worse off because of Guest comment Loren Stout the regulations the new secre- tary of Interior imposed. A little closer to home, the plan is to steal 2 million acres from Malheur County to tie up the mineral deposits and in the process put all the ranch- ers out of business. Looking back on it, there has been a systematic break- down of the rural West since the 1990s. The politicians and the environmentalists learned there was a lot of money to be made by eliminating the rural people and the jobs that were associated with natural resources. If they could stop the schools from being fund- ed and with no jobs to make payments, people surely had to leave. More regulation Then came the idea if we create more government agencies, they can tie up the resources with endless regula- tion, and nothing will be man- aged and every citizen loses. The agencies learned they would be rewarded if they fol- lowed this very premise. No matter whether you agree or disagree with the people who took over the Malheur Refuge, they did bring to light the abuses and prejudices that are being used against the rural communities and citizens of the rural West for individual gain. We have been sold like a band of sheep. Tip of iceberg The rural people have al- ways been very resilient. I be- lieve this ordeal in Burns may be the tip of the iceberg. It also shows how far the government is willing to go to protect its fi nancial dealings. They do not bring in 200 para-military per- sonnel just to collect an over- due grazing bill from a single rancher in Nevada. Get to the bottom of that question and we may get some answers on who and why they are willing to sacrifi ce the livelihoods of thousands of Americans because of what we do for a living and where we choose to live. Loren Stout’s family arrived in Grant County, Ore., in 1878. He is currently caretaker of a ranch near John Day. his is a story about a farmer who thought he was doing the right thing. To prevent fl ooding from washing massive amounts of trees and dirt into the North Santiam River, Bill Case put rock along the banks. To make sure it was OK, he checked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of State Lands. Once they gave him the thumbs up he thought he was home free. He was wrong. Now, 7 years later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sued him. The EPA believes the rock Case placed along the river south of Salem in some way polluted it. Under the Clean Water Act, the agency argues he needs to either remove the rock or face the consequences, which could include fi nes of as much as $37,500 a day. Either outcome would defy logic and deprive him of his property rights. Beyond that, it would perpetuate a system of enforcement that is patently unfair to anyone who comes into the EPA’s crosshairs. First, let’s talk about the EPA. This agency has one of the most diffi cult jobs in the U.S. government. It must enforce not only the Clean Water Act and its poorly written regulations but other half-baked laws governing such things as dust. Most are one-size-fi ts-all, meaning that a farmer trying to prevent land from eroding into a river is treated the same as a manufacturing plant caught dumping industrial waste into a river. Second, since the Corps of Engineers already checked off on the project, that should be suffi cient. One would think that if the EPA needed to be involved the Corps offi cial would have told the farmer and the EPA. Third, the EPA has mutated into the junkyard dog of federal enforcement agencies. The way EPA attacks anyone for any alleged transgression is beyond reason. We are reminded of the regional EPA director in Texas who several years ago told a public meeting that the agency attacks alleged polluters with everything it’s got. “It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer villages in the Mediterranean — they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d fi nd the fi rst fi ve guys they saw and they’d crucify them,” the former regional director of the EPA said in 2010. “You fi nd people who are not complying with the law and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them. There’s a deterrent effect there.” Compared to the FBI, which sat on its haunches for 41 days while an armed group held an Oregon federal wildlife refuge, the EPA is storm troopers. We can only imagine what the EPA would have done if it were put in charge of that standoff. We want the environment to be clean. We also know farming and ranching, when well-managed, is the highest human undertaking. It nurtures the environment and feeds the world at the same time. That anyone would be punished as a polluter for placing some rock along a riverbank stretches credulity. The EPA needs to back away from its aggressiveness and bring this bureaucracy- fueled nightmare to an equitable conclusion. Now. Readers’ views Water quality, property rights Everyone knows the best water quality comes from for- estland. So how do we fi nd the balance between those who be- lieve they have the right to make demands on landowners and those who have the responsibili- ty to care for our forests, with all the associated costs? There are two groups of peo- ple in our society focusing on water quality from forestland: the “believers” who conclude it’s their right to have access to high water quality at any cost, and the “caretakers” who own the land and provide the protec- tions that keep a forest a forest. Harvesting timber, followed by reforestation, is the most log- ical way for caretakers to pay the bills and keep a forest a for- est while continuing to provide amenities believers expect. Forest and water quality are deeply respected by caretak- ers, whose families’ livelihoods depend on a strong long-term relationship. However, forest management goals established decades ago may prove foolish today if more restrictions are placed on the land near streams. When the Oregon Board of For- estry decides new riparian rules for small and medium streams under the Forest Practices Act, there’s a potential fi nancial im- pact on caretakers that can chal- lenge their ability and desire to keep a forest a forest. Society must fi nd a balance between a precautionary man- date promoted by believers and the realities associated with a caretaker’s ability to keep a for- est a forest. Otherwise, we face a possi- ble negative water quality out- come when forestland is con- verted to some other use at the discretion of the landowner. Only time will tell, but over- regulation has the potential to make things worse for water quality, not better. Scott Hanson President, Oregon Small Woodlands Association Oregon City, Ore. Jim James Executive director, Oregon Small Woodlands Association Albany, Ore.
