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CapitalPress.com
Friday, June 10, 2022
People & Places
Environmental researcher:
It’s time to think small
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
CLE ELUM, Wash. —
Todd Myers of the Wash-
ington Policy Center has
written a book on the con-
servation-minded
doing
“cool, positive things that
are collaborative, rather than
combative.”
It’s due for release in
November, and he wonders
if anyone will read it.
“Like once a week when
I was writing the book, I
thought, ‘Does anybody
care about this but me?’”
Myers argues that indi-
vidual actions, though not
flashy, are what’s needed
now to improve the envi-
ronment. He acknowledges
that landmark laws such as
the Clean Air Act and Clean
Water Act cut pollution from
smokestacks and wastewa-
ter outfalls, but maintains
that the source of environ-
mental problems are more
diffuse now and that politi-
cians, addicted to the grand
gesture and overreaching,
are ill-suited to solve them.
His book is called, “Time
to Think Small: How Nim-
ble Environmental Technol-
ogies Can Solve the Planet’s
Biggest Problems.” On the
cover, a bee straddles a cell
phone.
The book’s premise is
that, like bees, people can
work together to be pro-
ductive. Connected by tech-
nology, people can prevent
blackouts, conserve water,
track endangered species,
foil poachers and otherwise
improve the environment
one nongovernmental inno-
vation at a time.
Myers, the environmen-
tal director for the Seat-
tle-based free-market think
tank, calls them “small per-
sonal solutions ... more flex-
ible ... more dynamic” and in
contrast to government envi-
ronment policies that are
“unbelievably expensive,
unbelievably ineffective.”
“What I want to do is
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Innovator
TODD MYERS
Occupation: Washington
Policy Center director of
the Center for the Envi-
ronment
Age: 52
Resident: Lives in Cle
Elum with his wife, Maria
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington Policy Center environmental director Todd Myers, with his bees in the
Cascade foothills, has stinging criticism of how government approaches environ-
mental issues.
give people more power,”
he said. “I make the point in
the book that the more con-
cerned you are about green-
house gases, the less you
should put the future of the
planet in the hands of pol-
iticians and the whims of
voters.”
A decade ago, Myers, 52,
wrote, “Eco-Fads,” excoriat-
ing what he saw as the van-
ity and hubris of environ-
mental policymaking.
He wrote that science and
economics were yielding to
the social value of being per-
ceived as “green” and that
“follow the science” meant
pushing a predetermined
position rather than commit-
ting to disinterested inquiry.
Myers said he is as frus-
trated as ever about how
government
approaches
environmental problems.
“Environmental policies
and decisions that we make
are not connected to good
environmental outcomes,”
he said. “We make it based
on what feels good and what
makes politicians look good.
“They think being big
and being bold reflects on
them,” he said. “They get an
ego boost from saying, ‘I’m
literally going to save the
planet.’”
They would be more
humble and careful if they
had to patch leaky pipes, he
said.
“If they failed to fix the
plumbing, they would feel
the cost. But if they fail at
environmental policy, they
don’t feel the cost of mess-
ing up people’s lives.”
Myers has analyzed and
commented on environmen-
tal policies for two decades,
choosing whatever sub-
ject strikes him. “Gener-
ally, what sucks me in is
where there is a gigantic gap
between the rhetoric and
reality,” he said.
His
favorite
topics
include the Snake River
dams, Washington’s snow-
pack, wolves and the “sci-
ence” of round numbers.
He recently noted that
spring chinook salmon runs,
as counted at the farthest
upriver dam on the Snake
River, have increased in the
past three years.
The counts contradict the
claim that the dam and three
others must be breached to
save the run from extinction,
according to Myers, who sits
on the Puget Sound Recov-
ery Council, a state advisory
body.
He called dam breach-
ing a “good example of how
environmental fads take
hold,” leading politicians to
ignore data and make wildly
inaccurate claims.
In that vein, Myers likes
to point out that Washing-
ton’s snowpack has so far
held up, even though the
state law that requires car-
bon emissions to be cut by
95% by 2050 lists “lack of
snowpack” as evidence of a
climate emergency.
A newspaper columnist
mocked Myers’ observation
on the “continued existence
of snow” as a “zingy rejoin-
der to the irrefutable evi-
dence of a warming planet.”
To which Myers replied
that it was environmentalist
activists, not he, who made
claims about the snowpack.
On wolves, Myers says
Washington’s recovery plan
was based on the flawed
assumption that wolves
would spread across the
state.
They have not, he wrote
in a recent blog. Wolves are
bunched mostly in northeast
Education: Master’s de-
gree in Russian-interna-
tional studies, University
of Washington; bache-
lor’s degree in politics,
Whitman College
Hobby: Beekeeper
Previous jobs: Public af-
fairs director of the Seat-
tle Mariners; public affairs
director of the Seattle
SuperSonics; communi-
cations director of the
Washington Department
of Natural Resources
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Washington, making a small
group of people bear the
costs, “so we can all enjoy
the recovery of a magnifi-
cent animal.”
It’s Myers’ turn to mock
when he observes that poli-
cies that purport to be scien-
tific are always divisible by
five.
He calls the state’s cap-
and-trade law to reduce
greenhouse gases from man-
ufacturers by 50% by 2030
an example of a purportedly
science-based policy land-
ing on round numbers and of
government getting in over
its head.
Consider, he said, the
response to COVID. “How
is affecting the entire energy
system of Washington eas-
ier? It’s not. It’s harder.”
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Saving Butte Falls: Town creates community forest as wildfire buffer
By JAN JACKSON
For the Capital Press
BUTTE FALLS, Ore. —
Local members of the tim-
ber industry and fire crews
worked around the clock
to keep the Obenchain and
Almeda fires from wiping
out the town of Butte Falls,
Ore., in September 2020.
Now the 450 townspeo-
ple are working to prevent
a repeat of those disastrous
fires by creating a commu-
nity forest as a buffer sur-
rounding the town.
Longtime Butte Falls
resident and logger Don
Hamann describes the loca-
tion of the town as the hole
in a forest “doughnut.” He
has been working on plans
for the community forest
from the beginning.
“No one talks about if
there is going to be the next
fire but when it will be, and
we realized we were going
to be way better off invest-
ing ahead of time versus just
waiting for it to happen,”
Hamann said.
Nick Rodgers/For the Capital Press
This aerial photograph by Nick Rodgers, a fourth-gen-
eration logger from Butte Falls, Ore., shows the vulner-
ability of the forest-encircled town. A new community
forest will serve as a buffer to protect the town should a
wildfire break out.
During the 2020 fires the
town was evacuated for 10
days.
“Those ten days seemed
like a long time to wait
when you we didn’t know
if you would have anything
to come back to,” Mayor
Linda Spencer said. “Our
goal now is to make the cir-
cle of timberland around us
as fire retardant as possible
and at the same time make it
be something we can share
with other folks in terms of
recreation and things like
that.”
The 460-acre circle of
timber around the town will
be developed as a commu-
nity forest. The plan is to
manage the forest so its trees
are spaced farther apart with
higher ladder fuels that can
be “broadcast burned” with-
out damaging the trees,
Hamann said. “So, we’re
not only about being proac-
tive in the world of increas-
ing danger of catastrophic
fires, but we are creating and
adding opportunities for for-
est health and recreation.”
According to Hamann,
the main person who was
convinced something could
be done was Spencer, who
is retired from the Environ-
mental Protection Agency in
Washington, D.C.
Spencer first connected
with the statewide may-
ors’ group, which connected
her with Oregon Solutions,
Regional Solutions and
the Trust for Public Lands.
Between the three of them,
they got the first grant for
the community forest. The
organizations specialize in
collaboration among gov-
ernment agencies, individu-
als and organizations.
“The Oregon Department
of Forestry has been incred-
ible, we became an Oregon
Solutions project, and (Gov.
Kate Brown) came down
and gave us her stamp of
approval,” Spencer said.
The town received a
$400,000 grant from the U.S.
Forest Service for the com-
munity forest, a $700,000
grant from the Oregon Leg-
islature “and more money
from places like the Med-
ford Water Commission and
Gordon Elwood and others,”
Spencer said. The Elwood
charitable foundation is
based in nearby Medford.
As contracts for the
work are now being issued
to many of those who
worked to save the town
two years ago, Hamann
said he is encouraged by the
project.
“We just took posses-
sion of the 460 acres in Jan-
uary,” he said. “We awarded
the first contract in May, and
now we’ve started to move
forward to the harvest. It
will probably take at least
five years to get there, but at
least we have started.”
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CALENDAR
Submit upcoming ag-related
events on www.capitalpress.com
or by email to newsroom@capital-
press.com.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
JUNE 10-11
Lind Combine Demolition
Derby: Starts at 6 p.m. Friday and
10:45 a.m. Saturday at the Lind,
Wash., Arena. Join the fun for this
year’s Combine Demolition Derby
and truck races. Website: www.lind-
combinederby.com
SATURDAY JUNE 11
Forest and Range Owners
Field Day: 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Casa
Becca del Norte Tree Farm, 2716
Moser Road, Chewelah, Wash.
Washington State University Exten-
sion field day offers information
specific to landowners’ needs. Cost:
$30-50. Contact: Sean Alexander,
509-680-0358, sean.alexander@
wsu.edu
SUNDAY JUNE 12
Savor Idaho: 11:30 a.m.-
5:30 p.m. Idaho Botanical Gar-
den, 2355 N. Old Penitentiary
Road, Boise. Idaho Wine Commis-
sion event features wineries, other
exhibitors. Features wine tasting,
activities, food trucks. Attendance
periods from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and
3-5:30 p.m. Website: https://ida-
howines.org/event/savor-idaho/
TUESDAY-FRIDAY
JUNE 14-17
Agriculture Transportation
Coalition Annual Meeting: Greater
Tacoma Convention Center, 1500
Commerce St., Tacoma, Wash. The
largest annual gathering of ag ship-
pers sourcing and delivering to for-
eign markets. Sponsored by the
Agriculture Transportation Coa-
lition, the principal voice of agri-
culture in U.S. transportation pol-
icy. Website: https://agtrans.org/
events/
WEDNESDAY
JUNE 15
Chemical Container Recycling
Day: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Orchard & Vine-
yard Supply at 3526 Brooks Ave. in
Salem and 2700 St. Joseph Road
in McMinnville, Ore. Drop off your
cleaned chemical containers to be
recycled. All containers must be tri-
ple rinsed with all lids, caps, han-
dles, and label books removed. No
boxes are accepted. If containers
are not cleaned as stated above,
items will not be received. Free of
charge. Contact: 503-435-2700 or
cristina.juarez@ovs.com
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
JUNE 17-18
PNWCTA Summer Meeting
and Farm Tour: Chehalis and Mos-
syrock, Wash. The Summer Meeting
and Farm Tour offers attendees the
chance to meet and visit the farm
operations of fellow growers. On
Friday of this two-day event attend-
ees will have the opportunity to
participate in educational sessions
and enjoy dinner at Mistletoe Tree
Farm. On Saturday growers will tour
Skookum View Nobles, Bear Canyon
Tree Farm and Hunter Christmas
Trees. Field demonstrations and a
catered lunch will be offered. Con-
tact: 503-364-2942 Website: https://
bit.ly/3N57gGT
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
JUNE 17-19
Wenatchee River Bluegrass
Festival: Chelan County Expo Cen-
ter, 5700 Wescott Drive, Cashmere,
Wash. The Annual Wenatchee River
Bluegrass Festival features national
award winners, Appalachian Road-
show; Po’ Ramblin’ Boys; Dave
Adkins; Fast Track, and NW favorites
Thunder Ridge and Rusty Hinges
Bluegrass. Events also include Tay-
lor’s Camp for Kids, Band Scram-
ble and Slow Jam. Camping opens
Monday June 13. Call: 509 421-
0494. Website: www.WenatcheeRiv-
erBluegrass.com
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
JUNE 18-19
Huckleberry Mountain Invi-
tational Dog Trial: 11684 Huckle-
berry Loop, Baker City, Ore. One of
the highest paying stand alone cow
dog trials in the nation is happen-
ing near Sumpter, Ore. Handlers
from all over the western U.S. will
gather to show their dogs’ skills and
compete for big money. Last year
first place paid just under $8,000.
With $6,000 added for 2022 and
entry fees of $500 per dog the com-
petition will be steep. The abilities
these dogs and handlers have will
impress. Admission is free. Conces-
sions will be on site. Bring a lawn
chair as the trial is held on a real
working ranch out in the pasture.
No pets, please. Website: www.
huckleberrymtn.com
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Index
Markets .................................................10
Opinion ...................................................6
Correction policy
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staff and to our readers.
If you see a misstatement, omission or
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caption, please call the Capital Press news
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