Applegater Spring 2015
21
MY OPINION FROM BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR
The promise of community
by chRis bRaTT
At the beginning of this new year, our
nation and the world remain in the midst of
huge environmental, economic and social
calamities. Throughout each day, we’re
bombarded by the news of ongoing and
immediate disruptive problems. There are
reports of war, murder, mayhem, racism,
unemployment, poverty, inequality,
natural disasters and environmental
degradation, to name just a few. Daily, our
brains are filled with distressful or harmful
events from an ever-expanding selection of
electronic devices and media outlets.
Trying to understand each
grueling crisis and then trying to think
or do something about it has become a
seemingly impossible task. It’s increasingly
more difficult when self-righteous, well-
paid pundits continually make false
assumptions and interpretations with scant
information on every reported tragedy.
With these frustrations at all levels of our
society, it’s no wonder that citizens are
stressed and having trouble separating fact
from fiction and nonsense from reality. It
seems our civilized world is becoming a
fearful place without a long-term plan for
a peaceful future that we and all nations
can embrace.
I’ve come to the conclusion that if
people want to bring some sanity back
into their lives and avoid becoming
overly cynical about our government’s
questionable decisions, they can have some
influence and success in solving knotty
problems right here on the community
and regional level. Commenting on hot-
button issues like climate change, free
market growth, green energy vs. fossil fuels,
or national forest policies with politicians
and agencies is definitely a good practice
to continue, but it seldom leads to an
individual’s concerns being considered.
On the other hand, southern Oregon has
a long history of using local issues to bring
about change at a much higher level.
Right here in southern Oregon is
where many big changes in federal agency
accountability got started, and important
victories have been won in the areas of
forest management and pesticide use. Our
local issues are microcosms of unresolved
larger policies and actions in many other
places around the world. We have tackled
many of these unsettled major questions
with positive results. Local residents and
groups will continue to have a profound
influence on issues related to human rights,
use of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs), pipeline construction, forest
management, and protection of natural
resources.
Following is a good example
of one local person who successfully
spoke out against federal herbicide use on
public forestland when no tests for serious
adverse health effects had been done on the
pesticides slated to be sprayed throughout
the region.
Phyllis Cribby was a trained
nurse who worked in South Vietnam
during the war helping local villagers
with nursing and educational services.
She returned to her home in Grants Pass
in the 1970s with a raised awareness
about the underlying and undisclosed
problems connected with using pesticides
in our environment. Phyllis centered her
attention, energy and expertise on exposing
the long-term and chronic health effects
linked to pesticide use and exposure in the
local forests and on local farms. She worked
tirelessly to protect the people, waters and
lands when most residents in southern
Oregon knew nothing about the adverse
effects of using these toxic chemicals.
Phyllis was a founding member of
several environmental organizations. She
worked for over three decades with groups
like Southern Oregon Citizens Against
Toxic Sprays (SOCATS), Northwest Center
for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP),
and Headwaters (a forest protection
group). In 1984, Phyllis (along with other
participants) was instrumental in getting
a sweeping injunction against all spraying
of herbicides
on public lands
managed by
Chris Bratt
the US Forest
Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). This court victory
was the highlight of Phyllis’ environmental
work. There has been limited or no
spraying of herbicides in the public forests
nationwide since that time.
I don’t expect everyone to be as
dedicated to a local cause as Phyllis was, but
we do need more citizen and community
involvement if we are going to influence
decisions on complex controversial
problems. The more recent debate and
voter approval of the GMO crop ban in
Jackson County shows another successful
example of local people working together
for important reform.
Join the many good neighbors,
scientists, artists and nonprofit
organizations prevalent in our
community and volunteer your expertise.
There is no better way to avoid the hysteria
and get reenergized. We can no longer
remain just spectators when confronted
by important questions relevant to our
communities.
If you think I am overenergized, let
me know.
Chris Bratt • 541-846-6988
Another smoky summer?
Count on it!
by ReX gaRoUTTe
The past couple of summers have
had us choking on forest-fire smoke for
weeks at a time. Although we’ve had
several small fires locally, thanks to the
Oregon Department of Forestry and local
firefighters, these fires lasted only a few
days. The fires that keep choking us are
large fires in remote areas. Given that much
of our economy is tourism-based, these
fires have had a serious negative impact.
Although the number of fires has
decreased in our area, their size has
increased. The history of federal land
management helps us understand why.
After the Great Fire of 1910, the
fledgling forest service adopted the “Out by
10:00” fire strategy: that any fire should be
extinguished by 10 am the next day. This
policy remained in effect until 1968 for
the National Park Service (NPS) and 1978
for the US Forest Service (USFS) and the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM). So
why did it change?
In 1964, the NPS, researching the
decline in sequoia trees in King’s Canyon
and Sequoia national parks, determined
that fire was key to the health of a sequoia
forest. Concurrent research by the USFS
determined that pine forests also benefited
from wildfires.
In 1976 the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act changed fire policy from
containment to management, allowing
a wildfire to burn until it was about to
jump off federal lands. Twenty years
later the Act was amended to include
prescribed fires (fires deliberately set to
reduce fuels), protection of critical habitat,
and containment for wildfires within a
wildland-urban boundary.
The history of land use on federal
lands also helps us understand the current
trend towards fewer but larger wildfires.
From the late 1950s to 1992, timber
harvested from federal lands was 14
percent of total US production, peaking
in 1987 at 17 percent. By 2000, that
production was down to two percent,
mainly due to environmentalist litigation.
It is still at two percent today.
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P.O. Box 14, Jacksonville, OR 97530.
Graphs above courtesy of Rex Garoutte.
With the passage of the 1976 Federal
Land Policy and Management Act, the
job of BLM went from managing federal
lands for the public to protecting the land
from the public. New regulations included
the power to keep the public off the land,
resulting in a dramatic decrease in wildfire
frequency by 1983.
Reduction in logging is the key to
the increase in wildfire acreage. Logging
creates a fire barrier that keeps a wildfire
contained. Because most logged forests
regenerate in 40 years and there has been
little logging since 1994, there is both more
fuel to burn and no new fire barriers.
The worst wildfires locally—at least
eight within a 75-mile radius—started in
or near wilderness or monument areas.
A burned forest is no guarantee against
further fire in the area and, in fact,
encourages wildfires.
The conclusion from the history is
that to keep our skies smoke free we should
do prescribed burns in wilderness areas and
some logging in non-wilderness areas to
create firebreaks.
Can we make this happen? Not
until we can reduce the influence of the
“Environmental Triad” on public policy—
but that’s another article.
Rex Garoutte
rosellas@apbb.net
More information on fire history
• http://wildland-fires.findthedata.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppression_in_the_United_
States
• perc.org/sites/default/files/Forest%20Policy%20Up%20in%20Smoke.pdf
• www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr158/psw_gtr158_01_
vanwagtendonk.pdf
• http://ballotpedia.org/Federal_Land_Policy_and_Management_Act_of_1976
• http://perc.org/blog/forest-service-timber-harvests-not-what-they-used-be