Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Spring hike planned
along Rough and
Ready Creek
Illinois Valley residents Suzanne Vautier and Kathy
Lombardo plan to lead a hike along the Rough and Ready
Botanical Wayside at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, April 16.
Vautier and Lombardo will help identify different
flowers and other plant life during the hike. Part of the trail is
wheelchair accessible for those with limited mobility.
The fairly short hike will be geared towards those of all
experience levels and is on rocky but mostly level ground.
Those attending will meet in the Rough and Ready parking lot
along Hwy 199 at milepost 34.
The Native Plant Society and the Cultural and Ecological
Enhancement Network (CEEN) are co-sponsoring the hike.
For more information you can reach Vautier of CEEN at
(541) 592-3939.
Wyden town hall
covers many topics
Continued from A-1
Valley residents also
brought up the potential
expansion of the Oregon
Caves National Monument, a
controversial issue for years.
Greg Walter asked for an
update on the bill to expand
the monument. Southern Ore.
Resource Alliance chair Jim
Frick worried that the proposed
expansion of the monument
under the Antiquities Act could
affect about 1,500 private
lands, though supporters said
it only involved public lands.
Earlier in the meeting,
Wyden said he supported
the bipartisan legislation,
but also stressed that the bill
must not go through without
full consideration of public
opinion.
“I oppose any secret
national
monument
designation,” Wyden said. “It
has to be a public process.”
Energy, taxes and veteran
services were some of the other
topics discussed during
the town hall. Wyden said
he wanted to reform taxes
to remove tax breaks for
companies that ship jobs
overseas, using the funds to
cut taxes on companies that
create jobs in the United
States.
The town hall began
with formal recognition
of Korean War veterans.
Wyden said that he wants
to make vet services more
accessible for Southern
Oregon residents, and that
while he supports deficit
reduction, one benefit he
wouldn’t budge on was
veteran healthcare.
“Vet care in Oregon
is really good, if you can
get it,” Wyden said. “If we
don’t [provide vet care],
we’re breaking the social
contract for those who
serve…to have decent
healthcare for themselves
and their families.”
Selmac spray rally and town hall meeting
Continued from A-1
“It’s not us against them,”
Moore said. “Everybody has
their own view. I’m not going
to make this political; it’s a
people’s issue.”
Area resident Waves
Forest spoke at the rally and
the town hall meeting. He
doubted trees such as conifers
needed herbicides to reduce
competition by other weeds
and seedlings.
“Trees have been re-
generating without poisons for
a very long time,” Forest said.
“I personally have planted
thousands of trees and never
had to reduce competition.”
Forest guessed smaller
companies such as Perpetua
might be convinced from the
dominant practice of using
herbicides that no other
alternative is good enough.
“I’m hoping there’s
going to be a willingness to
consider other alternatives and
take a fresher look at evidence
of people who have actually
been harmed unquestionably,”
Two Albany men were rescued by a
Josephine County Sheriff’s Office Deputy
early in the morning on Sunday, March
27, near Kerby.
Deputy Jason Stanton located the
two men who were stranded at a mining
claim out Forest Service Road 4105.
The sheriff’s office said that Terry
McCarthy and Timothy Holder, both of
Albany, drove their vehicle down to the
creek by the claim on Saturday and were
unable to get back out due to the wet and
muddy ground.
Fortunately, McCarthy and Holder
told their relatives and Kerby Motel
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Forest said.
Forest
mentioned
a worker with the job of
spraying roadside herbicide
who recently died of cancer.
He also said Selma residents
Orville and Mary Camp noticed
a strange smell and later found
out about a different clear cut
that was treated with herbicide
close to their property.
Forest believes revised
EPA Atrazine labels for conifer
trees require a buffer zone
of 400 feet from watersheds,
should not be applied on highly
porous soils and cannot be
combined with other chemicals
except as recommended by
manufacturers.
“There are websites of
people concerned because
of personal impacts, such as
[someone] losing their organic
farm because of spray drift,”
Forest said. “When you add it
all together, it looks like erring
on the side of caution is a
good idea until they figure out
what’s going on.”
Though Moore was
pleased Precious Dirt could
hold a town hall, she said she
was discouraged by the lack
of participation from county
commissioners and by the
reactions of other residents.
“I was disappointed all
three of the commissioners
were not at the town hall,”
Moore said. “It was an attempt
to communicate; we only get
three minute blurbs at morning
[weekly business sessions].”
Moore
said
the
commissioners
almost
canceled the town hall because
the other side of the debate
would not be represented, as
Perpetua representatives were
unable to attend.
“It feels like we’re up
against these walls that we
can’t penetrate,” Moore said.
“The Valley is sick of hearing
from us…they’ve lumped us
into one group and given us
a label, ‘Oh, it’s them again,’
and I’m fighting that. It’s
everybody’s issue.”
Bianco, one of the first
to learn of the proposed
spray, wrote letters to news
outlets and attended weekly
business sessions in Grants
Pass to voice his concern to
the commissioners. He told
those at the rally he had “a lot
of doubts” about the safety of
chemicals.
Another resident said he
had many bees and bats on his
property when he moved to the
area some 40 years ago. Now,
the bees are gone. He once
found about 26 dead bats on
the ground.
Bianco
and
others
believed a higher number
of dead bats, killed by
pesticides, could be picked
up by scavengers such as
foxes, meaning there could be
correlation between pesticide
use gradually leading to an
increase in rabies cases.
Though acknowledging
there was no definitive proof,
they implied the recent rise
in rabies cases in Josephine
County might not be a
coincidence.
Two men rescued in Kerby
Community Events Calendar
Dale Hopper
Page A-7
Eastfork
Friday, April 1st
5:30pm at Taylor’s Country Store
To add an event to this calendar call 541-592-2541
It’s oNly $5!
manager Mark Dowd where they were
headed and what time they should be
expected back.
When they hadn’t returned at the
specified time on Saturday night, Dowd
first attempted to find the subjects in the
Cave Junction area and then contacted the
sheriff’s office, just after midnight.
Sheriff’s deputies also checked
the valley for the subjects’ vehicle and
requested a “ping” of their cell phone to
determine its most recent location. The
phone was turned off, but family members
were able to provide a detailed description
of where the subjects were headed.
Deputy Stanton utilized his four-
wheel drive vehicle to search for the
subjects in the area of the mining claim
specified by family members. By 03:18
a.m., Deputy Stanton located McCarthy
and Holder with their dog, Jake. The group
was muddy and hungry, but otherwise
fine.
“They told people where they were
going and told someone to send help
if they didn’t return at a certain time ―
just like people who travel in the woods
should,” Deputy Stanton said.
Deputy Stanton added that having
that information helped the sheriff’s office
rescue them quickly, without needing to
deploy search and rescue resources.
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