Street roots
Dec. 6, 2013
them to enforce our environmental laws. I
we’re talking about is transferring two
Raceway. It’s looking at putting industry into
don t want to duck them at the behest of the
agencies, not just one. We tend to focus on
neighborhoods. It’s looking at all kinds of
interest
of
the
very
industry
that
we
need
to
the water bureau because there are some
desperate measures to come with the 670
enforce against.
acres.
things — that Randy Leonard did in
To me, that isn’t a strategy, that is a
particular - that have drawn a lot of public
Portland has run out of big pieces of land.
complete and total cop out. Show up at city
We don’t have any left, we’re a landlocked
criticism. But, in fact, they are going after
council, run good candidates, participate in
city surrounded by other cities. The only
two bureaus; they are going after the
the democratic process and adopt
Portland Water Bureau and the Bureau of
way we could possibly come up with those
approaches
that
will
improve
our
670 acres at this point — and we don’t need
Environmental Services. Those two bureaus
communities,
not
undermine
them.
it, but even if you accept that we do — the
manage $15 billion worth of infrastructure
only way to come up with it is to start to
in Portland. It s absolutely critical that that
J.R.: You urge people not to sign the
destroy other community values. To destroy
would be integrated into the City of
Petitions. Are there other things that people in
our environment, undermine our
Portland, to the degree that it needs to be
Portland can do to influence this action?
neighborhoods, convert landscapes that are
reformed. There are plenty of groups
very important for other purposes. That’s
working on that. We’ve been very effective
B.S.: One of the real tragedies of this
not acceptable.
with the Bureau of Environmental Services.
initiative, for any environmentalist who
What scares me a lot is that it’s a
There are many ways to reform a bureau,
might support it, is that it’s drawing
technical, complicated process. People don’t
you don’t have to jump into bed with
resources off the most important battles
see the effects of these decisions
corporate polluters.
that are occurring this year. Get involved.
immediately. They don’t necessarily realize
This is really a two-step and in some ways
You want to protect our landscape and our
that this decision is going to have profound
a three-step effort. At the same time they
water resources - join the fight on
impacts on what their neighborhoods look
brought the lawsuit they said they also
Superfund. Join the fight on West Hayden
like down the road. There’s nothing on the
might bring in the initiative, in which they
Island. Get involved in
table right here and
not only attack some of the more notorious
organizations that are
now that’s fully
projects like the Portland Loos and the Rose actually effecting real
tangible to anybody.
I t ?s w ay lo o easy to s im p ly
Festival Headquarters, but every single
change on the ground.
It’s all on paper. It’s
significant green program in Portland
say it's hopeless o r say
And if you want to
important that we
including River Plan, Superfund, tree
take on the water
everybody
is
c
o
rru
p
t
o
r
say
shift our focus to the
planting programs, street and garden
bureau, put together a
we fa st steed to th ro w
Comprehensive Plan,
protection programs. Virtually every single
real coalition of
Superfund, Hayden
important environmental program in
e ve ry th in g we have o o f aad
groups that has the
Island.
Portland was named in their lawsuit as
capacity and the depth sta rt over. T h a t's a» easy
Looping back to the
illegal.
to actually effect
escape route a»d it's a cop
initiative, I suspect
That lawsuit still hasn’t been resolved.
change there.
that the big industrial
oat. We've got to take a
Rather than waiting for the lawsuit to be
I would also advise
backers of this
resolved, they brought this initiative as well.
ca re t» ! lo o k at w hat Is
people to be careful
initiative in some
I don’t think anybody would think that
about misdirected
w o rk in g and w hat Is n 't and
ways already think
somehow they are separated, or that
anger. I have seen a
p o t together g o o < broad,
they’ve won. It is
suddenly these folks have turned into
lot of programs being
taking an incredible
progressive c o a litio n s to
populists and environmentalists, if you look
attacked based on
amount of resources
at the track record.
very little information. lig h t back, 11 we do th a t we
from the
Today for example,
ca» w ia , and 1 m ean m ore
environmental
J.R.: What i f the initiative passes? What do
the BES grant
community, at a time
th a n fa st e n v iro n m e n ta l
you think we would see as a result o f this?
program - small
when critical
c o a litio n s ,
grants that go
decisions are pending,
B.S.: We are already seeing impacts. This
primarily
to
groups
to fight this initiative.
is a very aggressive campaign against the
environmental programs. We’ve already
seen city council cut some of them,
especially in the last budget cycle. They’re
feeling pressure from the big corporate
polluters, both in terms of the lawsuit and in
terms of the initiative. We’re already seeing
a chilling effect.
If this thing passes, you are going to see a
perpetual battle to keep these utilities from
falling into the very hands they should be
protecting us from. We’ll continue the fight,
if it passes, and try to make sure that good
people are elected. But that’s going to take
a tremendous amount of resources and we
expect they will have very well-funded
corporate campaigns backing candidates for
these positions, which are much more
vulnerable than our city council positions.
Portland is not just a national leader in
these kinds of things, it’s an international
leader. People come from all over the world
to see the environmental work that is going
on in Portland. It is absolutely cutting edge.
And not only is it green, but it’s well-proven
to actually save money on the things that
these utilities are charged with doing. We
don’t just do them because they’re green.
We do them because they are more cost-
effective than some of the great
infrastructure programs.
This is masquerading as a populist
movement - but they left all of East Portland
out. I think it tells us something about how
much these folks actually care about our
community. Nobody apparently realized that
the Portland School District doesn’t cover
East Portland.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people in East
Portland who say maybe this is a way for us
to get more of a voice. The people who are
pushing this initiative forgot them
altogether. I think for folks who are
concerned about equity, especially equity in
East Portland, it’s a terrible measure. It’s a
total mess.
I work on forest issues and I don’t think
the forest service does anywhere enough to
help protect the forest. But the last thing I
would do is join forces with the timber
industry to attack the forest service. I want
to build their effectiveness. I want to build
their strength and accountability and I want
representing
underserved communities to get them
engaged in watershed health — it was being
portrayed as a corrupt program. Some of
these corporate entities are doing a good
job of harnessing that anger and directing it
towards programs that we should be
protecting.
You have to be very careful about the
rhetoric. Get the facts. Don’t fall into the
trap of saying that everything our city
government does is corrupt. Because
there’s a lot of very good things it does as
well, and you don’t want to destroy those
programs. You’ll set yourself back a long
way. It took a long time to put a lot of those
things in place. It doesn’t take much time to
destroy them, and once you do they don’t
come back very quickly or easily.
J.R.: Portland's Comprehensive Plan
Update puts West Hayden Island at risk of
being turned into industrial-use land.
B.S.: West Hayden Island has been at risk
for a long time. I started fighting the
annexation of West Hayden Island in 1997
and other Auduboners were working on it
before me. For people to say grassroots
don’t have a voice in city hall, we had a long
battle, but the courts have not been able to
move forward for a decade and a half. They
are still in the same position they were in in
1997. They have not been able to annex the
island and they have not been able to
re-zone it. That’s because a very effective
coalition of environmental groups, tribes
and the local community — which is
primarily a manufactured-home community
of mostly low-income older people — have
waged an intense battle to keep this from
happening.
The Comprehensive Plan is bigger and
more complex than just Hayden Island,
though. What we’re dealing with is the fact
that the statewide land use planning goal,
Goal 9, requires that the city maintain a
15-plus-year supply of industrial land. The
city has determined that it has a 670-acre
deficit. As a result, it’s trying to find “new
industrial land to fill that capacity demand.”
It’s looking at Hayden Island, converting golf
courses, converting Portland International
Even if they lose, they
will still have diverted an incredible amount
of attention away from the most important
environmental issues that are facing our
communities right now, while everybody
mobilizes to fight this water issue.
J.R.: Do you think it’s intentional, on some
level?
B.S.: There’s no question in my mind,
that is part of the strategy and how they
have justified it to themselves. I say that
because these are businesses and industries
that have an incredibly long track record of
fighting environmental programs and they
are very sophisticated in how they go about
it. We have seen long-term strategies put in
place over and over again to disrupt
environmental rule-making processes.
Anybody who thinks these industries aren’t
acutely aware of the implications of the
decisions over the next couple years, is
kidding themselves.
Let’s use Superfund as an example. Right
now the feasibility for the Superfund
process projects industrial costs to clean up
the river that will range from $280 million at
the low end, to about $1.8 billion at the high
end. If industry can effectively fight for a
very minimal clean up, they could save
themselves over $1.5 billion. That’s what’s
at stake on Superfund for them.
Think about that - industrial stakeholders
could spend $100 million to $300 million
just on advocacy and outreach, pushing their
agenda with politicians. They could spend
hundreds of millions of dollars and
potentially still save themselves more than a
billion dollars.
When you’re dealing with numbers like
that, of the billion-plus dollars, you gotta
believe these folks are thinking very hard
about their strategy. Environmental groups
are dedicating resources now to fighting this
initiative. These resources would be
immediately shifted back to Hayden Island,
Superfund and the Comprehensive Plan.
That alone is a major victory for them. The
bottom line, though, is we’re gonna double
down and fight twice as hard so that we take
care of all these things.
J.R.: Sen. Ron Wyden just unveiled The
Oregon and California Land Act o f 2013,
which will double the am ount o f timber
harvested from more than 2 million acres o f
federal forest land in western Oregon. What is
A udubon’s stance?
B.S.: We oppose it and are very
disappointed in Sen. Wyden. He’s done
some good things for the environment over
the years but this isn’t one of them. This
takes us back to an era of ciearcutting. It’s
not a solution, it’s a regression. Oregon
rejected that approach a long time ago. This
will take us backwards. We do need to deal
with the county funding challenges, but this
isn’t the way to do it.
We need to take a much more holistic
approach. That means some of these
counties have to step up and increase their
tax rates. They haven’t done that in a long
time. They have deliberately created a train
wreck. So [they need to] look at their own
taxing system.
We need to look at log exports. We are
still exporting a tremendous number of logs
to Asia and we’re exporting the jobs that go
with them and the tax base that goes with
that. We need to get a handle on that and
it’s up to the state to really reign that in and
make sure that we capitalize on the logs
that are harvested in Oregon.
We need to move to sustainable log
practices on these landscapes. The
Northwest Forest Plan was an incredibly
important step forward. This new proposal
takes us away from that. But we need to
continue to move in that direction, toward
protecting old-growth ecosystems in older
forests, focusing on smaller trees and
plantations and sustainable logging.
We’re gonna fight like hell. It’s a bad
piece of legislation. The environmental
community tried to head it off and they still
stand ready to work with Senator Wyden on
real solutions. We think Oregonians are
going to strongly reject a return to the era
of clear cutting on federal lands. It’s time to
bury that dinosaur.
J.R.: There’s so much bad news — a
slagging economy, environmental degradation,
corporate encroachment on civil rights, natural
disasters and climate change - how do you stay
positive?
B.S.: I am an optimist but we have some
pretty tough, divisive issues right now. I
guess the way I stay optimistic is we also
have a lot to be proud of and to build upon.
We are an international leader in Portland
on many environmental initiatives and we
continue to be a leader. And that means
fixing the things that aren’t working right
and building upon the things that are. It
doesn’t mean abandoning ship and joining
forces with corporate polluters.
It’s important for people to take a careful
look at what’s working and what isn’t and to
be thoughtful about how they engage. It’s
way too easy to simply say it’s hopeless or
say everybody is corrupt or say we just need
to throw everything we have out and start
over. That’s an easy escape route and it’s a
cop out. We’ve got to take a careful look at
what is working and what isn’t and put
together good, broad, progressive coalitions
to fight back. If we do that we can win, and I
mean more than just environmental
coalitions.
We need to be looking across the entire
spectrum of social causes. How do we build
complete and healthy communities? That
means adequate housing, good jobs, access
to good schools, transportation systems and
a healthy environment. Portland has some
good models to work off of, like the
Coalition for a Liveable Future and other
coalitions that have formed. We aren’t
strong enough individually to get it done, if
our causes are fragmented. But if we can
work together we are strong enough.
That’s one of the things that worries me,
maybe even more than the initiative passing,
is the cynicism that it’s based upon. That to
me is a big threat. This is an incredibly
cynical, negative, destructive initiative that
says, let’s just tear everything down and
hope it comes out better the next time. That
to me isn’t a solution.