News
Page 4
Street Roots • Feb. 12-18, 2016
PHOTO COURTESY OF LOMAKATSI RESTORATION PROJECT
A Lomakatsi Restoration Project employee thins for fuels reduction in the Ashland Watershed.
Timber’s fallen: Part II
Enforcement of labor laws in Oregon's forests, where workers are often abused, is spotty and lacks bite
THE SERIES
This is Part II of a
three-part series
on the working
conditions and
treatment of
immigrant forestry
workers.
Last week: State
hearings reveal
the vulnerability of
workers who live in
fear of retaliation
if they speak out.
Read Part I of this
series at news.
streetroots.org.
BY EMILY GREEN
STAFF WRITER
t was raining on the November morning
25-year-old Teodoro Ponce-Leon bled to
death in the mountains northeast of
Brookings.
Before sunrise, a van had delivered him
and other Latino immigrant forestry
workers, some in the U.S. from Mexico on
guest-worker visas, to a remote jobsite in
the Chetco River Drainage in Southwest
Oregon.
By 8:45 a.m., he was dead, leaving
behind a wife and child in Medford,
according to Curry County Sheriff’s Office
reports.
The circumstances around Ponce-Leon’s
death in 2011, and the ensuing
investigation, illustrate the dangers facing
many of the thousands of Latin American
immigrants working in Oregon’s forests. It
also serves as an example of how little their
employers are held accountable for actions
that can contribute to serious injury and
death.
I
At the time of the accident, Ponce-Leon
was alone; about 300 yards up a steep
ravine cutting the limbs off downed oak
trees for later burning. A state investigation
determined the chainsaw he was using
likely kicked back, resulting in a deep
laceration across his lower right jaw and
neck, which severed his aorta.
His supervisor found him unconscious
and told investigators the young father died
in his arms moments after he had propped
him up and tried to stop the bleeding by
putting his fingers in the cut across his
neck.
His death came just five days into a new
job working for a subcontractor that was
hired to stop the spread of disease among
oak trees on Bureau of Land Management
property.
Ponce-Leon hadn’t signed any paperwork
- his employer didn’t even know his last
name, telling inspectors it was Ponse-
Villasenor.
He was wielding a Stihl MS 460 chainsaw
- but he wasn’t provided with the saw’s
instructions, which warn it’s capable of
severe kickbacks capable of causing fatal
injury.
State investigation records show Ponce-
Leon hadn’t received any training - on the
chainsaw, safety or otherwise - since he’d
been hired on Nov. 18.
The absence of thorough training among
many reforestation workers performing
laborious and often dangerous tasks in
Oregon’s forests each year is a primary
concern of advocates fighting for better
working conditions on their behalf.
eforestation workers are often
employed by contractors to perform the
work that keeps timber companies and
government land management agencies
compliant with healthy forest laws.
They thin trees to combat wildfires, plant
saplings after commercial logging clears the
land and apply toxic herbicides and
R
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