REACTION TO THE BAN
latest challenge in the Oregon Court of Appeals. Heiken
says the state, “in defending that lawsuit, decided that there
may be a minor technical issue with the rules,” and the new
round of rule-making is an effort to clean up the details. The
ban on gas motors could be altered or overturned.
Heiken says he’s concerned about the fl oat plane issue
and the Oregon Aviation Board. “Float planes are involved
in the prohibition,” he says. “We don’t want a fl oat plane
full of gas to crash in the lake and have a terrible clean-
up process, and leave a highly visible plane at the bottom
of the lake.” He said the Aviation Board “has to basically
sign off and concur in these rules and so far they have not
done so, and are showing resistance. So we need to make
sure comments go to both the Aviation Board and Marine
Board.” The board has previously been unanimously against
the ban on fl oat planes at Waldo.
BEYOND THE BAN
Sierra Club branches around Oregon are working on more
Waldo issues than just the gas motor and fl oat plane ban.
Waldo is surrounded on three sides with a mix of designated
wilderness areas and roadless areas with fewer protections (see
maps at http://wkly.ws/186). The Sierra Club’s Keep Waldo
Wild campaign is beginning to work with the Forest Service
and user groups, such as mountain bikers and snowmobilers,
to come up with ways of protecting wildlife corridors and
natural resources in the areas of Maiden Peak, South Waldo,
Charlton Butte, West Waldo and Cultus Mountain. Hikes and
other events are being planned for this summer.
The Sierra Club’s Stowe says the Forest Service is “doing
a pretty darn good job” of managing the Waldo area, but the
administration could change in the future, so the Sierra Club
would like to see more protections in place. “Wilderness
designation was never an easy thing to do and it’s gotten
more diffi cult in the last 20 years,” says Stowe. “Maybe we’ll
end up with some kind of conservation area designation, with
language that doesn’t exclude any of the user groups.” Find
more information at oregon.sierraclub.org
ew
HOW TO COMMENT
PHOTO BY TODD COOPER
After the ban decision in early 2010, Paul Donheffner,
who was on the OSMB at the time, sent a scathing op-ed to
Oregon daily newspapers complaining about Kulongoski’s
tactics. “To suggest that the agency was free to consider
public input and make a decision based on the facts is a
joke,” he wrote. “The deal was done; there was absolutely
no wiggle room once the memorandum was fi nal.”
“Next, I had to conduct two public hearings, and ask for
public comments on the ‘proposed’ rule,” he wrote. “This was
the biggest charade I’ve ever had to carry out in my public life.”
The power struggle was due to an apparently unresolvable
clash of values. The Forest Service and its multi-stakeholder
Basin Planning Committee wanted the ban, the governor
wanted the ban, the people of Oregon wanted the ban, but
the OSMB had been openly fi ghting it for years, favoring
“to limit motors to clean, quiet four-stroke engines, perhaps
with a horsepower limit of 25,” according to Donheffner.
He says he was “forced by the governor’s offi ce to resign”
shortly after the Waldo motor-ban decision.
A response to Donheffner’s op-ed appeared on the
Oregon Wild blog, saying that “The recent state proposal
to phase out gas motorboat use on Waldo Lake tested the
long-held orthodoxy of the Marine Board. More strangely,
the board serves at the behest of the governor, and Gov. Ted
Kulongoski was wholeheartedly in favor of the Waldo Lake
rule. The potential for fi reworks was imminent.”
Donheffner’s op-ed helped fuel timber heir Steven Stew-
art’s lawsuits challenging the ban on procedural and techni-
cal points, and more recently, the formation of a nonprofi t
group called Waldo Lake for Everyone! The group’s website
claims the ban denies access to people with disabilities, says
sail boats need the power of gas motors to deal safely with
unexpected high winds, notes that seven decades of gas motor
use has not diminished the water quality, and points out that
Forest Service campgrounds at Waldo allow generators which
are more noisy than outboard motors.
Waldo Lake for Everyone! has joined Stewart and the
Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association as plaintiffs in the
The Oregon State Marine Board is seeking
public comment through April 10 on Waldo
Lake rules that currently prohibit gas
motorboats and fl oat planes on the lake.
Written comments can be emailed to osmb.
rulemaking@state.or.us or by mail to June
LeTarte, Rules Coordinator, 435 Commercial St.
NE, Suite 400, Salem 97309. The public meeting
will be held at 6 pm Tuesday, April 10, at the
Willamalane Center’s Ken Long Room, 250
South 32nd St. in Springfi eld. Comments on the
Waldo fl oat plane ban can be emailed to the
Oregon Aviation Board at aviation.mail@state.
or.us or mailed to the Department of Aviation at
3040 25th St. SE Salem 97302-1125.
See http://wkly.ws/185 for individual board
members’ email addresses and phone numbers.
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