In Eugene, the Maude Kerns Art Center is hosting a one-
week exhibit of poetry and photographs, “Silent Witness:
Parvin Butte,” calling attention to the destruction of scenic
Parvin Butte by developers. Out in Dexter, the mining of the
butte continues, and in county and agency offices the
question of just what to do about the butte lingers.
The Dexter/Lost Valley community that surrounds the
butte says loud blasts of dynamite and heavy equipment on
roads are the latest problems connected with Lost Creek
Rock Products’ quarry mining. They are also concerned
about effects on a salmon-bearing stream and other
environmental issues as well as the loss of a butte that has
provided a scenic backdrop to the community of Dexter and
the nearby reservoir.
The natural and recreational resources in the 30-mile
area around Dexter Lake generate about $50 million a year,
according to the Army Corps of Engineers. Almost 100,000
people a year come to visit the area, a study by the agency
says.
Commissioner Faye Stewart says that he thinks some of
the neighbors’ concerns could be addressed under the
nuisance ordinance. It wouldn’t halt the mining activities, he
says but it could put limits on them and provide some relief.
Stewart says he has asked county staff to look into the
timeline and costs it would take to change the Lane County
Code to make site review mandatory.
Prior to a vote by the Lane County commissioners in
May, county staff had been arguing that site review was
required at Parvin and that LCRP was mining illegally
without site review. In a 3-2 vote pitting the conservative
majority against progressives Rob Handy and Pete Sorenson,
the board voted to not appeal the Parvin Butte decision by
the county hearings officer, but that the county would
appear in response to an appeal by a defendant in the case.
FLAGPOLE SITTING
& COURTHOUSE
OCCUPYING
Summer is near and in Oregon that means it’s treesit
season. And apparently it’s flagpole-sitting season, too.
Last week a Cascadia Forest Defenders (CFD) activist was
arrested after hanging a protest banner from a flagpole at
the state capitol in Salem. And with the warmer weather,
Occupy Eugene is not only protesting but also occupying
again. They’re at the old Federal Courthouse with a permit
in hand.
Early in the morning hours of May 10, forest defender
(and sometime Occupy protester) Perry Graham climbed a
flagpole to hang a banner that said, “School vs. trees? We
want both.”
CFD has had a campaign since 2009 protesting logging
in Oregon’s state forests. In 2011 Gov. John Kitzhaber and
the State Land Board approved a plan that nearly doubles
the yearly amount of trees clearcut in the Elliott State
Forest, which lies south of Eugene.
“There are no schools on a dead planet,” the forest
defenders say. CFD argues that clearcutting the native trees
of forests like the Elliott doesn’t provide much money to
Oregon schools, and it threatens species such as marbled
murrelets, spotted owls and the mountain beaver.
Mountain beaver host one of America’s largest fleas,
Hystrichopsylla schefferi, which can be longer than one
8 MAY 17, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
On May 30 Oregon Right to Know will present “What
You Need to Know about GMOs in your Food and Farms”
at the UO. Oregon Right to Know is a 2012 ballot initiative
for labeling GMO foods.
The group will need to collect the signatures of 100,000
registered Oregon voters to get the initiative on the ballot.
The event will feature Scott Bates, director of Oregon
Right to Know; Kim Goodwin, director of Oregonians for
Farm and Food Rights; Clint Lindsey, a Benton County
bean and grain farmer and Leda Hermecz, director of
FIRST, which helps businesses go green and non-GMO,
according to Sabrina Siegel of GMO-Free Oregon.
Siegel says that the ballot initiative isn’t the only plan.
The group is also working on efforts in Jackson and Benton
counties to pass ordinances that would block GMOs at the
local level. It’s about the right to farm sustainably and about
heritage seed, she says. She says she’d like to pass an anti-
GMO ordinance in Lane County, where she lives, as well.
GMO-Free Oregon is getting help with the ordinances
from Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
(CELDF). CELDF provides support to communities and
groups who want to “assert their right to local self-
government and clean climate, and to sustainable,
environmentally cohesive or compatible agriculture,”
according to Kai Huschke of CELDF.
“GMO foods and factory farms are positioned as better,
more advanced, more modern,” Huschke says. “Those are
buzzwords they will use to convince communities that it’s a
good thing.”
The regulatory system is “all about mitigating impacts
not stopping it all together,” he says.
Siegel says that GM crops and their fuel-intensive
farming practices are dangerous for human health and the
environment, and linked to climate change. Benton County
in particular she says is an interesting mix — both home to
organic farms and farmers who have long been fighting
GMOs, but also the home of OSU, a land grant institution
that takes in a great deal of corporate funding.
The effort to protect organics and heritage seed through
legislation is a fairly new one, Huschke says. He says that
given the long history of influence that big money and
corporations have on a legal and legislative system that
assumes “a corporation’s will is somehow greater than the
RIGHT-TO-KNOW
ABOUT GMOs
GMO-Free Oregon wants you to know the dangers of
genetically modified crops pose to the food supply and to
local farms. The group is launching local and state efforts to
stop GMOs from contaminating organic crops and making
their way further into the foods Oregonians eat.
centimeter. If the mountain beaver were to be wiped out, so
would its unique fleas, in a form of coextinction, according
to the newsletter Flea News.
Graham stayed on the pole for almost two hours before
he came down and was arrested by Oregon State Police on
charges of disorderly conduct, second-degree criminal
trespass and second-degree criminal mischief.
Meanwhile in Eugene, Occupy Eugene celebrated May
Day by occupying the courtyard at the old Federal Building
at the corner of 7th and Pearl. According to OE, the group
was approached by a Homeland Security officer while
holding a general assembly on the steps of the courthouse
on the evening of May 1. General assemblies are a key part
of the Occupy movement’s democratic process in which
decisions are made by group consensus.
OE says the officer inquired about the group’s
intentions at the site. “When the Occupiers made it clear
that they intended to hold a round-the-clock (24 hours a
day, 7 days a week) protest, they were offered a 60-day
permit, along with a promise to protect protesters’ First
Amendment rights,” according to a press release from
OE’s Communications Committee.
Occupy Eugene says “it invites the greater community
of Eugene to join them in their protest.”
This summer Cascadia Earth First! will be holding its
annual rendezvous in the Clatsop State Forest west of
Portland, June 20-25. For more information, go to
cascadia2012.com
— Camilla Mortensen
CONTINUED P. 10
PHOTO BY CASCADIA FOREST DEFENDERS
PARVIN IN ART
AND COURT
Attorney Dan Stotter, who represents the Parvin Butte
neighbors, alleges that county attorney Stephen Dingle
“misrepresented the whole issue of enforcement,” when he
spoke about the possibility of having to pay attorneys’ fees
if the county took the case further to the appeals court or to
the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).
“Is it possible? The real question is ‘Is it likely?’” Stotter
says, comparing the argument to buying the casket before
anyone is dead.
Stotter called the vote by commissioners Stewart, Sid
Leiken and Jay Bozievich not to appeal “a political
decision” and says the lack of action by the county at Parvin
Butte is an example of discretion in enforcement.
“Discretion can be exercised in ways that are unfair,”
Stotter says. “These guys are blowing up a mountain and
being given immunity.” He adds, “Millionaires, resource
extractors, donors to their campaigns are hands-off to these
commissioners.”
Parvin Butte advocates have invited the community to
come to Maude Kerns to learn more about the butte through
art and poetry. In response to the invitation to the volunteer
members of the Lane County Planning Commission to
attend the art show, Lane County Planning Director Kent
Howe sent out an email warning the LCPC that if they
attended the show “please coordinate among yourselves to
avoid having a quorum of the LCPC present and raising
concerns about conflicting with Oregon’s Public Meetings
Law.”
The LCPC is an appointed advisory board, not a
decision-making body.
“Silent Witness: Parvin Butte” wraps up with a poetry
reading and closing reception 7 pm Friday, May 18, at
Maude Kerns Art Center, 910 East 15th Avenue.
— Camilla Mortensen
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM