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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 2015)
MICK GARVIN (CENTER) AND MANY MORE FOUGHT TO SAVE THE TREES AT WARNER CREEK • Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration events continue this week. An annual gathering calling for action “to help ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again” will be from 6:30 pm until dusk Thursday, Aug. 6, near the Alton Baker duck pond. The free event begins with a pot luck and will include speakers, drumming by Eugene Taiko, traditional Japanese Obon dancing and music by the Yujin Gakuen Children’s Peace Choir. Call CALC at 485-1755. A related event will be “Bike Around the Bomb” with Global Zero and the UO Bike Program at 10:30 am Sunday, Aug. 9, beginning at 8th and Oak in Eugene. Participants will bike around a 12-mile route representing the blast area of a “small” nuclear weapon. • “The Really Big One,” a free public forum on earthquake hazards and preparedness in the Northwest will be from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, Aug. 6, in Straub Hall, 1451 Onyx Street on the UO campus. Panelists will include UO geologists Rebecca Dorsey and Douglas Toomey, along with other academics Amanda Thomas, Ray Weldon and Chris Goldfinger, and Josh Bruce of the Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience. See earthquake.uoregon.edu or the EW blog this week for more information. • A back-to-school “Swap Don’t Shop” event will be from 2 to 4 pm Saturday, Aug. 8, at Thurston Park, 6329 F Street in Springfield. “It’s like a yard sale, but no money,” organizers say. • 15 Now, the group working to raise the minimum wage to $15, meets at 3 pm Sunday, Aug. 9, at the AFSCME Hall, 7th and Charnelton. Email contact is eugene@15noworegon.org. POLLUTION UPDATE The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting comments through 5 pm on Friday, Aug. 7 on an application from Cory Hatfield for Clean Water Act permitting of discharges of construction- related stormwater pollution from Hatfield Estates, located at Van Duyn and Coburg Bottom Loop in Coburg. Visit goo.gl/Yp4iAK for info on commenting. Doug Quirke/Oregon Clean Water Action Project LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE • ODOT is currently spraying roadsides. Call Tony Kilmer at ODOT District 5 at 744-8080 or call (888) 996-8080 for often inaccurate herbicide application information. I-5 was recently sprayed. Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, ForestlandDwellers.org, 342-8332. Need a job? New Register-Guard Editor and Publisher N. Christian Anderson appears to be taking his time hiring a new administrative team. The R-G is still running ads for a chief financial officer and an executive assistant. Competitive compensation is promised but if you accept a job offer you will need to whiz in a cup. We assume Anderson had to do the same when he was hired. Let’s not think about that too much. Coffee Plant Roaster is celebrating its third anniversary from 11 am to 4 pm Saturday Aug. 8, at 2836 W. 11th Avenue. Live music by Banda Super Mercado and B.C. and The Blues Dwellers will begin the party. The business offers coffee roasted daily in small batches, fresh brewed teas, raw juices, kombucha, food and more. 8 A ugust 6, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com PHOTO CREDIT: KURT JENSEN 20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF CASCADIA FOREST DEFENDERS, BATTLE TO SAVE WARNER CREEK This summer marks the 20th anniversary of the fight to protect Warner Creek from a salvage-logging project that the Forest Service sought to institute after an arsonist lit up 9,000 acres in the Willamette National Forest. The for- est was torched in 1991, and the arson was followed by several years of activism to keep the spotted owl habitat from being logged. In 1995 after Congress passed the salvage rider, which exempted salvage operations from environmental laws, activists blockaded the road to Warner for 11 months. In the end, the area was saved from logging. A celebration of Warner Creek’s 20th anniversary and the founding of the Cascadia Forest Defenders (CFD) kicks off Aug. 14 at The Boreal and Old Nick’s Pub and then moves out into the forest over the weekend. CFD founder Mick Garvin says that the Warner Creek campaign raised awareness and educated people about the logging, and as a result, “all kinds of people came out, not just Earth First!” He says when the campaign moved into direct action mode, creating CFD encompassed all of those who didn’t see themselves as EF! but embraced Cas- cadia and Warner Creek. Tim Ingalsbee, who was from the beginning a leading voice in calling for the preservation of Warner, says the Forest Service “never understood the depth of the com- munity’s moral objection” to the logging. Warner Creek is now a testament to the forest’s ability to regenerate. “In the 24 years since the fire, the area has thrived in benign ne- glect,” Ingalsbee says, and it stands in stark contrast to the invasive weeds that have moved into nearby clearcuts. “It belies the continuing lie that nature cannot recover from fire on its own,” Ingalsbee says of the burn. He says he would still like to see the area preserved as wilderness. Twenty years after the Warner Creek Blockade kicked off and the Cascadia Forest Defenders were founded, en- vironmental activism is still going strong in the Pacific Northwest, with CFD members participating in the Shell No protests against Arctic drilling in Portland last week as well as in successful tree sits in recent years. Erin Grady of CFD says 20 years after Warner, the group is still working on the long-term preservation of areas such as the Elliott State Forest, stopping clearcut- ting and forest ecosystem destruction, as well as tackling a planned liquefied natural gas pipeline, which would also involve forest clearcuts. Grady says of the CFD founders, “They were really brave and willing to give their entire lives to campaign, and I think we have a lot to live up to.” Events kick off with a movie night at the Boreal (450 W. 3rd Ave.) 6 pm Friday, Aug. 14, featuring Born in Fire and Pickaxe: Director’s Cut, two documentaries related to Warner. At 9 pm, the action moves to Old Nick’s (211 Washington Street) for musical performances by Peter Wilde and CFD’s Dirty Dandelions. Saturday and Sunday Aug. 15 and 16, activities move to Warner Creek itself with hikes, a potluck, a retirement ceremony for longtime forest activist Francis Eathering- ton, discussions on the legacy of CFD and more. For direc- tions and more information, go to the Facebook event page at wkly.ws/21w. For more on CFD go to forestdefensenow.com. — Camilla Mortensen Want to get your antique business or your funky old crap on TV? The History Channel’s American Pickers will be coming to Oregon in September, according to the Fern Ridge Chamber of Commerce. The crew including Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz will be filming their adventures in search of antiques, vintage items of all sorts and memorabilia. Email suggestion pitches to americanpickers@cineflix.com. We’re not sure why the Fern Ridge Chamber is involved, but then again, we’ve been to a few yard and barn sales in the Veneta and Elmira area. Good pickin’s out there. One old barn we peered into some years ago had a fully operational wooden tugboat only 10 feet long, built for one person. District. Donations, mostly in-kind, came from Cabelas, McKenzie Disposal, Ninkaski, REI, McKenzie River Guides, McKenzie Masters and Lane County. Tons of trash, tires, metal, household goods and old boat parts were pulled from the river and its banks. The annual McKenzie River Clean Up July 11 drew about 200 volunteers in boats and on foot and about a dozen businesses, nonprofits and agencies. Participants included the McKenzie Watershed Council, EWEB (with Commissioners John Brown and John Simpson), McKenzie River Guides, McKenzie Flyfishers, McKenzie Masters Foundation, Woodstone Structures, McKenzie River Trust, Cascade Flyfishers, Lane County staff and the Forest Service McKenzie River Ranger Looking ahead, job hunters can get free expert advice and assistance to address specific questions and concerns from 4 to 6 pm Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Eugene Public Library downtown. Employment counselors will be available but pre- registration is required for the 30-minute one-on-one sessions. Call 682-5450. Another session at 6 pm that day is “Create a One-Page Marketing Plan” with LCC instructor Gary Smith. A Lane County Supply Chain Opportunities Conference will be from 9 am to 1 pm Tuesday, Aug. 11, at the Hilton Garden Inn, 3528 Gateway Street in Springfield, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition. The event offers networking regarding manufacturing opportunities and sourcing partnerships in the Northwest. Email kate@pndc.us for more information or visit wkly.ws/21y for registration.
