NEWS
• The Civil Liberties Defense Center is recruiting
bilingual people to become Know Your Rights
trainers for the immigrant community. CLDC says,
“Now more than ever our immigrant neighbors are
facing danger when they interact with ICE or law
enforcement.” CLDC is seeking to increase its trainer
capacity “in order to teach more people what their
rights are and how to assert them.” Trainings are 6 to
9 pm Thursdays for six weeks starting Nov. 30, with
a break for the holidays. Email info@cldc.org for
more information, or to receive an application. If you
are not bilingual, CLDC says you can still become a
trainer for other Know Your Rights trainings given to
activists, youth, the unhoused and more.
• Beyond Toxics is providing an 18-passenger
van to bring farmworker advocates to the OSHA
public hearing at the Medford library Dec. 5th. The
van leaves 2 pm that day from the main entrance of
Hayward Field on the UO Campus. You can help
provide testimony and support for migrant
farmworkers, Beyond Toxics says. Please contact
Beyond Toxics or visit BeyondToxics.org for more
information.
• There is a fracked gas pipeline proposed to
run through 230 miles of public and private land in
southern Oregon. The gas would be liquefied at a
plant in Coos Bay, then be exported to buyers
overseas. The event hosted by 350 Eugene features:
Ada Ball, a local tribal member who speaks to the
devastation and disrespect of fossil fuel projects to
indigenous people; Deb Evans, landowner on the
pipeline route threatened with eminent domain; and
Charlie Miller, an oceanographer familiar with the
extreme hazards of methane production in a
tsunami and earthquake subduction zone. The
Fracked Gas Resistance Community Forum is 6:30
pm Thursday, Nov. 16, at First United Methodist
Church (1376 Olive) in Eugene. “Attendees will have
a chance to take action against the pipeline.” Go to
world.350.org/eugene for more info.
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY INFORMATION
• Weyerhaeuser Company, 541-744-4600,
plans to spread urea fertilizer pellets on 8,866.9
acres near Dorena and Culp Creek. See ODF
notification 2017-771-13353, call stewardship
forester Tim Meehan at 541-726-3588 with
questions.
• Roseburg Resources Co., 541-679-3311, plans
to spread urea fertilizer pellets on 340.0 acres near
Alma. See ODF notification 2017-781-13313, call
stewardship forester Dan Menk at 541-935-2283
with questions.
• Weyerhaeuser, 541-746-2511, also plans to
hire Strata Forestry, 541-726-0845, to spray 30.4
acres north and northeast of Fall Creek Reservoir
with imazapyr, triclopyr with amine and/or MSO
Concentrate. See ODF notification 2017-771-13335,
call Brian Dally at 541-726-3588 with questions.
Compiled by Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 541-342-8332,
ForestLandDwellers.org
10
November 16, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
B Y K E L LY K E N O Y E R
PAINT THE
TOWN GREEN
Seneca acused of greenwashing after
joining GreenLane board
SENECA CLEARCUT
PHOTOGRAPHED BY
CASCADIA WILDLANDS
WHILE CHECKING A BLM
TIMBER SALE
PHOTO: CASCADIA WILDLANDS
T
he leadership of a local sustainable business network
changed this month in a dramatic meeting that some
now-former members are calling a coup. GreenLane
Sustainable Business Network is an organization
meant to connect businesses that are trying to be-
come more sustainable and give them resources and infor-
mation that may help them on that path.
The controversy in this month’s meeting, which took
place Wednesday, Nov. 8, was the election of Seneca Saw-
mill to the board. This election gives Seneca the ability to set
policy alongside the other nine board members, a leadership
position that caused multiple organizations to leave the net-
work, citing Seneca’s poor record of sustainability.
“It’s perfect greenwashing,” says Shawn Donnille, co-
owner of Mountain Rose Herbs, an organic herb, spice and
essential oil vendor. “We made a very clear stance upon
hearing that they were going to join the board that we would
step down.”
The new Seneca board member, senior vice president of
public relations Casey Roscoe, says, “Our company is built
on a sustainable business model.” She says they have “the
cleanest running biomass plant in America,” efficient saws
that prevent waste, and a large tree farm. “We manage it sus-
tainably,” she says. “We have 92 percent more stock on it
than we did 20 years ago.”
Donnille, on the other hand, says Seneca is a poor stew-
ard of the environment. He points out their policy of aerial
spraying, which puts his own organic industry in jeopardy.
“They want to be a member of GreenLane to use that as a
future PR move.” Donnille decided to pull Mountain Rose
Herbs from the membership to avoid that association, add-
ing, “it’s an absolute coup.”
Ephraim Payne of Beyond Toxics — a nonprofit that
fights against pollution from pesticides — was elected to the
board in the same election as Casey Roscoe with Seneca, but
he resigned in protest at that very same meeting.
He says he’s a fan of GreenLane’s mission. “People are
on different stages, and it’s really helpful to come together to
learn from each other, to learn together, to draw support.” He
suggests that Seneca’s membership in GreenLane is accept-
able because it may help them on the path to sustainability,
but he resigned once they took up a leadership position on
the 10-person board.
“They embrace the most unsustainable forest practices
instead of looking for sustainable solutions. They’re notori-
ous as an aerial sprayer,” Payne says.
“The truly sustainable businesses and organizations in
Eugene have worked hard for years to build social capital
around sustainability. Seneca is coming in to harvest that
capital, to extract that capital, just like they extract forest re-
sources — without consideration for the effects on the com-
munity and the environment as a whole,” he says.
“They are not doing sustainable actions. They don’t have
the bare minimum forest sustainability certification. They’re
not making an effort. What they’re doing now, it’s pretty
clear to us and other groups, is trying to rebrand what they
do as sustainable without changing their practices.”
In response, Roscoe says Seneca is pursuing a West
Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau certification. But Donille
says, “That is actually a pro-trade group that just does self-
policing, it’s not a third-party certification agency.” He sug-
gests that Seneca get certification from the Forest Steward-
ship Council if the company is serious about sustainability.
Cascadia Wildlands, a nonprofit defending wild ecosys-
tems, also pulled its support. Executive Director Josh Laugh-
lin says, “Seneca serving on the board of GreenLane is like
Scott Pruitt running the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Fellow environmental nonprofit Oregon Wild is also pull-
ing its membership from GreenLane in protest. According to
Jason Gonzales of Oregon Wild, “While other companies
try to change their practices, Seneca hasn’t even sought out
even the most basic certification for sustainability, let alone
ones that are actually meaningful.” He says he’d be happy to
return “if Seneca Sawmills was to take serious steps toward
better practices in our forests by stopping chemical spraying
[and] limiting clearcutting.”
“I think it’s perfectly appropriate for a company like
Seneca to have a membership at an organization like Green
Lane. The line we draw is that they took a leadership posi-
tion,” Gonzales says.
Payne takes issue with how GreenLane’s board handled
the controversy in the lead-up to the election. Though the
candidates were introduced at last month’s meeting, he says,
there was no open debate surrounding the candidates.
A week before the meeting, GreenLane’s board sent out
an email stating that Mountain Rose Herbs “disagrees with
having a representative from the Seneca Family of Com-
panies on the GreenLane board,” but did not specify why.
There was no discussion of the issue before the vote took
place at the Nov. 8 meeting.
“People were saying ‘We don’t know what’s going on,’
and they didn’t address it,” Payne says. “I don’t think that
the institution handled this issue as effectively as possible.”
He says GreenLane was caught off guard, and that members
didn’t have enough information to make an educated vote.
Robin Forster of FeelSoAlive Marketing Group is a cur-
rent GreenLane board member. She says she’d prefer that
the group focus on their philanthropic efforts rather than this
controversy. She wrote in an email to Eugene Weekly, “We
are sorry to see those folks who choose to leave, leave. Their
voices will be missed. Their points of view will be missed.”
Seneca’s Roscoe says, “Being a sustainable business, it
makes sense to be part of the sustainable business network.”
She says of the controversy, “It was an emotional thing for
me; it wasn’t about our practices.”
“They made a decision and stood behind that decision,”
Roscoe says.