A4
THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, July 22, 2021
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
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Publisher
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Editor
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OUR VIEW
A uniquely American miracle
D
uring the past few weeks,
Capital Press reporter
Sierra Dawn McClain took
a close look at how food gets from
the farm to the grocery store.
The food system she wrote about
is as intricate as a clockwork, but it
works fabulously well. Every day
of every year, 331 million people
directly benefit from this system,
which provides them with a vast
selection of food — and lots of it —
at affordable prices.
And it’s resilient.
Last year, when politicians closed
restaurants, schools, businesses
and other public institutions in an
effort to curb the spread of COVID-
19, the food system was up to the
challenge. Farmers, ranchers, pro-
cessors, distributors and retail-
ers all pivoted to make sure food
was available. It was a truly heroic
effort.
Today, the nation is emerging
from those COVID-provoked shut-
downs and every link in the food
chain is pivoting back to normalcy.
From time to time, some folks
get together to try to figure out how
to improve the food system. No
doubt those discussions take place
Associated Press
America’s food system continues to be a point of pride.
around well-stocked lunch or din-
ner tables.
Those of us who have a little bit
of gray hair remember back to our
childhood when the selection and
quality of food, particularly pro-
duce, was much more limited in the
winter.
Today, it’s a different story.
Whether they are in a boutique
organic store in Manhattan, a super-
store in Kansas or a regional super-
market chain in the Pacific North-
west, consumers will find that the
selection, freshness and affordabil-
ity of produce and all other foods
is astounding. In many parts of the
nation, consumers don’t even have
to go to the store. They can order
their food online and have it deliv-
ered to their house that day.
There are 40,544 grocery stores
in the U.S., and all of them are well-
stocked and affordable. They, and
the rest of the food system, are a
uniquely American miracle.
Several decades ago, a delega-
tion from Vladivostok in the old
Soviet Union was visiting a Fred
Meyer store in Juneau, Alaska, as
part of a sister city exchange. As
they toured the grocery section, the
Soviets shook their heads in disbe-
lief. Here, in the middle of the larg-
est national forest, during winter, in
a city with no roads to the Lower 48
— or anywhere else, for that mat-
ter — was a selection of produce
that couldn’t be found anywhere in
the Soviet Union. Not only that, the
other three grocery stores in the city
were equally well-stocked.
That, quite simply, shows the
difference between capitalism and
communism, between what free-
dom produces and what servitude
produces.
America’s food system is worth
celebrating. It remains robust and
continues to evolve over time to
meet consumers’ expectations to
feed a hungry nation — and a good
part of the world.
From the farm and the ranch to
the dinner table, that celebration
takes place three times a day.
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GUEST COLUMN
Wrong time to expand Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
A
nyone who works the land should
be wary of proposed legislation
that applies federal Wild and Sce-
nic River designations to 4,700 miles of
Oregon rivers, streams, creeks, gulches,
draws and unnamed tributaries.
The bill, proposed by U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and
promoted by environmental groups, has
already received a committee hearing
in the U.S. Senate, the first step toward
passage.
S. 192, also known as
the River Democracy Act,
would apply half-mile buf-
fer restrictions to proposed
segments. If approved, it
could impact public access,
water resource manage-
NICK
ment, forest and vegetation
SMITH
management, ranching and
grazing, mining and other
uses on an estimated 3 million acres of
public lands — a land mass nearly twice
the size of Delaware.
There are over 2,000 miles of Oregon
rivers designated as Wild and Scenic. The
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 was
intended to protect rivers with “outstand-
ing natural, cultural and recreational val-
ues in a free-flowing condition.”
Yet S. 192 only classifies 15% of the
proposed segments as rivers. The bill iden-
tifies hundreds of streams, creeks, draws,
gulches and unnamed tributaries for Wild
and Scenic designations, even though
many do not even carry water year-round.
S. 192 violates the spirit of the 1968
law because it bypasses a mechanism
U.S. Forest Service
The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is intended to protect rivers and streams.
for robust study and review of proposed
waterways to immediately add an addi-
tional 4,700 miles to the Wild and Sce-
nic Rivers system. If such studies were
conducted, many areas included in S. 192
would likely be found ineligible or unsuit-
able for designation.
Considering past use and litigation of
the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the bill
raises a lot of questions about how it will
impact future access, private property and
water rights and other traditional uses of
both public and private land.
Arbitrary land designations can have
a chilling effect on actions taken by fed-
eral land management agencies, includ-
ing actions intended to improve the land.
For example, a Wild and Scenic designa-
tion could discourage efforts to stabilize
riverbanks to avoid losing farm and range
land to erosion. That’s because federal
courts have consistently upheld legal chal-
lenges by environmentalist groups against
land management activities based on these
designations.
For those of us concerned about severe
wildfires, we are especially troubled with
how S. 192 would affect fuels reduction
efforts on federal lands. Nearly half a mil-
lion acres of federally managed forest-
land burned in western Oregon in 2020.
Approximately 280,000 acres burned
at moderate and high severity, meaning
at least 60% of a stand’s live trees were
killed in a fire.
We are already frustrated with the
slow pace of forest management and fuels
reduction work on federal lands. Adding
new restrictions and bureaucracy on 3 mil-
lion acres of these lands will not repair
an already-broken system. Despite claims
made by proponents, S. 192 does not sup-
port wildfire mitigation.
Nothing in the bill directs or autho-
rizes federal agencies to utilize all avail-
able land management tools — includ-
ing mechanical treatments — to reduce the
risk of severe wildfires, nor does it explic-
itly permit postfire restoration work, such
as the removal of dead and dying trees,
to maintain public access. Rather, the
bill only allows agencies to consider pre-
scribed fire, even though fire alone will not
address heavy and unnatural fuel loads on
already fire-prone landscapes.
As Oregon experiences another dev-
astating wildfire season, this is the wrong
time to add more layers of restrictions and
bureaucracy on the management of pub-
lic lands. Anyone with private lands near
these proposed Wild and Scenic segments
should also take a close look at this bill to
see how it affects them.
Nick Smith is the public affairs director
for the American Forest Resource Council.