A3
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2022
Project to paint fuller picture
of Pacifi c Northwest
Burned trees
surround a
portion of Forest
Service Road 46
at the boundary
of Willamette
and Mt. Hood
national forests.
The road is open
to nonmotorized
traffi c after years
of closure from
wildfi re damage.
Digging into
timber history
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
U.S. Forest Service
Burned areas to reopen in
Willamette National Forest
By JAMIE DIEP
Oregon Public Broadcasting
People can hit the trails
again in parts of the Willa-
mette National Forest that
were closed for the past two
years.
Over the last several
days, the U.S. Forest Service
reopened areas aff ected by
wildfi res.
Duane Bishop, acting
supervisor of Willamette
National Forest, said wildfi res
in 2020 and 2021 burned hun-
dreds of thousands of acres
of forestland, including many
recreational sites.
This left the Forest Service
with daunting tasks, including
trail and bridge repairs, clear-
ing of fallen debris and adding
guardrails.
As of the beginning of
this month, the Forest Ser-
vice restored access to over
188,000 acres of fi re-aff ected
areas.
“We’re really proud of
what we’ve completed in the
last two years, but it’s proba-
bly gonna be another 5 to 10
years to get all of the other
work associated with this com-
pleted,” Bishop said.
Bishop said the reopened
trails may still have hazards
from the fi res.
“We’re asking people to
really take on more of an
active role in their safety and
pay attention to the surround-
ings,” he said.
A section of the Pacifi c
Crest Trail remains closed;
however, the Forest Service
plans to complete trail repairs
between late August and early
September.
Additionally, district ranger
offi ces reopened Monday to
in-person visitors after being
closed for more than two years.
Visitors can now receive
maps and trail information
and purchase equipment and
permits.
“We’re very much anxious
and excited to get those areas
of the forest open for the pub-
lic to come and enjoy,” Bishop
said.
US sues Idaho over abortion law
Potential confl icts
with federal law
By MICHAEL
BALSAMO and
REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
BOISE — The U.S.
Department of Justice on
Tuesday fi led a lawsuit that
challenges Idaho’s restric-
tive abortion law, arguing
that it confl icts with a federal
law requiring doctors to pro-
vide pregnant women medi-
cally necessary treatment that
could include abortion.
The federal government
brought the lawsuit seek-
ing to invalidate the state’s
“criminal prohibition on pro-
viding abortions as applied
to women suff ering medical
emergencies,” Attorney Gen-
eral Merrick Garland said.
The announcement is the
fi rst major action by the Jus-
tice Department challenging
a state trigger law since the
U.S. Supreme Court over-
turned Roe v. Wade in June.
The court’s decision has led
some states to enact restric-
tive abortion laws and is
likely to lead to abortion bans
in roughly half the states in
the U.S.
The Justice Department
brought the suit because fed-
eral prosecutors believe Ida-
ho’s law would force doc-
tors to violate the Emergency
Medical Treatment and
Labor Act, a federal law that
requires anyone coming to
a medical facility for emer-
gency treatment to be sta-
bilized and treated, Garland
said.
“Idaho’s law would make
it a criminal off ense for doc-
tors to provide the emergency
medical treatment that fed-
eral law requires,” Garland
said.
Idaho, like many Repub-
lican-led states, has several
anti-abortion laws on the
books, creating a legal quag-
mire now that the Supreme
Court has overturned the
landmark abortion rights
case.
The law targeted by the
Justice Department criminal-
izes all abortions, subject-
ing anyone who performs or
attempts to perform an abor-
tion to a felony punishable by
between two and fi ve years in
prison.
People who are charged
under the law could defend
themselves against the crim-
inal allegations by arguing
that the abortion was done to
save a pregnant person from
death, or that it was done
after the pregnant person
reported that they were a vic-
tim of rape or incest to a law
enforcement agency — and
provided a copy of that report
to the abortion provider.
“Under the Idaho law,
once eff ective, any state or
local prosecutor can subject
a physician to indictment,
arrest and prosecution merely
by showing that an abortion
has been performed, without
regard to the circumstances,”
the Justice Department wrote
in the lawsuit. “The law then
puts the burden on the physi-
cian to prove an ‘affi rmative
defense’ at trial.”
Advocates for sexual
assault survivors have said
the rape and incest excep-
tion is essentially use-
less, because Idaho’s pub-
lic records law doesn’t allow
law enforcement agencies to
release reports when a case is
still under investigation — a
process that generally takes
weeks or months.
Dr. Caitlin Gustafson,
a family physician, and a
regional Planned Parenthood
organization have already
sued over the abortion ban in
the Idaho Supreme Court. In
the lawsuit, Gustafson con-
tends that the exception for
medical emergencies is vague
and impossible to interpret.
“It would be very diffi -
cult, if not impossible, for
me to implement the med-
ical exception and provide
care to a pregnant person
whose life may be at risk,”
wrote Gustafson, noting that
some serious pregnancy-re-
lated medical conditions like
preeclampsia can cause death
though it is not guaranteed to
do so.
Gov. Brad Little, a Repub-
lican, said the U.S. Supreme
Court gave states the ability
to regulate abortion, “end of
story.” He promised to work
with the state’s attorney gen-
eral, Lawrence Wasden, to
defend the law.
“The U.S. Justice Depart-
ment’s interference with Ida-
ho’s pro-life law is another
example of Biden overreach-
ing yet again,” Little said in a
prepared statement.
Balsamo reported from
Washington, D.C.
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The classic black-and-
white photos from early
decades of the American
West often fail to capture
the diversity of the people
who came here.
Chinese migrants helped
build the railroads and were
big in gold mining. Basque
people from Spain became
known for sheep herding.
The fi rst Filipino cannery
workers arrived around
the turn of the last century.
Now, Oregon archaeolo-
gists are on the surprising
trail of Japanese families
who lived in a now-van-
ished lumber company
town.
The project promises to
paint a fuller picture of who
built the Pacifi c North-
west, which is a favorite
research target of archae-
ologist Chelsea Rose, the
director of the Southern
Oregon University Labo-
ratory of Anthropology. In
her team’s latest foray into
Eastern Oregon, they are
literally digging into timber
history.
“The story of logging is
a white man’s narrative,”
Rose said. “You not only
don’t see Japanese, Chi-
nese, all the other folks
that were working on these
kinds of operations, but you
also don’t see families. You
don’t see the women and
children.”
Which brings us to the
ruins of the former Baker
White Pine Mill and the
company town that once
surrounded it in rural Grant
County roughly a century
ago — 1912 to 1930, to be
more precise.
A forest of spindly pine
trees has regrown on the
property northeast of Prai-
rie City. But sharp eyes
and metal detectors helped
Rose and a team of profes-
sional archaeologists and
volunteers identify spots to
dig where workers’ homes
might have been.
The scene had all the
hallmarks you might asso-
ciate with archaeology.
There were grid markers
and shallow, square pits
in the ground with people
wielding trowels, brushes,
buckets and sifting trays.
Working in the hot
July sun, the research-
ers needed only to scrape
down a few inches before
they began to uncover rem-
nants of domestic life. The
bounty included a delicate
ring with inlaid gemstone
and lots of shards of West-
ern-style export Japanese
porcelain, some with dis-
tinctive dragon and cloud
motifs.
“We are on an industrial
site and we’re fi nding doll
arms, marbles and tea sets.
That really brings home
this idea that families were
part of these early indus-
tries in these remote areas,”
Rose said during a lunch
break. “We need to broaden
our understanding of what
that looks like.”
The sawmill ruin and
vanished company town
are an unmarked U.S. For-
est Service site now. Blue
Mountain Ranger Dis-
trict archaeologist Katee
Withee said the Forest
Service might eventually
install interpretive signs or
add the site to an auto tour.
When Withee was growing
up in Eastern Oregon, she
said she had no idea Japa-
nese workers a century ago
built railroad spurs, cooked
in logging camps and hired
on with area mills.
“It makes sense once you
look at the c ensus records,
right,” Withee said. “But
that defi nitely wasn’t some-
thing we were highlighting
in eighth grade history.”
Records from the 1910,
1920 and 1930 censuses
included the names and
occupations of dozens
of immigrants and Japa-
nese American families
who lived in the township
around the Baker White
Pine Mill. They weren’t
farmers, that being a com-
mon assumption — and
often a correct presumption
— of what this group did a
century ago.
The info coming out of
the archaeological dig was
suffi ciently exciting and
novel to entice Japanese
American Museum of Ore-
gon interim deputy direc-
tor Mark Takiguchi and the
museum’s research coor-
dinator, James Rodgers, to
drive all the way from Port-
land to observe.
“This is so cool !” Taki-
guchi burst out after walk-
ing around the large site.
“I’m really interested
personally in fi nding out
where they went,” Taki-
guchi said. “What was
the next chapter after this
chapter closed? Where in
Oregon or Idaho did they
travel? What were the sto-
ries? I think we have some
really exciting leads of liv-
ing people we can pursue.”
Those would be descen-
dants probably three gen-
erations removed from the
names on the old census
rolls.
“We’re going to bring
back some really exciting
stories to our community,”
Takiguchi vowed.
The genealogical sleuth-
ing will happen simultane-
ously with the examination
of thousands of artifacts
collected from the lum-
ber mill dig. The physical
items were hauled back to
the lab at Southern Oregon
University in Ashland in
late July. So far, Rose said
the researchers have been
unable to link any artifacts
or specifi c home sites to
identifi able families, but
that is a key goal.
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