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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2016)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, February 6, 2016 Quick takes — dougir There is no heyday of logging now, there is nearly no logging. The pendulum has swung too far. We are setting up for some PDMRU¿UHLVVXHVDQGWKHWUHHVZLOOEHORVW to all. —Brownknight Non payment of property taxes by largest landowner in the county? Poverty. PILT does not even come close to the taxes which would be generated. — EQ_Pres In the past we have witnessed the destruction of old growth forests, rivers and streams that are in these areas by logging and mining. The industries involved never SLFNXSWKHWDEWR¿[WKHPHVVWKH\FUHDWHG — David Ewers Malheur occupation holdouts Time to quit wasting money, personnel and time. Put them in jail and don’t let them out until they have put up money and/or property to cover damage and cost incurred. — William Akers I was wondering if their rap sheets were DV LPSUHVVLYH DV WKH ¿UVW EXQFK DUUHVWHG These guys look like lightweights but they’ll make up a lot of ground by the time this is over, they’re tried and put away for twenty to life. — Joel Watson Terrorists! — Don Wirtz One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian. com, and keep them to 140 characters. Page 5A The surprising history of the Malheur refuge By NANCY LANGSTON Writers on the Range Eastern Oregon economy Local communities dependent upon commodity extraction (e.g. logging, grazing, mining) are inherently unstable. Those who remember the “good old days” of resource extraction are looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, because for every boom, there was a “bust.” East Oregonian N ational wildlife refuges such as the one at Malheur near Burns have importance far beyond the current furor over who manages our public lands. Such refuges are becoming increasingly critical habitat for migratory birds because 95 percent of the wetlands along WKH3DFL¿F)O\ZD\KDYH already been lost to development. In some years, 25 million birds visit Malheur, and if the refuge were drained and converted to intensive cattle grazing — which is something the “occupiers” threatened to do — entire populations of ducks, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds would suffer. With their ORQJGLVWDQFHÀLJKWVDQG distinctive songs, the migratory birds visiting Malheur’s wetlands now help to tie the continent together. This was not always the case. By the 1930s, three decades of drainage, reclamation, and drought had decimated high-desert wetlands and the birds that depended upon them. Out of the hundreds of thousands of egrets that once nested on Malheur Lake, only 121 remained. The American population of the birds had dropped by 95 percent. It took the federal government to restore Malheur’s wetlands and recover waterbird populations, bringing back healthy populations of egrets and many other species. Yet despite the importance of wildlife refuges to America’s birds, not everyone appreciates them. At one recent news conference, Ammon Bundy called the creation of Malheur National Wildlife refuge “an unconstitutional act” that removed ranchers from their lands and plunged the county into an economic depression. This is not a new complaint. Since the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1980s, rural communities in the West have blamed their poverty on the 640 million acres of federal public lands, which make up 52 percent of the land in Western states. Rural Western communities are indeed suffering, but the cause is not the wildlife refuge system. Conservation of bird habitat did not lead to economic devastation, nor were refuge lands “stolen” from ranchers. If any group has prior claims to Malheur refuge, it is the Paiute Indian Tribe. For at least 6,000 years, Malheur was the Paiutes’ home. It took a brutal Army campaign to force the people from their reservation, marching them through the snow to the state of Washington in 1879. Homesteaders and cattle barons then moved onto Paiute lands, squeezing as much livestock as possible onto dwindling pastures, and warring with each other over whose land was whose. Scars from this era persist more than a century later. In 1908, President Roosevelt established the Malheur Lake Bird Reservation on the lands of the former Malheur Indian Reservation. But the refuge included only the lake itself, not the rivers that fed into it. Deprived of water, the lake shrank during droughts, and squatters moved onto the drying lakebed. Conservationists, realizing they needed to protect the Blitzen River that fed the lake, began a campaign to expand the refuge. But the federal government never forced the ranchers to sell, as the occupiers at Malheur claimed, and the sale did not impoverish the community. In fact, it was just the opposite: During the Depression years of the 1930s, the federal government paid the Swift Corp. $675,000 for ruined grazing lands. Impoverished homesteaders who had squatted on refuge lands In 1908, President Teddy Roosevelt established the Malheur Lake Bird Reservation on the lands of the former Malheur Indian Reservation. eventually received payments substantial enough to set them up as cattle ranchers nearby. John Scharff, Malheur’s manager from 1935 to 1971, sought to transform local suspicion into acceptance by allowing local ranchers to graze cattle on the refuge. Yet some tension persisted. In the 1970s, when concern about overgrazing reduced — but did not eliminate — refuge grazing, violence erupted again. Some environmentalists denounced ranchers as parasites who destroyed wildlife habitat. A few ranchers responded with death threats against environmentalists and federal employees. But violence is not the basin’s most important historical legacy. Through the decades, community members have come together to negotiate a better future. In the 1920s, poor homesteaders worked with conservationists to save the refuge from irrigation drainage. In the 1990s, Paiute tribal members, ranchers, environmentalists and federal agencies collaborated on innovative grazing plans to restore bird habitat while DOVRJLYLQJUDQFKHUVPRUHÀH[LELOLW\,Q 2013, such efforts resulted in a landmark collaborative conservation plan for the refuge, and it offers great hope for the local economy and for wildlife. The poet Gary Snyder wrote, “We must learn to know, love, and join our place even more than we love our own ideas. People who can agree that they share a commitment to the landscape — even if they are otherwise locked in struggle with each other — have at least one deep thing to share.” &ROODERUDWLYHSURFHVVHVDUHGLI¿FXOWDQG time-consuming. Yet they have proven that they have the potential to peacefully sustain both human and wildlife communities. Ŷ Nancy Langston is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an opinion service of High Country News. She is a professor of environmental history at Michigan Technological University, and the author of a history of Malheur Refuge, Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed. A tale of two sheriffs W hen a tough guy loses his In his remarks beckoning the composure, it startles us. lawbreakers inside the Malheur That happened last week at Refuge, Sheriff Palmer exhibited three the FBI press conference following the self-destructive characteristics. As with arrest of Malheur National Wildlife his baseless attempt to write a county Refuge occupiers. natural resources plan, Palmer acted Following an FBI agent and a as though he were a law unto himself. deputy U.S. prosecutor for Oregon, And by intimating that the armed it was Harney County Sheriff Dave lawbreakers would be welcomed in Steve Ward’s turn at the microphone. Forrester Grant County, he undercut the sheriff Speaking without notes, Ward fought of Harney County. Thirdly, Palmer Comment to contain his emotions as he described chose to destabilize the communities’ how the armed occupation had torn the security and stability for which he is town of Burns apart. responsible. Beneath the national story of armed ——— RFFXSLHUVYHUVXVWKHIHGVZHUHWZRVLJQL¿FDQW Because they are elected by local people subplots. One of them was just what Sheriff and thus particularly accountable to them, Ward described — the stress of feeling sheriffs and the deputies they employ are incipient violence in the midst of a small rural often the most well-liked law enforcement town. The other subplot was the tale of two personnel. Especially in rural areas where sheriffs. their mission often includes While Sheriff Ward was search and rescue, sheriffs one of the solid, impressive are rightly considered to be players in this drama, on the side of the people. Sheriff Glenn Palmer of However, unlike a neighboring Grant County thousand years ago in was at best embarrassing, Anglo-Saxon England when and at worst an enabler of the role of neighborhood lawbreakers, putting his own boss or “shire-reeve” county’s residents at risk. originated, they have long A major motif of the since ceased to be the top mythology of the West is HOHFWHGRI¿FLDOVLQWKHLU the sheriff who defends his counties. community from armed Boards of county invaders. Palmer effectively commissioners — who threw his support to the outsiders, preferring themselves must follow state and federal hotheads instead of the rule of law. laws — set local policy. It was Palmer’s invitation to Ammon This evolution in local government partly Bundy that drew Bundy and his leadership came in response to sheriffs who acted like core to John Day on the fateful afternoon of powers unto themselves. At worst, they Jan. 26. The FBI set up a highway block at the behaved like gangland bullies, choosing county line, arresting Bundy and seven others which laws to enforce and who to enforce and killing one. them against (Think sheriffs in the Jim Crow ——— South). Sheriffs occupy a unique place in American Sheriff Palmer aligns himself with the ODZHQIRUFHPHQW:KLOHWKH\PXVWEHFHUWL¿HG so-called “constitutional sheriff” movement, by the Oregon Board of Police Standards and in which mainly rural sheriffs and others Training, they are not hired in the manner of like the Bundys designate themselves as the a police chief or FBI agent. They are elected ultimate authorities on what is and is not at the ballot box. That allows many of them “constitutional.” Seldom possessing any actual to assume they have leeway that police chiefs training in constitutional law, they presume to do not. And it gives a sheriff the opportunity interpret it for their counties. This arrogance to make boneheaded moves, unchecked by a ÀLHVLQWKHIDFHRIHYHU\WKLQJWKDWPDNHVRXU superior. nation great. Prior to the appearance of the Malheur One of the primary strengths of our nation refuge occupiers, Sheriff Palmer decided is one law for all. We can’t afford to remain last September that he would write a natural VLOHQWZKHQORFDORI¿FLDOVDFWRXWVLGHWKLV resource management plan for Grant County. system. The County Court (its governing body) Ŷ reminded Palmer that he had no authority to Steve Forrester is publisher of The Daily do so. Then Palmer made sheriff’s deputies of Astorian, a sister publication of the East a group of 11 citizens to execute the task. Oregonian. A major motif of the mythology of the West is the sheriff who defends his community from armed invaders. Governor CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES State Representatives Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 State Senator Bill Hansell, District 29 900 Court St. NE, S-423 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1729 Sen.BillHansell@state.or.us Greg Barreto, District 58 900 Court St. NE, H-38 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1458 Rep.GregBarreto@state.or.us Greg Smith, District 57 900 Court St. NE, H-482 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1457 Rep.GregSmith@state.or.us Renewable energy has EHQH¿WHG(DVWHUQ2UHJRQ By GARY THOMPSON Sherman County Judge O regonians east of the Cascades have long enjoyed a unique way of life that is blessed with wide open places that allow for farming and other business while preserving our natural environment and great outdoors. This is possible in part due to Oregon leading the way in renewable energy that creates jobs, keeps power bills low, and helps preserve our environment and climate. Thanks in large part to Oregon, Washington, and California passing Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) over the past 10 years, mid-Columbia counties KDYHJUHDWO\EHQH¿WHG from economic activity generated by the need for renewable energy to comply with the RPS policies. Since 2000, more than $9 billion has been invested in renewable energy in Oregon — most of that in the mid-Columbia region — to install more than 3,350 MWs of generation—enough to power more than 750,000 households. Wind power projects in the mid-Columbia region have resulted in over $2.5 billion in investment and over $150 million in new county revenues. In Sherman County alone, wind projects have resulted in more than $77 million in revenues to the county budget to date. The wind projects also have created needed employment in our region — more than 700 construction jobs and 60 long-term operations and maintenance jobs. The new revenues have been a godsend to our counties in funding needed public services, road improvements, and other infrastructure, and they helped us to survive the Great Recession. (YHQEHWWHUWKHVHKXJHQHZEHQH¿WV to our region have not caused any VLJQL¿FDQWLQFUHDVHWRUDWHVSDLGE\RXU citizens — and for most of the energy consumers using public power from BPA, there have been absolutely no impact on rates! Now, however, Oregon and Washington utilities have largely met their obligations to acquire new renewable energy under the respective RPS, and new wind project development is drying up in our region. Fortunately, a bill (HB 4036) has been introduced in Salem to increase Oregon’s RPS from 25 percent to 50 percent. The bill is supported by an interesting coalition of electric utilities, clean energy advocates, and economic development advocates. If passed, the mid-Columbia region and the state stand to gain enormous DGGLWLRQDOHFRQRPLFEHQH¿WVRYHUWKH coming decades, and economic analysis shows that it can be done, again, with no VLJQL¿FDQWLPSDFWRQHOHFWULFLW\UDWHVLQ our region or throughout the state. Oregon and the Mid-Columbia region KDYHEHQH¿WHGJUHDWO\RYHUWKHSDVW FHQWXU\DQGWRGD\IURPWKH¿UVWZDYHRI renewable energy — the Columbia River dams. Now we are blessed with another wave of economic opportunity in the form of wind and solar development. We strongly support passage of HB 4036 this session and urge you to voice your support for the legislation as well with your state legislators. Ŷ Gary Thompson, of Moro, is a Sherman County Judge. Wind projects in the mid- Columbia region have resulted over $2.5 billion in investment and over $150 million in new county revenues.
