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
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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
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— 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
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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
———
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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to our region have not caused any
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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
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coming decades, and economic analysis
shows that it can be done, again, with no
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our region or throughout the state.
Oregon and the Mid-Columbia region
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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.