VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Quick takes
— Jovanna Centre
Feds may cut airport subsidy
More unqualiied pen pushers making
decisions without considering the people
who use the lights!
— Pat Meuret
I’ve really enjoyed Seaport for business
travel but Amtrak would be a great alterna-
tive.
— Micah Engum
Just maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.
Cut some of that federal umbilical cord. If
a private company can’t make it work, then
the government sure won’t be able to either.
Figure out another way.
— Bryan N Becky Miltenberger
ODOT asks for oil train halt
Why are we still using wooden ties when
almost everywhere else uses concrete or
steel?
— Michael Lovejoy
The train was headed to Vancouver and
Tacoma. According to the risk assessment
experts, the maximum foreseeable loss
would be $6 billion in Vancouver.
— Don Charles Steinke
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
Blame the market, not environmental regulation
Memories of elementaries
I remember living across the street and
having fun at Washington: ield day on the
red rock track, climbing the tree, the unsafe
playground equipment, roller skating in
the gym, and Iris, the playground aide and
neighbor.
East Oregonian
By GEORGE WUERTHNER
Writers on the Range
C
ritics of public lands like to say
that timber jobs declined and mills
closed over the last 20 years because
environmental protections such as the
Endangered Species Act and other laws
made the cost of logging skyrocket. This
complaint is repeated so often it is usually
stated as unqualiied truth.
If you believe the rhetoric, the way
federal lands are managed has been the
problem. If only there were more private
owners of the land, local economies would
prosper, and there would be stable, long-
term stewardship.
If only that were true. But if you
compare the mostly private wood-products
industry in the state of Maine to the West’s
experiences on public land, you ind that
environmental regulations had little to do
with the demise of logging.
Ninety percent of Maine is forested,
and more than 93 percent of the state’s
land is privately owned, mostly by large
timber companies that sell trees to the
wood-products industry. If private lands
lead to prosperity and healthy landscapes,
Maine should be the poster child for the
country. And unlike the West, Maine,
imposes minimal regulations on private
landowners. There are also almost no listed
endangered species in Maine to harry the
timber industry.
Yet today, the forest-products industry
in Maine is a shadow of its former self. In
1980, there were 25 pulp and paper mills
in the state. Today, two-thirds of those
mills are gone. Since 1990, the state has
lost 13,000 of its approximately 17,000
paper-industry jobs, including more than
2,300 in the past ive years. The decline
continues. Associated wood products
companies in Maine have also seen a
decline — everything from wood furniture,
wood looring and clothespin producers
have closed up shop.
The decline in both employment
and production in Maine was caused
by the same forces that drastically cut
forest industry jobs in the West: foreign
competition, which brought in cheaper
wood products,
technological advances
and new automation
that allowed computers
instead of people to run
machinery. High energy
prices and labor costs also
played a role as plastic
and steel moved in to
replace wood.
Think about the
brightly colored plastic
Adirondack chairs for
sale at Home Depot now
replacing the wooden
chairs on which they
are modeled. Instead
of wood rafters, steel-beam has replaced
two-by-fours in some construction, and so
forth. The decline in newspapers and print
materials has also dramatically altered
demand for pulp production. All of these
factors are affecting the West’s wood
industry as much as they affect Maine.
These days, most of the new sawmills
and pulp mills built in the United States
are in the South. Trees grow faster there,
and unlike the western United States, they
can reach harvestable age in a decade or
two. To the timber industry, the longer you
have to wait to cut trees, the higher the risk.
Your trees might die in a forest ire, a beetle
outbreak or some other natural event. So
locating your mills in places where you can
grow a tree to merchantable size quickly is
a smart business practice.
Furthermore, most of the Southern
timberlands are lat and accessible year-
round. In the steep mountains of the West,
road construction costs are far greater, and
snow limits seasonal access.
So that’s the picture: The decline of the
Western wood products industry — like
that in Maine — occurred because of
economic realities that favor other regions
of the globe. Blaming environmentalists,
endangered species
protection, or
environmental
regulations is easy. But
blame fails to explain a
changing world, or help
us understand its nuances.
Unlike Maine, the
West has an alternative.
Its abundant public
lands — in particular its
wilderness areas, national
parks and monuments —
provides the foundation
for another future for the
region. While not all the
changes that come with
the “new” economy are welcome — take
sprawl and increased impacts from
recreational users — they can be managed
if we make intelligent choices.
The West boasts iconic wildlands like
Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national
parks, the Owyhee Canyonlands and
the Gila Wilderness. In the end, federal
ownership and protection of wildlands and
open spaces is far superior to the Maine
model of private ownership and maximized
proits.
Our model gives us the chance to
manage forests sensibly, and it offers at
least some potential for a more sustainable
future for Western communities.
■
George Wuerthner is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, an opinion service of
High Country News. He lives in Bend and
is an ecologist who has published 38 books
about Western environmental issues.
The decline of
the Western
wood products
industry
occurred
because of
economic
realities.
Brexit would be a colossal blunder Bridging Oregon’s
B
as an overarching European structure,
ARI, Italy — The
“Contrary to the cartoon
short on democracy and long on
prospect that Britain
caricature of the EU we read
bureaucracy.
about in the national press,”
might next week
But, as Italy’s postwar development
he wrote, the union “has
commit an act of national
demonstrates, its
cemented peace
folly by voting to leave the
achievements far
in Europe. It
European Union has politicians
outweigh its problems,
allows younger
throughout Europe alarmed.
which Britain could
generations to
Integration has been the
play a leading role in
live and work
Continent’s leitmotif for more
Roger
addressing.
anywhere
in
than six decades. Fracture
Cohen
“Politics is about
Europe in
would suddenly be underway.
Comment
seizing the moment,
a way my
And what would be left?
interpreting what
generation
“If a British withdrawal
history has given you
could only dream
were seen by Germany as opening the
the responsibility to
about. It has vastly
way to govern Europe as a Germanic
do,” Emiliano told
simpliied travel
federation, the European Union will
me. “Thanks to the
across the Continent.
fall apart,” Michele Emiliano, the
Americans who landed
president of the southern Puglia region, It has brought Eastern
on Sicilian beaches,
Europe into the family
told me in an interview. “Europe can
I have the freedom
only function as a union of equal states. of free, democratic
to speak and you the
nations after decades
Under German dominion, it would
freedom to write. I
of Soviet control. It has
contain the genes of its dissolution.”
never forget this. If
broken up powerful
Germany has already become what
monopolies and cartels
the postwar strategic architecture of
— Michele Emiliano, politics is not about
in a way national
Europe was designed to prevent: the
Presdent, Italy’s Puglia respecting the past
to secure the future,
governments acting
Continent’s most powerful nation.
region it is merely a mirror
alone could not. It has
But Britain, through the size of its
you gaze in, a form of
economy, has played an offsetting role. forced member states
narcissism.”
to clean up the environment.”
Absent Britain, Germany would loom
Such narcissism is rampant in
He continued: “We would be
larger still, a source of alarm to the
Britain and America these days. For
willfully removing ourselves from a
economically weaker Mediterranean
Britain to succumb to its delusions and
single market of 500 million people
states.
without the faintest idea whether, or on leave the union would be a colossal
Postwar Italy was fragile, torn
blunder of historic proportions.
what terms, we would be allowed to
between the West and communism,
When in Italy, I often think of
continue trading with 27 EU states who
between “scaling the Alps” and
would want to punish us. Why on earth my late uncle, Bert Cohen, who, as
succumbing to the Maia-suffused
an oficer of the 6th South African
would we take such a monumental
inertia of the south, or mezzogiorno.
Armored Division, 19th Field
risk?”
European Union membership was the
Ambulance, fought the entire Italian
The answer is that this huge gamble
country’s anchor and magnet, securing
campaign, moving up the peninsula
would be taken for the chimera of
it in the free and democratic Western
from south to north. After the Allied
family, luring it toward prosperity. Now restored “sovereignty.” It would relect
victory, he visited Berchtesgaden in
petulant nationalism, base bigotry and
that role is played most conspicuously
the Bavarian Alps, on September 2,
for newer members of the union. But its laughable Little England pretensions.
1945, and went up to Hitler’s mountain
Fletcher expressed the reality behind
importance persists.
retreat, the Eagle’s Nest. He etched his
Emiliano, a former maia-combating all this with laconic bluntness: “As a
single country we would have minimal name on the Fuhrer’s table.
public prosecutor, heads a region that
What sweet retribution to have
inluence on world affairs.
is its own tribute to the union’s quiet
“Cohen” inscribed there!
Does anyone seriously think
miracles. Puglia, long a languishing
Later, he made his life in Britain —
the prospect of British sanctions
part of the chronically underdeveloped
the home of a freedom that, to him, was
would alarm Vladimir Putin, or have
south, is now an area of fast-growing
not insular but European and universal.
industry and tourism, the poster child of persuaded Iran to curtail its nuclear
To vote out would also betray that
program?”
the generally depressed mezzogiorno.
The European Union has signiicant inscription and all it stands for.
Like other outlying regions of the EU,
■
failings, many of them precipitated
it has been slowly tugged through
Roger Cohen joined The New
by the sudden end of the Cold War,
stability toward the living standards of
York Times in 1990. He was a foreign
the reach to embrace states formerly
the European core.
correspondent for more than a decade
In a Facebook post, Martin Fletcher, enslaved in Moscow’s imperium,
before becoming acting foreign editor
and the lawed attempt to contain a
a former foreign editor of The Times
on Sept. 11, 2001, and foreign editor six
united Germany by integrating it into a
of London, put these European Union
common currency called the euro. It is, months later.
achievements well.
“Europe can
only function
as a union of
equal states.
Under German
dominion, it
would contain
the genes of its
dissolution.”
rural/urban gap
The (Albany) Democrat-Herald
M
aybe you’ve heard of that song “How ‘Ya Going
to Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve
Seen Paree)?” The idea behind the song, a big
hit during World War I, was that once our soldiers saw
the bright lights of the city, they’d be reluctant to return to
the farms from whence they came. Lorrie Andrews might
argue that the song has it backward.
Andrews is the superintendent of the Burnt River
School District, in Unity, in Eastern Oregon. Unity has
a population of 71, according to the 2010 Census. Burnt
River School, where Andrews also serves as principal and
teaches, is a public charter school with 34 students this
past school year.
Burnt River School is also the source of a terriic idea
that might end up doing more to heal the gap between
rural and urban Oregon than anything coming out of
Salem: Recently, schools in Portland sent out an invitation
to high school students there: Come to Burnt River for a
semester and study agriculture and science.
Dozens of Portland students and their families emailed
back. Eight of them will be at Burnt River when the new
school year begins.
We read about the program in a recent story in the
Capital Press by Eric Mortenson. Since I’ve written
in the past about the rural-urban gap in Oregon, I was
intrigued enough to speak with Andrews last week about
the program. Andrews said the situation at Burnt River
is similar to what’s been happening at smaller schools
around the state: The school has been facing declining
enrollment for the last few years.
But Burnt River teachers and administrators knew they
had something of value to offer students, and had to look
no further than the experiences of the exchange students
who came to the school from other countries (often from
large urban areas). Those exchange students have found
the experience life-changing: “They come as strangers
and they leave as family,” Andrews said. “It’s a tough time
when they have to say goodbye.”
Andrews was cautiously optimistic when the time
came to extend the invitation to Portland students: Not
only did she think there might be some appeal in studying
agriculture and science in a rural setting, but she thought
some families might prefer the smaller school setting
Burnt River offers.
The irst batch of students will be all girls (the idea is to
alternate between girls and boys each semester). They’ll
stay with ranching families, and so will get irsthand
experience at working with animals.
The additional students will beneit the school district’s
budget: The State School Fund pays districts $7,100 per
student, and that money will low to Burnt River.
But that’s a nice added bonus for a program that offers
such promise to build bridges, one person and one family
at a time, between rural and urban Oregon. And Andrews
expects that the experience will be valuable to Burnt River
students and staff members as well.