Saturday, July 24, 2021
VIEWPOINTS
East Oregonian
A5
ANDREW
CLARK
A SLICE OF LIFE
We have
responsibility
for one
another
W
e are in a very sad period
here in Eastern Oregon.
We have a vicious human
disease circulating that is getting
worse as the more virulent and/or
transmissible variants evolve.
We have a stunningly low rate of
use of the most basic tool for disease
control — vaccination — so the prob-
ability of the epidemic being perpet-
uated and continuing to evolve into
worsening forms and causing more
sickness and death is increasing day
by day. In Umatilla County, the vacci-
nation rate as of Thursday is 35.1%,
so about two-thirds of the people we
meet are not protected and are poten-
tial carriers of COVID-19 and poten-
tial dangers to everyone with whom
they associate. Additionally, our case
numbers are rising.
What has happened to us as a
culture? Where has the idea of mutual
cooperation for problem solving gone?
What has happened to our sense of
community responsibility? How has it
come to be that we do not care enough
for each other that almost two-thirds
of us ignore the concept of the basic
common sense to protect ourselves
from a potentially lethal disease and
the common courtesy to assure others
that we will protect them from us if we
are infected?
I am a veterinarian. I’ve been the
state veterinarian of Oregon, and the
regulatory work done by that office is
the animal equivalent of Public Health
for the human side of the health equa-
tion. I know from experience that a
lot of people do not appreciate being
“regulated” and consider the stat-
utes and rules about health for both
humans and/or livestock to be either
unnecessary or too restrictive. But as
the state vet, and working with live-
stock owners and ranchers all over
the state, when the reasons for the
regulations were clearly explained
and they understood the “whys,” they
cooperated. On the human side, the
“whys” have been clearly explained
and the reasons are good. So what has
happened?
We are tremendously fortunate to
have access to excellent public health
and to well proven, safe and effective
disease prevention tools and control
strategies. But if we do not use them,
the disease wins. We have immediate
access to the three most basic control
methods — prevention of airborne
virus by use of masks, prevention of
contact by use of social distancing
and prevention of infection by use of
vaccination.
And now, the most vulnerable
group is our children — and grand-
children — for whose health, welfare
and future is our responsibility. This
is a serious situation, and vaccination
for them is currently not available.
The only avenue to protect them from
infection and terrible debilitation is
to prevent infection in ourselves, and
isn’t that a rather serious responsibil-
ity that all of us really need to accept?
The kids have no choice. We adults do.
Please, friends — let’s not make
our wonderful and beloved East-
ern Oregon a dangerous place to
live. Please use the tools we have for
prevention and control. Please do not
jeopardize our children. The vaccines
are safe to use and efficacious — they
are proven to be safe and to work
well. The side effects for millions and
millions of people have been negligi-
ble — maybe a tiny bit of soreness at
the vaccination site.
We have responsibility for one
another. We need to protect ourselves
and to protect each other. We need to
cooperate together as an entire Amer-
ican culture and community to elimi-
nate this terrible disease and terminate
the pandemic — and it takes each and
every one of us to accomplish that
goal.
And we need to ensure that our
lovely place to live here in Eastern
Oregon is a place of safety and peace.
———
Dr. Andrew Clark is a livestock
veterinarian with both domestic and
international work experience who
lives in Pendleton.
Oregon ‘Wild & Scenic’ expansion
raises land management concerns
NICK
SMITH
OTHER VIEWS
A
nyone who works the land should
be wary of proposed legislation that
applies federal Wild & Scenic River
designations to 4,700 miles of Oregon
rivers, streams, creeks, gulches, draws and
unnamed tributaries. The bill, proposed
by Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
and promoted by environmental groups,
has already received a committee hear-
ing in the U.S. Senate, the first step toward
passage.
S. 192, also known as the “River
Democracy Act,” would apply half-mile
buffer restrictions to proposed segments.
If approved, it could impact public access,
water resource management, forest and
vegetation management, ranching and
grazing, mining and other uses on an esti-
mated 3 million acres of public lands — a
land mass nearly twice the size of the state
of Delaware.
Currently there are over 2,000 miles of
Oregon rivers designated as Wild & Scenic.
The Wild & Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 was
intended to protect rivers with “outstanding
natural, cultural and recreational values 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
& 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 for robust
study and review of proposed waterways
to immediately add an additional 4,700
miles to the Wild & Scenic Rivers system.
If such studies were conducted, many areas
included in S. 192 would likely be found
ineligible or unsuitable for designation.
Considering past use and litigation of the
Wild & 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 federal
land management agencies, including
actions intended to improve the land. For
example, a Wild & Scenic designation
could discourage efforts to stabilize river-
banks to avoid losing farm and range land
to erosion. That’s because federal courts
have consistently upheld legal challenges
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
million 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
million acres of these lands will not repair
an already broken system. Despite claims
made by proponents, S. 192 does not
support wildfire mitigation.
Nothing in the bill directs or autho-
rizes federal agencies to utilize all avail-
able land management tools — including
mechanical treatments — to reduce the
risk of severe wildfires, nor does it explic-
itly permit post-fire restoration work, such
as the removal of dead and dying trees, to
maintain public access.
Rather, the bill only allows agencies to
consider prescribed fire, even though fire
alone will not address heavy and unnatu-
ral fuel loads on already fire-prone land-
scapes.
As Oregon experiences another devas-
tating wildfire season, this is the wrong
time to add more layers of restrictions and
bureaucracy on the management of public
lands. Anyone with private lands near
these proposed Wild & Scenic segments
stee how it affects them.
———
Nick Smith is director of public affairs
for the American Forest Resource Council,
a regional trade association representing
the forest products sector. He also is exec-
utive director of Healthy Forests, Healthy
Communities, a nonpartisan grass-
roots coalition that advocates for active
management of America’s federally
owned forests.
Why we support keeping the Snake River dams
JEFF
VAN PEVENAGE
OTHER VIEWS
W
e add our voice to those who
support maintaining the lower
Snake River dams.
Here at Columbia Grain International,
we have been supplying the world with
grain, pulses, edible beans and oilseeds
for over four decades. Our supply chain
stretches across the northern tier of the
United States from North Dakota to Wash-
ington, cultivating the growth of our farm-
ers’ crops to safely nourish the world.
We operate nine grain elevators in
Eastern Washington, own or participate in
loading grain at three lower Snake River
terminals, and are the majority owner
in two export terminals in the Columbia
River District. It’s an understatement to
say that we have a vested interest in this
topic.
Removing the lower Snake River dams
as part of Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s
$33.5 billion framework doesn’t promise to
bring back Idaho’s salmon, but it will have
devastating effects on our farmers who rely
on this river system to successfully trans-
port their crops to key export terminals to
supply the international markets.
The Columbia River System is the
nation’s single largest wheat export gate-
way, transporting 50% of all U.S. wheat to
markets overseas. The Northwest Infra-
structure Proposal will slow international
trade, including the distribution of wheat,
soy, corn, wood, automobiles, mineral
bulks and cruise tourism, and has the
potential to eradicate the 40,000 local jobs
that are dependent on this trade.
For us, it will endanger the economic
viability of at least two Portland-based
export terminals, which rely heavily on
barges and don’t have the land footprint to
expand rail placement capacity.
The removal of the dams will cause
transportation methods to shift toward
truck and rail, creating greater instability
in freight costs, and exposing farmers to
potentially higher transportation costs for
grain shipments to destination markets,
particularly during the fall when corn and
soybean shipments from the Midwest are
heavy.
Although small compared to the giant
Columbia Basin Project upriver on the
mainstem Columbia, the lower Snake
River also plays an important irrigation
role, watering over 60,000 acres of farm-
land in central and southeastern Wash-
ington that produce dozens of different
varieties of fruits, vegetables and grains.
The evidence is clear. If the dams are
breached, our farmers will be paying more
and making less at the end of the day.
For over 40 years, the Columbia Snake
River System has successfully served our
communities, providing our regions with
clean power, jobs, efficient transportation,
irrigation, flood control and more. It is crit-
ical now more than ever to keep this region
stable and competitive in a time of global
economic and social uncertainties. We
are committed to cultivating the contin-
ued growth of our farmers and our Pacific
Northwest communities, and have serious
doubts about the inherent cons, which we
feel drastically outweigh the pros of this
proposal.
Proponents of the proposal argue that
removing the dams is necessary to restore
salmon population. However, studies show
that salmon survival rates may be greater
now than if no dams existed. This all goes
back to the life cycle of fish and the fact that
they spend most of their lives in the ocean.
As we learn more about ocean conditions
from NOAA Fisheries, West Coast wild
salmon and steelhead runs are struggling,
and the commonality is the ocean.
When considering dam removal, I’ve
studied the statistics that came from 40
years of research by the Army Corps
of Engineers and the Bonneville Power
Administration, and were compiled by
retired Fish and Wildlife biologist John
McKern. McKern spent much of his
30-year career researching fish survival
and developing and implementing fish
passage improvements at the Snake and
Columbia river dams. He found that after
the fish leave the Columbia River, about
88% of the remaining fish die during their
first two or three years in the ocean from
predators, adverse ocean conditions and
commercial fishing.
The Frazier River in Canada is very
similar to the Columbia River system. It
and other rivers along the West Coast of
the U.S. and Canada have no dams and
have the same fish problems as the Colum-
bia River system.
Currently, we have done quite well
stewarding fish and protecting them every
step of the way as they move and make
their journey on the river. Removing the
dams will have grave implications for our
vital farm communities that depend on this
transportation system to feed the world.
We hope people consider that there are a lot
of other things taking place that are impact-
ing our fish.
———
Jeff Van Pevenage is president and CEO
of Columbia Grain International, the leading
supplier of bulk grain, pulses, edible beans,
and oilseeds, both conventional and organic,
worldwide.