ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
PHIL WRIGHT
News Editor
JEFF BUDLONG
Interim Hermiston Editor
SaTURDay, JULy 31, 2021
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Large forest
fires show the
need for action
T
he time for allowing vast tracts of
forest on state and federal lands to
remain untouched from manage-
ment is long over. Now, elected leaders
and state and federal officials need to
develop a comprehensive, actionable plan
before every summer provides voters
with a blaze such as the Bootleg Fire now
scorching lands in southern Oregon.
Thankfully there already is some
progress being made to find a way
to manage our forests, so they do not
become massive tinderboxes ready to
explode when hit by lightning strikes.
For example, Gov. Kate Brown in 2020
created the Governor’s Council on Wild-
fire Response. The board’s mission is to
review Oregon’s existing model for wild-
fire prevention and determine if it is still
valid.
During the recent legislative session,
Senate Bill 762C, was passed in the
House and Senate. The bill casts a wide
net, but, among other things, requires
public utilities that provide electricity to
develop and execute wildfire protection
plans and directs the Oregon State Board
of Forestry to create rules to develop a
statewide map of wildfire risk.
So good, first steps are evident from
the state. Yet considering the massive
Bootleg Fire, far more needs to be done.
First, a comprehensive, full-scale plan
needs to be developed, certified and
put into place for all of Oregon’s forests
regarding fire mitigation. The plan needs
to be effective, uncomplicated and funded
appropriately.
Second, a solid determination needs
to be made regarding the viability of
logging forests to help mitigate fire
risk. The subject is controversial and in
many circles, considered a nonstarter.
Already, though, some salvage logging
is a common tool in fire restoration yet
is almost always bitterly challenged by
some conservation groups.
But we cannot continue to allow large,
uninhabited sections of federal and state
forests to essentially rot and await the
first solid lighting strike to erupt into
major fires.
Finally, unfortunately for taxpayers,
more money needs to go into a plan to
safeguard our forests.
At this point there is no denying
climate change plays a role in the terri-
ble forest fires burning in Oregon but to
change the climate paradigm will take
years and we don’t have decades when it
comes to our forests and the damage fire
delivers to them.
We cannot sustain blazes like the
Bootleg Fire indefinitely. If the Bootleg
Fire is a harbinger of things to come, then
we need to act fast.
There is no time to waste regarding the
health of our forests.
EDITORIALS
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of
the East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
LETTERS
The East Oregonian welcomes original
letters of 400 words or less on public
issues and public policies for publication
in the newspaper and on our website. The
newspaper reserves the right to withhold
letters that address concerns about
individual services and products or letters
that infringe on the rights of private citizens.
Letters must be signed by the author and
include the city of residence and a daytime
phone number. The phone number will
not be published. Unsigned letters will not
be published.
SEND LETTERS TO:
editor@eastoregonian.com,
or via mail to Andrew Cutler,
211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
YOUR VIEWS
America’s ‘war on drugs’
needs to focus on supply
America has a drug problem. That’s
not news. For some reason the demand
for drugs is a pandemic that has been
around much longer than COVID-19.
Nixon even declared a so-called war
on drugs. We locked up some drug
dealers and addicts but decades later
the problem is worse than before.
We have hundreds of thousands
of overdose deaths with the result-
ing misery that comes from that. I
will leave it to the psychologists and
sociologists to try and understand why
people would rather be stoned than
sober, why there is such a demand for
drugs. I have an opinion on what to
do about the supply side of the drug
pandemic.
We need a real war on drugs. We
need some leadership. I can’t under-
stand why my country thought I
should go thousands of miles away to
shoot some guy in black pajamas with
an AK-47 who just wanted to see the
invader gone but he was an enemy of
our state and those who are killing my
country enjoy legal protection. I lost a
fire team partner over there, a cousin
and some classmates. I lost a son to the
drug pandemic.
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec.
7, 1941, and we decided that within the
hundreds of thousands of American
citizens a few might be a threat so we
interned thousands of good Ameri-
can citizens. I can’t understand why
we sit by and watch China and Mexico
supply the cartels with literally tons
of drugs and bring them across our
open borders, supply the gangs with
them for distribution and then fight
over drug distribution territory, shoot
up the inner cities then call it gun
violence.
I had a little experience in war
and my idea is that we should really
fight a war on drugs. The first phase
should be that Congress exercise its
constitutional authority and declare
war. A war on drugs that designates
the suppliers as enemies of the state.
If you are MS13 or in another gang,
you are headed to an internment
camp complete with barbed wire and
machine gun towers. Like Lincoln did
in the Civil War, habeas corpus should
be suspended until the war is won. You
might get out if you supply good infor-
mation on the suppliers.
The new idea of treating addicts
who want something different is the
right approach, but it is going to take
time to set up programs. In the mean-
time, it is past time for a real war on
the supply side. It is time to rid our
nation of this threat. It is time to elim-
inate the enemy. We have that capabil-
ity, what is lacking is the will.
Our “leadership” has had decades
to act. It’s time to demand that they
support America with the same enthu-
siasm they show to their big political
donors. If they won’t act it is time for
new leadership, a new congress, a real
president.
Steve Culley
La Grande
The fine art of juggling
It’s been about a month since Pend-
leton city officials announced they
were expecting to sign an agreement
with the Oregon Department of Trans-
portation to assume the responsibility
for the installation of required hand-
icapped ramps along the four major
thoroughfares through town consid-
ered to be state highways.
It seems the elaborate ramp designs
used by ODOT are significantly more
expensive than those constructed by
the city on residential streets. It was
reasoned the city could save taxpay-
ers a considerable amount of money by
accepting the responsibility for instal-
lation of the ramps by using their own
residential designs. Hurrah, hurrah —
some rare good news for taxpayers.
Fast forward to the city’s latest
announcement. ODOT has offered
to pick up the tab for the entire cost
of those new ADA ramps, but with
strings attached. The city must use
the state (read much more expensive)
designs. By signing on to this agree-
ment, it appears the city manager will
score a major coup d’etat for effec-
tive budgetary management, though
strictly for appearance sake since
increased costs to the taxpayers are
ignored.
They seem to also forget it matters
not who signs the check, when both the
city and state budgets are funded by
those same taxpayers. Those promised
savings have mysteriously evaporated.
We all want nice streets and side-
walks. However, this juggling act does
nothing to instill public trust or paint
that heartwarming picture sought by
our leadership at city hall.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
Bentz is off target on
wildfires
Our Rep. Cliff Bentz has words of
wisdom for us about the tragic wildfire
losses we are suffering in our state.
“People tend to blame climate
change,” he says, but the “true cause”
is the “amount of wood.” Partisan
blaming of someone else’s policies
indeed tends to be much easier than
addressing climate change or the
multiple factors that scientific analysis
can give us.
According to Bryant Baker, conser-
vation director of nonprofit Los Padres
ForestWatch, “a history of commer-
cial logging, thinning, clear cutting,
prescribed fire and other intensive
management practices contributed
to the Bootleg Fire’s spread.” Baker
does real-time geographic informa-
tion system analysis of how landscapes
were historically managed while wild-
fires are actively burning on the land.
“I do think this demonstrates that this
kind of focus on removing vegetation
from these wildlands, especially far
away from human communities, is not
doing anything to prevent these fires
from becoming very large,” he says.
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive direc-
tor of Firefighters United for Safety,
Ethics and Ecology, says that “past
commercial logging and livestock
grazing has encouraged wildfires,”
and notes that “when the fire entered
the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness, an
area with more potential fuel but fewer
small trees and flammable grasses, it
appears to have burned more slowly.”
There will be more expert opin-
ions to come, but please, Rep. Bentz,
can we use the lens of science to show
leadership and to develop solutions
to prevent disasters? And can we
spend less time trying to run from the
real issues?
Jean Sullivan Carlton
Bend