NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Advocates ghostwrite commissioners’ complaint about River Democracy Act
By ALEX BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
LA GRANDE — U.S.
Sen. Ron Wyden in August
got a letter critical of his plan
to preserve more Oregon
streams from 14 county
commissioners in Eastern
Oregon.
They represented the letter
as their view — but gave no
indication the piece had been
produced by the timber advo-
cacy group American Forest
Resource Council.
Oregon Wild, an environ-
mental organization based
in Portland, traced the emer-
gence of the letter through
a public records request to
the Union County Board of
Commissioners and shared
its findings with the Capital
Chronicle.
The legislation called
the River Democracy Act,
proposed by Wyden and U.S.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, would add
4,700 miles of Oregon streams
and rivers to the National Wild
and Scenic Rivers system.
It also would, according to
the American Forest Resource
Council, take about 3 million
acres of federal land out of use
for cattle and logging indus-
tries.
Some Eastern Oregon
interests have pushed back on
the proposal, fearing it would
impair ranching and forestry
and pile on new federal regu-
lations.
Wallowa County Chieftain, File
The Imnaha River flows through private lands 10 miles upstream from the town of Imnaha.
The River Democracy Act of 2021, which Oregon U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley co-
sponsored, would redesignate 58 miles of the river from Indian Crossing to Cow Creek, in-
cluding this area, as a Recreational River, and label 4 miles of the river, from Cow Creek to the
mouth of the confluence with the Snake River, as Scenic.
Among
the records
t he g roup
obtained
was an email
i n Aug ust
from Heath
Anderes
Heikkila, a
government
affairs officer at American
Forest Resource Council and
registered lobbyist, to Union
County Commissioner Paul
Anderes. Anderes doesn’t
work in the timber indus-
try but comes from a timber
family in Roseburg, accord-
Beverage
Scarfo
ing to the Union County
Commission site. He has
been a commissioner in Union
County for about three years.
Heikkila wrote he was
attaching the draft of a letter
“that could be sent to Sen.
Wyden in advance of next
week’s town hall meeting
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on the legislation. I thought
it might make sense to have
it come from a group of
commissioners.”
Heikkila and nor Ande-
res didn’t respond to emails
or voice messages about the
matter.
The American Forest
Resource Council is a trade
organization that lobbies for
the timber industry out of
Portland and in Washington,
D.C. The group has a political
action committee that contrib-
utes to both Republican and
Democratic candidates at
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NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 91° in San Bernardino, Calif. Low 0° in Celina, Minn.
Forest Resource Council
urges public officials to take
up their causes, just like
Oregon Wild.
“We have serious concerns
about this bill and its poten-
tial to worsen wildfires in
Oregon,” he said. “We encour-
age elected officials and orga-
nizations to take positions. If
they’re using that informa-
tion, and it sounds like they
did, then they have serious
concerns about the bill and
want to be heard.”
Arran Roberts, commu-
nications manager at Oregon
Wild, said, “We haven’t had
someone stick anything we’ve
said on their letterhead and
call it their own.”
Erik Fernandez is wilder-
ness program manager at
Oregon Wild. He sought the
public records from Union
County after noticing simi-
larities between press releases
from the American Forest
Resource Council and state-
ments from several Eastern
Oregon county commission-
ers.
“The statements, the
talking points, they were
clearly all reading from the
same script,” he said. “These
Eastern Oregon county
commissioners are criticiz-
ing this bill for being written
by Portland environmental-
ists. But here you have timber
industry lobbyists based out
of D.C. and Portland talking
for them.”
Trail-with-rails gets $272K in grants
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Winds subsiding
and cooler
the state and federal level,
according to the nonprofit
Open Secrets. Anderes has
not received any contributions
from the group, according to
Open Secrets.
The draft letter Heikkila
sent to Anderes on Aug. 24
was addressed to Wyden and
posed questions ahead of a
town hall he hosted later that
month.
Within three days, Ande-
res and 13 other Eastern
Oregon commissioners signed
the letter and sent it via email,
verbatim, to Wyden’s office.
The letter expressed concern
that the River Democracy
Act would create too many
regulations for agencies to
enforce and leave millions
of fire-prone acres of forest
untouchable.
Anderes had earlier
adopted language on the issue
produced by the American
Forest Resource Council. On
Aug. 4, he and Union County
Commissioners Matthew
Scarfo and Donna Beverage
issued a resolution opposing
the River Democracy Act.
Emails obtained by Oregon
Wild showed the resolution
was drafted by Nick Smith,
public affairs director for the
American Forest Resource
Council, and emailed to
Anderes about a month before
the commission passed its
resolution.
Smith told the Capi-
tal Chronicle the American
ENTERPRISE — The
Joseph Branch Trail Consor-
tium, the nonprofit working
to establish a 63-mile trail-
with-rails between Elgin and
Joseph in northeast Oregon,
announced Tuesday, Nov. 9, it
has received two grants total-
ing more than $272,000 that
will fund construction of the
first trailhead and inaugu-
ral trail segment, as well as
final planning and design for
another 13-mile segment.
The trail has been in the
planning stages for about
10 years and will eventually
offer a nonmotorized alter-
native transportation route
to Highway 82 in the form
of a trail that will run beside
existing railroad tracks in the
railroad right-of-way owned
by the Wallowa Union Rail-
road Authority. With one end
in Elgin, the other will termi-
nate 63 miles later in Joseph.
City officials at each end
of the proposed trail are eager
to see it accomplished, antic-
ipating economic and health
benefits. Elgin, at 1,700 popu-
lation, has no accessible trails
from downtown, according to
a press release announcing the
grants. Joseph, with roughly
1,000 people, also will benefit
from the trail.
As it turns out, Brock
Eckstein has an official inter-
est at each end. He’s Elgin’s
city administrator and also is
interim city administrator for
Joseph.
“Our city staff, collabo-
rating closely with the Joseph
Branch Trail Consortium
and WURA, are prepared
to lead and assist as needed
to ensure the project is a
success, because the potential
economic and health impacts
from this trail for our city,
community, and region will be
momentous,” said Eckstein of
the benefits to Elgin.
“In the future, it’ll be really
great for Joseph,” he added,
lamenting the delays in the
project over acquiring fund-
ing.
A board member of the
Wallowa Union Railroad
Authority, which owns the
right-of-way alongside the
tracks, Eckstein sees the
grants as a step forward in
solving the financial woes of
the project.
“I’m really excited getting
two grants,” he said.
One grant, from Oregon
State Parks’ Recreational
Trails Program, will fund
construction of the trail-
head, which also will serve
as a pocket park for the city of
Elgin. The trailhead/pocket
park will be on a parcel of city-
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
owned land directly across
from the train depot in down-
town Elgin.
Eckstein said there is a
“time cap” of December 2024
to get the first 13 miles done.
“We’re just taking it piece
by piece until we get the whole
thing done,” he said.
In addition to trail infor-
mation, the trailhead/pocket
park will include an electric
vehicle and e-bike charging
station (the only one between
La Grande and Enterprise), an
Americans with Disabilities
Act-compliant parking place
and an interpretive signage
about the area’s earliest inhab-
itants and more-recent history.
The Oregon State Parks
grant also will fund construc-
tion of the inaugural 0.6 mile
of the trail that will be an
ADA-compliant path running
out of town along the railroad
tracks.
A second grant, from
the Oregon Department of
Transportation’s Transpor-
tation Growth Management
program, will fund develop-
ment of a detailed refinement
plan for the 13-mile segment
of the trail between Elgin and
Lookingglass in rural Union
County on the Grande Ronde
River near Palmer Junction.
This funding also will support
local outreach and education
about the trail.
IN BRIEF
Man kneeling on
train tracks hit, killed
BAKER CITY — A 30-year-old Baker
City man was hit and killed by a freight train
Sunday evening, Nov. 14, in what police said
appeared to be an intentional act by the man.
Michael Steven Myers-Gabiola died at the
scene.
The 200-car freight train, which was trav-
eling at about 40 mph, hit Myers-Gabiola at
about 5:29 p.m., said Sgt. Wayne Chastain of
the Baker City Police Department.
Chastain said police don’t believe the inci-
dent was either accidental or a result of foul
play.
He said Myers-Gabiola, based on what the
train crew saw, was kneeling on the tracks
near a trestle across the Powder River south-
east of Wade Williams Park.
Chastain said the train was rounding a
corner when the crew saw something on the
tracks.
When the crew realized it was a person,
they initiated an emergency stop procedure,
but the train had no chance to stop in time to
enough to avoid hitting Myers-Gabiola.
None of the train crew was hurt, said
Robynn Tysver, a spokesperson for Union
Pacific Railroad.
The train was stopped for about three
hours before being allowed to resume its trip,
Chastain said.
— EO Media Group
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