Wednesday, July 28, 2021
A4
OPINION
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
‘Wild and
Scenic’
needs clarity
I
t was a bit surprising to discover that
some of the rivers proposed for Wild
and Scenic designation were dried
up or were creeks, streams or gulches —
not really rivers at all.
Missteps like that go to the heart of
criticisms of sweeping legislation that
paints a broad brush, but fails to look at
the finer details.
A Senate bill that would designate
nearly 4,700 miles as part of the National
Wild and Scenic Rivers System in Ore-
gon is being criticized for including
hundreds of small creeks, streams and
gulches that were found to be completely
dry, according to the Capital Press and
its reporter George Plaven.
The American Forest Resources
Council, a trade group representing the
timber industry, did an analysis of the
proposal, arguing that certain non-river
segments under consideration “do not
meet the intent or definition of the Wild
and Scenic Rivers Act.”
Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff
Merkley, both Democrats, introduced the
River Democracy Act on Feb. 3. A year
prior to that, there was a well-attended
open house in Bend, where many sub-
mitted comments on which rivers should
be protected from development along
their banks. The legislation came out of
more than 15,000 nominations submitted
by the public.
But according to the forest group,
just 15% of the waterways are actually
labeled as “rivers.” Out of 886 segments,
752 are identified as “streams,” rather
than rivers. Another 33 are identified
as “gulches,” one “draw” and 17 were
“unnamed tributaries.”
The bill would roughly triple the num-
ber of wild and scenic rivers across Ore-
gon to protect fish and wildlife, water
quality and outdoor recreation values. It
also increases wild and scenic river cor-
ridors from a quarter-mile to a half-mile
on both sides, which adds up to approx-
imately 3 million acres of protected land
— an area approximately the size of
Connecticut.
Cutting timber along streambanks is
a well-known cause of sediment in riv-
ers and a degradation of fish and wildlife
habitat. But, the forest council’s presi-
dent, Travis Joseph, makes a good point
that restricting the ability to harvest trees
when the state is in a grip of catastrophic
wildfires and where thinning of trees can
reduce the wildfire risk is detrimental to
the bill’s intent.
Sen. Wyden says those claims are
addressed in the bill, calling for coordi-
nation between state and federal agen-
cies to allow for forest thinning.
But there needs to be some bal-
ance here. We can see the Willamette,
Deschutes and Santiam rivers gaining
some protection against development
as they are truly wild and scenic riv-
ers. Even the headwaters of these riv-
ers deserve attention. But intermittent
streams are not really rivers and should
not be considered as such. We encour-
age some clarity on the issues, especially
how state and federal agencies would be
held accountable for working together.
And perhaps removing some of the non-
flowing streams from the list of this
important designation would go a long
way to boosting its credibility as a new
piece of legislation.
Other Views
Good news in the recycling world
REDUCE,
REUSE,
RECYCLE
Peter Ferré
S
ome good news for the world we
live in and the state and county we
call home.
Recently, Senate Bill 582A: Plas-
tic Pollution and Recycling Modern-
ization Act passed the Oregon Senate!
The Recycling Modernization Act will
overhaul Oregon’s outdated recycling
system by building on local community
programs and leveraging the resources
of producers to create an innovative
system that works for everyone in the
state.
The following are some key ele-
ments of the bill:
• Responsibility is shared and scaled
by bringing packaging producers into
Oregon’s recycling system to cover the
cost of improvements. Cost to produc-
ers will be scaled based on what mate-
rials they use and how much they sell
in Oregon. This will put responsibility
on producers to create packaging that
is actually recyclable.
• Increase access to recycling by
providing or increasing recycling ser-
vices to people who did not previ-
ously have them, such as rural areas.
This will provide additional resources
for counties like ours to expand and
improve our recycling services.
• Prevents plastic pollution by
ensuring collected material is actu-
ally recycled and addresses plastic
trash that pollutes oceans, rivers and
communities.
• One list for the entire state of what
can be recycled will eliminate con-
fusion and will create efficiencies in
recycling operations across the state.
• Incentivize innovation as producer
fees will be higher for nonrecyclable
products and those creating more envi-
ronmental pollution. This helps con-
tinue to put pressure on the packag-
ing producers to provide recyclable
products.
• Accountability to actual out-
comes will be achieved by Department
of Environmental Quality permitting
and auditing recycling processors and
a governor-appointed advisory coun-
cil who will review statewide producer
programs, the statewide collection list
and educational resources.
This is wonderful news for the
health of our air, water, land and lives
and will help set the stage for similar
statewide initiatives around the coun-
try, (many other states already have, or
are in the process of enacting similar
legislation).
You can gather more information on
this new initiative at: www.ordeq.org/
sb582.com, and the actual implemen-
tation details will be posted there when
available.
On a slightly different reduce, reuse,
recycle topic, one of the county’s long-
time residents contacted me and asked
if I would share some slightly different,
but critically important, action points
EDITORIALS: Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Wallowa County Chieftain editorial board. Other
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VOLUME 134
that pertain to the heat, dryness and fire
we are experiencing.
We all feel and see the real impact
of the wildfires that are embracing
where we live. One of the reasons for
those fires is how hot and dry it is, and
one of the things that is impact by the
heat and dryness is our water supply,
(just look at the level of the lake, our
rivers and streams).
With that in mind, here are a few
things that were shared with me that
we each can do to help lessen the
amount of water we use:
• Wash dishes in a tub, then use that
water on plants, gardens, etc.
• Flush the toilet less often.
• Fix leaky faucets, (inside and out-
side your house). A single leaky faucet
wastes more than 100 gallons of water
per year.
• Be conscious/smart about how we
water our gardens.
• Invest in low-flow shower and fau-
cet heads, (these are relatively inexpen-
sive and easy to install).
• When it does rain, capture that
rainwater for another use, (we installed
a 250-gallon tank under our barn’s
downspout to collect rainwater to fill
our horses’ water tank).
Thank you for all your help in the
small things we each can do, to make
a collective big difference. If you have
other ideas, topics, concerns please
feel free to email the Friends of Wal-
lowa County Recycling at www.wal-
lowacountyrecycling@gmail.com.
———
Peter Ferré is a member of the Wal-
lowa County Recycling Task Force.
General manager, Jennifer Cooney, jcooney@wallowa.com
Editor, Ronald Bond, rbond@wallowa.com
Reporter, Bill Bradshaw, bbradshaw@wallowa.com
Advertising Assistant, Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com
Designer, Martha Allen, mallen@eomediagroup.com
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