4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL March 4, 2015
O PINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A tree-free plan is
unacceptable
As a 40-year resident of the
greater Cottage Grove area and
downtown business owner, it is
a welcome sight to see the 20-
year Tree City fl ag fl ying over
City Hall. This is a statement of
our commitment as a communi-
ty to respect and preserve trees.
The trees lining East Main
Street in the downtown core
provide welcome shade dur-
ing hot days. I commend those
with the foresight to plant sap-
lings on Main and 99 South
and the decades of care toward
their growth. I do not embrace
the mythology that they are ei-
ther the wrong trees or meant to
be cut down. Now they are our
trees.
The verdant natural addition
to our historic downtown is
something not to be taken for
granted. It has been decades in
the making, tree by tree. How
nice to see café tables out with
umbrellas under the shade of the
trees! How memorable to have
children trick or treating under a
fl aming canopy of leaves. How
nice to visualize holiday lights
in their branches in the dark of
winter. The sterility of the envi-
ronment without trees is not to
be underestimated. Trees defi ne
that “X” quality that tourists
and residents crave, and they
boost commercial vitality in the
downtown core.
The archway, fl ower baskets,
the benches, the murals, All-
America City Square with the
Opal Whitely mural and his-
toric signage — all add to the
developing ambiance of the
downtown core. The total ef-
fect helps generate more com-
mercial success.
We are a community of vision
and volunteerism. It is no acci-
dent that we have been an All-
America City twice.
The proposed downtown
core street and sidewalk devel-
opment plan is yet one more
improvement. Our city plan-
ners have put much effort into
enlisting professional planners
and grant seeking. I believe that
although there has been a pro-
cess of public feedback, there
is a signifi cant population that
has not voiced their opinion
that feels passionate about sav-
ing the existing trees on Main
Street. Many people have not
realized that either 1) the trees
could (or would) really be cut
down or 2) they could infl uence
if the trees would be cut down
or not. It is to the City’s credit to
have kept an open dialogue on
the subject.
The probability of the exist-
ing trees surviving a sidewalk
widening and street leveling has
been evaluated. If the determi-
nation is a positive probability
for the survival of the trees, I
hope that we can develop a plan
as a community that accommo-
dates their survival. This might
include walking around them
on a widened sidewalk and defi -
nitely having larger opening for
their roots so as not to disturb
the sidewalk. Saving as many
existing trees as possible of the
over 40 existing trees is wise
and strategic. It is not incom-
patible with sidewalk widening.
If it is impossible to save all
of the existing trees with the
construction process, it should
be possible to salvage some
Offbeat Oregon History
Lafe Pence’s crazy plan: Wash mountains
down to fi ll lake up
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
I
n 1904, a sharp-eyed 61-year-old
hustler named Lafe Pence stepped
off the train in downtown Portland for
a meeting of the National Mining Con-
gress.
The conference he was attending has
been long forgotten. But had the group
chosen Seattle or Bakersfi eld to hold it,
the very shape of the hills in Portland
would be different today.
Pence had the kind of colorful West-
ern background that you’d expect in
a man who sets out to literally move
mountains. He was born in Indiana
just before the Civil War and moved to
Colorado to practice law when he was
24 years old. He became a specialist in
mining law, and — likely representing
the desires of his clients in the matter,
as well as his own investments in silver
mines — a strong advocate of the “Free
Silver” movement.
For a while he looked like he’d have
a political career, and he was elected to
the U.S. House of Representatives in
1892 on the Populist Party ticket; but
he lost his bid for re-election two years
later, and not long afterward, Populist
party membership and Free Silver sen-
timents became insurmountable bar-
riers to political advancement. So he
retired back to private practice and the
management of his mines.
His 1904 visit to Portland found him
at loose ends, ready for a new project.
And in P-town, he found one — one
that could really make him rich.
Portland, at the time, was in a fren-
zy of preparation for the 1905 Lewis
and Clark Centennial Exposition. The
whole thing was scheduled to be held
in a sort of park-like patch of wet-
lands just north of the city on the west
strategically placed existing
trees. It is imperative that our
Tree City has large and beauti-
ful trees on Main Street as part
of the proposed $8 million plan.
This is not an add-on later. This
is a heritage and legacy we can
embrace preserving. I cannot
imagine Main Street without the
existing trees, and I would not
want to start all over again on
side of the river called Guild’s Lake
(“Guild” was pronounced to rhyme
with “Wild”). Mindful of the expense,
the city had merely leased the land for
a year, ignoring calls for the city to buy
it and make it a permanent park.
One of the most persistent voices
calling for Guild’s Lake to be made a
city park was Colonel L.L. Hawkins,
chair of the Portland Parks Board.
Hawkins, who lived just up the hill
from Guild Lake next to the newly
formed Macleay Park (now part of
Forest Park), even helped bring the Ol-
mstead Brothers into town from New
York to help the Parks Board make its
case. Although the city had opted for
the cheap lease, he still hoped the Lake
might eventually end up as parkland.
The Expo grounds were right next to
the busiest commercial part of the city,
full of railroads and factories. Had it
not been for the lake and surrounding
marshy wetlands, it would have been
not only in the path of progress, but on
its very doorstep.
Pence noticed a few very interesting
things about Guild’s Lake. First, it was
not very deep; it was basically a low
spot on an alluvial plain by the river.
Secondly, it was surrounded by some
remarkably extreme geography. The
the 30 years it took for them to
grow. I will not be here.
A plan without the incorpora-
tion of trees on Main, either new
and or existing, within the initial
planning process is simply not
acceptable.
Editor's Note: The Cottage
Grove City Council is sched-
uled to revisit and consider
adoption of the Main Street
Refi nement Plan at its Mon-
day, March 9 meeting, which
takes place at 7 p.m. at Coun-
cil Chambers, City Hall.
Elizabeth Chandra La Husen
Cottage Grove
surrounding hills towered over it, steep
and close at hand; yet they were made
mostly of soil and clay, not rock.
The other thing he noticed was that
despite Oregon’s thriving hard-rock
mining industry out east and down
south, nobody in this, its biggest city,
seemed to understand how water rights
worked. Every river and stream in the
city fl owed free and unclaimed. The
city hadn’t even bothered to claim water
rights on the Bull Run River, on which
its domestic water supply depended.
To Pence, this all added up to a
spectacular opportunity. The Exposi-
tion was about to catapult the town to
nationwide prominence. To make the
expo work, they would need water
by the acre-foot, piped in from some-
where, to keep the lake deep enough to
navigate on during the entire summer
and to power the expo’s many foun-
tains and water features. He could sup-
ply that demand, cementing connec-
tions with Portland’s commerce-happy
business elite; then, after the expo, with
their support, he could turn his massive
water rights to work sluicing down cu-
bic acres of those nearby hills, fi lling
the lake in so that the city’s business
district could expand.
With this plan in mind, Pence re-
turned back east and got to work hus-
tling the venture to investors. When he
returned, later that year, he was ready
for action.
The fi rst thing Pence did was fi le
water-rights claims on nearly every
river, creek and spring in Multnomah
County.
This came as rather a shock to most
Portlanders, who hadn’t realized that
one could simply do that. They likely
wouldn’t have minded, but for one ter-
rible public-relations blunder: he tried
to claim water rights on Bull Run.
Pence backed off this claim when he
realized how poorly it was playing with
the public — which still remembered
drinking from the Willamette and had
a strong sense of ownership in the Bull
Run water system. But the damage
was done — and it was severe. Most
of Portland now thought of him as the
guy who’d tried to use a legal techni-
cality to snake the city’s water supply
out from under it and ransom it back.
Meanwhile, Pence’s plans to be of
service to the Expo were proceeding
nicely. Using his water rights on Balch
Creek and other water sources uphill
from the grounds, he supplied all the
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A
Stroke prevention: Hold the frank, have the beans
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
S
troke is a leading cause of
disability and death in the
United States. About 795,000
people in the U.S. have a stroke
each year.
A
stroke
o c c u r s
when blood
fl ow to a
portion of
the brain is
interrupted,
preventing
oxygen and
nutrients from reaching brain
tissue. Most strokes, about 85
percent, are ischemic strokes,
in which blood fl ow to the brain
is blocked either by a clot or
atherosclerotic plaque. The re-
maining 15 percent of strokes
are hemorrhagic strokes, caused
by bleeding in the brain due to
the rupture of a blood vessel.
Elevated blood pressure is the
chief risk factor for both types
of stroke; however, other causal
factors differ between the two.
There have been countless
studies on dietary factors and
their relationship to ischemic
stroke risk; within the past few
years, new meta-analyses have
strengthened these dietary links.
In particular, higher fi ber intake
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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is associated with reduced risk,
and higher red and processed
meat intake is associated with
increased risk.
Fiber and fi ber-rich foods are
known to be benefi cial for colon
health and healthy blood glucose
regulation. However, for stroke
prevention, the blood pressure-
lowering effects of fi ber and fi -
ber-rich foods are thought to be
primarily responsible. Elevated
blood pressure is the primary
risk factor for stroke, and greater
intake of high-fi ber foods (like
beans) is consistently linked to
lower blood pressure. Foods that
are higher in fi ber tend to have
a lower glycemic load, which
limits the rise in insulin after
a meal; elevated insulin levels
contribute to elevated blood
pressure. Also, high-fi ber foods
are usually rich in phytochemi-
cals and minerals like potassium
and magnesium, which help to
keep blood pressure in a healthy
range. In addition to reducing
blood pressure, high fi ber foods
improve several factors relevant
to atherosclerotic plaque forma-
tion, such as cholesterol and tri-
glyceride levels.
A recently published meta-
analysis on fi ber intake and risk
of stroke analyzed data from six
prospective studies, including
over 300,000 subjects. In this
analysis, for every 10 gram in-
crease in daily fi ber intake, there
was a 12 percent reduction in
risk. A previous analysis of data
from 10 studies found that each
10 gram/day increase in fi ber
intake was associated with a 24
percent decrease in risk of death
from heart disease. Ten grams is
the approximate amount of fi ber
contained in 2/3 cup of beans
or lentils, two cups of cooked
collard greens, or 2 1/2 cups of
blueberries. The average daily
intake of fi ber in the U.S. is a
meager 16 grams, but a Nutritar-
ian diet, depending on one’s ca-
loric needs, provides about 60-
80 grams of fi ber daily. I want to
make it clear that it is the use of
high fi ber from whole foods that
enable this degree of protection
against stroke, not adding fi ber
to a standard American diet. It
is more than just the fi ber in
fi ber-rich foods that offers this
protection.
Red and processed meats are
calorie-dense, micronutrient-
poor, saturated fat rich foods.
Another major concern regard-
ing red and processed meats
when it comes to heart disease
and stroke is heme iron. The
human body absorbs heme
iron, the form of iron found in
animal foods, more readily than
nonheme iron from plant foods.
Iron is an essential mineral that
transports oxygen in the blood
and has many other crucial
functions, but can promote free
radical damage, called oxidative
stress when excess is present. As
a result, high body iron stores
are associated with increased
risk of chronic diseases that have
an oxidative stress component:
for example, diabetes, heart
disease, and dementia. When it
comes to increasing stroke risk,
heme iron promotes oxidation
of LDL cholesterol and elevates
blood pressure. Several previous
studies have found that higher
heme iron (or red and processed
meat) intake was associated
with higher blood pressure, and
higher nonheme iron intake (or
plant food intake) was associ-
ated with lower blood pressure.
Again, it is not merely the high
iron in meats, many other fac-
tors play a role including their
hormonally-induced
growth
promoting effects that promote
atherosclerosis.
Another recent meta-analysis
reported on fi ve studies of red
and processed meat and stroke
risk, and found substantial risk
increases in ischemic stroke
risk (the most common type of
stroke): for each 100 gram daily
increment of red meat eaten
daily, there was a 13 percent in-
crease in risk, and a 13 percent
increase in risk for every 50
grams daily of processed meat.
Processed meats are nutrient-
poor and high in heme iron like
red meat but have additional so-
dium, which is likely why the
authors found a steeper associa-
tion with stroke.
These studies add to the al-
ready huge body of evidence
showing that whole plant foods
are health-promoting, while red
and processed meats are disease-
causing. Between the excessive
amounts of protein and heme
iron, new fi ndings on detrimen-
tal effects of red meat com-
pounds Neu5GC28 and carni-
tine, and the volume of evidence
linking red and processed meats
to cancer and premature death,
there is no question — these are
dangerous foods. People who
still desire to eat meat should
think of it as a condiment, only
to be used a few times a week in
small amounts.
Dr. Fuhrman is a No. 1 New
York Times best-selling author
and a board certifi ed family
physician specializing in life-
style and nutritional medicine.
Visit his informative website at
DrFuhrman.com. Submit your
questions and comments about
this column directly to news-
questions@drfuhrman.com. The
full reference list for this article
can be found at DrFuhrman.
com.
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