News
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
A3
Multiple interests represented at Forest Plan discussion
By George Plaven
EO Media Group
An overlow crowd of
about 100 people gathered
Wednesday evening at Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege in Pendleton — coming
from as far as Baker City, Jo-
seph and even Bend — look-
ing for answers to the same
basic question.
Who should be allowed to
do what, and where, on the
Blue Mountains national for-
ests?
Those decisions are ulti-
mately guided by the Blue
Mountains Forest Plan,
which is undergoing its irst
revision since 1990. It has
been a slow, laborious pro-
cess as the Forest Service
attempts to balance all man-
ner of public interests, from
access and recreation to log-
ging and conservation.
The stakes were laid out
during Wednesday’s dis-
cussion of the forest plan,
which was recorded and
aired Thursday on “Think
Out Loud” on Oregon Pub-
lic Broadcasting. Host Dave
Miller moderated a panel of
guests that included Malheur
National Forest Supervi-
sor Steve Beverlin; Darilyn
Parry Brown, executive di-
rector of the Hells Canyon
Preservation Council; King
Williams, a natural resourc-
es consultant based in John
Day; Eric Quaempts, natu-
ral resources director for the
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation;
and James Nash, a ly ishing
outitter and ifth-generation
rancher from Enterprise.
The Blue Mountains For-
est Plan comprises 4.9 million
acres of public lands on the
Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman
and Malheur national forests
in Eastern Oregon. Each for-
EO Media Group/E.J. Harris
EO Media Group/E.J. Harris
OPB producer Phoebe Flanigan holds a microphone for former Joseph mayor
Peggy Kite-Martin as she makes a statement about the Blue Mountains Forest
Plan during a taping of ‘Think Out Loud’ April 6 at BMCC in Pendleton.
est gets its own individual
plan, with the documents add-
ing up to thousands of pages
of desired conditions for the
landscape.
Beverlin described the
forests like a quilt, patched
together in various shades
of green, brown and black.
It’s up to the Forest Service
to make sure tree stands are
healthy, that access is main-
tained and habitat preserved.
The challenge, Beverlin said,
is striking an appropriate bal-
ance.
“I think some people be-
lieve that every acre can pro-
vide every use for everyone. It
can’t,” Beverlin said. “It’s go-
ing to take compromise from
everyone.”
Finding that compromise
has been an ongoing effort.
When the Forest Service re-
leased its draft Environmen-
tal Impact Statement for the
Forest Plan in 2014, the reac-
tion was “less than stellar,” as
Beverlin put it. That prompted
another round of public meet-
EO Media Group/E.J. Harris
The host of OPB’s
“Think Out Loud”
Dave Miller asks a
question about the
tribal perspective on the
Forest Plan.
ings in 2015, which has led to
two new alternatives that will
be included in the inal EIS
later this fall.
Former Joseph mayor Peg-
gy Kite-Martin spoke during
the show, saying that the for-
ests are part of Eastern Or-
egon’s culture. She said the
politics of the debate have left
forest users in a dificult situ-
ation as the pendulum swings
back and forth between indus-
try and conservation.
“Our culture is in dan-
ger of dying because people
can’t get out into the woods,”
Kite-Martin said.
Public access was a com-
mon concern among mem-
bers of the crowd, who vented
their frustrations over road
closures. However, envi-
ronmental issues were also
brought to the forefront by
Brown, who directs the Hells
Canyon Preservation Council.
She said the forests already
have too many roads, which
has caused heavy erosion in
wild habitat.
“I do believe there is a
place for ATV riding on our
public lands. I really do,”
Brown said. “They have to be
at the right place, at the right
time.”
Williams, who owns his
own consulting company, said
Steve Beverlin, supervisor of the Malheur National
Forest, gestures to the audience while answering
a question sitting on a panel of experts during
a taping of OPB’s “Think Out Loud” April 6 at
BMCC in Pendleton. The topic of the show was the
controversial Blue Mountains Forest Plan.
a lack of active management
— such as tree thinning and
cattle grazing — is causing a
whole other set of concerns,
leaving the forests to become
overstocked and prone to dis-
ease or ire. Meanwhile, the
region’s timber industry has
shriveled. Williams said the
forests grow about 800 mil-
lion board feet of wood every
year, of which 500 million
board feet is left to waste.
Beverlin said the two new
forest plan alternatives take
that feedback into account,
and will focus on increasing
both the pace and scale of res-
toration. That could help pro-
vide more logs to the mill, he
said, while lowering the risk
of destructive wildires.
Quaempts said the tribes
are working where they can
with the Forest Service on
restoration projects to protect
traditional First Foods. The
key, Quaempts said, is to be
mindful of what the forests
are capable of providing. He
believes the forests are big
enough to accommodate ev-
B REAKING N EWS A LERTS
myeaglenews.com/breakingnews
eryone’s interests.
Others, like Nash, were
less optimistic. Nash said he
is not happy with the current
state of the forests, and wor-
ries that even after a plan is
inalized, lawsuits will inev-
itably keep the whole thing
tangled up in court.
“There will be groups that
ile lawsuits that stop any
progress of using the forests,”
Nash said. “There are a lot of
people out there who don’t
think people should use the
woods.”
A majority of the crowd
raised their hands when asked
if they felt the Forest Service
just planned to do whatever
it wanted, regardless of the
outcome. Beverlin sharply
disagreed.
“I don’t believe that’s
true,” he said. “Otherwise,
why are we here listening
again?”
Full audio from the show
can be found at www.opb.org/
radio/programs/thinkoutloud/
segment/blue-mountains-for-
est-plan.
Michael B. DesJardin
Dentistry, PC
Preventive, Restorative & Endodontics
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A TTENTION G RANT C OUNTY V ETERANS :
Contributed photo
Grant Union science students, from left, Duane Stokes,
Elijah Humbird, Zack Dieter, Dante Valentine and Cauy
Weaver, work on a science experiment. A microgravity
experiment they designed was sent into space Friday
and has reached the International Space Station.
Local students’ experiment
reaches space station
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Five Grant
Union science students’ ex-
periment has reached the In-
ternational Space Station.
Sophomores Zack Diet-
er, Elijah Humbird, Duane
Stokes, Dante Valentine
and Cauy Weaver were
ninth-graders when they com-
peted in a fall of 2014 micro-
gravity experiment contest
that would send their project
on a space rocket into low
Earth orbit.
Their project and 24 oth-
er student experiments were
originally aboard the SpaceX
CRS-7 as part of the Student
Spacelight Experiments Pro-
gram (SSEP) Odyssey II, but
the craft exploded 2.5 min-
utes after launch June 28,
2015.
This time, the launch into
space was a success. The Stu-
dent Spacelight Experiments
Program projects on Mission
7 arrived safely Sunday after-
noon.
“Early this morning As-
tronauts Kopra and Peake
maneuvered the grappling
arm to reach out and capture
the Dragon — capture was
conirmed at 7:23 EDT,” an-
nounced Stacy Hamel, the ed-
ucation program manager of
the project.
The Grant Union team’s
entry focuses on how micro-
gravity might affect variation
of protein structures. The ex-
periment looks at the struc-
ture of a protein in E. coli, and
factors that could encourage
“misfolded proteins” — a
possible cause of slow-de-
veloping diseases such as
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and
Huntington’s diseases, among
others.
Science teacher Sonna
Smith had planned for the ive
students to conduct a dupli-
cate of the experiment in four
to ive weeks, at the same time
the astronauts would conduct
the experiment in space. A
wrinkle got in the way of their
plans when the astronauts
opened the experiment earlier
than instructed.
“The idea was to keep the
bacteria in stasis (until the
latter part of the trip), so the
protein they produced would
not degrade,” she said. “I am
hoping that some of the pro-
tein produced will survive.”
Did you know Grant County
Veterans Services Officer is available
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benefits you may be entitled to?
208 NW Canton
John Day
541-575-2725
mbddental@live.com
michaelbdesjardindmd.com
See your Grant County Veteran Services
Officer today for more information,
located at Grant County Court House.
Open: Mon, Wed, & Fri 10 am - 4 pm,
by appointment.
Call 541-575-1631
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