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The INDEPENDENT, July 17, 2008
The
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by
The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064.
Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Mentor Noni Andersen
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Almost time for Jamboree!
Vernonia’s Friendship Jamboree will be here August
1, 2 and 3. If you've never been to a Jamboree, here’s
your chance to take in a small town America summer
festival. North Plains has the Elephant Garlic Festival,
Banks has a Barbeque and Truck/Tractor Pull (includ-
ing the amazing Combine Demolition Derby). In Scap-
poose, it’s a Sauerkraut Festival. In Vernonia it’s a full
blown Jamboree, which is defined as a noisy party.
This year’s Jamboree also allows Vernonia an op-
portunity to stop being that “flooded town” and get back
to being that friendly little town in the woods that we all
love.
Originally started as a town party to bring friends and
relatives back to Vernonia after the mill closed in 1957,
Jamboree has continued ever since in the same vein.
Even in a small town like Vernonia, you can see people
on the streets at Jamboree that you haven’t seen in a
year. At times, it’s troublesome to get down the street
because of all the groups of happy people meeting and
greeting each other. What a wonderful trouble to have.
Some events have been part of Jamboree since the
first Jamboree. There is still a Logging Show, still a
Horsegaming Show, still a parade. Other events come
and go with the years; sometimes there is a carnival
with rides, sometimes just games for the kids. Oh, an-
other constant is music; there is always a concert or
D.J. or Teen Dance or at least a small stage (some-
times at the Grange) set up for open mike. Somebody
is going to sell food that you can’t get in Vernonia most
of the time and lots of people will end up with stomach
aches from too much cotton candy (okay, one of us on
the editorial board of the paper will anyway).
Many people have watched The Axmen on the His-
tory Channel and seen loggers from Vernonia and the
surrounding area at work. But, long before The Axmen,
there was the Vernonia Logging Show at Jamboree. If
you’ve never seen a real, live Logging Show, take the
time to come to the grandstands in Hawkins Park from
noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 3 and watch as
real, live loggers show you their prowess with saws, or
on logs, or with axes. It’s really fun and the crowd real-
ly gets into it, with hoorays and groans.
Come enjoy the Vernonia Friendship Jamboree and
visit Vernonia: the Heart of Northwest Logging. Hope to
see you there!
Out of My Mind…
by Noni Andersen
I’m astounded, although I shouldn’t be, that
anyone thinks that lifting the offshore drilling ban
will reduce fuel prices.
Depending on the results of such drilling,it
may, or may not, increase oil supply, but there is
no shortage of oil. If oil companies really want to
increase the supply, which is questionable, they
would already be drilling on the thousands of off-
shore leases that they haven’t yet touched.
According to the U.S. Department of Interior
(DOI)’s office of Offshore Energy & Minerals
Management (OEMM), the Outer Continental
Shelf (OCS) areas of the U.S. contain “signifi-
cant quantities of resources in yet-to-be-discov-
ered fields.” The OEMM currently leases 43 mil-
lion acres which “generally” account for “about”
15 percent of America’s domestic natural gas
production and “about” 27 percent of the domes-
tic oil production.
The DOI’s required 5-year program specifies
the size, timing and location of areas to be as-
sessed for offshore natural gas and oil leasing.
The lease sales are held annually in the Central
and Western Gulf of Mexico with less frequent
sales in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and offshore
Alaska. The program operates along all the
coasts of the U.S., with production occurring on
the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific and Alaska OCS.
The OEMM must use imprecise words like
“generally” and “about” because a lease cannot
guarantee the existence of recoverable re-
sources, or whether they are cost-effective. Of
course, when the price is high, more areas be-
come cost-effective.
The offshore lands are not put out to lease
without geological studies indicating that there is
reason to think they contain adequate resources.
After acquiring a good lease, it takes at least five
years to complete permits, exploration and de-
velopment. After successful drilling, it takes
about 18 years before the product (gasoline,
diesel, home heating fuel, etc.) is available.
This is why offshore drilling won’t reduce
prices and can’t guarantee an increased domes-
tic supply.
The steep increase in petroleum prices result-
ed not from a supply shortage, but from unregu-
lated commodity futures markets. That sounds
complicated, but it’s more like high stakes gam-
bling. Traders in futures offer a guaranteed
amount per wholesale unit for future production
of a specified commodity, in this case crude oil.
Their gamble is that they will be able to pass it
on to the next market level for more than they
paid. Producers who accept the offer are gam-
bling that they will be able to produce the com-
modity for less than they’re being paid.
What has been feeding the gamble is the
knowledge that Americans don’t want to make
substantial changes in their use of petroleum
products, whether it’s our overuse of plastics or
our unwillingness to change our driving habits.
Deregulating the commodities markets was
the brainchild of former Congressman Phil
Gramm, close friend and economic advisor to
John McCain. But the key to reducing gas prices
is to reduce our use of petroleum products.