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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2012)
Page 2 The The INDEPENDENT, August 1, 2012 INDEPENDENT Published on the first and third Wednesdays of each month by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410. Deadline is noon the Friday before each issue. Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes Opinion Celebrate community by welcoming newcomers Many people look forward to community celebra- tions, like Vernonia’s Friendship Jamboree, with great anticipation. Others consider them a nuisance – too many people, too much noise, too much litter, etc. Regardless of whether your viewpoint is positive or negative, community celebrations will take place. So, why not just decide to enjoy them? We all know that the sidewalks will be crowded, es- pecially before, during and after the parade, when it seems like everybody in town must be on the streets. So we may as well relax and just go with the flow, af- ter all, it’s a day to celebrate with others. Those crowd- ed sidewalks often let you meet unexpectedly with old friends who decided to come to Jamboree, and some- times you may bump into total strangers. Smiles are in order regardless of the situation. There will be food, of course, offered by both ven- dors and cafés, so Jamboree is not the time to stick to a diet. Surely we can allow ourselves to enjoy some- thing we don’t eat regularly! That’s part of the celebra- tion, and that Pancake Breakfast is good! We can wander the downtown streets to see what other vendors have to offer, too – myriad items of wood, fabric, metal, paper, plastic and more, many of them handcrafted by the vendors. The events will keep us occupied, too. The skills of loggers and equestriennes can both amuse and amaze. The lawnmower races will elicit laughter, and there will be something going on all weekend. This year will be a little different because demolition of the old schools has started, which has caused the suspension of most of the events that have been held on the school grounds. Instead of decrying the disrup- tion, it’s easier to look forward to the grand opening of our new school on August 21st. Jamboree is a time to enjoy seeing old friends and making new friends. It’s a time to be with family and friends while sharing a meal, a cup of coffee or other beverages. If you choose adult beverages, stop before a good time becomes a trip to jail or a tragedy. Most of all, greet everyone with a welcoming smile. Smiling not only makes others feel good, it also feels good to the person who’s smiling. Ike Says… By Dale Webb, member Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League Despite what ap- pears to be a warm dry summer the local rivers still are flowing above average. Stream tem- peratures are still staying in the healthy range for salmonids and, if this holds true for the rest of the summer, this will be the third year in a row that there has not been a major fish killing water temperature event in our local streams. This surely will reflect well, espe- cially in Steelhead and Coho returns, in the next few years. As most of you know my viewpoints are fairly environmentally sensitive and I have taken stances in the past that many in this logging community may have found offensive. Over time though my viewpoints are tempered with the re- ality that we will never live in a perfect world and striving for that utopia is unrealistic and actually harmful in some ways. As many of you are aware, there is now a great debate going on in regards to transporting coal through the Northwest. This will be big busi- ness, will bring local jobs and raise taxes for our local government. What I’m seeing in the press though is an all-out assault upon the coal indus- try by locals who don’t want the coal traveling in their backyard and the environmental zealots who are simply against coal in the first place. What seems wrong, though, in these discus- sions is that the facts have not been laid out on the table. I’m not here to give you the facts, be- cause I’m just as uninformed as the rest of you, but I’m willing to listen to what the informed peo- ple have to say on this issue. What I’m seeing is the immediate closure of minds to any informa- tion and a jump onto the green bandwagon that seems so trendy lately. I see some legislators have jumped on the idea of conducting studies to see just what are going to be the impacts on the local communi- ties, hopefully this will bring some science to the table and not just emotions. A recent letter to the editor in the Longview Daily News brought up an interesting question and that question was, “If the current regulations and rules were in place back when the Longview industrial complexes were being built, would they exist today?” The answer is most likely no. This does make one pause and think is this really our goal? Without industry our country would be even worse off than it is today. This doesn’t mean we simply roll over and let the environment be totally abused, but we have to understand that there will always be some give and take. A case in point would be the building of our new school, in nobody’s stretch of the mind can this project be viewed as an environmental pos- itive; land that supported birds, deer, squirrels, frogs and numerous other wildlife and plant communities was stripped down to bare earth. Water run-off has most likely violated point source laws despite the best efforts to avoid it and, as we are currently seeing, new infrastruc Please see page 3
