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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
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