An Independent Newspaper for the Pacific Northwest AUGUST 1997 VOL. 3 No. 3 Dear Reader early all the problems we face in Cascadia boil down to population. NAs Alan Durning and Christopher Crowther point out in their new book, Misplaced Blame: The Real Roots of Population Growth, the Pacific Northwest is growing nearly twice the North American rate and almost 50 percent faster than the global population. The Northwest population reached 15 million EDITORIAL in mid-1997 and is swelling by another 1 million every 40 months. Starting this month, with our cover story on growth pressures in the scenic Columbia River Gorge, Cascadia Times Boom Times The UnbearableRightness ot Breen will publish an occasional series on, Can the Columbia River Gorge survive the Life on the fault line of environmentally growth, growth management strategies demand for development? and what it all means. As senior editor correct energy Kathie Durbin reports from the Columbia by Kathie Durbin Page 9 Gorge, local politics threaten this national by Kevin Bell Page 7 treasure. This is true everywhere, because growth and land-use decisions are in varyingdegrees made at the local THE USUAL STUFF level. We aren't saying that local commu• FIELD NOTES: Green groups clash over Sierra REALITY CHECK: 16 nities cannot do a good job protecting places such as the Gorge, Snoqualmie logging. EPA fines big Alaska mine. toxic waste POINT OF VIEW: The ASARCO juggernaut and Pass, Whidbey Island, Lake Tahoe or the on crops. Oregon slams nuclear weapons plan 3 Muir Woods, to name just a few places of its proposed Rock Creek Mine. natural beauty close to cities. It's just that GROUNDTRUTHING : In Nez Perce confronting a by Mary Crowe Mitchell 16 there are many others who also have a stake in the future of those places. painful history. by Kathie Durbin 3 MAIL: , 17 s you can see from our masthead, CAPITOL BUZZ: Clinton ready to change ESA: .. 5 BOOK REVIEW: Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. Cascadia Times is now well into its two Jon Krakauer books reviewed by Elizabeth · Athird year of publishing.In the last ESSAY: Confessions of a disenchanted water- few months, we've seen a spurt of new shed volunteer. by Lori Dante 14 Grossman: 18 readers subscribe. They come not just from all over the Northwest, but from CASCADIA RESOURCEGUIDE : 15 COVER ILLUSTRATION BY MELANI ELLIS around the country. CT subscribers hail from 42 states, three provinces and Guam. We think this reflects the strong national interest in the fate of our region. We'd like to thank each of you for sup• porting our paper, and encourage all of you to give us feedback about what we're doing, or what we should be doing. Our coordinates are listed in the box to the left. We would also like to thank several readers for their contributions to Cascadia Times: Robert Ede of Tracy, Calif.; Ann and Doug Christensen of Ketchum, Idaho; Donald Cardes of Falls Church, Va.; Nancy Russell of Portland; July Woods of Olympia; Stan Ellis of Marysville, Wash.; David Shelton of Seattle; D.W. Wiegand of Topsfield, Md.; and Clyde Doctor of Portland.

or stan;ped envelope will not be ret1,1rned. "cascadi~; Times encourages box. ~ascadia@de pririt letters in co Field [Rill;J-froCa--m scad------ia Green Groups Clash Over Sierra Logging by Patrick Mazza fire suppression and high-grading of Ever since the Forest Service in elsewhere. big trees, they say, that logging levels 1994 floated the Western Forest orthern California forest activist ver the past few years two can double and timbering can pay for Health Initiative calling for similar log• Felice Pace, himself a veteran of a key questions have steadily itself while restoring the forests to a ging plans, environmentalists have failed collaborative process, sees a sin• emerged from the thicket of more original condition resistant to cat• been raising alarms about what they ister design. "If I was a strategist look• O debates about public forest astrophic fires. see as a deceptive method for raising ing at the environmental community, I management. Should forest activists sit "If I thought this forest could sur• logging levels. But with QLG, some would see the weakness is in relation• down and negotiate with timber inter• vive without being cleaned up, I would national environmentalists see a ships between the grassroots and the ests in local stakeholder groups? What support zero cut," said Mike Jackson, a creepier nightmare coming true: local nationals. Our weakness is being role, if any, should logging have in fire Quincy environmental attorney who environmental support being used by exploited." prevention and forest health? A bill covering 2.5 million acres of national forest in Northern California, which the U.S. House passed 429-1 in July, brings those questions to center ring. The answers are likely to resound for years to come. The bill would mandate a management plan developed by a collaborative effort, known as the Quincy Library Group, for the Plumas, Lassen and part of the Tahoe national forests, located at the northernmost extent of the Sierras. The group, com• prised of local environmentalists, local officials and timber industry represen• tatives, began working together in 1992 in the mountain town of Quincy, locat• THICK AND THIN: The area of dense Sierra Nevada forest. left. could "easily be lost to wildfire." the U.S. Forest Service says. The area at ed among pine forests some 50 miles right. which has been thinned. is less susceptible to fire. the agency says. east of Chico, Calif. The plan, its proponents say, is a was one of QLG's original members. industry to develop a plan calling for The QLG bill passed so over• landscape-level experiment aimed at "After 150 years of pounding, this is increased levels of logging, which is whelmingly because it was supported reducing fire dangers by logging away not a normal ecosystem. We've got 50 then rammed through Congress over by Rep. George Miller. The California dense and unnatural undergrowth. Bo years worth of work to get back to a their objections, and all the while set• much biomass has accumulated from natural cycle." ting precedent for forest management FIELD NOTES CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 GROUND In Nez Perce Country. Confronting a Painful History TRUTH ING By Kathie Durbin

n July, while writers and aspiring writers from throughout the Pacific orthwest winter range for elk and home to black bear, mule deer, bighorn sheep and peregrine gathered near Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon for the annual writing work• falcon. Wild steelhead still spawn in Joseph Creek. The acquisition was made with I shop called Fishtrap, the Enterprise School Board voted unanimously co discontin• money dedicated to mitigation for fish and wildlife habitat lost to the four Lower ue the use of "Savages" as the mascot of Enterprise High School athletic teams. Snake River dams. It took the tribe two years of red tape and plenty of political net• When word of this development reached working with local governments, including Wallowa County, to pull it off. COMMENTARY the old Methodist camp dining hall where On July 18, the first day of the Nez Perce Friendship Feast & Pow Wow, a Fishtrappers convene, the place erupted in Wallowa County citizens' group announced that it had purchased 160 acres near applause. It was almost too symbolic: Enterprise and would donate it to the Wallowa The theme of this year's conference was Civic leaders call the gift of land a gesture of band of Nez Perce 160 acres near Enterprise. The "Circling Back." Many of the workshop land will become the site of a Nez Perce interpre• leaders and participants were Nez Perce. reconciliation and an invitation to the Nez Perce to tive center and a permanent campground and pow• The ez Perce people have embarked wow site. Civic leaders call the gift of land a ges• on the reclaiming of their traditional come home at last. They also admit that they hope ture of reconciliation and an invitation to the Nez lands. What's more remarkable, descen• the center will attract some of the tourists who pass Perce to come home atlast, They also admit that dants of the white settlers who displaced they hope the center will attract some of the the Nez Perce and drove them from through on their way to Wallowa Lake and the Eagle tourists who pass through on their way to Wallowa their homeland in the 19th century are Cap Wilderness. allowing the local economy to Lake and the Eagle Cap Wilderness, allowing the now welcoming them back. In such an local economy to capitalize on the burgeoning environment, there is no room for a team capitalize on the burgeoning interest in things interest in things Native American. called "Savages." Native American. And July 27, at a moving ceremony in a mead• Recent developments in Wallowa ow near Wallowa Lake, descendants of the County and elsewhere in Nez Perce country may signal the beginning of a time when Wallowa band of Nez Perce accepted the gift of an Appaloosa stallion from descen• ative and non- ative people start talking more honestly to each other about the era dants of Charles Erskine Scott Wood, an aide to U.S. Army General Howard during of cultural genocide that still stains the American West and its legacy. the 1877 Nez Perce war. The gift was offered to honor a bond forged during wartime p c On June 12, at a rain-soaked ceremony on the rim of Joseph Canyon 40 miles between Wood and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. ()Q c north of Enterprise, members and friends of the Nez Perce Tribe gathered to dedicate Most Northwesterners know the tragic story of Chief Joseph's band: In 1855, the ~ 10,300 acres the tribe has purchased from a local rancher with $2.5 million from the ez Perce signed a treaty with the U.S. government that guaranteed their right to Bonneville Power Administration. The new Chief Joseph Preserve, a country of steep- hunt, fish and gather food on their traditional lands in northeastern Oregon, southeast- sided canyons, deep draws and rushing screams, is c u ED p AGE 4 ..._~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_;__~~~~~~~~~~~~~~---'-ONT IN ON CONTINUEO FROM PAGE 3 Democrat and environmental stalwart holder groups such as QLG. Sierra after issue on which the timber indus• national forest to work social and eco• dropped his opposition after Rep. Don Club Chair Michael McCloskey told try has acquiesced - protection of all nomic transformation in this communi• Young (R-AK) and Rep. Helen Cascadia Times that QLG sets a bad roadless areas, stream protection, no ty." Chenowith (R-ID) readily conceded a precedent of excluding non-local cutting of trees over 30 inches in diam• The size of the project is the major provision that logging would abide by stakeholders. eter, watershed management elevated . objection cited by all of the QLG bill's all environmental laws. California "So we don't have national forests to equal importance with logging, no critics. The bill mandates 50-70,000 Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne anymore, but just forests run in local automatic salvage logging after fires. acres of logging each year for five Feinstein are carrying the QLG banner dictates," he said. "Big business has a The QLG plan limits the size of cuts years, after which the project will be on the Senate side. Environmentalists game-plan of pursuing this approach to to 2 acres at most, and takes 30 percent reviewed. It calls for doubling logging suspect a set-up for forthcoming QLG• get out of the clutches of the tough of the most sensitive of the 2.5 million levels on forests already producing type bills for Alaska and Idaho which federal agencies. A lot of people on the acres off the timber base, including more timber than any other national environment-friendly Democrats left have been taken in because it is a salmon habitat not yet protected by forest in California. could hardly oppose after supporting touchy-feely approach that plays to any recovery plan. The bill specifies all "I think that's good for the forest," this one in California. those with romantic notions about environmental rules, including those Jackson said. "This is a whole different "This disease is spreading localism and self------~ for recovery of the kind of logging. It took me a long time already," Native Forest Council control. They for- California spotted to come to that conclusion. I don't like Executive Director Tim Hermach said. get they're disern- owl, will be fol- the idea of saving the forest by logging "Rep. (Peter) Defazio (D-OR) is say• powering most of lowed. it." ing that he wants a similar bill for the the people who SCALl "All the But Pace says many of the con• Northwest; and the same thing is hap• have a stake in the ;a; 100 1,0 i&, national groups cepts in the QLG bill remain untested, pening in the Southwest. We are in issue." 11&.ES ask is, 'What did and that regional and national environ• trouble. Big trouble. This thing could To such ~ the environmen- mentalists offered support for a smaller make the Salvage Rider look like a charges Mike talists give?' test. He is concerned that thinning out Sunday picnic." Jackson laughs. "Jackson said. forests could, in fact, create more fire House Agriculture Chair Bob "We haven't seen "Since we can't dangers by encouraging brush growth. Smith, R-OR, a "forest health logging" the Sierra Club figure out that we At any rate, so-called fuel breaks will enthusiast, appeared to confirm such around here since gave anything, it have to be maintained on a regular fears when he announced he would the Mammoth makes it a little schedule, and the Forest Service does push for national logging reform based Lakes case of hard to do the not have the budget, he said. Pace, too, on the QLG regional planning 1974. I've filed list." is concerned about soil erosion and approach. Fearful of such prospects, most of the Freeman watershed impacts. around 20 national and regional envi• forestry lawsuits House, a founder "Felice knows more forest science ronmental groups rallied in opposition around here." of Northern than just about anyone in the environ• to the bill. "We've got to taint future This isn't to :~~~~1i~~~s~ovemslogging in the California's mental movement, which is why I efforts like this," said Western Ancient say the big groups Mattole hope to persuade him," Jackson said. Forest Campaign Executive Director weren't invited to Restoration "We want floodlights on this problem Steve Holmer. Quincy, he said. "What do you do Council, one of the oldest and most because we've seen something in the Common among QLG opponents when they won't come? We begged. respected community-based ecological science. The owl science and fire sci• were references to well-intentioned We pleaded. They wouldn't come restoration efforts, commented, "I ence both call for this prescription. Bambi consorting with ravenous when we told them our neighbors tend to see the national environmental Thinning is best for old-growth depen• Godzilla, and naive chickens inviting changed their minds. I don't think any• reaction coming from having devel• dent species and the big trees. We sharp, high-powered foxes into the one is interested in how our neighbors oped a power base and feeling threat• need to get at it on a landscape level. If coop. "I cannot help but see this as the changed." ened by these community groups. The it doesn't work we will prove you can't new international economy trying to Jackson paints a picture sharply at community groups are engaged in do ecological forestry and alter fire co-opt the forest movement," Pace odds with QLG's critics, in which envi• community survival in place. Their behavior through logging." Indeed, if said. "People are courting you who ronmentalists have won a fundamental goals, in spite of the strange bedfel• the bill passes the U.S. Senate and is used to attack you as a devil at the political victory. Timber interests, he lows, tend to be bioregional in nature. signed by President Clinton, as same time wise users are pounding on said, conceded to a plan originally It's only what we learn in these exper• expected, the direction to the Forest you." drafted by local environmentalists in iments that we're going to find out Service will be spelled out. Less clear National groups have for the last the late '80s. The plan was supported what we need to know and create a are whether the plan will reduce fire couple of years been casting an by some of the same national groups broad constituency for the bioregional dangers, and whether collaboratives increasingly skeptical eye on stake- that now attack it. Jackson cites issue agenda. The potential here is for this like the Quincy Library Group amount

Ground Truthing continued from page 3 em Washington and northern Idaho. But the two Nez Perce bands. Descendants of laughing with pleasure. For example, documentary filmmakers in 1863 a separate Nez Perce band based Chief Joseph's band are not federally rec• "The tribe is trying to recover its loss Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan plan to in Lapwai, Idaho, signed a new treaty that ognized as Nez Perce; that recognition is through the laws that exist on the books endow a scholarship fund from proceeds of rewrote the boundaries of the Nez Perce reserved for the Nez Perce Tribe in today," he told the Fishtrap gathering. By a documentary they are preparing on Chief ceded lands to exclude the Wallowa band's Lapwai. The Joseph Canyon country is the same token, he hopes the wounds Joseph. homeland. Joseph refused to recognize this Chief Joseph country (joseph is believed between whites and Indians can now begin Barbara Dills, a Portland writer who is new treaty, the Army tried to remove the to have been born in a cave along Joseph to heal. "Our tracks are all over this land," white, and who spent time living on n Wallowa band through force to make room Creek), yet it is the Lapwai Nez Perce who he said. "We know what has happened in Indian reservation, talked about the yearn• for white settlers, and the ensuing war cul• undertook the long effort necessary to buy the past. Many hearts still hurt. A lot of ing that makes some non-Indians covet minated in the dramatic flight of Chief the land. Though only enrolled members ancestors were killed. But when we gather Indian ways. "White people are feeling Joseph and his people toward Canada. of the Nez Perce Tribe will be allowed to and we are like one in this room, there loss, guilt, sadness. It makes us want to ....DO Joseph surrendered at Bear Paw, Montana, fish and hunt on the preserve, all Nez should never be any difference between buy an Indian design and wear it. There's ,=::& as his people starved and froze in the harsh Perce will be welcome to visit. us. The creator makes us all the same, nothing wrong with that, but find out winter. Horace Axtell, a Lapwai Nez Perce each a segment of his good work." where it came from, who made it. Did they c i:ii Wood, the diarist of the campaign, elder who presided over the dedication of The intense new interest by non• have a right to use that design? Ask that c u became an admirer of the Nez Perce chief the Chief Joseph Preserve, hopes the old Indians in Indian culture, art and languages question about film and music too. Our DO c after his surrender, and later sent his young resentments between the bands can be makes some Native people uncomfortable. tendency, when we feel our ignorance has u son to live with the exiled Joseph for sever• buried in the interest of cultural restora• They ask whether the dominant culture, been exposed, is to run away or hate the r-, o-, al months on the Colville Reservation in tion. Axtell is a teacher, a peacemaker and having stolen their land and their religion, messenger. Now I tend to welcome that o- Washington. Wood spent his later years a bridge-builder. At Fishtrap, he began now wants to steal their culture too. exposure. It means I'm learning." ~ lobbying the government to allow the building a bridge when he taught a work• Carla High Eagle, a member of the i?o return of Chief Joseph and his people to shop in the Nez Perce language. By week's Nez Perce Tribal Council, had some advice We all still have so much to learn. ~ their Wallowa homeland. end, several of his students were gamely for non-Indians who write about indige• There is healing to be done not only trying out words in the difficult tongue nous people: "If you want to tell our story, Kathie Durbin can be reached at 0 between whites and Indians but between while he sat back, smiling indulgently and always remember to give'something back." [email protected] Fi-eld Notes c a N r I N u E o Ca itoll:J~fH~------to clever schemes for co-opting grass• "When it comes to protecting air roots environmentalists, or represent a and water quality for fish, wildlife, and new community-based model meshing the traditional people of the region, Clinton Ready to Change ESA ecology and economy. Over coming Cominco's Red Dog Mine has been years, the results on the ground around anything but a story of responsible merica's grand experiment of Quincy are likely to provide some development of America's Arctic," says saving species by preserving nec• he Bonneville Power answers. Sylvia Ward of the Northern Alaska Aessary habitat soon may end. Administration is looking for a Environmental Center in Fairbanks. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says new CEO at a time when it is Patrick Mazza writes from Portland. "Yet, all the while this pollution was T the administration wants to change the under fire as never before. The occurring, politicians and public rela• act to make sure the economic interests Oregonian, long a BPA booster, declared tions specialists touted Red Dog as an of private property owners are taken the BPA's salmon program a failure in a EPA Fines Big example of 'doing it right.' Ir hurts to into account before a species is listed. July 24 article, pegging the cost of know how much pollution was spilled A pillar of the new ESA will be bind• salmon recovery since 1980 at $3 bil• Alaskan Zinc and how long we've been lied to." ing, nearly unalterable multi-decade lion. This figure is not new: the BPA's Since 1993, Cominco has attempt• agreements own number ed to change environmental laws in between govern• crunchers have Mine for Massive Alaska to legalize its discharges. ment and Most of the $3 billion is money been spreading "They've been trying to find ways to landowners. the BPA says it would have numbers like it Clean Water Act be able to continue discharging waste• As Babbitt around for years. water without being illegal," says told the National earned if the salmon did not Most of the $3 Gershon Cohen of the Alaska Clean Violations Press Club on July exist. Here's news for the BPA: billion is money Water Alliance. "They underestimated 17, "no one had the BPA says it For years, the world's largest zinc precipitation, and so ended up filling really tried to the salmon do exist. It's like com- would have their dam which was supposed to last mine, located near Kotzebue in make the Act plaining that your house would be earned if the Northwest Alaska, was touted by 30 years in four years. They've been work" before salmon did not politicians and the mining industry as a working under emergency authoriza• Clinton arrived in worth a lot more money if you exist. Here's shining example of an environmentally tion allowing them to discharge waste• Washington. The didn't have any neighbors. and news for the responsible operation. So how did Red water above and beyond their permit." Clinton adminis• BPA: the salmon Dog Mine end up with a hefty EPA He said Cominco is now trying to tration tried to you owned all of their land. do exist. It's like fine for nearly 8,000 violations of the persuade the Alaska Department of make the Act complaining that Clean Water Act after just four years of Environmental Conservation to work, but failed. your house would operation? And what does the prosecu• remove fisheries and drinking water Now the administration wants to be worth a lot more money if you did• tion of operator Cominco Alaska Inc. protection so the mine won't have such change this strong, but politically dis• n't have any neighbors, and you owned say about mining industry promises of stringent standards to meet. The com• concerting environmental law. all of their land. reform? pany argues that the water is used for Or should we say weaken? Babbitt The Oregonian did, however, praise "The message here is that compa• these purposes only part of the year, by says no. What Babbitt proposes to do is Hardy's management of BPA. This too nies must abide by their waste dis• subsistence fishers and hunters. create what amounts to a diversion pro• was curious, given the fact that BPA charge permits or they will pay a big "Does this mean that people who gram for distressed species. Before any lost nearly $60 million during the 12 price," said Lois Schiffer, Assistant only use water parts of the year are not species is listed, it will be diverted into months ending March 31... Attorney General in charge of the protected under the Clean water act?" programs under the supervision of If there ever are any dams Justice Department's Environment Cohen asks. "They are doing every• "candidate conservation agreements" removed in the Northwest, the first and Natural Resources Division. thing they can to get around the law, devised by private landowners and step in the process may well have to be In July, Cominco agreed to pay a modify the laws, changing the applica• local government. the removal of Sen. Slade Gorton, R• $1. 7 million civil penalty and spend tion of the laws. We are potentially "Success, to me, isn't listing WA, from office. Gorton is blocking more than $3 million on three environ• heading for a major conflict in areas species," Babbitt said. "It's saving funding for the popular idea of taking mental protection projects to settle a where subsistence harvesting is getting species, and we are saving more species down two dams on the Elwha River on lawsuit brought by the Justice to be considered an occasional use that with candidate conservation agree• the Olympic Peninsula, though he vot• Department. The violations occurred is not protected under the Clean Water ments." If these agreements fail - and ed for it in 1992. at Red Dog Mine and the mine's Act." despite what Babbitt says, it's too soon It's not that he opposes park Chukchi Sea port over a four-year peri• to say they have or haven't - then full spending in general - the budget he od ending in 1993. The EPA said the fledged federal protection in theory wrote contains more than $850 million most serious violations occurred when Oregon Opposes would kick in. This approach assumes for purchases next year of parkland the mine dumped heavy metals into that whoever is president will have the around the country, up from $55 mil• Red Dog Creek. The EPA fined the Plan to Bum backbone to take strong action - an lion this year. The Elwha Dam removal company $75,000 for similar violations odd assumption, given as Babbitt says project would help bring salmon back in 1990. no president has ever really done so. to the Olympic National Park, but The mine, located about 90 miles Plutonium Babbitt specifically praised legisla• Gorton no longer seems to care. "The northwest of Kotzebue, produces more tion introduced by Republican senators Elwha project makes a good editorial in Last month in Portland, more than than 5 percent of the world's zinc sup• Dirk Kempthorne, R-ID, and John the paper, but that's about it, because it 70 people turned out to voice opposi• ply. The NANA Regional Corp. owns Chafee, John Chafee, R-RI. doesn't seem that people really want to tion against a U.S. Department of the site and leases it to Cominco. Kempthorne's bill emphasizes protect• pay the price to tear those dams Energy plan to process weapons pluto• NANA's native shareholders fill more ing landowner rights in the same breath down," Gorton told the Seattle Times ... nium at the Hanford nuclear site in than half of the mine's 430 jobs. as protecting species. Washington state. Villagers at Kivalina, 50 miles down• Meanwhile, Rep. George Miller, he biggest question in Citizens and legislators warned of stream, draw their drinking water from D-CA has introduced the Endangered California politics is ... Will hazards, potential exposures and acci• the Wulik River, which is fed by three Species Recovery Act, which would put Dianne Feinstein, former may• dents associated with handling plutoni• T rivers, including Red Dog Creek. a halt to the administration's policy of or of San Francisco and current U.S. um - frequently referred to as the Cominco, based in Vancouver, B.C, guaranteeing "no surprises" to senator from California, run for gover• deadliest substance on earth. They also says the majority of the alleged viola• landowners who sign conservation nor next year? ... forewarned that resistance would tions were "administrative procedural agreements. These clauses forbid fed• Could there be corruption at the strengthen if the DOE were to proceed issues" and that the remaining viola• eral agencies from changing the agree• Hanford Nuclear Reservation? A U.S. with its proposal to make plutonium tions "related to technical start-up ments without, as Babbitt says, paying Senate committee is asking whether mixed oxide (MOx) fuel at Hanford for challenges that resulted in permit off the the property owner ... Fluor Daniel, the parent company of nuclear reactors. exceedances and four spills. Third par• the firm that holds a $5 billion contract In June, the Oregon legislature ty analyses confirmed no long-term he Western Ancient Forest to clean up Hanford, gave $100,000 to nearly unanimously passed a bill environment impact resulted from Campaign says the Senate the Democratic National Committee to explicitly objecting to the use of )> these events." Interior Appropriations bill influence its selection as the new c Hanford for MOx processes. The bill T OQ But critics say the violations reflect would undermine a ban on the export Hanford contractor. Fluor Daniel con• c set a national precedent, taking a posi• ;:'.). the need for better monitoring of oper• of logs from federal lands. WAFC says tributed the money just a few weeks tion on U.S. policy concerning prolifer• ations located far from mainstream civ• lifting the export ban would lead to last summer before it was awarded the ation risks associated with employing ilization, in areas where subsistence increased pressure to log national contract. lifestyles are at risk. FIELD NOTES CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 forests ... weapons plutonium in nuclear reactors. "The Energy Department has no busi• groups. In a June 10, 1997, letter to ances ring hollow. "It was 1991 when I The bill requests that "the government ness considering MOx, by far the most EPA Administrator Carol Browner. sev• reported the dumping to them," he continue its previous policy of banning waste-producing means of plutonium en lobbyists for metal, recycling and told Cascadia Times. "I started ques• the use of plutonium to fuel commer• disposition, when these findings are manufacturing interests pleaded for no tioning the state about this in 1992. cial power plants and nuclear facili• evidence that the existing wastes are change in EPA's interpretation of the The state basically went into denial. ties." clearly not under control." law. The groups included the American We got very little help from the state of "This is one of the few things Three alliances of nuclear industry Galvanizers Counsel, the Fertilizer Washington. As we dug into it we start• (bills) we had overwhelming agree• heavyweights are competing for the Institute, the Copper Development ed to find more about waste in fertilizer, ment on," said Oregon State Senator contract for plutonium disposition. Association, the Institute of Scrap that this wasn't fantasy. It was reality." Frank Shields at the July 22 hearing Greg Kafoury, a Portland attorney and Recycling Industries, the Copper & With all the attention on the prob• held by the state of Oregon and the long-time activist, recalled for chose at Brass Fabricators Counsel, the Steel lems at Quincy, there is renewed hope public interest group Hanford Action of the hearing the poor safety records of Manufacturers Association and the that the state will also focus on other Oregon. "We at least reflected the sen• this industry. "The people who got us Brass & Bronze Ingot Manufacturers. environmental impacts of fertilizer use timents of the people in this one case, into this terrible trouble are the ones The groups take the position that in the Columbia River Basin. Some 300 that we really are unalterably opposed who are suggesting they will lead us the public benefits from the loophole. public drinking water supplies affect• to this kind of craziness." out of it." Zinc oxide, for example, is one haz• ing at least 16,000 people have been One individual suggested citizen ardous waste that otherwise makes a contaminated by nitrates from fertiliz• civil disobedience as a means of high grade fertilizer product. The loop• ers in the potato-growing region of protesting MOx, to which Shields hole was created after they persuaded Eastern Washington. State of responded, "If in fact the legislature is Toxic Dumping EPA to agree that tests done during the Washington health officials have unalterably opposed to the use of 1980s showed that concentrations of uncovered seven possible cases of Hanford in this way, then maybe WE heavy metals in fertilizers were so low "blue baby syndrome," a potentially (the Oregon legislators) ought to be on Crops• they were relatively benign, says EPA fatal condition in infants who consume involved in that civil disobedience." spokesman Bob Jacobson. high levels of nitrates in infant formula. The city of Portland too, with the Does it Hreak "In looking at lead, they found that The problem is most acute in areas largest population downriver from the fertilizers made from waste and virgin where nitrogenous fertilizer is applied Hanford nuclear site, is working on a the Law? materials had virtually the same con• most heavily, resolution sponsored by Commissioner tent of lead; in Charlie Hales objecting to any propos• by Paul Koberstein some cases the ~------~---~-~------'----~ als that would process plutonium for virgin materials reactor use at Hanford. Last month, the Seattle Times had more," The Energy Department has not revealed that industrial wastes are end• Jacobson said. responded to the Oregon concerns so ing up in fertilizers used for growing "It's a concern far. DOE's Notice of Intent shows food in Eastern Washington. Some to EPA that Hanford as a prime candidate site for crops in the Quincy area near Grand there's a possi• the MOx processes. Other MOx sites Coulee Dam were badly contaminated bility of haz• considered are INEL in Idaho,' and died, evidently from elevated lev• ardous ingredi• Savannah River in South Carolina, and els of lead, cadmium or other elements ents, regardless Pantex in Texas. The Department has that had been industrial waste. In at of whether they reported strong support from the Tri• least two instances, farmers couldn't come from Cities near the Hanford site for the pro• keep up with mortgage payments waste material posed operations. because of crop losses and, consequent• or virgin materi• Moreover, the DOE declined ly, the same fertilizer company that als." requests by the state of Oregon for a delivered the bad fertilizer foreclosed Recent public scoping hearing in Oregon on on their property. state of the plutonium disposition proposals Perhaps most stunning of all, as the Washington under consideration, prompting the Times reported, is that this was perfect• testing of fertil• state to hold its own. The only official ly legal under state and federal envi• izer readily hearing on the subject was held in the ronmental laws. In 1985, the available 111 Northwest on July 1 in the Tri-Cities Environmental Protection Agency cre• Quincy area '----= ...... near Hanford. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, ated a loophole in the nation's haz• stores show that The Seattle Times says dumping hazardous wastes said the citizens of Oregon had good ardous waste law - the Resource lead, chromium, into fertilizers for use on crops is perfectly legal. if reason to demand a hearing before the Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 copper, cadmi- not sensible. But some legal experts wonder how DOE. "Any processing of radioactive - that allowed mixing fertilizer and um, mercury that can be. materials at the Hanford Nuclear hazardous industrial waste. and other heavy Reservation creates a risk of harm both But some lawyers think the loop• metals occur at elevated levels. "We William Bean, executive director of to the environment and to citizens of hole went too far. Charlie Tebbutt, an did tests of 35 different fertilizers," the Portland-based Columbia Basin Oregon," Wyden said in a letter to attorney with the Western said Ron Langley, a Washington Institute, says the larger problem is not Pena. "At a minimum public hearings Environmental Law Clinic in Eugene, Department of Ecology spokesman. just lack of EPA enforcement, but should be held in Oregon before the says RCRA requires EPA to protect the "Six of those included industrial by industry dominance of all public envi• Department initiates a new mission public from harm posed by all danger• products." ronmental agencies. "EPA runs away such as plutonium pit disassembly or ous wastes. If the mixing of hazardous The state is not yet certain what from the problem, hands it to the mixed oxide fuel fabrication." waste in fertilizer hurt crops, not to the results mean. "We are in the states, the states sets up a committee Hanford's notorious reputation for poor mention humans, the practice may be process of analyzing those numbers," that is dominated by the industry. nuclear waste management and wide• illegal. Tebbutt and other lawyers are Langley said. "We've had toxicologists Everybody passes the ball down. What spread contamination left over from looking for possible lawsuits to force with the Department of Health look at I am saying is that at the local level, cit• bomb production era fosters a hostile EPA to stop the dumping of toxic this. What they're saying is we don't izens are not going to enjoy the attitude region-wide toward new highly wastes into fertilizer, or to punish com• see anything at this point that leads us enforcement of law. In Quincy, the ~ waste-producing activities such as the panies that are potentially responsible to believe there's an imminent threat to Washington department of Agriculture :E proposed MOx processes .. for damage to crops or health . the food supply. and Ecology were essentially brushing .:: Two recent, unexpected incidents c "Clearly there is harm being "That's not good enough. We want the people off. They discovered the i5 at the site heighten concerns about caused here," Tebbutt said. "That to have more information and better agencies are working for the industry." ~ gross lapses in management of the harm must stop. Changing the rules is analysis. And better monitoring of this Bean is organizing a network of :! Hanford wastes: last spring's explosion one way to do that. The statute pro• industry and this process. We don't local government officials to help them U of stored wastes at Hanford's vides the opportunity to change the want a perception developing that food address agricultural pollution in the ~ Plutonium Finishing Plant, and the rules. Now it is up to the EPA to pro• crops in Washington state or indeed the Columbia Basin. o-. unanticipated new findings that tect the environment." whole nation that they are unsafe. It is ~ radioactive cesium has migrated from The EPA had begun reviewing the a legitimate issue. It is something we ~ leaking underground storage tanks to loophole allowing waste in fertilizer need to take a closer look at." <( groundwater. before the Seattle Times published its For Dennis DeYoung, one of two Said Chuck Johnson of the watch• series, and already had been receiving Quincy area farmers who lost tainted C!) dog group Hanford Action of Oregon, plenty of resistance from industry land to foreclosure, the state's assur- Report THE UNBEARABLE RIGHTNESS OF GREEN Life on the Fault Line of Environmentally Correct Energy

Copyright 1997 by Kevin Bell development and use of renewable energy?" lectric energy production is About five years ago, former one of the least sustainable, Maine public utility commissioner and E most environmentally part-time pig farmer David Moskovitz destructive industries on the planet. started quietly circulating the idea of Your nearest electrical socket is on selling clean energy directly co some of the tail end of the single biggest rea• those customers as an alternative co son why we've got salmon puree on legal and regulatory mandates. With the Columbia River, rainfall as acid as the effective disappearance of regula• vinegar in the Northeastern U.S., and tion in the new restructured electric a relentless march underway to a world, many environmental advocates warmer and probably much less are now promoting green marketing as pleasant planet in our children's life• the best way to surf the restructuring times. wave. It's a problem that lots of people There is a bizarre twist here, of would love co fix. For twenty years, course. A generation ago, nobody an alphabet soup of utilities, environ• asked utility customers if they wanted mental groups and government agen• to pay lots more money to build cies all over the United States have nuclear power plants that never really advocated, legislated, mandated, worked. Yet this is exactly what con• funded, piloted, committed to and sumers are being asked to do today: met in countless windowless hotel make explicit customer commitments rooms on behalf of a new, sustainable to personally help save the planet - electric energy infrastructure, based and pay a premium price for the privi• on efficient use of low-impact renew• lege. Welcome to the wonderful world able energy. of green energy, where nothing is quite The Pacific Northwest has a as it seems. richly undeserved reputation as one Bringing the power of the market of the leading edge regions in the to bear on doing the right thing isn't a nation in the clean energy revolution. bad idea. But looking green seems For all of our good intentions, there more important than being green is not a single commercial non• these days. hydro renewable energy project Starting in 1998, consumers in operating or under construction in California will be able to buy electric• the Pacific Northwest today The ity from anybody they choose. By the net effect of two decades of bold turn of the century, retail consumer vision and earnest commitment has choice for electricity will be a fact of life been ... nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. everywhere in the U.S. It's not clear how Clean energy is a victim of eco• most electric consumers benefit from nomics and politics. Even as renew• that choice, but it really doesn't matter. able energy prices were plummeting, The new gold rush is on, and marketers first below the cost of nuclear power, everywhere are honing their pitch for then below the cost of new coal opening day. Some of the more savvy plants, a coincidental collapse in nat• environmental groups in California ural gas prices created a boom in gas• and elsewhere are already mak• fired power plants that is driving elec• ing their move. The recently tric energy markets today. There have announced Environmental been numerous attempts over the Resource Trust for green energy is years co build even minimal amounts only the beginning. n of renewable resources into a long• :a,, range energy portfolio, to prepare for f you don't happen co live in the ~ the inevitable end of the gas boom and whole Pacific Northwest, it seems like a c,::11o respond co rising concern about global sorry mess, electric customers have con• I perfect match. The Bonneville ;: climate change. In some other parts of sistently, repeatedly and overwhelmingly for the development and use of renew• Power Administration, recently certified -4 the country, those efforts have been expressed a strong preference for clean by Natural Resources Defense Council i able energy continues a trend of some 18 ffl modestly successful. But now, even energy sources, and large numbers of years duration - one of the strongest as the greenest utility in America, and oo those promising beginnings are being those customers have explicitly said they patterns and longest-lasting trends front-line green group Environmental )> obliterated by the firestorm of electric were willing to pay a premium to get observed in the entire data set on public Defense Fund (EDF), together at last in ~ industry restructuring, a process with them. As a recent US National preferences on energy and environmen• this new venture to sell politically correct §. several possible good outcomes for con• Renewable Energy Laboratory compila• tal policy. But the question remains: Will energy in the shining new era of cus- :::0 sumers and the environment, and many tion of hundreds of consumer energy produces and services be created that will comer choice._ Now, you can have elec- ~ possible bad ones. preference polls puts it: satisfy the public preference for the The irony is chat throughout this "This pattern of public preference CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 -o Special Report c o NT I N u E o

improvement projects. Willey might want co reread EDF's "Demonstrate that the free market own press material. In an article pub• can improve the environment while lished on the EDF web site improving your company's profitability. (http://www.edf.org), the group lists large• "ERT meets its customer's needs scale hydropower among the worst energy with environmentally beneficial power resources, right down there with nuclear, sold by the Bonneville Power coal, natural gas and oil. Here is what Administration (BPA).. .. " EDF has to say: Hmmm. Many Northwest residents "Although hydropower does not pro• would beg to differ with the characteriza• duce any air emissions, dams - especial• tion of BPA, operator of the world's largest ly large ones - cause serious environ• salmon blender, as mental problems. an environmentally Beyond the worthy goals that The reservoir sensinve utility. behind a dam often And actually, as it Environmental Defense Fund requires flooding turns out, the ener• articulates, and the good many square miles, gy that ERT is destroying entire buying from BPA is feelings generated by ecosystems. Dams nonfirm, surplus countless well-intentioned block the natural power from normal electric customers, not one of flow of water and river operations. degrade water qual• Nothing has the glowing claims about the ity causing changed except BPA/EDF deal is true. Yet eutrophication the name. What's behind the dams, as more, BPA is on electric consumers are being well as decreasing the verge of finan• urged to pay premium prices oxygen content in cial oblivion, the the rivet below the victim of a spectac• to do the right thing. dam - both of ularly failed which are damaging attempt to convert the region to nuclear to vegetation and wildlife populations. power in the 1970's. They aren't scroung• Dams interfere with fish migration and ing for that money so that they can do flow, both upstream and downstream, dri• some fancy new environmental improve• ving many species of fish to extinction." ment project. Instead, they will be trying Such is certainly the case on the to plug their annual operating deficit, Columbia, where dams have pushed which last year reached nearly $60 million salmon to a bare sliver from extinction despite the best hydro conditions in a and, recovery programs have been a total decade. BPA needs every dime it can find failure, as the BPA now admits - just to survive. although taking responsibility is beyond EDF's plan to give their profits to this agency. "We're not going to hide the environmental groups is very pleasant, fact that it hasn't worked," as BPA and the allure of using green profits to spokesman Perry Gruber recently told fund advocacy efforts seems to hold many The Oregonian. "But the responsibility for public interest groups spellbound in an what happened to the fish has to be laid era of diminished funding expectations. elsewhere." But the primary purpose of this deal, and What's needed now, say top-level sci• the sole reason why consumers are pony• entists appointed by the Northwest ing up money for power from ERT, is to Power Planning Council to study the make more clean energy, not build a bet• problem, is a course dramatically different ter cash cow for environmentalists. that the one steered by BPA. They say it Here's the brutal reality: there is no is necessary to remove up to four Snake net environmental benefit from the ERT River dams and deeply draw down the deal. Not a single salmon will be saved. reservoir behind massive John Day Dam Not a single new watt of renewable ener• on the Columbia. Until a scientifically gy, hydro or otherwise, can be identified. credible plan is implemented on the Noc a single new environmental initiative Columbia, it's hard to see how any BPA will be directly funded. The market value power could conceivably be construed as of this power on energy spot markets is "green." trivial, the price consumers will be asked In the case of BPA, this may be the to pay is substantial. In fact, beyond the ultimate irony. It is not hard to construct a worthy goals that Environmental scenario where BPA pulls out of its finan• Defense Fund articulates in their cial nosedive simply by insisting that the brochure, and the good feelings generat• regional utilities and aluminum smelters ed by countless well-intentioned electric that stuck BPA with three-quarters of a merry and save the planet at the same and state agencies to protect and restore customers, not one of the glowing claims billion dollars a year in dead and dying time. If you're an electric utility customer fish, wildlife and other natural resources about the BPNEDF deal is true. Yet elec- nuclear plants actually pay for them, ~ in California, the Environmental "Clean power can help reduce your cric consumers are being urged to pay pre- instead of sliding out the back door and :i Resource Trust (ERT) looks like a great costs while improving the environment to mium prices to do the right thing. leaving U.S. taxpayers holding the bag. It i,:: deal. Let's listen in as our intrepid small provide a healthy future for our children. One of the truly strange parts of this is easy to imagine BPA being able make c business customer opens their new (recy• Depending on your current situation, deal is that EDF and BPA appear to actu- as much or more money than it makes ! cled paper content) ERT brochure, tar• purchasing clean power from ERT may ally believe their own story. "ERT is in a now, if it was willing to run the Columbia ~ geted at someone who pays twice as cost you less than what you currently pay position to offer energy buyers several for fish as well as power, becoming a tru• i; much for his or her electricity as a typical for electric. Purchasing clean power can unique environmental benefits from the ly green utility in an energy market where r-, Northwest resident: help to improve your operation's public power sources to be delivered under this clean energy goes for a premium price. ~ "One of ERT's goals is to help create image, build customer loyalty, and pene- agreement," says Zack Willey, ERT But in the shadow play of today's BPA, a market for clean electric power by act• trate new markets. Pacific Region director and a senior econ- creative vision is in short supply. Form is ~ ing as a power broker between prospec• "By buying clean power from ERT omist with EDE "We want to demon- much more useful than substance, espe• gJJ tive buyers and producers of clean power. your company will: strate that market-based incentives can cially when you can get more money just <( ERT reinvests revenues from its clean "Actively help to restore threatened be used to provide environmental by changing the label. power sales in on-the-ground environ- and endangered salmon in the Pacific improvements in conjunction with eco- G) mental improvement projects. This is in Northwest; nomic benefits." Kevin Bell writes from Seattle. - - addition to 91,on~Y, fl.ViJ.il~~Je fr9gi..f q~raj ... ·i~~~~;~~J_R finance, .Q~W~~"~, i.i:Qn~e-otal,t_.• ... * ... • ,.,..~ :-~) ,:•;•,.•;•:•:•:•:•'•'•' ::~:• ~·!~;•;•.•;•;•;•,.+:•o•••••'••••";.;,;•;•:•••:•~•;.:+:+••:•:•;•.•!t~•=•:•~ :•.~•:•:•!•:•:"'.-•~• • ...... 4. -·· ... •~ ••, ~ • • • ·.,.( •• ~,"" I I It I t •\I' 1 I' I I I I l I I I t I• + Cover Story Can the Columbia River Gorge survive the demand for development?

By Kathie Durbin

or a trip down the road not taken in the Columbia Gorge, turn off Washington's river-hugging F Highway 14 to Skamania Landing. In the 1970s, th is 98-lot waterfront subdivision near the Washington hamlet of Skamania offered a preview of what developers had in mind for all available private land in the Gorge. A piece of suburbia transplanted to fragile wet• lands along the Columbia River's Washington shore, Skamania Landing offers no nature paths, no viewing areas, no public river access. Where herons once stalked the muddy riverbank, tract houses now sit practically on top of each other along a loop road that paral• lels Highway 14. In the land rush of the early 1980s, following completion of the Interstate 205 bridge that linked undeveloped lands east of Vancouver, Wash., with Portland's suburbs, several more Skamania County subdivisions were on the drawing boards. Among them: Hidden Harbor, an 83-lot development on 78 acres two miles west of Beacon Rock, the preeminent landmark on the Washington side of the Gorge; Columbia Gorge Riverfront Estates, a 60-acre subdivision visible from Multnomah Falls, Oregon's most-visited natural attraction; and Rim View Estates on cliffs across from Crown Point, arguably the most spectacular viewpoint in the Gorge. )> At the time, there were few brakes c ()'Q on the runaway development that c threatened to turn the Washington side ~ of the gorge into a sprawling corridor of ::g trailer parks, trophy houses and fast- '-l CO N·HN·U E·D - O·N·· PAGE· 1 0 · , ·· ·· ..0 Cover Story c o N 11 N u E o

food franchises. Skamania County had towns and cities. It was to emphasize Gorge Act withstood 63 separate legal Oregon and Washington, some of the But Aunan and ocher critics say the no county-wide zoning ordinance, and protection of the most scenic areas, challenges. Protection of the Gorge money that would have gone to the commission, in an effort co gee along the concept of "growth management" treading more lightly in other rural seemed assured. commission will go instead co the coun• with rebellious local officials, seems co was foreign to the Washington elec• areas. And, in a compromise that satis• But today, more than a decade after ties, which with one exception are have lost its momentum, if not its torate. "No law -local, state or federal fied timber lobbyists but still rankles chis experiment in federal land use responsible for implementing the gorge nerve. - protects the Gorge from uglifica• many Gorge defenders, it was to impose planning began, the specter of inappro• management plan - essentially a giant tion," warned an editorial in the minimal restrictions on logging. priate development has resurfaced. · zoning ordinance. If that happens, the teve McCarthy is a Portland baby Vancouver, Wash., Columbian. in With the ace came the promise of Growth pressures are intensifying on commission is counting on a special boomer with a Renaissance-man October 1983. "Only congressional federal money: $10 million in economic private lands in Washington and to a $250,000 appropriation from U.S. S resume: He has a law degree from recognition of the Gorge and its need development funds, to be divided lesser extent in Oregon, where most of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to New York University and once worked for ,,p rotection can prevent the inevitable keep it afloat for the next two years so for New York Mayor John Lindsay. He's it can avert staff layoffs. past chairman of 1000 Friends of Congress did acc. In 1986, after 70 Today. more than a decade after this experiment in This year's draconian budget-slash• Oregon, the state's land use watchdog, years of sporadic talk about the need for ing exercise is just che beginning, warns and past director of the Ralph Nader• coordinated protection of the Gorge, and federal land use planning began. the specter of Lauri Au nan, executive director of inspired Oregon State Public Interest several failed attempts at legislation, it inappropriate development has resurfaced. Growth Friends of Columbia Gorge. A bill Research Group. He served on the passed a bill establishing the Columbia pressures are intensifying on private lands in introduced in the Washington board of Tri-Met, the Portland area's River Gorge National Scenic Area. The Legislature by Rep. Marc Boldt, a Brush transit agency, then moved on to Gorge Act, guided through the congres• Washington and to a lesser extent in Oregon. where Prairie Republican, would have stacked become general manager. He owned a sional maze by Oregon's two most of the scenic area is in public ownership. the Gorge Commission with more local sports equipment business for a while, Republican U.S. senators, Mark residents and reduced the Gorge then cook a career leap and founded Hatfield and Bob Packwood, drew a Commission's authority co make land• Clear Creek Distillery, which produces rough rectangle around an 83-mile sec• equally between the states; $10 million the scenic area is in public ownership. use decisions stick. Aunan has copies of a legendary pear brandy. tion of che Gorge and placed decisions for recreational facilities; $10 million Developers have resurrected subdivi• correspondence showing that at least McCarthy is one of the three Gorge .. on development within chis rectangle in coward development of an interpretive sions platted early in the century in an some Skamania County officials would Commission members appointed by the hands of the U.S. Forest Service center and a conference center co boost attempt - so far unsuccessful - co get like to repeal or dismember the act Oregon's governor. His frustration with and a bi-state commission. tourism; $2.8 million co repair and around zoning restrictions. The act has itself. the commission began the day he The rectangle extends east from the reconstruct abandoned sections of failed co slow logging in the Gorge, as "Is the Gorge Act going to hold attended his first commission meeting, Sandy River in Oregon and Gibbons Oregon's Historic Columbia River scars from recent clearcuts above the up?" Aunan asks rhetorically. "The cen• in 1994. It has been building ever since. Creek in Washington co the Deschutes Highway; and $40 million for the Forest towns of White Salmon and Skamania tral piece of the act besides the land McCarthy shook things up in July when River in Oregon and a point four miles Service to buy private land in sensitive attest. No monitoring of the act's effec• purchases is the commission." Without he unloaded his frustrations before a ease of Wish ram, Wash., encompassing areas threatened with imminent devel• tiveness has yet begun. an adequate staff or budget, she warns, large, influential audience at the weekly parts of six counties and 13 cities and opment. Conservative state lawmakers on the commission may be incapable of City Club of Portland lunch. towns - and some of the most magnifi• Hidden Harbor never happened. both sides of the river who oppose fighting off developers and their allies "When I arrived at my first Gorge cent vistas anywhere. Nor did Columbia Gorge Estates, or restrictions on rural residential develop• on the political right. Commission hearing, I expected to find The act directed the appointment Rim View Estates. In 1991, after four ment cook advantage of Republican "The future of the Gorge for the an agency carrying out the act," he said. The east end of Columbia River Gorge near Catherine Creek on the Washington side. of a Columbia Gorge Commission to years of acrimonious hearings, the Gorge majorities in their respective legislatures next 100 years will be decided by policy "I didn't expect it to be perfect, but I develop a plan for protecting scenic, Commission adopted a detailed manage• this year to slash the Gorge decisions in the next two to three thought I'd find a clear commitment to cultural, historic and natural resources in ment plan spelling out what kinds of Commission's two-year operating bud• years," Aunan told the City Club of protection. What I found was very dif• everyone, co be fair, to try to be liked. McCarthy believes the deep budget business to The Dalles. "It's not our job the Gorge. This plan was not co inter• development would and would not be get by $432,000, or 41 percent. If the Portland in July- "and it will largely ferent ... The commission and the staff It's a timid, almost apologetic approach cuts the commission sustained this past to decide whether these proposals meet fere with development decisions within allowed within the Scenic Area. The cues survive vetoes by the governors of be decided by the Gorge Commission." strategy seemed to be co get along with co protecting the gorge. " spring show it has lost whatever political the standard," Quinn says. "We just clout it once hand - and call for a rubber-stamp." reevaluation of the act itself. "Recent action convinces me the act is flawed," rom the gee-go, the Columbia COLUMBIA RlvER GoRGE NATIONAL SCENIC AREA he says. "We had a shootout in the last Gorge Scenic Area was the prod• legislative session and we lost. The abil• F uct of compromise. Neither park ity to protect the gorge has been severe• nor wildlife sanctuary, the Scenic Area is ly damaged. " a slice of the Northwest where 44,000 McCarthy is frustrated about a lot of people live side by side with breathtak• things, but mostly about the commis• ing scenery. The act says this place will sion's lack of vision and clout - particu• be managed for "the enhancement of its larly on the subject of economic devel• scenic, cultural, recreational, and natural opment. Money earmarked for diversify• resources." In the next breath, it says ing Gorge communities, funneled the Gorge economy is co be protected through the states, is going to pay for and supported by encouraging growth curbs and gutters, he says. He'd like to - mainly within existing towns. see more creativity. Why not investigate Chuck Williams is a gifted writer ways to capitalize on the caviar pro• and photographer of ative American duced by Columbia River sturgeon, the ancestry whose 1980 book, "Bridge of red alder and vine maple that grow in the Gods," has become recognized as a Oregon Gorge woodlands, the edible mushrooms classic work on the Gorge. He is also the that flourish in its damp western val• Gorge Act's harshest critic. In 1979 he leys? he asks. "I'd hoped co see an effort and a few friends founded the Columbia to work with the sustainable develop• Gorge Coalition to win national park ment people, to identify some projects. status for the gorge. I-le believes the Nothing has happened." compromises struck by Sen. Hatfield On this subject. l\lcCarthy and fel• and other members of Congress to gee low Gorge Commissioner Bud Quinn an act passed produced fatal flaws that agree - though perhaps for different can never be remedied, and he is bitter. n ® reasons. "It's a joke," says Quinn, "All you have to do is drive around : McCarthy's political opposite on the and see all the new clearcuts in every ~ panel. "The money is not being used direction, or drive to Rowena or up Belle ;! like it should be used. By the rime. a Center or Seven Mile-roads to see sub- """" small company goes through the red , urban sprawl their legislation was sup- i tape ... " his voice trails off. posed to end,"·he wrote in a newsletter ~ ..,.•. "At the last meeting the Mural to supporters last Labor Day. "Go tothe )> Society of The Dalles asked for Rowena viewpoint and notice that the c Special General Urban 0-0 $147,000 to paint murals on buildings," rim across the river has been lined with c ~ D Management Management Areas he says, shaking his head in disbelief. "I houses since 'protection.!" Areas Areas was the only one who said no." Dick Benner, the first executive 'I . ... Recently a man from Sandy, Ore., asked. director of the Dorge Commission; for a loan so he could move his archery agrees that logging practices have· e Cover Story c o N 1 1 N u E a marred Gorge vistas since the act's pas• get a feel for the beauty of this lush, ver sage. "It's a scenic area, and what's one dant country. Few places on either side of the first things you see? Clearcuts." of the gorge offer this kind of public COLUMBIA GORGE CHRONOLOGY But Benner says weak forest protection access to the river shore. was "an essential compromise" without Other recreation developments are Between 10,000 and 20,000 Years Ago One of the largest pre-Columbia populations in orth America inhabits the Gorge, subsisting on abundant game, salmon and berries. which the act would not have passed in the works. In Washington, the Forest Congress. "My own view is the long Service plans to build a campground at; 1805 The Lewis and Clark Expedition travels through the Gorge en route to the Pacific Ocean. view. It was much more important to recently acquired ranch just west of get legislation in place to deal with Beacon Rock; a new loop trail near pop• 1915 The Columbia River Highway opens, providing an auto route between Portland and development, which is almost impossi• ular Dog Mountain; and a barrier-free Hood River and opening the Gorge co tourists; Oregon establishes the fir-st of 26 state parks in the Gorge. (Washington eventually establishes four.) ble to reverse. We can try to improve trail at Catherine Creek, east of White harvesting techniques in the future." Salmon. In Oregon, six miles of trails 1916 Congress considers but does not act on a bill creating a Mount Hood ational Park, to · Williams frequently blasts Friends and boardwalks will be constructed in include the Oregon side of the Gorge. of the Columbia River Gorge for being the Sandy River Delta at the west end 1937 The Army Corps of Engineers completes Bonneville Dam near the west end of the too cozy with the commission and for of the Gorge Scenic Area, and work is Gorge, and a regional planning commission, warning that the "perishable natural values of a phe• turning a blind eye to what is occurring underway on reconstruction of the nomenal region" may be at risk, considers establishing an interstate park to protect the Gorge. in the Gorge today. Aunan finds Historic Columbia River Highway, 1957 The Corps completes construction of The Dalles Dam at the Gorge's east end, flooding Williams' broadsides frustrating. "He's which will be open to hikers and Celilo Falls, the most important native fishing grounds in the Columbia Basin and the got a lot of points. Some I agree with. cyclists. orthwest's most popular tourist attraction. But the question is, What wiU we do In all, the Forest Service has 1970 A proposal for a Columbia Gorge National Recreation Area surfaces at a meeting of the now?" acquired nearly 30,000 acres in the two governors of Oregon and Washington. The good news is that a decade states - 22,205 acres in Washington, after passage of the Gorge Act, the econ• 7,558 acres in Oregon - at a total cost of 1976 A National Park Service study concludes that the Gorge "has the possibility of fulfilling a omy of the Gorge is not languishing. $35.6 million. It may get another $8 mil· need for an urban park area that would be nationally significant." The unemployment rate in the four rur• lion this year if U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton 1979 Chuck Williams of Hood River organizes an advocacy group called the Columbia Gorge al Gorge counties has dropped from 15 has his way. Gorton, a Washington Coalition to fight for national park status for the Gorge. Nancy Russell and other Portlanders percent to under 10 percent since the Republican who sits on the Senate found a second group, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, co work for Gorge protections 1981' 'Wise Use activist Chuck Cushman helps form the'Gommittee to Preserve Prppertyl'iztt'!"'' Rights in the Columbia River Gorge. Skamania Counry approves a 24-loc subdivision directly across from Multnomah Falls , 1982 The Trust for Public ~and,ca non-profl; ~roUf!, buys the su.bdiyision across from Multnomah Falls Or~on Senacors Bob Packwood and .M:ar1(Hatlield, both Republicans, intro• duce Gorge-protection legislation. · · 1983 \.Vashington's ~Jcamania County approves an 83-lot riverfront subdivision, Hjdden Harbor, on wetlands"downriverfroin Beacon Rock State Park, A lawsuit field by the Friends of the Columbia Gorge later blocks the project. Washington Gov. John Spellman and Oregon Gov. Vic Atiyeh, both Republicans, propose legislation calling for a minimal federal role in Gorge management.

,; 1984 Several hundred people crowd a meeting room at Stevenson, Wash.; many wearing but• tons declaring "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Gorge" and "No Federal Control." 1985 The two governors reach consensus on the plan that will become the Gorge Scenic Area Act. Ir calls for a two-tiered management scheme that places special areas under federal control and other areas under the control of a regional commission. 1986 As various Gorge bills move through Congress, House Republicans use delaying tactics to block passage of a bill until mid-October, less than three weeks before the November congres• Residential development in Underwood. Wash .. as seen from Hood River. Ore. sional election. The bill enacted places the U.S. Forest Service and a bistate commission in charge of Gorge protection. Ronald Reagan reluctantly signs the Columbia River Gorge National early 1980s, after peaking in the early Appropriations Committee, said he was Scenic Area Act into law on Nov. 17. For the next week, the American flag at the Skamania, 1990s. In 1995, two new major retail including the money in the budget to Wash., County Courthouse flies at half-mast. stores opened in The Dalles. Cascade fulfill the intent of the Gorge Act and 1987 The newly appointed 12-member Columbia Gorge Commission begins work on a Gorge Locks has a new hotel, and sailboarders provide fairness to landowners. "At least management plan. have turned Hood River into a recre- 4,000 acres of land remain to be 1990 The Gorge Commission approves a $20 million conference cente,'. in Skamania Councy. . ation boomtown. Skamania Lodge, the acquired for the Scenic Area," he said in conference center that opened near the a prepared statement. "A strong federal 1991 The Forest Service and Gorge Commission release draft plan§ for rnanagjn&cshe Gorge. . e mill town of Stevenson in 1993, is now land acquisition program will provide a 1 'he Trust for Public Land purchases the Oregon town of Bridal Veil, evicting the handful of resi• dents and triggering resentment in other rural areas of the Gorge. the county's largest employer, though remedy for landowners who, for more Bud Quinn scoffs that the low wages it than a decade, have been subject to a 1992 The Gorge Commission levies its fo'st fine for a lan'd use violation:'$ I Q,000 against ac' pays don't make up for lost timber jobs. restrictive land use regime, and will pro• quarry operator, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan approves the Gorgtplan, with The Columbia Gorge Discovery Center vide permanent protection for six reservations. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Scenic Area Acc. Five of Gorge in The Dalles, which opened last Columbia Gorge resources." counties threaten noqo implement the plan unless they get indemnity from property rights law- Memorial Day, is expected to draw Friends of the Gorge, which worked " tfits. The U.S. Supreme cliim that the 9?rge pl,!n is un:o_~~dt~ti&gal. qour;;~iee.i's;a 150,000 visitors annually. Though some closely with property owners eager to 1993 .Mulrnomah County becomes the first county to adopt an ordinance implementing timber-dependent communities are still sell their land, first executive director, now directs the direction of partnerships." He admitted, themselves asking more and more c ()'Q Oregon Department of Land however, that this kinder and gentler often these days about more and more c Conservation and Development, which approach apparently had not won the places: ~ is responsible for implementing commission many legislative allies this Can we protect the Gorge from our• Oregon's land use law. As a veteran of year. "The impression that's been com• selves? growth management wars, he says it's ing out of the legislatures is that we're Confessions of a Disenchanted Watershed Volunteer

by Lori Dante General Electric, and so on. Right from Sandy be closed to the public, not to education grants as "Low Priority." No the beginning we were controversial and mention misinformation on the effects state funding would be forthcoming. n 1993 the Oregon Legislature extremely intense, because of the big of logging on water quality. At this same Not so with other non-watershed G• passed House Bill 2215. It called for money issues that the Clackamas water• time, Roberta Moltzen, the Mount WEB grant applicants. The city of I the creation of local volunteer water• shed supports: PGE dams are coming Hood National Forest supervisor, Portland would receive $50,000 and shed councils. Not necessarily because even the High Desert Museum would it was seen as a good idea that deserved receive money. One group, the Coos its day, rather it was the beginning of a River Watershed Council, which grassroots principle which could possi• requested $224,961, will get $300,000. bly stem the tide of a growing environ• This excess $75,039 dollars would have mental disaster. Born of an age visited substantially covered most of our by divisive social blaming, the administrative budget for the coming Governor's Watershed Enhancement biennium. Yet the Clackamas River Board began to march down the long Basin with its tremendous challenges road- of populist bio-regional solutions posed by being within the fast growing and look to citizen volunteerism as the Portland metropolitan region would be progressive next step. left dead in the water by the governor. Now comes the Democrat baby Or near dead, no better than the boomer Gov. John Kitzhaber, joining Clackamas coho salmon run that this forces with a Republican Oregon year yielded just four native adult fish. Legislature and the entrenched, bomb Not that we would give up so easily. ducking Oregon Association of Forestry, On July 10, our chairperson Lloyd to offer up an attempt to save Oregon's Marbet, vice-chair Bill Atherton and coho salmon population, which the Clackamas Water representative Lowell National Marine Fisheries Service is· Hanna went before GWEB at a La threatening to list as endangered. Law Grande meeting and pleaded our case. enforcement, more monitoring and vol- I In the course of this interaction one of unteerism is the professed spirit of ,, the board members of GWEB men• Kitzhaber's Coastal Salmon Restoration J. tioned that he had heard our council was Initiative, which is set forth as a model 1;; having problems with the Clackamas program to be practiced statewide. In j County Commissioners. In fact the theory, this unnatrve represents commissioners, or their staff, have never Oregon's essence of natural resource cit• TROUBLED WATERSHED - The Clackamas River. seen here near Estacada. Ore. has attended our meetings nor established izenship, coupled with local involve• nearly lost its wild coho. Now citizen efforts to help restore the watershed are being any formal lines of communication with ment and government partnerships. rebuffed by the state. our body prior to their May meeting This is where I come in to the pic• up for relicensing; Forest Service lands arranged to take public comments with the Forest Service. ture - enthusiastic volunteer - listen• contribute $4,000,000 a year to the regarding the Little Sandy proposal at A week or two later, when G-WEB ing to Leonard Cohen sing "Democracy county, keeping it dependent upon the public's inconvenience: during program Manager Ken Bierly was asked is Coming to the USA:" Yeah ... that's for unsustainable clear cutting; the Portland working hours, 50 miles away in Salem, by Portland radio station KBOO why me ... grassroots bio-regional government metropolitan region may try to drain this rather than at the brand new Forest the Clackamas River Basin Council was is evolving ... I can support that concept, awarded zero funding, Bierly said, even though, like most people of the essentially, that they were not able to working class I'm struggling to pay This playing with public water supplies is a dangerous get a clear idea from reviewing the insurance. Having been born on the game. when you consider that Salem. Eugene and application that the proposed activities Southern Oregon Coast, a logger's would lead to a full scale watershed daughter, these issues are not new to Portland have requested protection from logging in activity. Thus, Bierly said, they didn't me. Wishing to contribute in a meaning• their respective watersheds. But. as we soon learned. get any sense of the context of the pro• ful way I miraculously get voted onto posed education and co-ordinator the Clackamas River Basin Council the game had just begun. efforts. (CRBC) as one of two citizen represen• Apparently, we are the only ones tatives, then I receive my council's vote river for drinking water and irrigating Service facility in nearby Sandy. who must meet this standard. G-WEB and become the chairperson of our for• lawns; and developers are paving the On May 20, 1997, Moltzen and records show several instances where it est committee, an executive committee banks and mining her channels. Berry met with the Clackamas County had negotiated with applicants to identi• member, and the representative for my For four months I had been urging Commissioners and discussed the fy proposals that weren't adequately council to the Willamette Province my council to support the city of Clackamas River Basin Council, accord• defined, and in one instance awarded in Advisory Committee. Portland's request of Congress that the ing to notes taken at the meeting. The excess of $100,000 to a council that had The CRBC is one of 75 Oregon unprotected portion of the Little Sandy notes characterize this meeting as bor• been in existence for over three years watershed councils sanctioned by Watershed (which is adjacent to the derline conspiratorial: "BCC (board of and had formulated no watershed plan respective local governments. We are now-protected Bull Run Watershed county commissioners) can't change at all. In contrast, the CRBC had only one of the few councils in which our near Mount Hood, Portland's main membership on Council but can pull been in existence for five months, and representatives were elected by its 21 water supply) be protected from any fur• endorsement which will end G-WEB G-WEB never once asked for clarifica• various stakeholder groups, instead of ther commercial logging and public and other funding." tion of our proposals. If they had asked, being appointed by local government. entry. Since the Clackamas River serves This playing with public water sup• the G-WEB people would have learned Our by-laws charge us with protecting as a back-up water source for Portland, I plies is a dangerous game, when you that our council had quite sensibly and rehabilitating our watershed felt that CRBC should support consider that the Salem, Eugene, and rejected filing an application for a major through consensus, or if that fails, a two• Portland's efforts to conserve all possible Portland have requested protection monitoring project until we had first thirds democratic process. water resources for future needs. The from logging in their respective water• formed a comprehensive plan. During the initial steering period of Forest Service representative to our sheds. But, as we soon learned, the After having gone through these the CRBC, various long-time activists council, Estacada Ranger John Berry, game had just begun. chain of events, I had to step back and surfaced and secured several of the 21 called me and demanded I drop this A month later - on June 16 - the question the validity of Kitzhaber's ~ seats alongside government agency rep• effort. When I refused, he circulated let• Clackamas River Basin Council highly media-cized approach to restor• g;o resentatives, agriculture, timber inter• ters to certain other members of our received news that the Governor's ing anadromous and resident native fish <( ests, commerce, Native Americans, council sensationalizing the issue of Watershed Enhancement Board ranked species. If not the puny Clackamas coho recreation, water providers, Portland recreation losses should the Little our applications for administrative and run, what or who would this program benefit? Perhaps the Oregon Association of Forestry, which in February 1997 commit• ted $15 million cowards watershed restora• tion, while in June 1997 the Oregon Legislature awarded chis same group an across the board 50 percent tax break equal• ing $26 million - an $11 million gain. Realistically, the taxpayers of Oregon will be paying for the clean-up of the timber industry's contribution co the damage of our rivers and land, as well as being asked co Hore Information volunteer their time co remedy the situa• tion. All the while business as usual will be Columbia River Gorge • Misplaced Blame: The Real Roots of Population Growth, by Alan Durning and Christopher 0. Crowther. Child vehemently protected by paid government • Friends of the Columbia Gorge, 319 SW Washington, officials and indu try lobbyists. poverty and sexual abuse are among the hidden causes Suite 301, Portland, OR 97204. (503) 241-3762. Email: As a volunteer who has contributed her of the region's population growth, says this latest offer• [email protected]. valuable time coward the Oregon plan, I am ing from Northwest Environment Watch, 1402 3rd disheartened and feel deceived by my gov• • Columbia Gorge Commission, 288 Jewett Ave., White Ave., Seattle WA 98101-2118. (206) 447-1880. ernment once again. My role it appears is a Salmon WA 98672. (509) 493 3323. facade held up by my state government co • Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams: How Reckless Mining appease the public. Yes, I blame the players • 1000 Friends of Oregon, 534 SW Third Ave #300, Pollutes America's Waters, and How We Can Stop It, by the and am pointing my finger, pathetically so. Portland, OR 97204-2597, (503) 497-1000. Mineral Policy Center. "An alarming factual account of the massive damage hardrock mining has wrought on I believe some of us will be angry and frus• • 1000 Friends of Washington, 1305 4th Ave, #303, trated; however, I also realize that most of America,s water resources," says Former Interior Seattle, WA 98101. (206) 343-0681. email: Secretary Stuart Udall. $25.95. MPC, 1612 K. St., NW [email protected], internet, http://hal9000.futurein• Suite 808, Washington DC 20006. (202) 887-1872. It takes a major conspiracy fo.com/1 OOOfrnd • The Next West: Public Lands, Community and Economy in of Hollywood proportion for Green Power the American West, essays edited by John A. Baden and the masses to pause in their • Kevin Bell's Convergence Research Web Site. Donald Snow. Authors point the way to a Next West contemplation of Mike Coverage of BPA, U.S. and Canadian energy issues, based on "the renewal of Jeffersonian democracy, deregulation, global warming. and more. experiments in local and supra-local control of public Tyson's mouthful of flesh http://w' Center, 1200 Park Ave., Portland. (503) 222-1741. c ()Q c ~ -o

sarco, a multinational mining compa• tional. In the spring of 1996, 1,000 people posed Rock Creek site, has never gone ny, is hoping the state of Montana marched across the Long Bridge in beyond the exploratory drilling phase. If Awill issue it a permit next year to Sandpoint protesting the proposed mine. built, the two mines would cut the wilder• mine for copper and silver beneath the The one galvanizing issue in both ness in two, severing wildlife corridors in Cabinet Mountain Wilderness in north• Montana and Idaho is water quality. But the process. western Montana. Asarco began its mineral there are other issues like the area's eco• The Rock Creek drainage is one of exploration in the Cabinet Mountains in nomic vitality that would be subject to a only a few remaining spawning streams in 1979 and submitted a request for an operat• boom-and-bust cycle, and a quality of life the lower Clark Fork River for bull trout, a ing permit in 1987. Since its inception, that is measured in terms of scenic values, candidate for listing under the Endangered Asarco's proposal has been fraught with air quality, wildlife, wilderness, and the Species Act. Activists hope that such a list• problems, forcing the company to go back presence of a rural setting with a lack of ing, which seems imminent, would serious• to the drawing board repeatedly. Today, · large industrial developments. ly hamper Asarco's plans. Asarco is still bent on getting an operating Many people are concerned about the Those who want to stop Asarco, at permit even though issues surrounding the effects that the mine would have on the least its current plans, have been carefully proposed water treatment and tailings stor• Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Asarco scrutinizing the company's proposal. There age have not gone away. would be extracting ore from beneath the is little room for trust. The company has 21 Local residents in Montana and near• wilderness using a room-and-pillar method. Superfund sites and has been involved in by Idaho are opposed to the mine. Asarco, Ore would be mined by hollowing out myriad environmental lawsuits. Company the state of Montana, and the Forest giant underground rooms, leaving overlying spokespeople keep telling the public that Service have been unable to satisfy the wilderness lands held up by rock pillars Asarco operates in an environmentally concerned public that the company's remaining in the rooms. In their assess• friendly manner, yet all the evidence is to unproven, experimental waste water treat• ment of the proposal, the EPA warned that the contrary. One local environmental ment and its plans to locate 100 million group, the Cabinet Resource Group, has tons of mining waste next to the Clark The Rock Creek drainage is one filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against Fork River won't pollute. Piled in an Asarco at its Troy Mine, another room-and• unlined impoundment in a geologically of only a few remainingspawning pillar project located about fifteen miles unstable area, the mining waste or "tail• streams in the lower Clark Fork• from the proposed Rock Creek mine. ings" would eventually cover 340 acres of Asarco has repeatedly claimed that the public (Forest Service) land and would River for bull trout. a candidate Troy Operation is a model mine and that reach a height of 300 feet. One consultant they would pattern the Rock Creek mine for the state who evaluated the proposed for listingunder the Endangered after it. But not only is Asarco being sued tailings impoundment warned of the Species Act. Activistshope that for violations of the Clean Water Act at potential for a "significant loss of life" due Troy, the Cabinet Resources Group discov• to inherent instability of the impoundment such a listing. which seems ered massive lead contamination at the in an area that receives an average of 100 imminent. would seriously mine's railroad ore load-out facility. inches of precipitation a year. (The consul• Operations at Troy paint a bleak picture of tant eventually lost his job over this issue.) hamper Asarcos plans. what would be in store at Rock Creek if Designed to leak, the tailings pile would the mine is permitted. create a perpetual monitoring nightmare. two of the overlying wilderness lakes are at Activists believe that the key to win• At one time, Asarco would have risk of subsidence and drainage. Asarco ning the battle is to educate the public received a warm welcome from the small attempts to dismiss this risk, but a cave-in about the proposal so that the political Montana communities that would be most at Colorado's Silverton Mine led to the pressure can be turned up. The truth about affected by the mine - Noxon, Heron, drainage of Lake Emma, a lake perched Asarco's mode of operations is enough to and Trout Creek. But times are changing, above an underground mining operation. convince most people, as witnessed by the as is the demography of the area, with The Cabinet Mountains are popular level of community opposition. Public increasing numbers of retirees and self• with locals who like to pick huckleberries, opinion and scrutiny have compelled employed moving to the area. Asarco has camp, fish, and hunt in them. Local outfit• Asarco to the drawing board to revise sever• tried to buy its way into financially ters depend on the Cabinets to attract al aspects of its proposal, and forced the strapped communities. Heron has received national and international clients. Many are permitting agencies to do a supplemental $2,500 from Asarco to help buy a new fire irked by the restricted access that the mine EIS, due out in November 1997. Those of truck. Noxon will use $2,500 from Asarco · would impose. The Cabinets are also a us who feel this mine poses an assault on a to help it start a high school football team. popular destination for many out-of-state federally protected wilderness, local com• And yet, during several town meetings, hikers, particularly from Coeur d'Alene, munity integrity and economics, and on Asarco has received a resounding message Idaho, and Spokane. All that will change in Lake Pend Oreille, one of the west's few from these communities, from long-time some way if the mine goes in because the remaining healthy lakes, wish to state residents and newcomers, that its mine is Cabinet Mountains will be forever altered. emphatically that the Asarco Rock Creek not welcome here. The wilderness would be adjacent to an Mine is not a "done deal." Located just 25 miles downstream industrial facility and subjected to industri• from the proposed mine site, Lake Pend al lighting and constant noise and vibra• Mary Crowe Mitchellis Montana coordinator Oreille in Idaho would be the eventual tions from blasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a of the Rock Creek Alliance recipient of both the wastewater entering week for 30 years. Asarco also plans to vent the Clark Fork River from the tailings pollutants directly into the wilderness via a If you would like more information on this impoundment and from the mine water pipe that would destroy the Class One proposal or a list of Asan:o s 21 Supe,fund contaminated in the milling process. Airshed of the wilderness. sites,pl easec ontact the Rock CreekA lliance in Therein lies the rub for many North Asarco's mine would be bad news for Montana at (406) 847-2606 or in Idaho at Idahoans - Lake Pend Oreille, as yet rela• many species of wildlife including the griz• (208) 265-8272. tively untainted by mining activities, is key zly bear, bull trout, and harlequin duck. to their economic livelihood. Public hear• This 93,000-acre wilderness is a grizzly ings in Sandpoint, Idaho, located on Lake bear recovery zone. Another proposed Pend Oreille, have been heated and emo- mine, located just 5 air miles from the pro- permits here in Ferry and Okanogan County try invest in keeping this one-time resource Gill's informative article, ''The Path Less Stay_the Hell Out for 10 years, and appealed the Solid Waste intact, where it is, letting its value increase as Traveled." (july 1997 CT) of Montana . Discharge Permit that Hecla wanted for their other nations (and we) use other sources. .Although largely accurate, the article leaking tailings pond. The lawsuit which was Don't forget that gold was only sixteen dollars gives the impression that the Ahousaht people eventually brought by Washington Wilderness an ounce when the Reserve was set aside by played a major role in the battle (or Clayoquot To the editor, Coalition and Okanogan Highlands Alliance President Herbert Hoover in 1923. Sound. Unfortunately, that is far from the case. Stay the hell out of Montana and mind resulted from our efforts on that appeal. Of course, we have the capability of Not until eight years after the fight began did your own business, you environmental I believe their production has been about trashing the earth for a few more decades. Ahousahts make an appearance when, during extremist wackos! 500-600 tons of ore bearing rock per day, about We're good at it. No one is better. But we are a blockade of a logging road at Sulphur Pass in half of what the nearby Buckhorn mine would also able to cherish the earth, to learn how to 1988, the blockaders were joined by a single Robert A. Little process. The ore at Echo Bay's mines has read it better, to celebrate it while we can. person from Ahousaht, hereditary chief Earl Helena MT been less concentrated than the relatively rich If whale watching is now a bigger indus• George. In contrast, the Clayoquot band near deposits at Buckhorn. try than whaling, perhaps Alaska's future will Tofino joined the fight for Meares island back Editor's Note: One of the Echo Bay mines, the be worth a lot more, for longer, if the people around 1980 or '81, while it was still in its early Mr. Little also sent us a shredded copy of our Lamefoot Project, is less than a mile from who think Alaska has too damn much scenery stages. June 1997 Special Milin~ Issue, which fea• Curlew Lake State Park. The shafts have find other work, and give a sustainable and It is true that Europeans have been tured a profile of a proposed cyanide heap• intercepted groundwater, and the acid gener• beautiful Alaska the opportunity it deserves. responsible for a tremendous, and painful, dis• leach gold mine next to the Blackfoot River. ating rock poses a heavy metal threat to the ruption in Native culture, and it is equally true ecological integrity of the lake water. Echo David Brower, that the European system is responsible for Oregon Mining Bay is attempting to mitigate the acid forming Berkeley CA the irresponsible exploitation of resources on rock with an experimental buffering process. what native people regard as their lands. In Rules Clarifier/ For more information, please contact me. the interest of accuracy in the historical record, Boycott Fores! it is also true that it has been members of the To the editor, Mike Peterson Recreation Fee non-native community who have led the fight I'll try again for the record. OAR (Oregon Kettle Range Conservation Group for the integrity for Clayoquot Sound and who Administrative Rules) 632-37 covers only one PO Box 150, Republic, WA 99166 To the editor, have been imprisoned in large numbers for type of hardrock mining in Oregon, chemical• (509) 775-2590 Trail fees now being charged by the U.S. that cause. Indeed, it has been my impression process mining. All other hardrock mining in Forest Service are part of a national program that many native leaders regard environmen• Oregon is covered by the Department of being foisted upon the public through the co• talists with as much suspicion as they do log• Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) Save the Place operative efforts of Sen. Frank Murkowski, R• ging companies and government. And envi• Division 35 and SO rules. (OAR 632-35 and AK, and the American Recreation Coalition. ronmentalists, while they support native land• 632-30). For example, the Grassy Mountain "No One Knew" Murkowski is the anti-environmental senator claims, are also keeping a wary eye on any site would be governed by 632-37; the Kinross To the editor, from Alaska leading a congressional effort to agreements reached between the natives and Copper site on the North Santiam and the The National Petroleum Reserve in privatize our public lands. ARC is the wise• the government. proposed chrome/nickel open .pit in Southern Alaska ("Oil Industry Eyes Vast Arctic use, business consortium paying to implement The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Oregon near the Kalmiopsis would be gov• Sweep," CT, July 1997) is a vast, remote, and the trail-fee program. ARC's ultimate objective Act in Alaska has demonstrated that Native erned by OAR 632-35 and OAR 632-30. OAR a superb example of the progress taking place is to acquire, for its corporate members, the Americans are no more immune to greed than 632-35 and OAR 632-30 do not require site in America's ecosystems-at no cost to the tax• "rights" to develop and operate recreational the rest of us. Several years ago, while working restoration. payers and with no help from the human audi• facilities upon these lands. This fee program is on my book The Rainforest Coast (with the The OAR pertaining to backfilling of pits ence-thanks to the wisdom of nature. only a first step. help of Ecotrust, incidentally), I saw first-hand associated with chemical process mining is This is the next 'place no one knew,' as Congressional budget cuts are creating a the massive clearcuts on Chicagoff Island. OAR 632-37-120 (13) (a) (b) (c). The decision unknown as Glen Canyon was in the 1960s. In deliberate maintenance crisis for federally Clearcuts by Native Americans are no less to backfill, or partially backfill, is left to the one generation, unspoiled places like the managed recreation lands and facilities. The destructive than those by multinational corpo• discretion ofDOGAMI. Division 37 rules do Reserve are disappearing as oil drilling spreads rescue of a decaying public system, by private rations. not mention the water line as a standard, rampantly across Alaska's far north. People investors and corporate sponsors, is the intend• That there is great advantage for environ• although that has been discussed. need to know about the immense, unique ed outcome. mentalists and natives to work together was I have a complete set of the rules if you wilderness at risk. Americans need to act while Among ARC's 100-plus corporate mem• clearly demonstrated at Haida Gwaii (the would like a copy. there's still a chance to protect the finest bers, not one supports hiking or the environ• Queen Charlotte Islands) and Meares Island. examples of wilderness in the western Arctic. ment. Access to public lands is being manipu• In both situations a joint effort resulted in a Larry Tuttle It is time for the oil industry and Detroit, lated for the benefit of sports equipment man• victory. More recently, a joint effort by the Centerfor Environmental Equity at long last, to protect the earth and to stop ufacturers, campground associations, motor• native Haisla and Ecotrust, aided by other 610 SW Alder St., Suite 1020 trashing it with greedlock. ized user groups, the American Petroleum groups, resulted in the preservation of the Pott/and OR 97205 It is vitally important that these most Institute, the NRA and Disney, to name just a largest remaining rainforest valley in British (503) 221-1683. exploitative of industries add ecological con• few of ARC's supporters. Columbia, the 317,000-hectare Kitlope. Sand a science to their talents as their contribution to I would support on honest, equitably native leader from another band, "lam envi• NE Wash~f!_gton Mine a a sustainable economy and society. Their pre• applied trail fee system. I vigorously oppose ous of what you have accomplished here." sent behavior is the principal source of the any fee imposed upon wilderness hikers and Despite that declaration, his band has been Threat to Water Supply unacceptable threat of global warming, and other low-impact recreationists by land devel• unable to shake off the suspicion of environ• their denials are no solution. They can and opers and motorized interest groups. mentalists that hampers their progress towards To the editor, control over their own resources. Whether the Great article on mining (June 1997 CT). must somehow change their habits, and the In an act of justified civil disobedience, American public needs to insist that they do. my windshield sports a "no trail fee" sticker Nuu-cha-nulth will follow in the footsteps of The Kettle Range Conservation Group the Haisla remains to be seen. thought you should know that there is an Convenience has its limits. There'll be no instead of the official sticker. I urge you to existing large mining operation here in NE industries or customers on a dead planet. boycott this program and to complain vigor• They and we can end their insistence on ously. Adrian Dorst Washington, that wasn't mentioned in your Tofino, B.C. article or map. It is Echo Bay, a multinational the mad dash for growth in the guzzling of oil, gold mining company, who has been mining no matter what it costs the earth and the Scott Silver Editor's Note: near Republic, Washington for the past 6 future. It is time to give the earth, and today's Wild Wilderness In the July 1997 issue, Cascadia Times n 248 and tomorrow's kids, a break. NW Wilmington Ave., ..CIO years. They have already mined and closed published several of Adrian Dorst's pho• Bend OR 97701 n two underground mines, two small open pit Other industries are catching on. It's high tographs with Ian Gill's story on Clayoquot .. (541) 385 5261 mines, and are currently mining two other time for oil and cars to get with it. Sound. ;;= [email protected] underground mines. For openers, let the Reserve BE just that - a reserve. There is plenty of time for oil to ..... An accident at one of their mines a few i: be used, profitably. There is no requirement Cascadia Times welcomes letters 11,at .... years ago resulted in the death of 3 miners - CIO that it be used up as speedily and wastefully a Clayoquot Article reflect on issues of concern to ihe region. local sources attribute it to unsafe conditions Please e-mail them. if at all possible. to )> the Prudhoe Bay discovery has been. Or that it c from a speed-up process that allowed dyna• Needs Clarification cascad i,1'.a.s pi rito ne .corn. OQ mite to be transported unsafely. be gone by the time people born today are of c voting age. Let the oil remain in safe storage Or send them to us at 25-6 Northwest ~ There have been some bird kills in their To the editor, 23rd Place. No. 406. Portland. OR 97210. 86-acre cyanide tailings pond, which has a sin• until the world learns how to use it well. It is As a resident of Totino, and one who has Try to limit them to 400 words. All letters gle plastic liner just 70 millimeters thick. too valuable to keep blowing it through spills, been involved in the fight for Clayoquot are subject to editing for space KRCG has monitored mining exploration and stacks, and tailpipes. Let the public and indus- Sound since day one, I read with interest Ian e B O O K 11 E U E W Wild Cards

By Elizabeth Grossman climbing gear, medical and technical vates so many contemporary support available. forays into wilderness, his n this age of cell phones, global As Krakauer writes in the recognition of the deep root• positioning systems, laptops, gore• Introduction, "In March 1996, Outside ed need for such experiences tex and polypro, when, through use, magazine sent me to Nepal to partici• is implicit throughout both Ioveruse, domestication and devel• pate in, and write about a guided ascent books. An essay called "In opment, we've reduced roadless and of Mount Everest. I went as one of eight Wildness is the Preservation wild country to mere islands in a web of clients on an expedition led by a well• of the World," part of The asphalt - what is wilderness? At a time known guide from New Zealand named Abstract Wild, a collection when the very notion of wilderness has Rob Hall. On May 10 I arrived at the top by Jack Turner who has become the subject of academic and of the mountain, but the summit came spent his life climbing and political debate - what is truly wild? at a terrible cost. Among my five team• guiding, came to mind What are the realities of wilderness and mates who reached the top, four, includ• when thinking of the where do we humans belong in it? Jon ing Hall, perished in a rogue storm that issues raised by Into the Krakauer's two recent, absorbing and blew in without warning while we were Wild and Into Thin Air. harrowing tales of wilder- still on the peak. By the time I'd Turner discusses the descended to Base Camp nine climbers tameness of what is left of from four expeditions were dead, and most wilderness areas, three more lives would be lost before and how we have become the month was out." accustomed to thinking What makes both books so com- of sojourns in such pelling and effective is Krakauer's places. He laments the empathy and compassion for the fact that most of our essence of the questions these stories experience of wilder- raise. While in his twenties Krakauer ness is limited to short indulged in some risky solo climbing recreational events, the in Alaska. "It is easy," he writes, very fact and accommodation of which "when you are young, to believe tames the wildness of the country that what you desire is no less than through which we travel. At the same Into The Wild, by Jon what you deserve .... When I decid• time he acknowledges that even an Krakauer, $22 ed to go to Alaska that April, like encounter with a grizzly track brings one (1997, Villard) Chris McCandless, I was a raw into contact with the essential nature of youth who mistook passion for wilderness and the wild: that which is insight and acted according to an larger and more powerful than us, and that will never stop some of us from obscure, gap-ridden logic .... The which we, ultimately, cannot control. going. Nor should we staunch our desire fact that I survived my Alaska Both McCandless's story and that of for wild places, for without it and them, adventure and McCandless did the Everest expedition show that we would be sadly diminished. There not survive his was largely a mat• Krakauer is painfully aware of the dilem• are enormous risks in heading into the ter of chance; had I not returned mas raised in Turner's essay. Krakauer wild but if we go, we must go carefully, from the Stikine Ice Cap in has not stopped climbing. He admits and should be prepared to accept and 1977, people would have been that there is probably no completely sat• deal with those risks. What can be quick to say of me - as they isfactory solution to the problems caused learned from these stories, one of the now say of him - that I had a by the large numbers of commercial naive and under-planned, the other of death wish. Eighteen years after expeditions that now flock to Everest. the state-of-the-art and hi-tech, is how the event, I now recognize that I suf• He does not admonish McCandless for we must learn to read our surroundings, fered from hubris, perhaps, and an his desire to slip the ties of civilization and that we too can become wild cards Into Thin Air. by Jon appalling innocence, certainly; but I was• and meld into the back country. Yet he in the wilderness. Krakauer, $24, n't suicidal." realizes the potentially tragic implica• (1997, Villard) tions of taking our mastery of wilderness hile Krakauer recognizes the - whatever its extent - for granted. Elizabeth Grossman writesfro m Portland. arrogance and innocence lurk• There are places, perhaps, that ness adventures gone terribly awry pro• Wing at the heart of what moti- would be better off if we did not go. Yet voke these questions in a very real way. Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless, a 24 year old who set out to sever ties to the world as most of us know it - by giving away his savings, abandoning his car and possessions, burning his money and walking into the f:3 Alaskan back country to live off the :::E: land. Through accident, error, ignorance, .= lack of local knowledge, McCandless did c not live to tell his own tale. He died of i:i c starvation quite likely hastened by eat• u G10 ing some poisonous plants he'd mistak• e c.:, enly gathered. r-, In contrast to the willful simplicity 8:: of McCandless's journey, Into Thin Air t! recounts the disastrous fate of the expe• i?o ditions that set out to climb Mount ~ Everest in the spring of 1996, expedi• tions that were equipped with the most e sophisticated telecommunications,