Oregon Wild Spring/Summer 2011 Volume 38, Number 2 The new assault on the environment OREGON WILD SUMMER HIKES INSIDE 1 Spring/Summer 2011 Volume 38, Number 2 Formerly Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC). Working to protect and restore Oregon’s wildlands, wildlife, and waters as an enduring legacy. Main Office Western Field Office INSIDE THIS ISSUE 5825 N Greeley Avenue Portland, OR 97217 P.O. Box 11648 Eugene, OR 97440 Phone: 503.283.6343 Fax: 503.283.0756 454 Willamette, Suite 203 www.oregonwild.org Phone 541.344.0675 Fax: 541.343.0996 The new assault on the environment {4-7} The e-mail address for each Oregon Wild Conservation & Restoration Coord. Doug Heiken x 1 Oregon Wild Summer {8-9} staff member: [email protected] Old Growth Campaign Coordinator Chandra LeGue x 2 (for example: [email protected]) S&M – It’s a wildlife thing {12} Wilderness Coordinator Erik Fernandez x 202 Eastern Field Office 16 NW Kansas Avenue, Bend, OR 97701 Director of Finance & Admin. Candice Guth x 219 Phone: 541.382.2616 Fax: 541.385.3370 Development Coordinator Jonathan Jelen x 224 Healthy Rivers Campaign Coord. Ani Kame’enui x 200 Eastern OR Wildlands Advocate Tim Lillebo Outreach Associate Denise Kayser x 213 Wildlands Advocate Rob Klavins x 210 COVER PHOTO: KHRISTIAN SNYdeR C louds form over S parks Lake and the T h r e e S i s t e r s Conservation Director Steve Pedery x 212 Wilderness. A storm of another kind is threatening Oregon’s wildlands (read more on page 4). Executive Director Scott Shlaes x 223 ([email protected]) Director of Comm. & Development Sean Stevens x 211 Wildlands Interpreter Wendell Wood x 200 Oregon Wild Board of Directors Gary Guttormsen, President Vik Anantha Rand Schenck Leslie Logan, Vice President Jim Baker William Sullivan Megan Gibb, Treasurer Pat Clancy Jan Wilson Daniel Robertson, Secretary Shawn Donnille Oregon Wild is a tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organization. www.facebook.com/OregonWild Newsletter printed on New Leaf 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer, FSC-certified paper with soy based inks. @oregonwild Spring/Summer 2011 Volume 38, Number 2 2 From the Director’s Desk Define your passion Scott Shlaes Success isn’t a result of spontaneous Now is the time to speak out on behalf of pressing threats in need of attention, it combustion. You must set yourself on fire. animals like the gray wolf, whose also features opportunities to head into ~Arnold H. Glasow protection under the Endangered Species the wild during our Oregon Wild Act has been revoked; not because its Summer event and share your journeys When I think of how our passions are populations are thriving, but because it is through our Seventh Annual Outdoor ignited, I am in awe of their power and simply easier to turn the other way. Photo Contest. ability to create change at the individual and community levels. I am also acutely Now is the time to speak out on how our I can’t say it enough – get out there! It’s aware that if you do not steward and stoke National Forests are managed, so they are easy to get so wrapped up in the defense COVER PHOTO: KHRISTIAN SNYdeR C louds form over S parks Lake and the T h r e e S i s t e r s that flame within, it will eventually burn not used in a way that harms the vibrant of our wild places that we forget to Wilderness. A storm of another kind is threatening Oregon’s wildlands (read more on page 4). out. web of life that depends on a thriving celebrate them. Enjoy the abundant forest for its survival, or despoils the clean beauty of our state, and perhaps even As you’ll see from the content of this drinking water upon which we depend. bring a friend, and see if your passion for magazine, wild places throughout Oregon the wild becomes theirs. and the rest our country face new threats. Now is the time to nurture your passion As Congress repeals protections for and give it voice. Find the old-growth For 37 years, Oregon Wild has partnered endangered species and ignores a public grove or rushing stream that matters to with thousands of people like you, to process for wildlands stewardship, it is you and use your voice to speak out on its successfully advocate for the protection easy to become disheartened, and watch behalf. and restoration of Oregon’s wildlands, our flame extinguish. wildlife, and waters as an enduring legacy. Most importantly, as you advocate on We exist to help spark the flame of While large expanses of land and water behalf of our state’s wildlife and special environmental protection and keep the – and the life that inhabit them – face places, please take the time to get out to fire burning for our cherished lands. threats from the chainsaw and the the wilderness that energizes you and Please continue your passionate bulldozer, the largest threat they face is reconnects you with your passion. While engagement in our advocacy so we may the silence of our state’s residents and our the Oregon Wild magazine identifies continue to be successful in our efforts. country’s citizens. KHRISTIAN SNYdeR Three Sisters Wilderness 3 Spring/Summer 2011 Volume 38, Number 2 Will budget deal spawn a storm of riders? Steve Pedery, Conservation Director he late U.S. Supreme Court Taken for a Ride many voters ears. Yet some politicians Justice Louis Brandeis once said who championed transparency last fall thatT when it comes to government, “Riders” are a time honored tradition were quick to load the 2011 budget “sunshine is the best disinfectant.” He by some politicians in Washington, bill down with “riders” of their own. believed that when the decisions of D.C. – a way to pass unpopular or Wolves, Wildlands, and Clean our elected leaders are subject to controversial legislation without Water public scrutiny, they are more likely to having to face a straight up or down vote or much public scrutiny. act in the best interest of current and It was only after the 2011 budget bill future generations of Americans. The principle works like this – take an passed that the anti-environmental The April 9 agreement between unpopular legislative proposal (like riders contained within it really began Congress and President Obama to gutting clean water rules designed to to attract significant attention. prevent herbicides from ending up in include a number of stealth anti- “Congress, in a First, Removes an salmon streams), and attach it to a environmental “riders” in the 2011 Animal From the Endangered completely unrelated piece of budget deal demonstrates that Justice Species List” the New York Times must-pass legislation (like an Brandeis’ observations are as true headline read. The Oregonian emergency budget bill needed to avoid today as they were when he first newspaper ran a story titled “Budget a government shut-down). Other penned them in 1913. deal blocks Obama wilderness members of Congress must then policy,” while Oregon Public Most Americans thought the long, choose between voting no on the Broadcasting aired a radio segment painful debate between Republicans whole package (and being blamed for titled “If Congress Can Delist and Democrats over shutting down shutting down the government or Wolves, What Else Might Be the federal government was about blocking funds for American troops in Removed?” spending and deficits. The only “riders” wartime), or going along with the bad that received much public scrutiny “rider.” As an added bonus, since the Conservation-minded Americans were measures to strip funding from news media focuses public attention were mostly left scratching their Planned Parenthood and National on the budget aspects of the bill, the heads. Wasn’t the budget deal Public Radio. However, the final unrelated policy riders often go supposed to be about cutting budget deal also contained a number unnoticed until it’s too late. spending, and preventing a shut-down of deeply-troubling attacks on a range of the federal government? What does © DONAld A. HIGGS T h e e m b a t t l e d g r a y Last summer and fall, some politicians wolf (Canis lupus) w a s a c a s u a l t y o f of environmental, public lands, and wolf conservation and EPA clean running for the U.S. Congress made the budget deal and becomes the first wildlife conservation programs. water enforcement have to do with species legislatively removed from federal grandiose promises about “restoring funding programs like Social Security ESA protections. accountability” to Congress—music to Spring/Summer 2011 Volume 38, Number 2 4 and Medicare, or keeping the doors Led by Sen. Hatfield (R-OR), in the to our National Parks open? summer of 1995 these anti- Taken for a “Ride” Will budget deal spawn a storm of riders? environmental politicians joined More importantly, why would Steve Pedery, Conservation Director forces with special interests around normally pro-environment members the nation to load dozens of Anti- Throwing Big Oil Trumping Muzzling the Damming Klamath Saying no to of Congress, and the Obama Environment Wolves off the Wildlands Environmental Salmon NOAA on anti-environmental riders to an Provision Ark Watchdog Climate Service administration, ever go along with emergency spending bill. Clinton, such a thing? possessing limited time and political Description Senator John When President Oil and coal Rep. Tom Climate-change Blast from the Past capital, believed the salvage logging Tester (D-MT) Obama reversed interests work to McClintock (R-CA) deniers oppose provision provided good trading and others try a Bush policy keep the EPA wants dams to consolidating Conservationists faced similar to strip ESA and restored from regulating stay and salmon dozens of stock.