Troubling news about our Wild Rivers headwaters
In the last Storm Petrel, I shared concerning news that a Canadian mining company has purchased the mining claims blocks formerly owned by Red Flat Nickel Company. These are located at the headwaters of the North Fork Smith River (up Baldface Creek/lower edge of Kalmiopsis Wilderness) and at the Hunter Creek/ Pistol River divide, near the geologically stark and unusual place known as “Red Flat.” These places are valuable not only as headwaters that provide clear, cold water to our cherished salmon streams but also as botanically valuable areas with endemic plant species found nowhere else in the world! As long time KAS members know, these areas have been withdrawn from new claims by the 20-year Southwest Oregon Mineral Withdrawal, which we all worked hard to support. Also included in the mineral withdrawal was the headwaters of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River up at Rough and Ready Creek, another area with extraordinary botanical values and a source of crystal-clear water for salmon extending down into the Rogue River.
This same Canadian mining company has recently announced that it is acquiring other claims in our region, including thousands of acres at Eight Dollar Mountain, the beautiful cone that you see as you drive on Hwy 199 over near Cave Junction. It’s right beside the Wild and Scenic Illinois River corridor and hosts a beloved botanical area, with boardwalks where you can enjoy hosts of blooming western azaleas in early summer while listening to the roar of the river! Unfortunately, this reach of the wild and scenic river and the botanical area were never withdrawn from mining, though the BLM and Forest Service (USFS) recommended it in their plans. Another area mentioned by a company press release is located in the Rogue watershed west of Medford, but we don’t yet know where.
The Canadian company’s business promotions indicate it is seeking to amass blocks of mining claims throughout our region in order to get-in on domestic minerals production to supply nickel to the emerging market for EV batteries in the U.S. However, we know based on past exploration records and the history of past mining industry activities in Oregon that the mineral resources in our region are low grade. This means that the company would have to move a lot of mountaintops to secure a small amount of mineral.
At this point, as far as we know, the company has not yet submitted official plans for exploration or mining activities. However, owing to a change in rules dating back to the Bush Administration, beyond withdrawn areas, mining companies don’t even have to tell the USFS they are out exploring public lands unless they are causing “significant surface resource disturbance.” Of course, the USFS, with its “multiple use” approach will need to closely follow laws governing mining in whatever happens, but that law is the outdated Mining Law of 1872, which basically gives mining companies a stranglehold on our public lands and puts all the other values we care about –clean water, salmon habitat, unique botany and scenery–in the back seat. If existing claims in the withdrawal areas turn out to be “valid,” based on an equation that looks solely at profitability, the mining may be allowed to proceed.
In the face of climate change, we need to transition to renewable energy, but we also need to take care of our freshwater ecosystems, which will become increasingly precious. Several outstanding wild rivers of Southwestern Oregon are fed year-round by serpentine springs (not just snowpack) and are part of a collection of wild rivers, from the Smith to the Elk, that together serve as a crucial salmon stronghold for the future.
For all these reasons, we must remain vigilant. The Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act, which includes a provision to make permanent the Southwestern Oregon Mineral Withdrawal (the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act, SOWSPA), can help by disallowing more new mining claims, by requiring proof of validity, and by locking in the value of nickel at the date of withdrawal. Senator Wyden’s River Democracy Act, which includes Wild and Scenic designations for tributaries of many of our wild rivers and a mineral withdrawal for all newly designated streams, would also help, especially for the Eight Dollar Mountain area.
Please send make a call or send an email to Senator Wyden (via his contact page) to remind him of the importance of protecting our region’s extraordinary rivers. This is our home place, and we are the Wild Rivers Coast, after all, and so we need to keep this issue on his radar screen. Here is a sample message you can use:
Dear Senator Wyden, Thank you for your leadership in protecting Oregon’s Wild and Scenic Rivers. I am writing from X in Southwestern Oregon, and I am concerned about mining threats at the headwaters of several of our cherished Wild and Scenic Rivers and salmon streams including the Illinois, Smith, and Hunter Creek. Our rivers’ headwaters are no place for strip mining and so I urge you to do all you can to help make sure that we can protect our treasured Oregon wild rivers and wildlands into the future.
Perseverance –because we LOVE and CARE our home place is our superpower –and so we all need to pitch in to help on this. Please help us to keep up the drumbeat.
BOEM proceeds with Wind Energy Areas
In mid-February, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced two Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) off Oregon’s Coast for development of future Floating Offshore Wind (FOSW) projects. The announcement came following a public process that started with “Call Areas” last year. BOEM whittled these down to Draft WEAs that we commented on last fall. The final WEAs are slated to be leased to energy companies before the end of 2024 so construction proposals can be developed.
The 209-square mile Brookings WEA is located off about 18 miles off south Curry County, from roughly the City of Brookings north to Cape Sebastian. The 95-square mile Coos Bay WEA is located about 30 miles off the coast from roughly Reedsport north to Florence. Through its “Call Area” review, BOEM removed most all undersea rocky habitat and the areas closest to the coast, which would have impacted more birds, fish, and wildlife. In response to the Draft WEAs, BOEM removed a narrow swath at the state line to conserve a long-standing monitoring transect that fishers have argued is crucial to retain for future fisheries management. However, no changes were made in response to conservationists’ enduring concerns about critical foraging habitat for Humpback whales, for Short Tailed Albatross, for Leach’s Storm Petrels that cross the WEA to feed out near the shelf break, or for unique coral forests that serve as nursery habitat for fish. Moreover, there has been no response to our push for a cumulative impacts analysis for the string of five wind energy installations now in the works for sites up and down the West Coast (with more likely to come).
In general, BOEM has basically told the conservation community that our concerns will be addressed later in the process, during planning for actual construction. However, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about how the agency intends to address cumulative impacts for wildlife that transits through the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, the highly productive upwelling zone that extends up and down the West Coast, drawing birds, fish, and wildlife from afar to forage.
Also in February, BOEM announced a 30-day comment period for scoping comments for a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that they are now preparing ahead of a Lease Auction that they intend to hold this fall for the Oregon WEAs. BOEM will analyze only the activities that energy companies will use to assess the WEAs in order to plan for construction and operations proposals–and not the impacts of potential wind turbine array infrastructure. Site assessment includes activities such as installing of meteorological buoys and using acoustic technology or remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to map the ocean floor. To respond, KAS collaborated with wind energy experts at the National Wildlife Federation and National Audubon who have worked on wind energy proposals around the country to submit substantive comments. In short, the main concerns with site assessment activities for wildlife are noise impacts, vessel traffic impacts, and entanglement of marine mammals, especially endangered species.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Legislature, in its short session, passed HB 4080 authorizing the State to develop a Roadmap for Oregon offshore wind energy. As mentioned in the last Storm Petrel, I was invited to participate in an Oregon Consensus project with many diverse stakeholders over the past several months to create a blueprint for a State “Roadmap with Exit Ramps.” The group outlined key questions to be answered and a more inclusive and deliberate process that the State could orchestrate to better respond to the BOEM process. HB 4080 originated with labor groups seeking to ensure that any future FOSW jobs would go to union workers, but it was ultimately amended to direct the State to develop a Roadmap—presumably to be informed by recommendations of the Oregon Consensus group (yet to be published). Per HB 4080, DLCD (Department of Land Conservation and Development) will have the lead and must develop the state Roadmap by Sept. 1, 2025. Funding for two new positions was also included.
Hopefully, the Roadmap will be in place to ensure a better process by the time Oregon faces actual construction and operation proposals and for any future BOEM Call Area proposals. The Roadmap will no doubt be imperfect, but it will bring more of an “Oregon Way” approach to informing and developing FOSW, which I can’t help but think will result in a better outcome than BOEM’s current approach. KAS recently joined with fishers, Tribes and other coastally based conservation groups in sending a letter to Governor Kotek requesting that she urge BOEM to delay moving forward with its lease auction to give the State time to develop the Roadmap with its more robust and inclusive process.
Beyond creating a Roadmap, DLCD will also need to conduct two “Federal Consistency Reviews” (FCR)—one soon for the activities BOEM will consider for its upcoming siting assessment EA, and then a second one, when and if an actual construction/ operation proposal is put forth. (The time frame for an actual proposal is likely to be about five to seven years in the future, I’ve been told.)
To be clear, Oregon has no official purview over the Outer Continental Shelf, but through the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), the state does have authority to conduct FCRs for all federal actions within our Territorial Sea (out three miles from the coast), and farther if the activities proposed have significant impacts on Oregon. In short, an FCR is a process whereby the State determines whether or not a federal project complies with state enforceable policies, which include our local land use laws (comprehensive plans and zoning codes) as well as Oregon Revised Statutes. In the case of FOSW, the federal projects will include not only the BOEM activities, but, in the future, also Army Corps of Engineer permits for onshoring of cables, and more. The State is not considering the FCR process to be a hammer to stop projects –though that is what happened with the Jordan Cove LNG proposal —but rather as a way to encourage proactive collaboration with federal agencies.
The next step in the BOEM process will be coming soon. We expect a comment period for the Draft EA for site assessment activities this month, and there may be a Proposed Sale Notice, too, A lease auction is expected this fall. The first State DLCD FCR comment period will likely come in early summer.
FOSW has potential to be the biggest the development ever in the highly productive marine environment off Oregon’s coast. Thus far, KAS is taking the course of trying to make sure that, if it comes, it will be done as best as possible with regards to wildlife. Meanwhile, some larger conservation groups and environmental groups–taking a 30,000-foot look– are pushing, along with labor, manufacturing, and industry groups, for the leases to happen as quickly as possible to hasten decarbonization in order to implement the Green New Deal and “save the planet.”
Of course, we agree with the urgent need to decarbonize, which is crucial if we want our wildlife–and our own species– to survive into the future. But that does not mean that large industrial infrastructure projects do not demand close scrutiny. The issues look different when you take a focused look at the specifics of our place —including the tremendous costs and challenges of installing FOSW turbines in the tempestuous north Pacific and transmission lines that will need to cross highly erodible mountains prone to seismic risk– versus, let’s say, off the coast of New Jersey, where fixed bottom turbines (established technology) can be more readily installed in shallow water and the generated energy can be more readily plugged into an existing grid that serves millions of people nearby. I’d think that it would be a bigger bang for the buck to invest in a known technology closer to the centers of big demand, but the way the politics and markets seem to be working, the federal government is seeking to spread out the projects and investments. Plus, Pacific NW energy experts want the “complementarity” of offshore wind to match up with energy from dams and onshore wind farms.
Another crazy factor in the race to lease areas off Oregon is that the Inflation Reduction Act included a provision inserted by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that requires a new oil and gas lease in any year in which there is an offshore wind energy lease. For this reason, the Biden Administration is seeking to get as many wind leases done by the end of 2024 as possible, since there has already been an oil and gas lease this year.
With proposals on the horizon not only for floating offshore wind energy, but also for nickel mining and pumped energy storage projects that seek to take water from our salmon streams, we’re now facing a whole new generation of threats associated with the energy transition needed to decarbonize our nation’s economy. Some may think that we need to do our part, but I have long thought that the way that our special corner of Oregon contributes to the larger national good is by conserving our nationally outstanding wild rivers and forests for salmon and wildlife –and not just becoming degraded like everyplace else.
Regardless of what any of us think about FOSW off Oregon’s Coast, sharing our local knowledge about birds, fish, and wildlife, our communities, and the coast will continue to be crucial if we want to positively influence the outcome for our marine environment.
Snowy plover nesting season
It’s now Western Snowy Plover nesting season. From March 15 to Sept. 15, beach users are asked to help with recovery efforts for these threatened birds by observing recreation restrictions aimed at protecting nesting areas. Because the small shorebirds nest on dry, open sand, they can be highly vulnerable to human disturbance.
In designated plover management areas, dogs, vehicles, camping and fires, and kite and drone flying are prohibited. Beach users (walkers and equestrians) need to stay on wet sand, avoid any roped off nest sites. In Curry County, beaches north of Floras Lake are the only designated plover management area.
When the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service first designated western snowy plovers as a threatened species in 1993, there were only 45 breeding adults on Oregon’s coast. Because of the success of protective efforts over the past 20 years, in 2023, biologists counted 433 breeding adults. With increasing numbers, the birds are now starting to nest in additional areas that are not officially designated as management area. In these areas, it’s still important to walk on wet sand, to carefully control your dog on a leash, and to avoid other potential disruptive activities, even though it is not explicitly required. Some of these new nesting areas may be roped off to help protect birds.
If you’re interested to observe these small, well-camouflaged shorebirds, it’s best to keep your distance and use good binoculars.
Court affirms Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider a case brought by the timber industry and Association of Oregon Counties that had argued President Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act to expand the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in 2017 had been illegal because it converted some O&C lands designated for timber production into conservation purposes. The Supreme Court’s decision to decline the case finally affirmed the expanded footprint of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which is known for high biodiversity, owing to its location and role connecting wildlands in the Cascades and Siskiyou Mountains. This is a big victory for public lands advocates!
Elk River Chinook update
Each year ODFW conducts carcass surveys of fall Chinook in Elk River, which (together with coded wire tags) help provide data that enables the agency to model the run and to monitor how many fish return to the river. Last fall, local sports fishermen reported a poor run. Data now reveals it was the second lowest run in the past 25 years.
KAS has tracked the Elk River fall Chinook run, ever since it was identified as non-viable in ODFW’s Coastal Multi-species Conservation and Management Plan in 2013. Two limiting factors were identified: poor estuarine rearing habitat and hatchery interactions, which means too many hatchery fish were interbreeding with wild fish on spawning grounds instead of being caught or returning to the hatchery. Since that time, ODFW has taken steps to reduce negative hatchery interactions, including improving pumps, keeping the fish ladder open all season, and focusing fishery effort on hatchery fish. For several years, the level of pHOS (percent hatchery fish on spawning grounds) had significantly declined. However, this past fall, it skyrocketed upward again to 58 percent. ODFW’s current target for pHOS is 30 percent though it’s thought that a rate of 10 percent or lower is best for the persistence of wild fish runs. It’s not clear why the pHOS has jumped so high.
Gray Whale prospects looking up
In mid-March, the NOAA Fisheries announced that the Unusual Mortality Event (UME) which had been affecting North Pacific gray whales along the west coast of north America for the past five year has finally ended. The UME involved 690 gray whale strandings from California to Alaska.
The team investigating the UME suspect that its cause was ecosystem changes in the gray whales’ subarctic and Arctic feeding areas that led to reduction of food sources and subsequent malnutrition, decreased birth rates, and increased mortality. As a result, scientists estimate that the population of gray whales declined by roughly 40 percent. The number of strandings has now stabilized at a rate similar to that before the UME and the number of calves born seems to be improving.
The recent UME echoes a similar but shorter one that afflicted gray whales back in 1999-2000, after which the population was able to rebound and climb higher than it had been beforehand.
Conservation News from the Kalmiopsis Audubon Spring 2024 Storm Petrel newsletter