Tag: mineral withdrawal

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CONSERVATION NEWS, Winter 2023

by Ann Vileisis

SWO Mineral withdrawal bill hits dead end

It is with great disappointment that I report that the Southwest Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act (SOWSPA)—the legislation to make permanent the temporary 20-year mineral withdrawal for the headwaters of our wild rivers—did not make it across the finish line to become enacted as law in the last Congress. I know many of you have been wondering about it.

As I’ve reported in previous Storm Petrels, this bill was a high priority for Congressman DeFazio and also for our Senators, who had put it forth in the Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act. On the House side, the bill had already passed the entire body of lawmakers, and on the Senate side, the bill had been reported favorably out of committee with a bipartisan vote –and so we’d been told it was all queued up and ready to become part of a public land omnibus (package of bills combined into an act) at the end of the session. We were very hopeful, and all eyes were on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (SENR) Committee to develop an omnibus bill.

However, no public lands bill ever came together. Exceedingly close elections in Alaska and Georgia meant control of the Senate remained up in the air until early December. This left too little time for negotiations. Higher priority bills to fund the federal government and defense took precedence. And perhaps most significant was the threat of “poison pill” amendments. West Virginia Senator Manchin kept trying to attach riders to any moving bills to weaken environmental safeguards for the benefit of the fossil energy industry (dubbed Machin’s “dirty deal”) while Senator Daines of Montana tried to push a bill that would have undermined the Endangered Species Act. Given these larger factors, there was just no way to advance a public land bill through the closely divided Senate. 

And so where does this leave the headwaters of our cherished Wild and Scenic Illinois and North Fork Smith rivers and Hunter Creek and Pistol River? Fortunately, owing to our successful advocacy back in 2015-2016, we still have the 20-year temporary administrative mineral withdrawal in place –so there is more time for Congress to act to make it permanent. The purpose of the temporary administrative withdrawal depends on the bill being introduced again into the House and Senate again in the new session. 

We will no longer have our longstanding champion Rep. Peter DeFazio to help us, and the headwaters of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River are now in the district of Rep. Cliff Bentz, who has already voiced more interest in boosting mining in southwest Oregon than in conservation. I trust that Senator Wyden and Merkley will help, and I hope that we’ll soon have a chance to help educate our new Representative Val Hoyle about why protecting the headwaters of our South Coast’s wild rivers is so important. That said, given the current chaos in Congress, it looks like we may be in for a long wait until there is another opportunity to pass this bill. 

Securing the permanent mineral withdrawal to protect our region’s finest wild rivers and their clean water and salmon runs from the irreversible risks of mining must remain a high priority for conservation in our region. The surface strip mining needed to extract nickel from our local mountains would require removal of massive amounts of overburden for relatively small amounts of minerals—with untenable risks for our local watersheds. Clean drinking water and adequate flows in our rivers are going to be more and more precious as climate change ratchets up stresses on our aquatic ecosystems.

Our nation should prioritize research into alternate battery metals for the electric vehicles that we’ll need to transition to a clean energy economy. For example, researchers are already investigating sodium and saline—minerals that are far more common, less costly, and less irrevocably damaging to obtain than those that require strip mining. European nations are farther along in working toward a “circular economy” with metals recycling baked into manufacturing planning from the outset. We will never get to these much-needed innovations if our economic system allows wrecking whole landscapes—including some of America’s last best rivers and salmon streams—as a legitimate activity. Clean energy cannot be called “clean” if it depends on destructive mining. This nineteenth-century thinking needs to change as we aim to tackle twenty-first century challenges. 

Rocky Habitat conservation advances

In early December, I testified on behalf of KAS to the Oregon Policy Advisory Committee (OPAC), in support of proposed Rocky Shores designations. There were six areas proposed along the entire coast for Marine Conservation Areas (MCAs), including Cape Lookout, Cape Foulweather, and one in our area at Blacklock Point, which is contiguous with parts of Floras Lake Natural Area. The Blacklock MCA is intended to protect unique rocky habitat and nearshore kelp areas that are adjacent to the Floras Lake Natural Area. I am pleased to report that OPAC voted to recommend all six areas as MCAs.

Developing a strategy to conserve the important values of our state’s Rocky Habitats is a key part of Oregon’s Territorial Sea Plan. The public process to nominate and designate suitable areas has been going on for several years now. Rocky habitats are unique and important areas for marine life—think tidepools filled with snails, limpets, sea stars, mussels, barnacles, nudibranchs, and all manner of beautiful algae, plus shorebirds, including Black oystercatchers and turnstones and surfbirds! These rich ecosystems can also be extremely vulnerable to visitation and overuse, which has already resulted in unfortunate habitat degradation along the North Coast. 

The newly designated MCA sites will get added to the list of Rocky Habitat areas already designated last year, including the Cape Blanco Marine Research Area and the Coquille Point Marine Garden, and will be recommended for final approval by the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) this spring. As the designations suggest, different areas are intended to have different emphases—some research, some public education with the aim of both reducing impacts and also helping the public to understand the unique values that rocky shore habitats provide. 

How these newly designated areas will be managed will depend on LCDC rulemaking that is yet to come. The Blacklock MCA will bring no explicit change of rules in terms of harvesting marine life but will hopefully help to marshal more resources to study and protect its important values into the future. 

Update on Floating Offshore Wind development

In January, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed its qualification review and finally announced the results of its “call” for nominations for floating wind energy development off Oregon’s Coast. Four multinational corporations put forth qualified nominations: Avangrid, Ocean Winds, Bluefloat Energy, and Mainstream Renewable Power. Their nominations cover the entirety of both the Brookings and Coos Bay call areas.

With nominations now reviewed, BOEM will continue with its own evaluation of potential impacts of energy projects on the nominated areas, which entails “suitability modeling” to determine which parts of the call areas are most suitable for future wind energy development. We hope they will also consider input from all other Oregon stakeholders before they identify Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) –the subset of the call areas—that will be considered for leasing to these private companies.

Down the coast in California, BOEM is much further along in its process of leasing offshore areas for wind energy development, which enables us to see what will be coming in Oregon. Having identified California WEAs last year, BOEM hosted its first West Coast wind lease sale in early December. Five companies won leases for five areas that will cover more than 370,000 acres—almost 600 square miles—off the coasts of central California near Morro Bay and of northern California, near Eureka, with the promise of generating 4.6 gigawatts (GW) of energy. The leases give developers the right to assess the WEAs in a proprietary way so they can propose more specifically how they will seek to further develop them in the future.

The auction drew bids much lower than recent lease sales on the East Coast, reflecting the greater uncertainties on the West Coast—with still unproven floating technologies in deeper waters, the lack of a clear plan to offtake the energy, and the need to build ports, a supply chain and a workforce. The average price offered to the government by the wind companies was $2,028 per acre in comparison with the $8,951 per acre price of lease areas off New York and New Jersey last February. Interestingly, none of the companies that won the California leases are the same as those now seeking leases in Oregon.  With its great demand for renewable energy and enormous population centers, California has already boosted its offshore wind energy goals to 25 GW by 2045, aiming to see more call areas identified for consideration soon.

With California racing ahead to adopt FOSW technology and other regions proceeding apace with OSW development, Oregon, coming a little later to the game, will hopefully have the benefit of learning from the mistakes of other places. Already BOEM’s suitability modeling is apparently becoming more robust and, in Oregon, will be used ahead of leasing instead of afterwards. Oregon’s outstanding marine natural resources certainly merit careful consideration. We should avoid and minimize impacts not only to fisheries but also to the seabirds and marine mammals that depend on the rich upwelling waters of the West Coast’s California Current large marine ecosystem. 

As longtime KAS members know, our group has been engaged in the public process for wind energy siting at both the state and federal level—advocating for earlier consideration of impacts to birds, fish, and wildlife and for a cumulative impacts assessment given the multiple wind energy areas and projects now under consideration for development from California through to Washington. The next opportunities for public input will be after BOEM identifies Oregon WEAs later this year. Please consider attending the upcoming presentations sponsored by KAS in Brookings and Gold Beach on February 9 to learn more about this important topic for our region. 

Elliott State Research Forest update

A bit north of our usual beat, KAS has long supported the goal of greater conservation of the important old-growth forest habitat remaining in the Elliott State Forest, located north east of Coos Bay. Longtime KAS members will recall that these valuable forests were being steadily logged-off to support the state school fund despite their irreplaceable habitat for marbled murrelets and other forest dependent wildlife. A big chunk of the state forest lands was even sold off with the express purpose of avoiding habitat protection laws that apply to public lands –until a deal was finally reached to de-couple the forest from the school fund and find a new path to provide for public benefit as a research forest. In early 2021, the Oregon Legislature established the Elliott State Research Forest (ESRF) to be managed by Oregon State University (OSU).


Over the past couple of years, there has been a concerted planning effort with OSU and an appointed advisory board to set up the ESRF. Now comes the test –will it will truly be managed as a living laboratory that helps to conserve critical natural habitat values? In December, the Oregon Land Board appointed a new group of nine stakeholders to the Elliott State Research Forest Authority Board, which will now work with OSU to oversee the research and management of the ESRF. Representatives from Southwestern Oregon include Teresa Bird, an ecological consultant who has conducted numerous murrelet surveys in the Elliott (and who is a KAS member!), and Jack Williams, a fish biologist who has served in the past as chief scientist for Trout Unlimited and as Supervisor for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Bob Sallinger, who has worked as Portland Audubon’s Conservation Director for several decades, has also been appointed to represent conservation interests.

In addition, the state has recently put forth a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for the federally threatened and endangered species that inhabit the ESRF. The HCP must be approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service and will become the binding document that outlines specific protections for these species, including marbled murrelets, northern spotted owls, and Oregon Coast coho. KAS recently submitted comments and joined with other Oregon Audubon chapters in pressing the federal agencies to require better mapping, larger buffers, and greater protections for known occupied marbled murrelet nest sites and also provisions to improve aquatic habitat in the ESRF. 

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Conservation News, Winter 2022

by Ann Vileisis

Time to finish the job: Protecting our Wild Rivers Coast from strip mining

As longstanding KAS members know, we’ve been working to protect the headwaters of Hunter Creek, Pistol River, the North Fork Smith and the Illinois Rivers from the threat of nickel strip mining, ever since a foreign owned mining company proposed to explore Forest Service lands behind Gold Beach at Red Flat back in 2013. After working together with a coalition of organizations, communities, tribes—and our members of Congress, in 2016, we helped to secure a temporary 20-year administrative mineral withdrawal, which precludes the staking of new mining claims in these headwater areas to give our lawmakers time to pass a law to make the mineral withdrawal permanent. Since then, every year, our Senators and Congressman have introduced the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protect Act (SOWSPA). Last fall, the bill made it farther than ever before, with important hearings completed on both the House and Senate side!

However, with the pending retirement of our Congressman Peter DeFazio, we will lose an important champion who has long worked to protect Southwest Oregon’s rivers from the threat of mining. (By the way, Rep. DeFazio recently secured funding to clean up the horribly polluting Formosa Mine Superfund site over in the Cow Creek-South Fork Umpqua watershed!) Before Rep. DeFazio leaves office at the end of his session, we will need for him to work with our Senators to finally get SOWSPA across the finish line. With redistricting, a much bigger chunk of the upper Illinois River will move into the district of Rep. Bentz of eastern Oregon, who is already on record opposing protections for our rivers’ headwaters. Moreover, there is rising opposition to our bill based on the interests of one small but loud Grants Pass mining company that has gotten the ear of the Josephine County Board of Commissioners (BOC), as well as Rep. Bentz and other influential Republican lawmakers in D.C. – arguing that rising demand for battery metals means SW Oregon should be open to mining development and pushing a false narrative that local people don’t want any mining restrictions. In one Congressional hearing, a Josephine County Commissioner even claimed (falsely) that Curry County opposed SOWSPA!

Knowing we’d need to counter that misinformation, I approached Curry County Commissioner Court Boice—our commissioner most interested in public lands—and reminded him of the longstanding local effort to protect our rivers’ headwaters. Mr. Boice offered to put the issue onto the BOC agenda on Dec. 1. I am extremely grateful for the dedicated and articulate KAS members and local residents who showed up to testify in person at the Curry BOC meeting. One person after another got up to speak –giving voice to many concerns, from mine waste and pollution, to drinking water and wells, salmon and steelhead, and unique botany –all important reasons for the BOC to support SOWSPA.

As each person spoke of love for our rivers and place, the positive momentum grew. Ultimately, we built up a powerful wave of inspiration that literally washed over them. In the space of that BOC meeting, any larger political divisions evaporated, and we were all people who loved and cared deeply about our special “Curry Corner of Oregon,” as Mr. Boice often puts it.


When the public comment ended, Board Chair John Herzog led with enthusiasm. He exclaimed: I think we should just support this right now! He gave Boice “the honor of making the motion.” Then the Board voted unanimously to support, eliciting appreciative applause from the entire room. In the end, Mr. Boice said: “This is almost inspiring,” and Mr. Paasch added that he wanted to make sure the letter included specific direction to get the bill passed soon!

It couldn’t have gone any better. Two weeks later, on Dec. 15, the Curry BOC adopted a final letter in support of SOWSPA. Meanwhile, KAS member and Native Fish Society (NFS) Hunter Creek steward Dave Lacey went to the Gold Beach City Council, and they too voted to renew their support for SOWSPA. These letters–on top of the well-established and substantive record public support from the extensive public process for the 2016 administrative mineral withdrawal—should help to give Rep. DeFazio and our Senators the concrete and current evidence that they need to counter the mis-information. There are many reasons to feel despair about national politics, but our work locally gives me some hope that people can come together around common ground for conservation.

On another front, you may recall that, despite the mineral withdrawal, the Red Flat Nickel Company (RFNC) asserted that it had a “valid existing right” to continue exploratory drilling on its 1,776-acre block of claims at the Hunter Creek headwaters. (Mineral withdrawals do not apply to “valid existing claims) In response, the Forest Service has been preparing a “Surface Use Determination” to provide technical details that will inform whether such a continuation is even legally possible. The SUD is expected to be completed soon, and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Supervisor Merv George will make a final decision about whether to allow any further mineral exploration. Because hard rock mining on federal public lands is still governed by the outdated Mining Law 1872, our Mineral Withdrawal solution is not perfect, but it’s the best tool we have to protect our cherished watersheds.

There will be more to do on this issue in the coming year, and so I hope I can count on your continued backing and support. Please stay tuned, and sign up for KAS HOOT OUTs for timely opportunities to help.

BOEM to announce Wind Energy “call areas” soon

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is slated to officially announce “call areas” proposed for wind energy development off Oregon’s coast next month. In the last Storm Petrel, I reported that KAS had spearheaded efforts to pull together Oregon Audubon chapters and other important marine wildlife conservation groups into a coalition to proactively identify key issues for birds, fish, and wildlife early in the wind energy facility siting process. In late October, our coalition sent a letter to BOEM, expressing concern that official opportunities for public comment would come only after the areas for energy development were already picked. To us, it has seemed to be a cart-before-the-horse approach, especially since the floating offshore turbines are a totally new technology, and siting turbines in one of our planet’s largest upwelling current zones—the California Current—is also wholly new. If there is anything I’ve learned about minimizing the impacts of wind turbines on wildlife, it’s that getting the siting right is the single most important decision to be made.

In our letter, we provided specific information about the important values of Oregon’s rich offshore marine ecosystems—with productive upwelling of exceptionally clean, cold water that provides for fisheries/fish habitat areas, draws nearly 100 species of birds from all around the Pacific to forage, and provides foraging habitat for thru-migrating gray whales and other marine mammals. We provided preliminary maps and recommendations on important areas to be avoided.

We also recommended and requested more opportunities for public and scientific input early in the siting and planning process; a full consideration of the high value biological resources in the California Current ecosystem off Oregon and the cumulative impacts multiple West Coast wind energy projects will pose to wildlife; formation of a technical science advisory group to provide an independent review and expertise for both siting and management considerations; developing a comprehensive coastwide framework for adaptive management, including robust monitoring and a way to bring new scientific information on board; and developing a meaningful compensatory mitigation program to make up for environmental harm caused by the implementation of offshore wind facilities, including cable landing and port/terminal sites.

After sending the letter, in early December, we had a chance to discuss some of our concerns with BOEM officials. When we asked for a better understanding of what specific criteria BOEM was using to choose its call areas, they pretty much said: “Trust us! There will need to be some judgement calls.” Coming from a massive federal agency with a long background of siting offshore oil drilling platforms, this response was not entirely reassuring. In the big picture, we recognize the Biden Administration is racing to fast track its climate crisis response with offshore wind energy as a key component, but as local caretakers, we must voice concerns for the wildlife that depends on Oregon’s rich, clean, and pristine offshore marine ecosystems. After BOEM announces its call areas, we expect a notice in the Federal Register that will start a 30-day “call” for public comment and site nominations from wind energy companies.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Energy (DOE), under direction from the State legislature’s HB 3375, put forth by our own State Representative David Brock Smith, is starting a study to identify benefits and challenges to offshore wind development –focused on the energy aspects (eg. hook up to the grid, port infrastructure, transmission lines). On Jan. 20, DOE gave an overview and kicked off a public comment period. Comments will be accepted via an online portal in response to “prompt questions” about different topics (not all have to be answered). To learn more and to participate, google: Floating Offshore Wind Study Oregon.

The need to transition to a carbon-free energy system has never been more urgent, but it is important to make sure we don’t inadvertently harm our wildlife as we proceed! Stay tuned.

Humboldt Marten: critical habitat proposed

In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) proposed critical habitat to help support the survival and recovery of the Humboldt marten (Martes caurina), which was listed as a threatened species in 2020. KAS submitted supportive comments.

Humboldt martens live only in the forests of Northern California and Oregon, including those dominated by old-growth firs but also coastal shore pine forests and serpentine forests. The coastal martens have been eliminated from 93-95% of their historic range and continue to be threatened by logging of mature forests, loss of habitat to wildfires, rodent poison used in growing marijuana, vehicle strikes, and loss of genetic diversity owing to such a small population size. The decline of these animals started with the historic fur trade that decimated not only martens but otters, minks, and beavers, too. Not until 2019 did the State of Oregon ban trapping for these very rare animals–and only then, after a petition and lawsuit from conservation groups.

The proposed Humboldt marten critical habitat in our KAS “beat” includes the Floras Lake Natural Area, Cape Blanco and Humbug State Parks, as well as large forested areas of Siskiyou National Forest—all areas where martens have been sighted and that still retain or have potential to retain the old growth, closed canopy character, and dense brush habitats that the animals favor. According to the USF&WS, 42% the area proposed for Humboldt marten critical habitat is already managed as such for marbled murrelets and spotted owls, other species that depend on old growth forest.

Humboldt martens have pointy ears and bushy tails. They grow up to 2 feet long but weigh less than 3 pounds. Martens are solitary animals except during mating and when females are raising young. They favor denning in cavities of large old trees and foraging in dense brushy areas. Martens eat small mammals, birds, berries, reptiles and insects, and are eaten by larger mammals and raptors so they once played an important role in coastal forest ecosystems.

Drones on the coast

Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) will soon consider new rules for drones in state parks. Through the years, some of you have reported observing drones flying too close to osprey nests. In addition, data from the ongoing coastal Black Oystercatcher study (orchestrated by Portland Audubon with help from volunteers, including some KAS members) has also documented a troubling trend of increased disturbance of these shorebird nests. This will be an important concern to bring up. A public comment period is expected in February. If any of you have observations or experiences with drone impacts to birds or wildlife, please let me know. I’ll be sharing more info about how to provide comments in an upcoming HOOT OUT.

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CONSERVATION NEWS

by Ann Vileisis

Southwest Oregon Mineral Withdrawal bill advances!

I am pleased to report that on Oct. 18, the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee held a hearing, which included consideration of the Oregon Recreation Enhancement (ORE) Act. The ORE Act includes the Southwest Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act (SOWSPA), which would secure a permanent “mineral withdrawal” to protect vulnerable areas at the headwaters of the Wild and Scenic Illinois and North Fork Smith Rivers, plus Hunter Creek and Pistol River, from the threat of nickel strip mining. The bill also includes designation of more wilderness and a National Recreation Area for the Rogue River canyon (upstream of Curry). In the Senate, such hearings are key stepping stones for a bill to advance.

You will remember that Congressman DeFazio advanced the SOWSPA portion of this bill earlier this year on the House side, pressing to have it included in a big public lands bill. The challenge of lawmaking, of course, is to get bills through both the gauntlet of both Senate and House hearings so they can match up in a larger public lands bill before the end of the two-year session. With so many pressing issues facing our country, and unprecedented political polarization, this chess game is not easy. That makes your continued engagement crucial.

Longtime KAS members know, we’ve been working for many years to secure this mineral withdrawal to permanently protect our rivers and unique wildlands from new mining claims. In the face of an active mining proposal up Hunter Creek, we built tremendous local and regional support and positive momentum. After massive turnout at public meetings—demonstrating 99% support, including from local surrounding communities, businesses and tribes—we secured a temporary administrative 20-year withdrawal in 2017. But only Congress can make it permanent, and the clock is ticking.

Meanwhile, this past summer, a mining proponent in Josephine County mounted an aggressive campaign to oppose any restrictions on mining in SW Oregon, promoting a vision of new mines as an economic boon for southern Oregon, though ignoring economic realities and severe problems that strip mining would impose on our pristine streams. Nonetheless, his claims prompted the Josephine County Board of Commissioners (BOC) to write two letters opposing SOWSPA and the River Democracy Act, which is another promising bill that would protect rivers statewide (see below). Of course, whatever happens on lands and rivers in Josephine County is upstream from us–in both the Illinois and Rogue watersheds. In addition, with the current push for renewable energy and growing global demand for battery metals, including lithium and nickel, the mining industry has been pushing hard for looser regulations to a more-receptive Congress.

And so, the threats remain. It’s important to remember that mining companies still operate under the Mining Law of 1872, which provides very few sideboards, gives local communities no way to protect drinking water, fish habitat or other special values, and leaves the taxpayers holding the bag for clean-up of toxic wastes and spills. As long as federal mining law makes it cheaper and easier to wreck pristine landscapes for raw minerals, sourcing needed metals from recycled sources remains a backburner option. Meanwhile, the metal mining industry, dominated by foreign companies, is the most polluting in America. In our region of renowned wild rivers, clear water, and salmon runs (not to mention unique rare plants) —plus high precipitation, locating strip mines on public lands at our headwaters would be a major mistake! As we’ve long said, this is no place for mining.

In addition to the ORE Act, earlier this year Senators Wyden and Merkley introduced the River Democracy Act (RDA), which would designate thousands of new miles of wild and scenic rivers all around Oregon, including many in our KAS beat thanks to local nominations and support. The bill would give the Forest Service clear directive to manage our rivers to protect their outstanding values into the future, and also would explicitly prevent new dams and new mining claims. This bill had its very first hearing earlier this summer. More than 250 businesses and breweries, including many in southwest Oregon, have supported it—providing an important counterweight to those few advocating for more mining.

To keep up momentum to get ORE/SOWSPA across the finish line and to show support for the RDA, I ask for your help once again. Please make a call or send an email to Senators Wyden and Merkley. We’ve had to do this again and again, and yet “endless pressure endlessly applied,” in the words of the great conservationist Brock Evans, is the only way we can succeed in proactively protecting the wild rivers that provide for so much life, beauty, recreation –not to mention drinking water –in our region.

ACTION ALERT: PLEASE HELP by taking 2 minutes to call Senator Wyden’s office and leave a message/or send a short email to THANK him for advancing the ORE Act.

Here is the phone number for Sen. Wyden’s Washington Office: (202) 224-5244 If you call after-hours, you’ll be asked to say and spell your name, indicate where you live –and leave a brief message. That’s easy!

Or here’s the URL for Senator Wyden’s website where you can send him a note:  https://www.wyden.senate.gov/contact/email-ron

SAMPLE Voice Message/note to cut, paste, and please personalize to make it more effective:

Dear Senator Wyden,

Thank you advancing the Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act, which includes the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act (SOWSPA). This bill will help to permanently protect the headwaters of our cherished local rivers from the threat of strip mining. I value our rivers and this is something that local people care about and that I’d really like to see get done. I also support your efforts on the River Democracy Act. I appreciate your leadership in protecting all our wild rivers. THANK YOU!

Senator Wyden is on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that will have chief jurisdiction on this bill, but if you have time, please also thank Senator Merkley. He has co-sponsored this bill, and he can help by lending his support, so it’s good for him to hear from us too. The message is the SAME as above.

Here is the phone number for Senator Merkley’s Washington office: (202)-224-3753

And here is the URL for Senator Merkley’s contact website where you can send an email: https://www.merkley.senate.gov/contact

Offshore Wind energy planning proceeds

As reported in recent Storm Petrels, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is proceeding, along with the Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), to identify potential areas for offshore wind energy development, called “call areas,” on the outer continental shelf along Oregon’s coast. The call area locations are expected to be announced this winter, with an official federal BOEM process starting early next year. Kalmiopsis Audubon has taken a lead role in helping to catalyze the Oregon Audubon Council and other wildlife-conservation groups to work proactively on this issue by identifying key issues for birds, fish, and wildlife early on in the process.

Of course, it’s important to remember our context: the perils of climate change already seem to be coming faster than expected, and a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has indicated that we’re missing the boat in reducing carbon emissions and thereby will face higher temperature increases. Already higher temperatures and carbon levels are causing marine heat waves and ocean acidification that is affecting marine life. President Biden has prioritized climate action, and so there is an urgent push for massive offshore wind projects that could theoretically come on line to provide significant energy in a relatively short time—with fewer larger turbines producing more energy. (Of course, there will be significant infrastructure needed to “onshore” and distribute the electrons.) Offshore wind energy facilities have already been developed in the North Sea, off Scotland and Denmark. And on the West Coast, there are already “call areas” identified and under consideration off California (near Morro Bay and Humboldt).

The floating offshore wind projects that BOEM will consider on West Coast’s outer shelf will be among the first in the world to be sited in one the Earth’s four eastern ocean boundary upwelling systems –in our case, the California Current. These nutrient-rich, upwelling zones are the globe’s most dynamic and ecologically rich ocean ecosystems for productivity of marine life and fisheries, supporting abundant seabirds and marine mammals—and our California Current marine ecosystem is no exception.

The waters off Oregon are particularly valuable for birds, fish, and wildlife. Audubon and Birdlife International have identified important hotspots along Oregon’s coast, including over 15 nearshore “Important Bird Areas” (IBAs) and two large, offshore IBAs (Cape Blanco, Heceta Bank) that extend into waters where wind turbines are expected to be sited. Nearly 100 species of birds, including the endangered Short-tailed albatross and other seabirds of conservation concern, come from all around the Pacific to forage in Oregon’s productive offshore waters.

This clean, nutrient-rich water also attracts many species of marine mammals. Foraging areas have been identified off Oregon for humpback and gray whales, as well as endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Our offshore waters also host critical habitat for other endangered marine species, including leatherback sea turtles and green sturgeon.

Given the dynamic nature of the California Current marine ecosystem off Oregon’s coast, sophisticated spatial planning will be needed to identify ecologically important areas to be avoided. Some offshore oceanographic features are already well-known to create important zones of high productivity, including the Astoria Submarine Canyon, Heceta and Stonewall Banks, and the advective upwelling zone south of Cape Blanco. These areas should be avoided for wind development. However, the dynamic nature of our upwelling ecosystem presents unique challenges for marine spatial planning. El Niños, Pacific Decadal Oscillations, and other atmospheric cycles can alter oceanographic processes and spatially shift zones of high productivity or of devastating hypoxia and thereby significantly shift foraging areas through time. In addition, climate change is already shifting marine life distribution and may also alter atmospheric cycles in yet unknown ways.

KAS and other conservation organizations have sent a letter to BOEM and DLCD identifying key habitat areas and issues for birds, fish, and wildlife to be addressed in siting wind energy facilities on Oregon’s outer continental shelf. Floating offshore wind energy has great potential to help us transition away from polluting fossil fuels, but as we do, it will also be crucial to proactively conserve our region’s remarkably clean and productive marine ecosystems. We’ll be pushing hard to make sure that BOEM accounts for these unparalleled values in their siting process.

Elk River chinook salmon, update

At September’s ODFW Commission meeting, I testified on behalf of KAS regarding the Elk River’s fall Chinook run, urging ODFW to do more to restore viability for this important but imperiled local run. This run is managed under ODFW’s Coastal Multispecies Management and Conservation Plan (CMP), which focuses on coastal fish species that migrate north, and it was time for a 5-year status review (yes, several years late!) of the plan’s efficacy.

Long-time KAS members know we’ve been advocating for Elk River fall Chinook since 2013 when ODFW first identified them as non-viable—in fact, the state’s ONLY non-viable fall Chinook run. In 2019, an updated ODFW Population Viability Analysis (PVA) indicated that this run has an alarming 89 percent risk of extinction, which is off-the-charts in terms of risk (usually 5 percent is considered the threshold for concern)!

ODFW has attributed the problem to two factors: poor habitat in the lower river (lack of shade, trees, large wood, and off channel habitat for rearing) and hatchery interactions. The Elk River hatchery puts out roughly 275,000 chinook smolts out each year, but too many returning hatchery fish—instead of getting caught or returning to the hatchery—spawn with wild chinook in the river. In the past, it was thought that hatcheries could easily “supplement” wild runs and provide for more fishing “opportunity,” but a significant body of research over the past three decades has demonstrated that “supplementation” programs actually replace wild fish runs with a far less sustainable substitute. While hatchery-raised fish are well suited to life in a hatchery, they are not optimally suited for life in the wild. As a result, when too many hatchery fish interbreed continually with wild fish, their offspring are less productive, which in the long run depresses the productivity of the wild run. At this point, alarmingly, Elk River’s wild run is no longer reproducing itself. All this becomes especially consequential in the face of projected climate changes because genetic and life history diversity will be the key ways that fish can adapt to changing river and ocean conditions. 

Over the past seven years, ODFW has taken some actions to address the hatchery problem. They’ve reduced smolt output from 325,000 fish to ~275,000. They’ve left the intake ladder open through the entire season and fixed water pumps. This has helped to draw more fish into the hatchery and significantly reduced the number of hatchery fish spawning on wild fish redds –measured as pHOS (percent hatchery fish on spawning grounds). In the past, pHOS readily exceeded 50%, and now it’s down to just below 30% —a trend in the right direction. Also, starting last year, in light of the alarming PVA, ODFW curtailed take of wild fish for the first time ever, a closure continuing this year. This should result in anglers catching more hatchery fish and will hopefully allow more wild fish to reach and “seed” upper river spawning grounds. Finally, researchers continue to study whether adding a scent to egg incubation water might provide a better cue for hatchery fish to return into the hatchery –another possible way to reduce spawning of hatchery fish on wild spawning grounds. This research still has another six years to go! Meanwhile, we remain concerned that ODFW seems unwilling to consider the one idea that may be most important–to simply lower the enormous hatchery releases to a more sustainable level that could reduce high risks to wild run.

For comparison, according to 2019 ODFW data, the number of fall Chinook smolts and fingerlings released by Indian Creek hatchery in the estuary of the mighty Rogue River was ~63,000, and hatchery fall Chinook made up 1-3 percent of the returning lower river run. In the much smaller Elk River, the average number of fall Chinook smolts released annually between 2014-2018 was 279,209, and hatchery fish made up a whopping 52 percent of the returning run!

Moreover, a key problem in tracking Elk River chinook populations is that when ODFW counts returning fish, they count those that return without an adipose clip as “naturally produced.” However, these non-clipped fish could be not only the offspring of two wild fish, but possibly of one hatchery and one wild parent, or of two hatchery parents that spawned in the river. There’s been a nagging concern that the high numbers of hatchery fish continually added into the river, and continually contributing to less productive, non-clipped offspring, could be masking a decline of the wild run. That is a key reason that ODFW’s recent PVA is so alarming. If this is making your head swim, don’t worry. This is a truly challenging issue on many levels.

In short, when Elk River hatchery was built back in 1968, Elk River had a strong run of fall chinook—a majestic, locally adapted, deep-bellied fish that was a keystone species for this exceptional watershed. But now after 50 years of hatchery supplementation, despite efforts to protect and restore habitat, we’ve ended up with a faltering, non-viable run! It turns out that ODFW biologists have been deeply concerned about hatchery interaction problems for decades, but only recently, with the CMP, has the Department finally started to address these vexing issues. We appreciate all that ODFW is now doing but think that more is needed. The longer a run remains non-viable, the greater the risk. Now is time to pull out all the stops to ensure our fall chinook’s survival into the future. And so, we must continue to be a voice for these local fish.

Native Plant Notes, by Teresa Bird

Triantha occidentalis (Western false asphodel) – a fairly common plant that’s been hiding a specialized skill

If you enjoy hiking in higher elevation, serpentine areas, you’ve likely seen this lovely member of the lily family already. It’s common in darlingtonia bogs and wet meadows or seeps, and can be recognized by its fairly large, flat leaves, and cluster of either small six-tepaled* white flowers or bright red fruits, depending on the time of year. If you think you’ve found it but are unsure, reach out and press the stem beneath your fingers. If it’s sticky, you’ve probably got the right plant! The “false asphodel” is often seen coated with small insects ensnared on the stem’s tiny sticky hairs.

It is this characteristic that researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently decided to investigate further. In a carefully designed study involving fruit flies, they found that Triantha occidentalis gets more than half of its nitrogen from prey! The sticky hairs on the stem not only trap small insects, they produce a digestive enzyme that allows the plant to absorb nutrients from its prey, similar to many other carnivorous plants. This is an amazing adaptation that likely allows the Triantha to thrive in areas with nutrient-poor soils, like serpentine.

At first, it could seem like a poor choice for pollination (and therefore reproductive) success for a plant to trap insects so close to its flower. But the researchers believe the small hairs are only sticky enough to trap very small insects, allowing larger and stronger insects like bumblebees to escape carnivory and pollinate the plant.

The recent discovery of the carnivory habit of this species, which was first described by botanists almost 150 years ago, reminds us how many amazing things are yet to be discovered about the plants in our Northwest wildlands! I recently saw Triantha growing in a Darlingtonia seep right along Hunter Creek Road – keep your eyes out for it next time you’re up that way (and don’t forget to check out what kinds of insects it’s eating). Happy botanizing!

*“Tepals” refers to the outer part of a flower, including petals and sepals together, when there is no clear distinction between the two

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Conservation News

By Ann Vileisis, from January 2021 Storm Petrel

Floras Lake Land Swap Complete

I am pleased to report that the Floras Lake land exchange was finalized just before the 2020 year-end deadline, so it’s now official! We succeeded in adding 90 acres to the magnificent Floras Lake State Natural Area, including some important lake frontage. The effort to fend off ill-conceived development plans for County-owned lands at Floras Lake has been going on since at least 2005. That year, longstanding KAS members will remember we fended off the first secret deal, and then we did it again in 2015, when two county commissioners proposed a pie- in-the-sky plan to take over part of the state natural area to develop a golf course. I am reminded of the BOC’s images of golf “greens” photoshopped onto scruffy headlands, of the ensuing scandal of county involvement with digging illegal test pits INSIDE the state park, but most of all, of the more than 200 people who showed up at critical OPRD Commission hearings to speak in support of State Parks. OPRD staff and Commission members said it was the largest show of public support for Oregon State Parks ever! 

In 2016, we aimed to turn a new page by pushing for a more proactive effort for the county land at Floras Lake. We urged Curry County to consider a land swap with Oregon State Parks. With the support of then Commissioner David Smith, and then Tom Huxley and Sue Gold, County Planning staff researched options, and then organized a special outreach event in Langlois for community input in 2017. For the past three years, KAS members from throughout Curry County, together with citizens from Langlois, have shown up at key meetings to show overwhelming public support for the land swap. Commissioner Court Boice became an enthusiastic supporter of the swap, reaching out to OPRD to build goodwill; both he and Commissioner Gold made the votes needed to proceed. Though Commissioner Paasch was not in support at the outset, he earned my respect because he put aside his disagreement, supported the direction of the Board, and subsequently voted to get the job done.

But the devil is always in the details, so we waited and waited for the roads to be vacated and the parcels to be partitioned. With Covid-19, county staff attentions were understandably directed elsewhere, while State Parks saw its budget deeply slashed, with many staff members laid off. Nevertheless, we persisted with friendly reminders, attending BOC meetings, and saw the deal to its completion. Of course, the county still owns ~400 acres at Floras Lake –so we’ll need to keep vigilant (and, at some point, begin work on “Phase 2”); but with this swap, we’ve hopefully turned a critical corner. Also, the final exchange agreement does have a reversion clause dependent on trail planning work –so that is another detail we’ll need to watch.

I am proud that KAS has defended Floras Lake and the special lands between the lake and Blacklock Point, and post-covid, I am still hoping we can celebrate this success!

Please consider sending a note of thanks to our Curry County Commissioners for their leadership in conserving beautiful Floras Lake. Here is a sample note—you can add a personalized touch at the end. 

Dear Commissioners, 

I was glad to learn that Curry County recently finalized the Floras Lake land swap with Oregon State Parks. Thank you for your forward-looking leadership in conserving beautiful Floras Lake through your support for this exchange. 

Send a thank you note via snail mail to: Curry County Commissioners, 94235 Moore Street, Gold Beach, OR 97444. Or email them (Chris Paasch, Court Boice, and former commissioner Sue Gold): PaaschC@co.curry.or.us, boicec@co.curry.or.us, golds@co.curry.or.us, and PLEASE cc John Jezuit jezuitj@co.curry.or.us, who can forward any emails of thanks to former Commissioner Sue Gold. 

A path to protect Port Orford’s drinking water

Last fall, through her work monitoring the Oregon Department of Forestry FERNS website, Teresa Bird noticed a clearcut slated for the North Fork Hubbard Creek, the watershed that supplies the city of Port Orford’s drinking water. She shared that info with Port Orford Watershed Council (POWC) Chair Linda Tarr, who reached out to express concerns to the timber company, which granted 20-ft buffers, not required by law for the small stream. Oregon Forest Practices laws are notoriously inadequate to protect municipal water supplies, and so this agreement from the land owner was some measure of protection that otherwise would not have happened. 

Through this interaction, POWC learned that an even larger, steeper parcel of timberland in the city’s watershed was up for sale and would likely be logged the next year, given the high price of timber. The City’s reservoir has already been heavily silted in by past logging, and the City’s Water Plan recommended finding ways to prevent logging and road building, ideally through city ownership. With that, the POWC set out to find some way to proactively protect the city’s watershed from logging. 

With lots of research and networking, the POWC found the possibility of the Conservation Fund (CF) acting as a bridge buyer; the CF has a special revolving fund to help cities buy their water supply lands. In our December HOOT OUT, we asked Port Orford based KAS members to write letters to City Council, urging them to partner with the CF to purchase this crucial 160 acres of timberland very close to the city’s reservoir, with several tributaries and steep slopes. 

The Council received dozens of supportive letters and voted unanimously to proceed with this proactive effort that will hopefully protect our municipal water supply as well as the forest habitat into the future. The owner agreed to take the land off the market while CF carries out due diligence and an appraisal that are necessary for a successful transaction. There is still much work to be done and funding to find, but there is real reason for optimism that this key piece of forested land might be preserved to protect our drinking water. A huge thanks to Linda Tarr and the POWC for working to find this proactive, protective option, and to all KAS members who pitched in with letters of support. It was so good to see the Port Orford City Council vote for a proactive and protective step instead of repeating the error of past inaction. 

Please thank Port Orford City Council members for taking this proactive, protective step by giving them a call or sending an email. Here is a sample message you can use:

Dear Port Orford City Council members, 

Thank you for your recent vote to partner with the Conservation Fund to purchase forest lands in our city’s watershed, which will help protect our city’s water supply into the future. Many other small coastal cities have seen their watersheds ruined by logging so I am glad to know that our City Council has taken a proactive, protective, and cost-effective approach.  

Email them at: pcox@portorford.org, claroche@portorford.org, gburns@portorford.org, jgarratt@portorford.org, tpogwizd@portorford.org, Lkessler@portorford.org

Please remember, if you are interested to help track clear cuts and aerial spraying on the timber lands in your watershed, please contact Teresa Bird at Teresa@kalmiopsisaudubon.org

Federal Environmental Policy update

Over the past four years, dozens of federal policies protecting public lands, clean water, birds and wildlife were targeted by the Trump Administration. Under the rhetoric of “deregulation,” numerous longstanding environmental rules, as well as opportunities for public input, were cut. Several egregious changes were finalized in just the past few weeks. 

For birds of the Pacific Northwest, some of the most troubling rule changes include evisceration of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and then a surprising, last-minute effort to remove protection for over 3 million acres of critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl. 

Draft rule changes to weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) have been in the pipeline since 2017. In response to an earlier lawsuit filed by National Audubon and other conservation groups, a District Court ruling last summer found that the proposed changes did not align with the intent of the 100+ year-old law. Despite this ruling, the Trump Administration proceeded to finalize regulations that shield industry from fines and prosecution if migratory birds are incidentally rather than intentionally killed. It’s important to note that the MBTA has long served as disincentive for companies to kill large numbers of birds through their operations, such as with oil spills; and damages paid have provided for important mitigation and habitat restoration efforts (such as, locally, with the 1999 New Carissa spill, which killed ~3,000 birds on Oregon’s coast including threatened marbled murrelets). 

Rule changes that remove protection for 3.4 million acres (42%) of critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl were finalized by the Trump Administration in mid-January. Just weeks earlier, US Fish & Wildlife Service biologists had released a report indicating that the rapidly declining population of owls warranted uplisting from “threatened” to “endangered”; but despite the urgent need for increased protection, the Trump Administration had decided not to uplist owing to “higher priority actions.” Rather than simply not uplist, the Trump Administration then proceeded to remove 42% percent of owl habitat from protection, citing only “discretion” of the Secretary of the Interior. For nearly 30 years, National Forests (and BLM lands) of the Pacific Northwest have been managed under the Northwest Forest Plan, with specific protections for remaining old growth forests that provide habitat not only for spotted owls but also for other birds, fish, and wildlife –including our region’s iconic salmon. Many biologists regard this new rule as accelerating the owl’s path to extinction. 

So with the recent inauguration of President Biden, where do we now stand with rollbacks to these and many other federal laws that affect our local public lands and wildlife? The Biden Administration issued a “hold memo” that requires all federal agencies to hold and review any recently published final or draft rules. That will apply to both the MTBA rule and the last-minute Spotted Owl rule. There is also the Congressional Review Act, a procedural tool that allows lawmakers to consider and possibly nullify recently finalized regulations with a simple majority vote. It’s also very likely that the worst administrative rule changes will be litigated. National Audubon and a coalition of conservation groups have already filed suit against this final MBTA rule change. Until challenges are resolved, the new Spotted Owl critical habitat rule will likely create a fair measure of chaos for land management agencies. Stay tuned. 

BRIEF updates

Southwestern Oregon Mining Withdrawal

With the new Congress, we need our Senators and Rep. DeFazio to reintroduce and advance the Southwestern Oregon Salmon and Watershed Protection Act in order to finally make permanent the 20-year mineral withdrawal we all worked so hard to secure back in 2016. In the last Congress, SOWSPA was paired up with the Rogue Wilderness bill as the Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act but did not advance beyond hearings. Meanwhile, Red Flat Nickel Company (RFNC) continues to assert that its mining claims at Red Flat, up atop the headwaters of Hunter Creek and Pistol River, are valid while Forest Service continues to evaluate RFNC’s assertion through a technical process known as a “Surface Use Determination.” Also important to note, St. Peter Paul Capital, the offshore, U.K.-based company that owns RFNC, recently indicated it intends to auction off its RFNC holdings. Given rising interest in EV batteries, there is also increasing interest in nickel mining. The auctioning-off could be a sign of the company’s weakness, but a new buyer could also re-invigorate interest in further exploration. Southwest Oregon’s nickel deposits are relatively small, low grade, and thus far, have not proven economical for mining development in a global context, but as long as the Mining Law of 1872 remains in place, they remain vulnerable to exploitation. EV batteries typically require high grade nickel sourced from nickel sulfide deposits. The low-grade nickel in Southwest Oregon’s laterite deposits can only be extracted by strip mining the unique ecosystems at the headwaters of our cherished rivers. We’ll keep you posted on how to help. 

Jordan Cove dealt major setback

On Jan. 18, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) handed down an important decision that we hope will put the kibosh on the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal and gas pipeline across southern Oregon. The Canadian Company Pembina had asked FERC for a waiver from Oregon water quality regulations, but FERC upheld the requirement that projects must meet water quality standards. In Oregon, the state has the regulatory authority and responsibility to implement the federal Clean Water Act.  KAS has long opposed the Jordan Cove project along with a broad coalition of Tribes, conservation groups, fishermen, impacted landowners, and citizens concerned about clean water, climate change, and public safety. Pembina may petition for re-consideration or apply for a water quality permit again, but given the changing economics of natural gas, this permit denial is a significant setback. 

Rocky Shore Proposals, now under review

In December, KAS sent a letter to support three Rocky Shore Habitat proposals put forth by the South Coast Rocky Shores group, which includes Oregon Shores and PISCO (the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans), for Blacklock State Park, Crook Point, and Cape Blanco. As part of its Territorial Sea planning process, the State is currently updating its Rocky Shore Habitat plan and had requested citizen proposals for new designations. The aim is to protect the diversity of marine life in these rich habitat areas. All proposals are currently under review by the Rocky Habitat Working Group, and a public comment period is expected later this spring.

Port Orford Dark Sky, update

Port Orford’s Dark Sky lighting ordinance has simmered on the backburner for the past few months. Last fall, City Council sent it back to the Planning Commission (PC) for refinements. However, they also sent the PC a request to work on building heights, which took higher priority. The lighting ordinance update has been a work in progress for over a year now, so hopefully 2021 will be the year to get it done. Meanwhile, ODOT still plans to install 6 pairs of new lighting fixtures on Hwy 101 next summer as part of its reconfiguration and paving project. ODOT has selected shielded LED fixtures with 2,700 kelvin (warm) color temperature that we hope will comply with “dark sky” goals of the ordinance, and now CCEC wants to field test them to assure they can withstand coastal weather. We’ve been told that demonstration fixtures will be installed some time in February. This will give us all a chance to see what the new LED fixtures actually look like. CCEC aims to shift toward LED lights throughout its service area, but has been leaning toward 3,000 kelvin fixtures –so pay attention to changes in street lights in your neighborhood. 

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Conservation News – Winter 2020

by Ann Vileisis

Wild Rivers Headwaters Update and Opportunity to Help!

As longtime KAS members know, we continue to support permanent protection of the headwaters of Hunter Creek, Pistol River, the North Fork of the Smith, and the Illinois Rivers from the threat of strip mining. All these areas were temporarily withdrawn from new mining claims for 20 years with the 2017 Southwest Oregon “mineral withdrawal,” which gives Congress time to act on legislation. Last year, Senator Wyden combined the bill that would make this protection permanent with another bill to protect more wilderness on the Rogue River (between Galice and Marial, upstream in Josephine County) in new legislation called the Oregon Recreation Enhancement (ORE) Act. I am very glad to report that in December, Senator Wyden advanced the ORE Act through a markup in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. This is a critically important step toward making the protections we need permanent.
While it may seem that the push for mining has faded into the background with the 20-year mineral withdrawal in place, Red Flat Nickel Company (RFNC) continues to assert that it has valid existing claims in the headwaters of Hunter Creek that would be exempt from the mineral withdrawal. The Forest Service has yet to make a determination about the validity of the company’s claims. Moreover, on the national level, the mining industry continues to push Congress to roll back already lax regulations that govern hard rock mining, so we need to stay vigilant.
Meanwhile, Senator Merkley has introduced entirely different legislation to expand the Smith River National Recreation Area into Oregon, which would make permanent the mineral withdrawal for the watershed of the North Fork of the Smith River, located at the southern tip of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.
We need to thank our senators for continuing to work to permanently protect the headwaters of our extra-ordinary wild rivers — so that they know we are still paying attention and that we still care. Senators Wyden and Merkley are cosponsors of both bills.

Please call with a simple message of thanks. Here is a sample script:
Thank you for your leadership in protecting South-west Oregon’s wild rivers from the threat of strip mining.
Senator Wyden, thank you for your work to advance the ORE Act, with the Southwest Oregon Mineral Withdrawal, through committee markup, and I hope you’ll keep working to get it passed.
Senator Merkley, thank you for introducing the bill to protect the North Fork Smith, and I hope you will also continue to support efforts to advance mineral withdrawals for our other cherished wild rivers through the ORE Act.
Senator Wyden: (202) 224-5244 / (541) 858-5122
Senator Merkley: (202) 224-3753 / (541) 608-9102
You can also send a brief thank you note through the senators’ websites.

Floras Lake Exchange, Brief Update

Last fall, both the Curry County Board of Commissioners (BOC) and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission (OPRC) voted to move forward with an exchange of 90 acres of inaccessible, county-owned land on Floras Lake (adjacent to Floras Lake Natural Area) and 33 acres of accessible, state-owned land on Highway 101 at the corner of Airport Road. Since we’ve been working toward a conservation outcome for the Floras Lake lands for nearly a decade, we are looking forward to celebrating! However, though the BOC signed an agreement on December 5, the ex-change is not yet complete. The agreement stipulates a closing date of December 31, 2020 — almost a year from now — and before then, the county needs to “vacate” all of the roads in the parcel to be ex-changed. The agreement stipulates that costs of this legal task will be split, with the state paying no more than $3,000 to get the job done. According to county staff, this final work has not yet been budgeted or scheduled and may require additional direction from the BOC. Given the difficulties and politics of getting the agreement signed, we intend to watchdog this until the job is truly complete.

Pistol River Gravel Extraction Project Update

In last quarter’s Storm Petrel, we reported that the Curry County Planning Commission (PC) had denied a proposal for gravel extraction along the lower Pistol River because the application lacked information required by law to inform a proper decision. We also reported that the project proponent had declined to appeal the decision. That was the best information available from the county when we went to press, but, shortly thereafter, he did, in fact, decide to appeal the decision to the Curry County Board of Commissioners.
Meanwhile, neighbors in Pistol River held two local gatherings — one convened by the project proponent and another by the project opponents. KAS was invited to participate in the second meeting, where the project proponent spoke about his desire to, in fact, restore the lower river. We were heartened to hear that and also to learn that the Curry Watersheds Partnership (which includes the South Coast Watershed Council and the Curry Soil and Watershed Conservation District) had already started to work with other willing landowners in the lower river to consider potential restoration projects. They had even submitted a grant proposal to fund hydrologic and sediment studies needed to determine how best to proceed and where gravel removal might be warranted for restoration purposes.
However, despite the hopeful rhetoric, when the BOC considered the appeal at a de novo hearing in mid-November, the proposal remained focused on taking out gravel and still lacked basic information about the amount of gravel to be removed and impacts to the estuary and to salmon. We urged the commissioners to encourage the project proponent to withdraw his appeal and work together with the watershed council to develop a restoration-oriented plan. The record was kept open for several weeks for additional information and rebuttals. Then on January 8, the BOC made a final decision, voting two to one to affirm the PC’s decision to deny the still-deficient proposal. Commissioner Boice voted against, wanting to keep the record open to allow the applicant still more time.
It is critical to carefully scrutinize projects proposed in and around the estuarine zones of our coastal rivers because these areas are especially important for fish that use them for migration, juvenile rearing, and even nursery habitat in the case of some marine species. Even if there is good habitat upstream, degraded estuary habitat can serve as a bottleneck for salmon runs. For this reason, anyone proposing a project in aquatic estuarine habitat must secure permits not on-ly from local government but also from state and federal agencies to assure that impacts to water quality and fish, especially threatened coho salmon, will be minimized.
At this point, the project proponent may decide to appeal the BOC decision to the state Land Use Board of Appeals. Otherwise, he will need to wait for a year to submit a new application to the county. We hope that he will work with a restoration consultant and Curry Watersheds Partnership to develop a proposal that could help to restore the lower Pistol River.

Jordan Cove LNG Terminal and Pipeline Update

In mid-November, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Pembina Corporation’s Jordan Cove Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline and terminal facility. The facility is proposed by a Canadian corporation to export American gas to Asia, condemning Oregonians’ land along the pipe-line route and building a dangerous facility squarely in a high-hazard earthquake and tsunami zone. Ac-cording to the FEIS, constructing and operating the LNG project would impact soil, water, wetlands, vegetation, wildlife, 15 threatened and endangered species, land use, recreation, landscape views, traffic, cultural resources, housing, air quality, and noise levels. In particular, the pipeline would cross more than 300 waterbodies, including the Rogue, Klamath, and Coos Rivers, and would require clearing of more than 2,000 acres of forest, including 750 acres of old-growth.
In mid-January, the National Marine Fisheries Ser-vice (NMFS) released a “biological opinion” (BiOp) that the project’s impacts would not jeopardize the long-term survival of any federally threatened or endangered species. The FEIS and BiOp are intended to inform FERCs final decision, which is expected next month.
Meanwhile, on the local front, the Coos Bay City Council on January 7 considered a proposal for dredging Coos Bay in order to accommodate massive ships that would service the proposed LNG facility at Jordan Cove. Analyzing the project as a contractor for the city, planning staff from the Lane Council of Governments determined the project was not in the “public interest” and recommended disapproval. Nevertheless, the city council’s vote was a tie, with three against and three in favor. Ultimately, the mayor broke the tie, tipping the balance for city approval of this part of the LNG plan.
A contingent of about nine KAS members attended the city council meeting to show opposition to this project that would degrade Coos Bay and commit us to another 30 years of burning fossil fuels. At a pre-meeting rally, retired Oregon Institute of Marine Biology scientist Alan Shanks explained to the crowd how the proposed dredging would bust into bedrock, permanently changing the flow of seawater in the bay in unknown ways. This could be disastrous for juvenile crabs that rely on the sheltered habitat for nursery grounds, an issue that has not been sufficiently analyzed, in his view. It is likely that the city council’s decision will be appealed. Keep in mind, too, that earlier this year, the state Department of Environmental Quality denied a critical clean water permit. As we go to press, there is big news that Pembina has withdrawn its application for a key state “dredge and fill” permit. Stay tuned for further news about this consequential project.

Port Orford “Dark Sky” Ordinance Ready for an Upgrade

Over the past several months, the Port Orford Planning Commission (PC) has been considering up-grades to Port Orford’s Dark Sky lighting ordinance. The intent of the ordinance is to keep light focused downward to the ground where it’s needed, preventing light pollution that would obscure the town’s beautiful starry night sky and light trespass that errantly falls onto neighbors’ properties.
The ordinance was first adopted in 2010 after many years of effort from KAS members, especially Al Geiser, who worked together with Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, helping to install “night caps” on dozens of lights around town. An upgrade is now needed to address new LED technology, with new terms and units to describe light, such as Kelvins and lumens. Problems with enforceability also need to be addressed. The PC has drawn upon outdoor-lighting ordinances from a number of other small cities to develop language for this upgrade.
The ordinance was scheduled for consideration by the PC in mid-January but was bumped by a proposal to increase the height of the cell phone tower on Boot Hill Road. Thanks to all who turned out anyway to speak in favor of the lighting ordinance. At this point, the ordinance is expected to be considered at the PC meeting on February 11 at 3:30 p.m., but it’s important to check the agenda ahead of time, given that the schedule may change. After the ordinance is approved by the PC, it will be considered by the Port Orford City Council. We’ll need help from supporters at the city council meeting to ensure that the new ordinance will pass.
Some may take our beautiful night sky for granted in Curry County, but it’s important to note that fewer and fewer places in the world remain unaffected by light pollution. Beyond annoying neighbors and creating pink glare in the night sky, too much light at night has impacts on birds; seabirds such as storm petrels can be drawn to night lights like moths to a candle and become disoriented, with dire effect. Bright lights at night are also known to affect human health. For these reasons, many communities cherish their dark skies as a benefit to residents and visitors alike.

Forest Reforms Coming to the Ballot Box

For years, Oregonians concerned about insufficient riparian buffers for logging and aerial spraying of herbicides have tried to reform Oregon’s Forest Practices Act, the law that regulates forestry on private lands, but to little avail given the power of the timber industry. It’s well known that Oregon’s forestry rules are weaker than those in all surrounding states, including Idaho, so this past fall forest activists tried a new tack using the citizen ballot initiative process, aiming to put forest practice reforms directly to voters — in particular, expanded buffers for aerial spraying and logging around waterbodies. However, the secretary of state deemed the initiatives were too complex for the initiative process (and has been accused of siding with industry), and she threw them out. That decision was appealed in December. Mean-while, activists are aiming to place alternative provisions on the ballot for the 2020 election to accomplish similar goals.
Those of you who live in small watersheds know firsthand the risks of aerial spraying of herbicides and also how lack of buffer zones beside streams can lead to sedimentation that fills up pools and other-wise degrades aquatic habitat. The ballot initiatives will be a good opportunity to make headway on forest practice reforms that are critically important for public health, wildlife, and ecosystems. Below is info on an upcoming event about this — and we’ll keep you posted on more opportunities to support this effort.

Feb. 17, Monday, 6:30-8pm, Improving Protections for Forest Waters Workshop, Port Orford Public Library

Join us at this workshop to help citizens learn about shortcomings in Oregon’s current state forestry rules and upcoming ballot measures intended to improve them—by increasing buffers for logging and aerial spraying along streams. Come find out how you can help press for rules to better protect our streams and communities!