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