Eco

Bush II's war on the environment has been expanded to destroying the Giant Sequoias. It is quite fitting that the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for this had the "Forest Service choosing the most environmentally destructive of six alternative management plans, the one calling for the most intensive logging."

All of this is being done with the excuse of preventing wildfires, which is almost laughable (in a car crash sort of way) because the area is home to Giant Sequoias trees that are several thousand years old. FYI, there is a pretty tight link between the presents of logging roads and catastrophic fires, conversely roadless areas don't have the same rates of catastrophic fires. Also, if Bush II actually gave a damn about reducing catastrophic fires, he would just focus on thinning the forest near homes and businesses, and increasing the number of prescribed burns.

"In a final insult, the Forest Service plan will actually be subsidized by taxpayers, to the tune of $34 million. Much of that will go toward road building, even though there are already 900 miles of roads in the Monument. And nearly $14 million of taxpayer money will be spent for "mechanical thinning of conifer" -- otherwise known as logging."

As part of my summer schedule, I hope to include several work parties with the Nature Conservancy of Oregon. One aspect that I really like about these work parties is you can see the difference you make every time you go back.

In particular, over the past two summers I have been part of a few work parties to Cox Island where we are containing an invasive grass that turns marsh lands into uplands. Given the rarity of coastal marsh lands (which are extremely important for a number of reasons) this project is rather important. Doubly so considering Cox Island is in the Siuslaw River, one of the few rivers that is both un-damed and has no hatchery salmon. The last time I was there a harbor seal was following our boat around waiting to see if we were going to throw salmon guts overboard.

If you don't check out WorldWatch.org on a regular basis, now would be a good time to start.

What: Organic Gardening 102
Where: Lake Oswego, OR: Luscher Farm
When: February 21, 2004
Cost: $15 1-4pm

OG 102 is a continuation of Session I (you can sign-up for just this session!) and will cover: planting (companion, intensive, intercropping); fertilization (short and long term); pest management (preventative and emergency!); irrigation; diversified yields and composting. This mini-course is designed to give the organic gardener a basic understanding of holistic organic gardening. Covering a full-spectrum of activities for the avid gardener, this course will equip students with all information needed to start and grow a vibrant organic garden.

Four dams on the lower Snake River in the Pacific Northwest have pushed wild salmon to near extinction. These four dams do not produce that much energy, they can be removed without damaging the river too much, but the Feds stuck with the dams are good dogma pushed through a plan that did not involve removing the dams. However, a federal judge found the federal salmon recovery plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers illegal and returned it to the Bush administration for revision.

Background:
When Lewis and Clark explored the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s, nearly 16 million salmon filled the Columbia and Snake Rivers - so many that the explorers thought it would be possible to walk across the river on their backs. Snake River salmon are the longest migrating salmon in the world, making an astounding journey nearly 900 miles to the ocean and later returning upstream to spawn in the tributaries where they were born.

But since four dams were built on the lower Snake River between 1961 and 1975, wild salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest have declined by 90% and as few as 7,000 remain. By some estimates, certain salmon species may be extinct by as early as 2016.

The Federal Salmon Plan, developed during the Clinton administration, makes use of a variety of small protection measures, but the plan falls short of removing the dams, which scientists think is the best way to recover the salmon. As part of this plan, fish are trucked or barged around the dams at taxpayers' expense. Despite spending $3.3 billion on such efforts over the past 20 years, salmon populations have not increased.

For the first two years of the plan's existence, only 30 percent of the required steps were taken, despite more than $800 million in federal spending. Finding that the federal plan would likely never be implemented, the District Court of Oregon ruled it invalid in May 2003, giving federal agencies one year to draft a new plan that will actually restore healthy salmon runs.

Please take a moment to ask the Bush administration to implement the most scientifically credible and economically sensible salmon restoration measure - removal of the four lower Snake River dams. Then ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this URL to them.

To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser:
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=407&id4=ES