Metolius: pave over paradise …

… put up a parking lot…
Carla Axtman

As promised yesterday, here are more photos and stories from people around Oregon about their love for the Metolius region.

From Susan Prince, Camp Sherman:

I am writing you today to implore you to support HB 3100 and to go even further; to insure strong and everlasting protection for the Metolius River Basin by keeping destination resorts out of the entire area thus preserving the region’s natural splendor and ecological integrity for future generations.My grandparents, Mable and Frank Prince, became permitees on Tract O in Camp Sherman in 1929. This summer, our family will be celebrating our 80th anniversary of coming to this amazing area! And in all that time it has remained pretty much the same; its clear, cold waters running freely through majestic ponderosa pine forests; supporting otters, mergansers, osprey, kokanee salmon and the (now) critically endangered bull trout. A few years ago an enormous effort was made to designate the Metolius as a wild and scenic river. Now we are seeing habitat restored and prospering in places where overuse was becoming a problem.

The idea of bringing in destination resorts to this sensitive area is appalling to us! There is the obvious huge issue of the negative impacts caused by the sheer numbers of people that would be using this sensitive area. But there is also a big concern of drainage of hundreds of septic systems into the porous lava rock that is the bed of the Metolius River watershed. And the problems generated by withdrawing water for such large populations are unknown and potentially horrendous

So I am asking you today to take the bold step of offering the Metolius River Basin long lasting protection! We all need a place that we can count on to remain pristinely beautiful and naturally wild in these challenging times.

Sincerely,

Susan Prince
Tract O #10
Camp Sherman, OR

From Mike and Marilyn Duffield:

“The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast us.” (William James)We are native-born Oregonians, reared and educated in the Rose City. Some
of my Pioneer ancestors rumbled over the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley.
My husband is a dedicated fly fisherman; our favorite escape on this planet
is the Metolius River, to which we go for at least two stays every year, and
of which we talk and dream in the winter. We both continue to vote only for
legislators who will fight to preserve the work of visionaries like former
governor Tom McCall, and who are farsighted enough, and have the backbone, to put
Oregon’s well-being over personal or bipartisan politics. Preserving the
waters of the Metolius River Basin is part of that well-being.

Once again the “green” in Oregon is in danger of taking a hit from
speculative property owner-developers. They’ve unabashedly spent millions on plans,
reports, publicists, lawyers and lobbyists to convince the gullible that a
National Wild and Scenic River, the Metolius and its basin, will remain “relatively
unscathed” from groundwater pumping, years of continuing construction, and
town/county services strained to the snapping point from these large
subdivision-in-the-woods resorts.

We’ve heard that song before, but not in this ecologically fragile area. No
less important: the scores of new dwellings, clustered in nodes or not, will
provide easy tinder for reoccurring, devastating wildfires (since 2002, the
Cache Mtn., B&B Complex and Black Crater fires have been fought). We’ve seen the
tired bodies and soot-blackened faces of firefighters camped at the Metolius
River’s Allingham CG. It seemed like there were a hundred.

Resort properties, particularly “destination,” are typically speculative
boom-or-bust uses of land. What remains when investor monies dry up, or the units
stop selling and the developers can’t or won’t continue? That they have the
right to try is not in question (it’s “American,” after all). It seems to us
that resort site maps, amended plans, and models for infrastructure are being
thrown at a giant Central Oregon Velcro board; whatever sticks is a “go.”
What do they have to lose, really? It might work!

That isn’t the way matters should be handled at the outset. We hope you will
see reason to change that. Some land uses will remain forever unsuited to
the Metolius River Basin and the areas that drain into it. We are staring at
two of these, the Metolian, an eco-adventure resort for the REI crowd and the
gargantuan Ponderosa, poised and “rarin’ to go.” Just say “no.”

My eighth grandchild was born yesterday, March 30th. I write this so that
someday he may play on the Metolius banks and find it like it is today -
pristine, magical, supporting a fishery second to none, and nurturing a healthy
population of a “threatened species”, the Bull Trout. Maybe he’ll see a return of
the Chinook Salmon, too.

“In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation.
even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.”
(Great Law of the Iroquois)

We ask that you use “Seventh Generation Thinking” when you deliberate on the
DLCD Management Plan; we wish we could be there on April 7th for its first
hearing. We urge you to accept a plan only if it has real teeth to bolster HB
3100, the 2009 Save the Metolius Protection Act. We can almost hear the
chip-chop sounds of the “death by a thousand cuts” to this magnificent state’s
beloved Metolius River. Please silence them.

This dance we do with our land is tenuous. For 10 units or 1,000 units on
lands labeled “resort” or “destination resort,” each inch relinquished is a mile
taken, somewhere down the road. “Too late” are words I never want to say to
my eighth grandchild.

Kudos to the LCD Commission for listening to Oregon voices and putting
together a much better plan than expected. It’s a great start. We appreciate your
reading this and, we hope you have “skin as thick as the bark of a pine.”
Oregon’s Seventh Generation needs your action now for the effective passage of HB
3100 later!

Sincerely yours,

Mike and Marilyn Duffield
Portland, OR