So ONRC has avoided being labeled as “Willamecentric?”
I’m sure that roughly half our membership is in the Portland Metropolitan Area because that’s where most people in the state live. Our history has been that we were out arguing for desert wilderness before the Oregon Natural Desert Association was formed. We were advocating for roadless areas in eastern Oregon when the Sierra Club didn’t know these places existed. I don’t see that [being Willamette Valley-centered] as a creditable criticism. When I moved to the Klamath Basin, Todd Kepple said “This is interesting.” What he was hearing was that they [environmentalists] were in an ivory tower in Eugene telling us what we should do in the Klamath Basin. Now [that] you have a staff member here, they have to make up other reasons why they hate you.
We’ve been willing to send people to different areas of the state and work on issues where we’ve seen that there’s been major conservation needs. We see far more needs than we have staff and resources to cover. While our office is in Portland for various reasons–administrative, where the politicians are–we’ve by no means specialized on Portland Metropolitan Area issues. In fact, I remember the irrigators in Tule Lake saying to Andy [Kerr], “Why don’t you restore wetlands in the Portland Metropolitan Area?” I think it’s true that in general organizations are responsive to where their funding comes from. Most of our membership funding comes from the Portland Metropolitan Area, but I think those people recognize most of what needs to be done in this state is elsewhere. There’s a big effort by Portland Audubon to protect urban wild areas, so there’s definitely major things to be done in that arena. We’ve worked on the Bull Run watershed since there’s ancient forest. It is important to people in Portland and interesting in the sense that they don’t get to go there and recreate. Their drinking water is still close to their hearts, but most people I think might not make that association between Bull Run and what comes out of their tap. That isn’t something which is thrown up at us very often. We were out looking at Baker City and the lands in their watershed, too. Regna Merritt worked just as hard for that part of the state as she did for Portland’s watershed.
