Did Coleman and Deadhorse play out as successful efforts? I know they’re on the way to Gearhart Mountain.
Today they’re kind of in limbo. Deadhorse Rim is an interesting example in itself. Augur Creek is the drainage [which goes through it] and the Augur Creek Timber Sale is ready to go. It’s just a wonderment to me that it [the sale area] is still there. The Forest Service has planned so many times to cut that. We raised [public] consciousness about it and we appealed it several times. The status now is portions of it [Deadhorse Rim] have been proposed as a research natural area, because even the forest ecologist has said that is the best that is left. The forest [service] asked him, “Why didn’t you tell us before?” He said, “1 didn’t know, and now I do. Coleman [Rim] and Deadhorse Rim are standing because the Forest Service has “screens” today, [which] in our opinion are lax, and [still] let them cut the biggest and best. This isn’t one-tenth of one percent, it’s one-thousandth of one-tenth of one percent of [what] once was.
In terms of old growth protection now, we haven’t had enough political power to save it, in order to get legislation to draw circles around places and permanently protect them–in the same way the timber industry hasn’t had enough political power to cut it. That’s the kind of stand off like at Opal Creek for a number of years, even though it was supposedly released with the Oregon wilderness bill [of 19841. I remember we did a dedication for some of the additions to the Mount Jefferson Wilderness after the ’84 wilderness bill passed. Someone from the logging community asked the district ranger at that dedication, “Are you going ahead [with logging] in Opal Creek?” [He replied] “You bet we are, by God.” There’s been kind of a stand off in things, even if the agency didn’t administratively [save old growth] in their forest plans, which are for ten years anyway and then you have to argue it again. The Forest Service recognized that it would pay a political price if some areas which had gained [public] recognition were cut, part of it was threats of litigation. I don’t give the agency credit for doing it [saving old growth forest] for the right reasons, really. It was because of public pressure in various forms that some of the ancient forest groves that we sought to protect as wilderness, and are still not [permanently] protected today, were not cut down. Why they’re still around is, again, because of some public consciousness. The agency saying “We don’t do it that way anymore is the line I’ve heard dating back to the 1970s when I first got involved in the issues.
