Sadly, the details outlined in Al Sandine’s 2003 book Plundertown, USA: Coos Bay Enters the Global Economy wherein Weyerhauser and GP logged old growth at a rate that exceeded regrowth rates and then abandoned the area to repeat the process in Indonesia and Brazil, is about to be replayed. This time the resource is chromite and other metals to be taken via strip mining from Coos County forest lands for a paltry royalty of 3%. ORC the foreign owned corporation tasked with extracting the ore and a mineral lease from the County is now discouraging the County from doing any due diligence such as test drilling and has even refused to reveal the results of their own test drills. In other words, ORC wants Coos County to sign a mineral lease without knowing what is in the ground.
Guess what? Commissioners Nikki Whitty and Kevin Stufflebean are keen to take the word of ORC and just sign a deal possibly giving up millions or even billions of dollars of public resources for the promise of 70 jobs (minus the 22 from the road crew, so really less than 50 jobs). Only Bob Main is keen on doing the necessary research to protect public assets. Dan Smith, discouraged the commissioners from doing their own test drilling at a cost of $70k as unnecessary and then refused to share their own core samples without a signed lease first. ORC’s survival as an entity is dependent on outside funding which is contingent upon Smith extracting an inexpensive mineral lease from Coos County.
Write, call and raise your voice at the next BOC meeting in April
Next BOC meeting – April 6th – 9:30 a.m. – Coos County Commissioner Courtroom, Coos County Courthouse.
Bob Main:
(541) 396-3121 or (541) 756-2020 ext 770
bmain@co.coos.or.us
Nikki Whitty:
(541) 396-3121 or (541) 756-2020 ext 247
nwhitty@co.coos.or.us
Kevin Stufflebean:
(541) 396-3121 or (541) 756-2020 ext 281
kstufflebean@co.coos.or.us
