Citing public safety as the reason for gating off several roads in the Elliott State Forest on this long holiday weekend, Bev Quackenbush of ODF claims that some people were digging up culverts and stringing barbed wire in the Elliott. Cascadia Forest Defenders spokesman, Jason Gonzales, claims these actions were necessary and limited to specific timber sales involving damaging clear cuts in native forest. The move comes days after a ruling that ODF could no longer order activists to desist their activities.
Whether the argument can really be made that locking vehicular traffic out of the forest will improve public safety or not, holiday campers hoping to setup near the Millicoma River will have to hike in five miles or more with their gear. Hunters may not be pleased with the lockouts either and emergency medical responders may find it problematic to help medical or accident victims.
Quackenbush says only 18% of the forest is locked, however, Francis Eatherington of Cascadia Wildlands says when including the marked timber sales and buffer zones that closer to 80% of the Elliott is now restricted from public use. Cascadia Forest Defenders indicates that lawyers are looking into the constitutionality of the closures and may launch a legal challenge.
Vehicle access (including Off-Highway Vehicle use) is closed on the
following forest roads:
• Roads 7100, 7300, 7400, 7420, and 7600 are closed at their
intersections with Road 7000
• Road 8000 is closed between roads 2000 and 7600
• Roads 2320 and 2360 are closed at their intersections with Road 2000
• Road 8100 is closed at the intersection with Road 2300
• Road 9000 is closed at the intersection with Road 1000
• Roads 1800 and 9200 are closed
• Road 1100 is closed at the intersection with Road 1000
The Oregon Department of Forestry will be implementing temporary road gating
restrictions within the Elliott State Forest starting September 2, 2011 to improve public
safety for all forest users within the Elliott State Forest, and to ensure the State’s ability
to meet contractual obligations for timber sale harvests. A top priority for the Oregon
Department of Forestry is safety for all forest users within the Elliott State Forest
including reducing potential conflicts from vehicles encountering heavy equipment, log
trucks and other traffic associated with timber sale activities on narrow forest roads.
So this Lobbiest/Commissioner is a busy bee with Wyden and Merkley, to swap some resources over to the tribe, who can do as they please as a sovereign nation with those logs. Merkley was against LNG to get elected, before he was for it, (or at least now keeping quiet on the subject).Wyden is just as complacent on the issue. That doesn’t mean they wont sell out public resources to the other corporate interests in Coos County. Was Peter in on those meetings, no he probably laid the ground work for Parry’s lip service. If those two sell out the public again will it be enough to cause their jobs to be in jeopardy? No they will just blame some staffer for this deal.
Well it is obvious who is running the county commission now. Parry, by the way, was back in DC with tribal representatives “speaking to representative & senate staff (along with resource foks) about the concept of joint management of 51,000 acres of Wagon Road land with the Coquille Tribe”
Locals have been able to travel the back roads since they were built for logging, now you should expect to see more unpaved road closures, like Stage Rd. that has been used by locals to get to Lakeside if an emergency should occur, has been gated by the Menasha Forest Products Corp. Timber resources must now be kept under lock and key, Damn the public interest. Who is ultimately responsible for letting Corporations close public roads?