I know that Opal Creek achieved a kind of national status, whereas places like, say, Sugarloaf led to confrontation but were ultimately lost.
As I explained, there were only so many issues or places that could be elevated, even if you had the resources to focus on them. Opal Creek was in the [I9841 Oregon wilderness bill and Mark Hatfield took it out only to “save it as part of his legacy [in 19961. Mark Hatfield had a chance to save that years ago, well, he wanted to save it later. It was that calculated, I really believe. Opal Creek, interestingly, attracted people who were involved with it [the issue], and to their credit, had financial resources to lead that effort. There was more money spent and it was deserving of everything that people said about it. [interrupted by telephone call]
How were different areas identified for protection?
When groups came to us and said to us “this is an area that deserves protection,” we were pretty open to identifying everything that anybody cared about. What really worked was the formula for the wilderness effort, where we were the broader statewide group. There were local interests and we could point to the person on the ground and if the media was interested, somebody could take them out and show ’em the neat spots. There were areas which we identified through the agencies and found where old growth is and where previous roadless areas were. Examples would be the Coleman Rim and Deadhorse Rim, which are really the only remaining areas of really big, old pine on the Fremont National Forest. Sometimes we would even approach people if we knew somebody was in the area who was a wilderness advocate and say, “By the way, have you heard about this? Would you like to be the sponsor for that area?” Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t.
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.
