Join North Coast Communities for Watershed Protection to make your voice heard on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 at noon in downtown Wheeler! Bring signs! Speak truth to power!
This week Stimson Lumber Company started a new clearcut directly above Wheeler, Oregon. Several volunteers from North Coast Communities for Watershed Protection suggested we organize an informational picket along Highway 101 in downtown Wheeler.
We’ll meet on the west corner of Highway 101 and Rorvik St. in Wheeler (near the railroad track – The long-range weather maps show that only light showers are forecast).
This event can be accomplished fairly simply. Much like the way we organized, on short notice, the Hug Point/Arcadia Beach rally against the Norriston Heights proposed clearcutting. We just need enthusiastic people, some eye-catching signs, and handouts with a statement of our concerns.
Please Join Us! We already have a few people who have committed to being there. Please let us know if you can help organize or participate in this event. Everyone is to be peaceful, non-violent, and respectful, as always.
Here are some things you can do to help (other ideas are welcome).
Show up as a participant on the day of the event to make it known that clearcut logging is taking place on the steep hillsides above Wheeler. This is the most important thing you can do!
If possible, make some large, colorful, and factual informational signs to hold up so passersby can read them. Use your imagination and make them eye-catching. One idea is to mention that clearcutting of trees is a contributing factor to global climate change. Here are some more ideas: “No Clearcuts! No Smoke! No Pesticide Spraying! No Landslides! No Oso, Washington!“
Print and post around the North Oregon Coast the attached flyer that Glenna Gray made. Or email the flyer to other people you know so that they can attend this information picket.
Here’s some additional information:
There’s a new clearcut above Wheeler, Oregon. Just drive by Wheeler and look up, you can’t miss it!
Wheeler has already had years of extensive logging on the steep, slide-prone slopes bordering residential areas.
Please checkout Wheeler on the Oregon Statewide Landscape Information Maps. This SLIDO mapping lists the adjacent hills behind Wheeler as a red zone, meaning “very high susceptibility to landslides”
Logging has already taken place in Wheeler’s watershed that has streams listed as “fish-bearing.”
This past logging may have been a contributing factor to causing this watershed to no longer being an adequate source of safe and abundant municipal drinking water.
Stimson, the owner of the land, requested and received from the Oregon Department of Forestry a waiver from the normal 15-day waiting period for logging activity on this 97-acre clearcut which has a stream running through it.
Stimson has already started cutting the trees this week!
This is RIGHT ABOVE WHEELER! Do you remember the landslide that buried Oso, Washington a few years ago after clearcutting of the adjacent hills?
URGENT: Call Stimson and ask them to please not clearcut the last remaining forest above the town of Wheeler! (503-702-2008)
This cut borders the Zimmerman Creek area which is an eagle-nesting habitat. It will eventually be sprayed with pesticides and rodenticides, endangering our health and the viability of wildlife. Checkout FERNS for more information about this and other timber management activities near you.
Contact Stimson and your elected officials, and write letters too. Also, please contact the news media.
To Express your concerns about this clearcutting, call Scott Gray, Director of Western Resources for Stimson, Oregon/Western Washington
