Jayne’s House Cleaning Service
Applegate, OR 97530

Sen. Ron Wyden,

My name is Jayne Dough. I’m a mother, wife, and small business owner in a rural community surrounded by O&C forests managed by BLM. My husband, who works for the Forest Service (and who claims is a much better land manager than BLM!), and I moved down here 12 years ago from Corvallis after he graduated in forestry and me in business. He was glad to get a job here in the Applegate, where he learned to hunt and fish while spending summers as a teen with his grandfather, who lives near Grants Pass. I always liked the Applegate, where my family sometimes camped on our annual summer trips from the SF Bay Area to the Rogue Valley for rafting and fishing, Shakespeare and Britt, and visits to Crater Lake and Oregon Caves for hiking.

Ten years ago we were lucky to buy a neighbor’s 80-acre farm when the owner retired to town. It’s a half mile off the paved road, quiet and secluded, bordered by BLM on two sides. We love it here, such a perfect place to raise our three children, with a diverse yet tight-knit local community centered around our local historic elementary school and a beautiful park on the river managed by a local community group. A few years ago, once the youngest started school, I started a business that has been very successful, with six regular clients keeping me busy as I have time for.

Five of my six clients have moved to the Applegate from all over, and all in the last 6 years. Three are retired couples and the other two are young families where both parents work. They all speak of how they searched several locations from Cave Junction to Bend to Taos, looking for the landscape and community where they could create a home. They all speak being drawn here by the Applegate’s beautiful scenery and rural character, lack of industry and pollution, diverse community and outstanding recreational and cultural opportunities.

All five of these clients contribute to the local economy with their income that comes from out of the area. They all hired architects and custom builders to build their houses, barns, and out-buildings. In addition to my services, they hire landscapers, veterinarians, excavators, field plowers and hay mowers, all to take care of their places, one of which is a small winery.

My sixth client is my luckiest. She’s in her 70s and still lives in the ranch house she and her late husband built after their marriage 50 years ago. Her sons live in the valley and run the family hay and cattle operation , while my client rides her horse, goes hiking and fishing, and leads outings for the local birding club. I love listening to her tell of the changes in the Applegate she has seen, and she tells me she loves the Applegate more now than ever!

Senator Wyden, I am worried; my family and clients are worried; my neighbors are worried, too. We are all worried that you will introduce legislation that will be nearly as bad as the O&C Trust introduced by our Congressmen DeFazio and Walden, where nearly all the BLM forests in the Applegate would be clearcut. Due to a fluke of gerrymandering, our farm is half in DeFazio’s District and half in Walden’s. My husband registered in Walden’s and has always voted for him. I registered in DeFazio’s and have always voted for him. But next year, we will no longer vote for these men because of their O&C policy.

I have been speaking with my business clients about the O&C situation. One of them has shared a couple economic research projects that showed the more land is protected in rural western counties, the more jobs and economic growth are created. Likewise, counties stuck in resource extraction economies lag behind in jobs and economic growth, sometimes even losing population. As a business woman, I urge you and your staff to read these economic research reports:
1. http://www.southwickassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Env-prot-pop-change-in-western-us-RLPAreas.pdf
2. http://headwaterseconomics.org/wphw/wp-content/uploads/ProtectedPublicLands_Manuscript_2012.pdf

I urge you to place all O&C roadless areas of 1,000 acres or larger in special protective status like wilderness, national park, or national monument to really help our O&C counties to grow and diversify their economies, while protecting the landscape that provides the natural amenities that have such high values. Please limit commercial logging to those areas that already have road systems in place and are already fragmented by plantations needing thinning.

One last thing, we are all worried sick about fire danger. My husband is a fire specialist with the Forest Service, and takes people on tours with the Watershed Council to identify fire hazards and fuel loads. His advice is to maintain the forest canopy to keep the stands cooler and shadier to prevent them from drying out too soon in the summer. All the plantations and thinned forests we visit are much drier and crunchier to walk through than the uncut forests just yards away. Please do not introduce a bill that will increase fire danger around our Applegate communities by logging the fire resistant older forests and replacing them with hazardous plantations.

Thank you for your time,

Sincerely,

Jayne Dough
CC: Sen. Merkley, Medford Mail Tribune, The Oregonian