Threatened & Endangered: Little Applegate Valley
Before you can take action, you need to know where to direct your efforts! Here is the contact information for the BLM in Medford:
Richard Drehobl
Medford District BLM
3040 Biddle Road
Medford, OR 97504541-770-2200
The Little Applegate contains some of the last remaining wild rugged land in the region. It remains wild because residents fought for it! Twenty years ago, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) attempted to implement a timber sale in the area, neighbors came together and protected the land, the animals, and the community from the harsh effects of logging. We are faced with a similar challenge again.
We have a right to speak our voice to the BLM, and we ask that they comply with certain considerations that protect our values as citizens of the Little Applegate.
Most importantly, we want the BLM to undertake a full assessment of the cumulative impacts of these timber sales on the Little Applegate Valley. The vast scope of these timber sales, the critical wild areas, and the cumulative impacts from areas that have already been over cut need to be considered and addressed. The analysis of the BLM’s usual Environmental Assessment report (EA) is inadequate to study the total effects of the timber sales, and these critical issues may be accurately and fully studied in an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a more substantial document. An EA does not include a draft, may be prepared in a few days or a few months and only includes a 30-day public comment period. The E.I.S., which includes a draft and plan amendments, has a public comment period 4 times the length of the EA, which is crucial for us to study the draft and make appropriate comments. We ask the BLM to spend their time and energy in preparing an EIS to address critical issues overlooked in the EA.
. We ask the BLM to recognize wilderness areas as important features of the land not to be entered for logging or road building, but for hiking, hunting, fishing and solitude. With so few areas of wild, untouched land left in the West, the proposed Dakubetede Wilderness and the proposed Ashland Wilderness of Wagner Butte and McDonald Peak should be protected from roads to provide refuge for humans, animals, and delicate native plants.
We ask the BLM to institute a 10-20 year moratorium on logging in all roadless areas to protect the biodiversity and animal habitats of the area. With so many roads already in existence in the region, and so much habitat fragmentation, these undeveloped areas are crucial to the biodiversity of our region.
In the roaded areas of these timber sales where some logging has already occurred, we ask the BLM to implement and enforce upper diameter limits. Contrary to popular belief, the primary fire danger in our forests is the excess of younger, denser stands of trees, not the fire-resistant old-growth trees that depend upon fire for survival. Imposing an upper diameter limit allows the removal of fire-prone younger trees, and preserves the old-growth trees that provide important habitat for a number of species, including Red-tree Voles and Spotted Owls.
We ask the BLM to exclude and prohibit helicopter logging on these timber sales. Although aerial removal of logs may be less intrusive than building new roads, since we are asking that timber extraction be planned only in areas with pre-existing roads, helicopter logging is a an unnecessary, noisy, dangerous, and economically unfair choice (smaller timber operators cannot afford to bid on a contract that requires helicopter logging). We ask the BLM to include specific language to exclude helicopter logging in the Little Applegate Valley.
We can achieve these goals by making our voices heard and citizen outcry to the BLM! The first thing to do is to inform us of the issues and stay active! It may sound simple, but organized neighbors can cause a huge stir that the BLM can’t ignore! The second thing to do is to become involved in the BLM public comment process. See our letter-writing and process guide for more information. The BLM process is designed to hear the public voice, and as confusing as it may seem at first, as citizens of the Little Applegate, we have the ability to ask for our values to be respected.
The first thing you can do to protect the Little Applegate Valley is get informed! Much of the information you will need will be on this web page. The page will be updated constantly throughout the campaign. If there is information we have not provided for you, email us at telav@deepwild.org. The BLM must (by federal law) provide you with all available information regarding these particular timber sales, their larger forest management program, and their public involvement processes. They would love to talk to you 770-2200! Look them up on the web at www.or.blm.gov/Medford that way you can order the "Overview of BLM' NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act)", probably our best friend in this process, the Resource Management Plan for our area, and anything else you could possibly think of. When you have all this information, tell your friends to call and get it too! The more we understand, the more effective we can be in protecting our watersheds.
As you learn more about the BLM, their planned timber sales, and the laws we have to stop them, please, GET OUT AND TAKE A HIKE! Take your friends to see your favorite spots in the proposed timber sales, the places you love to hike, fish, hunt or watch the sunset with your loved ones, the places you have enjoyed ever since you arrived in the Little Applegate. Think about a special place you hold in your heart and then imagine a big ol' bulldozer punching a road right over that spot you sat as a child, or a chopper dragging the tree you used to climb off the ridge above your house. The best way to get involved is to realize just how much you really do care about this place!
Now that you are all fired up, tell the BLM exactly what you think about their plans! Write comment letters to the BLM office in Medford. Be sure to check out the BLM Letter Writing Guide for help! The BLM is a public agency. By law they have to listen to what we say, and we can only sue them based on what we say in our comment letters, so pack them full of good stuff! Any question you can possibly imagine should go into those letters no matter how small it may seem, because it might be important down the line. Some points to include may be:
Noise
Air Pollution from the log truck dust and the helicopters.
Property values
Water Quality
Endangered Species
Safety
Exclusion of Roadless Areas
Aesthetic Value