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Given California’s power trouble, there’s no reason for Oregon to rush

As Californians endure rolling blackouts and Oregonians’ utility bills steadily increase, some Oregon lawmakers are questioning the wisdom of proceeding with their own deregulation plan in October.

We have our doubts, too.

Yes, California’s woes stem not from deregulation itself, but from a severe lack of power supply. That state’s generating capacity has been outstripped by population growth and a booming high-technology economy.

Sure, Oregon officials insist that this state’s partial deregulation plan, enacted in 1999, bears little resemblance to California’s. Ours was done right, they say, and there is nothing to fear.

Sure.

John Savage, director of the state Office of Energy, told a House committee just last week that "extremely tight supplies" can be expected next winter, too, and this winter’s situation could worsen if precipitation and snowpack levels stay below normal.

The free-market gurus tell us that everyone will benefit from deregulation, because competition drives down prices.

That may be, in the long run, when new generating plants get built and there is enough power to go around. But October 2001 isn’t the long run. It’s the short run.

What harm could possibly come from postponing Oregon’s deregulation plan until the market stabilizes?

We have heard no compelling reason to rush to deregulate. So let’s wait, and maybe we will learn enough from the travails of others to properly protect Oregon ratepayers down the road.

We were thrilled to see the city of Medford respond so quickly to the need for a BMX bicycle course that features jumping rather than racing. And best of all, it’s in the heart of west Medford, just up the street from Jackson School.

Not long after a private property owner bulldozed a course neighborhood kids had built themselves, the Medford Parks Commission agreed to build a bike-jumping course on vacant land next to the Santo Community Center, situated inside the triangle formed by West Jackson Street, North Columbus Avenue and West McAndrews Road.

We can’t think of a better location. And we can’t imagine a better use of city land and resources than to build a site for healthy, outdoor recreation by Medford’s kids.

As a message to kids, it beats bulldozers any day.

Monumental mistake: Clinton erred on Siskiyous

By Russell Sadler

It is too soon to determine former president Bill Clinton’s "legacy." Determining Clinton’s place in history is a job for historians.

The former president’s propensity for squandering opportunities is one Clinton characteristic historians are likely to agree on. Clinton’s lost opportunity to end decades of provincial infighting by designating the Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument is emblematic. A national monument has the potential to become an economic engine for the region’s tourism and sports fishing industry.

With all the ranting, raving and rallying in Southern Oregon, you would think the proposal to create a Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument was condemning private land. Virtually all the land under consideration in the Siskiyous has been in public ownership since Congress annexed the Northwest as The Oregon Territory in 1847.

We are having another one of our periodic arguments over how we should use public land. It is an argument as old as the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act, the Homestead Act, the Swamplands Act and the Timber and Stone Act. It is an argument as old as the building of the transcontinental railroad when private railroad companies were given public land to underwrite the cost of construction, along with alternate sections of public lands to sell to settlers who would use the railroads.

It is an argument as old as the 1872 Mining Law. It is as old as Teddy Roosevelt and the designation of National Forest Reserves in 1891, which withdrew timbered land from private entry to preserve forests for future generations. It is an argument as old as the 1902 Reclamation Act or the 1927 revestiture of railroad land in Oregon, returning them to public ownership because the railroads were not disposing of it according to law. It is an argument as old as the 1964 Wilderness Act, when Congress began officially designating Wilderness areas.

Opponents of designating the Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument trot out all the shop-worn, long-discredited clichés. "Locking up" the Siskiyous will deprive local mills of timber, the nation of valuable minerals and off-road-vehicle owners of their sacred right to go anywhere they want on wheels regardless of the damage they do.

There is a reason Southern Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains have some of the last intact ecosystems left in the Pacific Northwest — isolation. The countryside is nearly vertical with unstable soils easily eroded by road building and clearcutting.

Historically we have always fought over exploitation of natural resources until the resources are exhausted, leaving ghost towns in their wake. In the case of Northwest federal forests, we are having a serious discussion about preserving the remnant 5 percent of native forest before it is exhausted. If the federal government is serious about preserving remaining old growth, the Siskiyous are a good place to draw the line and begin the serious work of restoring damaged forest habitat.

Private mills that do not own their own timberlands are a creature of a post-World War II decision to exploit the national forests to build up the national housing stock. Those mills became obsolete in the 1980s when public opinion refused to allow the timber industry to turn national forests into national tree farms. Restricting private log exports would do more to increase the log supply in Southern Oregon than sacrificing the last old growth in Southern Oregon’s federal forests, but private timber owners are not prepared to restrict that lucrative trade.

The only serious mining in the Siskiyous is the mining of taxpayers’ pockets by opportunists who hold claims under the notorious 1872 Mining Law. Most minerals in the Siskiyous are low-grade, making commercial mining in the Siskiyous uneconomic in the foreseeable future. Economically, the silver in salmon is more valuable than gold in the ground.

The economy of Southern Oregon is in transition from an agricultural and timber economy to an economy dominated by the service industry and transfer payments — people living off checks that come in the mail. The brightest prospects for jobs in Southern Oregon in the next two decades are retail clerks, according to the Oregon Employment Division.

A Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument could form the centerpiece of an ecology-based tourism industry that would diversify the region’s economy provided there are residents willing to invest in it. Tourism cannot flourish if the remaining native forests are cut over and dug up.

The Clinton administration was apparently concerned about a "backlash" over his "11th-hour effort" to create a national monument in the Siskiyous." The "backlash" was "Astroturf" — fake grassroots opposition manufactured by Washington-based interest groups like off-road vehicle manufacturers and timber lobbyists who recruit local people for window-dressing.

Monument designation has a surprising amount of support locally. A September statewide poll taken in Oregon by the Washington-based Mellman Group for the Siskiyou Regional Education Project indicates 56 percent of those polled favor a Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument that protects the area from logging, road-building, mining and oil drilling while 20 percent are opposed and 23 percent are undecided. That is hardly a revolt of the natives.

The recent drive to bring comprehensive management to the Siskiyous was no "11th-hour effort." The Siskiyous have been subject to piecemeal management for decades. Efforts to preserve the area began in 1964 when timber industry lobbying excluded all but the headwaters of the Chetco River from the 1964 Wilderness Act.

Of the 1,047,000 acres in the area under consideration for monument status, 863,000 are in the Siskiyou National Forest managed by the U.S. Forest Service and 184,000 acres are managed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The proposed monument already encompasses the Wild Rogue Wilderness, the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and the Oregon Caves National Monument.

National monument status would have brought the Siskiyou ecosystem under consistent, credible, coordinated management creating the potential for a nationally-recognized tourism and research asset. Instead it is just another blown chance on a long list of Bill Clinton’s lost opportunities.

By Judi Johansen

In recent weeks, the West has gained local and national attention because of skyrocketing energy costs and potential supply shortages. Unfortunately, it’s just the beginning.

We hear of problems in California, blamed mostly on the state’s population growth, high-tech economy and deregulation. But the issue is not California’s alone. All Western states share the same electricity grid. Consequently, the problem is a regional issue, requiring a regional solution.

In the West, we enjoy low-cost electricity. It is a valuable, precious commodity. As an electricity provider, we take seriously our role to protect and preserve this resource. We share this responsibility with state and federal government and with all electric consumers, large and small. Pacific Power has joined with governmental bodies, other utilities and energy players to let customers know about rising energy prices and to encourage more learning about how to conserve this valuable resource.

Together, we’re working to tackle the problem. Some short-term fixes include ensuring that all existing plants operate at maximum capacity in an environmentally sound manner and creating incentives for managing demand.

In the longer term, we’re working to bring the Western electric grid into the 21st century by building new power plants.

But there is one quick, easy way to moderate the problem. All of us need to rethink how and when we use power. Consumers simply flip a switch and the light comes on. At Pacific Power, we take pride in delivering power so safely and reliably that people don’t have to think about it. But we want them to. We need them to.

The price you currently pay for the electricity that powers your television, lights your office and cooks your dinner is set through a regulatory process, based on past expenses. Recent cost increases in the regional marketplace will take a while to flow through to the bill of typical residential customers.

Imagine if the price of gasoline increased tenfold overnight. You’d think twice about each mile you drove and would begin combining trips, carpooling or using public transportation to conserve. Now imagine the price for gas jumped for the dealer and there was a limited supply but you still paid the same at the pump. How would you know to conserve?

Anything you can do today to save energy will help. Turn off unnecessary lights, keep your thermostat between 65 and 68 F, avoid unneeded use of power during peak hours of 4 to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and tell others that there’s a problem and the problem is very real.

Think you can’t make a difference? Consider this: If every customer we serve turned off one 60-watt light that is normally on during those peak hours, the regional demand for electricity would be reduced 90 megawatts.

That’s enough power to supply about 45,000 homes in our region during the peak hours.

In coming weeks and months you’ll hear more about electricity, prices and conservation. Please heed the call to conserve and help spread the word.

For more energy-saving tips, click Energy @ Home on Pacific Power’s Web site, www.pacificorp.com, or call our Energy Services Hotline at 1-800-222-4335.

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