In the course of documenting the concerns of community over the last few days, I’ve found two stories that are of great interest to our efforts.
The first appeared in the Seaside Signal in September of last year. It describes the potential for logging activity just above the Cove. It is no surprise the announcement met with strong criticism from both the residents and the City.
Efforts were, and perhaps still are, ongoing to preserve that land, and to-date, it has not been logged. In the context of the proposed development in our neighborhood, according to the engineer’s verbal testimony at the last planning commission hearing, the property will be logged.
Here are three core quotes from the article and my related comments:
- Mayor Barber states ‘I would be adamantly opposed to any logging trucks using any city streets in that area.” He should be equally as adamantly opposed about logging trucks using the city streets in our area.
- “The city may be able to require an erosion control plan in areas where the land overlaps with Seaside’s urban growth boundary.” Since this parcel is in the urban growth, they can require an erosion control plan. No such plan was submitted in the proposed development.
- Loggers ended up using roads above the site that were not publicly accessible to haul out timber. If this project were to proceed, the City must ensure that this standard is met.
Call Mayor Barber and ask him to get involved to prevent logging trucks in our neighborhood.
While I do not wish to wade into the debate about regarding the conflicting agendas of logging and environmentalism, this second article describes the impacts of logging on the watersheds of the Oregon Coast. This is a well-written and thoughtful work:
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/31/oregon-logging-clear-cuts-drinking-water/
Here are some quotes from this article about water contamination as a result of tree harvests:
- This year, Oregon State University released two studies, which found logging can […] pollute drinking water with herbicides and dirt.
- A March study examining timber practices over a 60-year period found that water levels in streams surrounded by industrial timber plantations dropped by more than 50% compared with older forests.
- A research report released in June concluded that logging increases sediment runoff into streams.
- “You’re going to see some landslides. You’re going to see more sedimentation. And most importantly, you’re going to see streams dry up in the late summer and early fall because you don’t have that tree cover.”
The inescapable conclusion is that this stream will be dramatically impacted as a result of a potential clearcut.
We must not let that happen.