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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2014
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“I’m sure most people riding in the dunes want to do the right thing ... ” Francis Eatherington, Umpqua Watersheds conservation program director
BY JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press
SEE SALMON | A8
The World file photo
ATV riders race and play in the Umpqua Dunes during DuneFest 2014. An upcoming decision could open access to another 500 acres in the dunes.
Rezoning decision coming to dunes BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COOS BAY — Siuslaw National Forest officials are closing in on a decision to designate new trails and open more than 500 acres for motorized vehicle access in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, two decades after a management plan was set in motion. The new acreage is mainly in the Florence and Winchester Bay areas. There are 11 designated management areas on the dunes, which stretch from Florence to Coos Bay: Off-road vehicles are allowed in all 10B areas, while ORVs are only allowed on designated routes in 10C areas. These two sections make up 10,385 acres of motorized vehicle access out of the entire 31,500-acre dunes. “10C was originally planned for the protection of existing vegetation on the dunes,” said Michele Jones, Siuslaw National Forest district ranger for the Oregon Dunes NRA’s Central Coast Ranger District, at Tuesday’s Coos County commissioners meeting. Five years ago, a work group was formed to recommend the best usage for these areas. Their biggest concern was the negative economic impact of possible closures.
Medford hunter’s collection to be auctioned
Obama says Syrian beheading videos won’t intimidate US BY JULIE PACE The Associated Press
BY MARK FREEMAN Medford Mail Tribune
MEDFORD (AP) — In 1997, Medford hunter and philanthropist Art Dubs commissioned an artist to paint a 6-foot-tall likeness of Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph, with the intent that the likeness would hang in the rotunda of a museum he planned to build to display his hunting trophies. The museum never materialized, so the painting instead hung in a Scottsdale, Ariz., art gallery, appraised at $95,000. The painting and 309 other unique items, from African hunting trophies to bronze masks and exotic guns, will be up for sale Saturday during a liquidated auction to fuel Dubs’ charitable foundation. “I have no idea what that painting will sell for, but it’s there,” says J.B. Dimick, one of two auctioneers hired for the auction. The painting will be joined at the sale by African ivory tusks, a full-sized mounted Alaskan brown bear and bighorn sheep and
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The Associated Press
Some items from the home of world renowned hunter Arthur Dubs that will be auctioned at the Jackson County Expo in Medford.
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plan.“We’re just now signing the draft resolution.” Other projects occupied their time, she said: building campgrounds, trailheads and staging areas; finalizing an alcohol ban; designating sand camping; and providing ATV access to Riley Ranch County Park. Over the years, ATV drivers have pounded unauthorized trails into 10C areas. “For many years, ATVs were not capable of riding these areas,” she said. “With the onset of extreme sports and high-powered ATVs, we saw an explosion of user-created trails in the ORV areas.” The SNF received 1,400 comments on its draft environmental impact statement, which was published two years ago this fall. People had concerns about the trail-riding experience, rider safety, noise, impacts on vegetation, wildlife and wetlands, and impacts on visitation and local economies. “We’re hoping when they make a final decision, they will begin the restoration process of trails made in wrong areas and the Forest Service will make it clear where people can go to have fun,” Eatherington said. Reporter Chelsea Davis can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 239, or by email at chelsea.davis@theworldlink.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ChelseaLeeDavis.
The final proposal would rezone 518 10C acres (of the 4,455 total 10C acres) to 10B. These acres include 10C sections dominated by non-native invasive plant species — “they can go away and we’d be extraordinarily happy,” Jones said. But the 10C areas include “some of the rarest vegetation in the state of Oregon,” said Umpqua Watersheds conservation program director Francis Eatherington. “It is a botanical treasure trove out there,” she said. “It’s a very sensitive area, and motorized recreation in the wrong place can ruin thousands of years of habitat.” That’s not the drivers’ fault, she said. “What we would like to see is for the motorized recreation in the Oregon Dunes to be clear so everybody knows where they’re supposed to be,” she said.“I’m sure most people riding in the dunes want to do the right thing, but it’s difficult to know what that is. There are (few) signs and unauthorized trails through vegetation and rare plants. The people riding the dunes — they don’t know.” A final environmental impact statement and record of decision is expected in a couple weeks. The proposal would also designate an additional 2.3 miles of trails. “The intention was to designate those 10C routes within three years,” Jones said of the 1994
Gordon Solseng, Coquille Joan Krogel-Frazell, Reedsport Velores Jones, Coos Bay John Averill, North Bend Gerald Texell, Coos Bay Joan Starke, Reedsport
Estonia — TALLINN, President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States will not be intimidated by Islamic State militants after the beheading of a second American journalist and will build a coalition to “degrade and destroy” the group. Obama still did not give a timeline for deciding on a strategy to go after the extremist group’s operations in Syria. “It’s going to take time for us to be able to roll them back,” the president said at a news conference during a visit to Europe. The president’s comments came after he said the United States had verified the authenticity of a video released Tuesday showing the beheading of freelance reporter Steven Sotloff, two weeks after journalist James Foley was similarly killed. Obama vowed the U.S. would not forget the “terrible crime
William Warner, Winchester Bay Jenny Gamez, Cottage Grove
Obituaries | A5
FORECAST
GRANTS PASS — Oregon’s state Board of Forestry is working on balancing a healthy timber industry with healthy salmon runs. On Wednesday, the board votes on taking the next step in developing rules governing how many trees must be left standing along streams to keep the water shaded and cool enough for salmon to survive. It would be the first change to the riparian protections of the Oregon Forest Practices Act since 1994. The question was raised by a 2011 study that found temperatures were getting warmer in salmon streams on state-regulated timberlands in the Coast Range. The Department of Forestry is recommending the board go forward with analyzing the different logging prescriptions that would be needed to meet the cool water protection standards for smalland medium-sized streams with salmon, steelhead and bull trout, and their economic impact. A final decision is months away and will take into account whether the changes create too much of a hardship on the timber industry. Mary Scurlock of the Oregon Stream Protection Coalition says the study makes it clear that Oregon will have to start leaving more trees standing along streams to meet the cool water standard set by the state Environmental Quality Commissions, and some form of financial assistance for small landowners may be needed to soften the blow. She added that Washington state logging rules use the same cold water protection standards set in Oregon, and the timber industry is viable there. In testimony to the board over the past year, representatives of the timber industry have urged approaching the Environmental Quality Commission to change the
against these two fine young men.” “We will not be intimidated. Their horrific acts only unite us as a country and stiffen our resolve to take the fight against these terrorists,” Obama said. “And those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget, and that our reach is long and that justice will be served.” Separately, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement: “Barbarity, sadly, isn’t new to our world. Neither is evil.” “We’ve taken the fight to it before, and we’re taking the fight to it today,” Kerry said. “When terrorists anywhere around the world have murdered our citizens, the United States held them accountable, no matter how long it took. And those who have murdered James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria should know that the United States will hold them accountable too, no matter how
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