Do you want your environmentalism angry and strident, like
the WTO protests? How about young, joyful and perched on
the side of a building? Does your ideal greenie carry a
briefcase full of lawsuits, ready to slap an injunction
against Smurfitt? Or would you prefer he hang out in the
Senate Minority Office and toss back a shot of whiskey with
the governor?
You want it, we got it.
Environmental groups in Oregon are as plentiful as fungi
in the forests. From Winchester Bay to the Wallowas, every
nook and brook of our fair state produces people who donate
time and money to save their corner of the world.
Most of the work to save the outdoors, however, happens
right here in Portland. Don't bother making an ironic statement
about that--Portland is where the money and the people are.
Andy Kerr, the quotable sprite who helped spur the timber
wars of the 1990s, says there are three kinds of environmentalists:
radicals, idealists and realists. The radicals sit in trees,
the idealists sue to save the trees and the realists will
cut some trees to save others.
We have looked at all these types and sifted through the
dirt on six groups. It's not a scientific survey, but we
talked to industry folks, government officials, and environmentalists
of every stripe.
What we found is that the movement is changing, both locally
and globally.
Like everything else, environmentalism follows trends.
Five years ago it was all about forests; today it's about
water. Water quality, water rights, water shortages, watersheds--and
the groups here are following the water.
We had to leave out groups both familiar and obscure. For
example, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the old dog on land-use
planning, isn't in our six-pack. Neither is Northwest Environmental
Advocates, the group that forced the City of Portland to
stop the flow of crap into the Willamette River.
That doesn't mean those groups aren't important or relevant--we
just couldn't include everyone. We focused on a half-dozen
groups that show how the state's green face is changing.
By the end of the month, Geoff Pampush, the charismatic
leader of Oregon Trout, will have moved on to Idaho. Sierra
Club is fighting for relevance, and the Oregon Environ-mental
Council is building a war chest.
Next year, things are going to look different here.
Oregon Environmental
Council
www.orcouncil.org
Founded: 1969
Members: 17,008
Annual budget: $685,000
Paid staffers: 10
Top Dog Jeff Allen
(and salary): ($53,000)
Past glories: Oregon Environmental Council claims
to be the oldest environmental group in the state (something
the 98-year-old Audubon Society of Portland might dispute).
It had the state's first full-time paid environmental lobbyist
in 1969 and helped pass the 1971 Bottle Bill.
But what have you done for me lately? In the 1999
legislative session, OEC, with help, pushed a pesticide-tracking
bill through a hostile Legislature.
The Oregon Environmental Council was once viewed as a think
tank for enviro-economic geeks. In 1996, John Charles bolted
to the Cascade Policy Institute to be a free-market zealot,
and his jump has probably saved OEC.
New executive director Jeff Allen, who came from D.C.,
is in the process of transforming OEC from wonks to workers,
doubling the group's budget and staff. (Most of its funding
comes from foundations rather than memberships.)
OEC lobbyist Hilary Abraham took Salem by storm last session,
showing that a nice Jewish girl from Chicago knows how to
tame the savage Republicans, cut a deal and build coalitions.
"I don't know anyone who doesn't like Hilary," says state
Sen. Ted Ferrioli of Eastern Oregon, no friend to environmentalists.
Last year, while most environmental groups girded down
to play defense, Abraham and colleague Laura Weiss arrived
with seven bills to save the environment. Veteran greenies
chuckled, but when Republicans dropped the gavel last July,
Oregon had one of the first commercial pesticide-tracking
bills in the country.
The "right to know" bill, spurred by the Northwest Coalition
for Alternatives to Pesticides, had been in the works for
more than a year. Joining forces with NCAP and OSPIRG, OEC
threatened a ballot measure. The lawmakers buckled.
In addition, OEC helped conservative lawmaker Bill Witt
push a bill to study the feasibility of taxing polluters.
The bill floundered, but OEC showed it hasn't abandoned
its market-based environmentalism and is willing to work
with Republicans.
The political outreach, however, also opened the group
up to attack. Democrats recently slammed Abraham for not
taking a strong enough stand against Witt's re-election
bid. OEC is also considered just a little too cozy with
corporations, as evidenced by its morning lecture series,
"Forum for Business and the Environment," sponsored by,
among others, Weyerhauser and Louisiana-Pacific.
"Our role as environmentalists is not to make friends out
there but to be watchdogs and react to bad things as we
see it," says one of the OEC's critics.
Some also say that Allen hasn't yet found his stride. While
serving on the Willamette Restoration Initiative, he publicly
attacked his own task force in a scorching guest editorial
to The Oregonian. While a savvy environmentalist
knows when to fire shots, they're not supposed to be over
your own bow.
Crystal ball: OEC hasn't released its legislative
agenda for 2001 yet. Watch for bills that attack the pollution
tax credit and create incentives to business for green taxes.
Sierra Club
www.spiritone.com/~orsierra/
Founded: 1975 (in Oregon)
Members: 13,000 in Oregon
Annual budget: $100,000
Paid Staffers: 3.5
Top Dog Joe Keating
(and salary): ($0)
Past glories: For 10 years, the High Desert committee
of the Sierra Club has been fighting to protect Steens Mountain.
But what have you done for me lately? They may have
done it. The club helped broker a prospective federal legislation
to protect Steens from cattle grazing and development.
The Sierra Club is the best-known environmental group in
the country, thanks in no small part to its glossy magazine
and chi-chi calendars. It isn't just a publishing house,
however. On Capitol Hill the club lobbies on everything
from vehicle emissions to logging on federal lands and is
a force to be reckoned with. The club has more than 600,000
members in all 50 states and Canada.
Locally, things aren't as clear cut, so to speak.
The Oregon chapter operates like a mass of storm clouds
that funnel to the ground only where members show an interest.
That means if no members are passionate about an issue,
the Sierra Club stays out of it. For example, until Don
Francis, formerly of Willamette Riverkeeper, began volunteering
with the club, it had no voice on the biggest environmental
issue in Portland.
Yet member passion can go far. The High Desert committee
of the club's eastside branch has spent more than a decade
working to protect Steens Mountain in Southeast Oregon,
spurring the landmark coalition that has just sent a protection
plan to Washington, D.C. The club is also part of a working
group of environmentalists fighting to change logging practices
in the Tillamook State Forest.
Like the other groups on this list, the local Sierra Club
is in transition. State chairman Charlie Ringo has stepped
down to make a bid for the Oregon statehouse.
Ringo left an important legacy by culling a regional Sierra
Club staffer from Seattle to work out of Portland. That
was Sybil Ackerman, who arrived last year.
The 30-year-old Ackerman, who has an environmental law
degree from Lewis & Clark, has impressed friends and
foes alike. She was the sole environmentalist at the table
during the tense negotiations with cattle ranchers and hostile
lawmakers over Steens Mountain. Ackerman played front-green
for Andy Kerr, who acted as her back-room adviser. (Kerr,
the former director of Oregon Natural Resources Council,
was specifically banned from negotiations.) Word is she
handled herself with grace and held the enviro line.
Ackerman, however, is moving to the Audubon Society to
work on protecting the Tillamook State Forest, which leaves
the club without its strongest insider voice. Her departure
is compounded by the change at the top.
Ringo, a consumer lawyer, was viewed by most as a reasonable
team player. His successor, Joe Keating, a terminally sweet-natured,
quintessential aging hippie, is viewed by many as a radical,
uncompromising court jester.
It's true that, when it comes to logging, Keating is a
zealot with an affinity for dramatic gestures. Three months
ago, he held a "Wyden Weenie Roast" to slam Oregon's senior
U.S. senator for sponsoring a bill that continues Oregon
counties' dependence on timber payments. He's also deeply
involved with protesting the Eagle Creek timber sales
on Mount Hood.
But Keating has vision. He wants the club on the front
lines and has hired Mari Margill as conservation director
to organize the hiking-booted troops.
Still, there are those who say the Oregon club is flailing.
"There isn't the charismatic leadership in Oregon to carry
them," says one enviro. "I don't see Sierra Club
as a dominant force."
Crystal ball: A victory by Ringo could help the
Sierra Club in Salem, but replacing Ackerman will be crucial
to maintaining the gains made last session.
Oregon Trout
www.ortrout.org
Founded: 1983
Members: 2,033
nationwide
Annual budget: $1.5 million
Paid staffers: 10
Top Dog Geoff Pampush
(and salary) ($45,000-
$60,000)
Past glories: In 1990, Oregon Trout filed the first
citizen petition in the Northwest calling for protection
of salmon under the Endangered Species Act, which led to
the listing of Snake River chinook.
But what have you done for me lately? In 1998, Geoff
Pampush was the chief petitioner of Measure 66, which culled
$44 million of lottery funds to be used for parks and salmon
restoration.
If you're working on changing state land rules, it doesn't
hurt to have friends in the governor's office. Geoff Pampush,
the suave executive director of Oregon Trout, gets rave
reviews from the Kitzhaber clan. "The governor respects
Geoff's ability to look at the big picture and to consider
the interests of the entire state," says Peter Green, the
governor's forestry expert. And why wouldn't the governor
be impressed? Pampush helped set up Kitzhaber's natural
resource team as the conservation chair of the governor's
transition team.
In addition to its insider access, Oregon Trout has a huge
benefit over other groups. If it's about fish, OT is there.
Its singular focus helps avoid the wandering and lack of
mission that sometimes hampers groups like Oregon Environmental
Council.
Oregon Trout was started by fly-fishers who knew every
inch of every river in the state; for years, idealist Bill
Bakke led the group. In 1991, Pampush came on board as executive
director, and the two began clashing to the point that Bakke
asked the board of directors to choose between him and his
slicker rival. Pampush won.
Some say Pampush's insider status is an obstacle to real
change. In 1996, for example, Oregon Trout initiated a lawsuit
to list the coastal coho under the endangered species act
but backed off and ended up supporting the governor's Oregon
Plan. (Two years later, however, Kitzhaber opposed Oregon
Trout's fight for Measure 66.)
Today, Pampush is serving on a task force of people who
are working to protect the natural areas of the Tillamook
state forest. It seems not everyone is happy with some of
the ideas he's been kicking around to rally public support
for the project, such as putting a luxury golf course in
the middle of the forest.
That's why some greenies are happy that Pampush is stepping
down from Oregon Trout next month for a job with the Nature
Conservancy in Idaho.
"It's a good thing Pampush is leaving now," says one critic,
"because if he stays much longer on the Tillamook group,
they're going to kill him."
Still, there is something to be said for being invited
to the table.
Crystal ball: Oregon Trout has a strong conservation
director in Jim Myron, but the insider factor is sure to
drop with Pampush's departure. A new executive director
could be named this week.
Oregon Natural Resources Council
www.onrc.org
Founded: 1974
Members: 5,000
Annual budget: $689,000
Paid Staffers: 12 full-time,
5 part-time/ contract
Top Dog Regna Merrit (and salary): ($50,000)
Past glories: You know that whole spotted owl thing
10 years ago? You can thank ONRC for that.
But what have you done for me lately? ONRC headed
the national campaign to lobby the White House to include
the Pacific Northwest in Clinton's plan to protect roadless
areas of federal timberland.
In the heat of the forest wars of the early 1990s, Andy
Kerr's mug was on mock "wanted" posters throughout timber
country. That's the way much of the state thanked the then-director
of the ONRC for the group's lawsuit against the feds calling
for protection of the northern spotted owl under the Endangered
Species Act. While ONRC certainly wasn't alone on the suit,
it was Kerr who was caught in the headlines.
These days ONRC isn't any more beloved by industry or consensus
seekers. More than any other group of greenies on this list,
the council flashes the sword of environmental righteousness:
the lawsuit. ONRC is currently a party to a dozen lawsuits.
Not everyone is impressed.
"I would give them low marks," says one government insider.
"They don't work with the local community. The major tool
in their arsenal is litigation, but I disagree that's the
best way to get things done anymore."
Regna Merrit, ONRC executive director, has heard it before.
"If we were too quick to litigate," she says, "we wouldn't
win."
And ONRC does win.
ONRC led last year's lawsuit against the Forest Service
that shut down more than 150 timber sales throughout the
west when federal Judge William Dwyer ruled the agency wasn't
meeting the rules of the Northwest Forest Plan.
The group's reliance on legal challengers created problems
in 1996, when Congress passed the Salvage Rider, temporarily
suspending all environmental laws on timber sales.
Without its biggest weapon, ONRC was unable to make the
switch to the on-the-ground organizing that puts people
between the trees and the chainsaws. The money and membership
dropped off.
Since then, however, under the leadership of Merrit and
conservation director Ken Rait, ONRC is rebounding. Clinton's
roadless plan has given it a timely, popular issue that
broadens the group's focus beyond trees and into watersheds.
And it's forcing the council to try its hand at the environmental
trend of the millennium: consensus building.
Crystal ball: Official wilderness areas are safe
from chain saws, so ONRC's next battle is the Oregon Wild
campaign. It has mapped out more than 5,000 acres of forests
that it is pushing to be included under federal protection.
Cascadia Forest Alliance
Founded: 1995
Members: 0
Annual budget: $8,500
Paid Staffers: 0
Top Dog
(and salary): Ruled by consensus-minded volunteers
Past glories: In 1998, CFA set up the first of many
subsequent roadblocks to keep the logging trucks out of
the Eagle Creek timber sales in the Mount Hood National
Forest.
But what have you done for me lately? We doubt anyone
missed the details of the group's latest edgy direct action.
CFA is the newest of the groups included on the list. This
is not so much a nod to trendiness as an acknowledgement
that during protracted battles, fresh troops are necessary,
especially when the rules of engagement change. When the
Salvage Rider went into effect in 1996, traditional tree-huggers
were at a loss. CFA stepped into the breach, willing to
go into the woods and get arrested in order to stop the
logging at the Eagle Creek timber sales. CFA currently supports
four tree-sits, two of which went up last week.
CFA recently became most famous for Tre Arrow, the ledge-squatting
enviro-hero. But the group is grassroots in every sense;
Arrow, who had been living in the trees up at Eagle, isn't
a member of CFA. That's because there are no members.
There are no paid staffers, no organized leadership and
no official policies other than non-violence. Decisions
are made either spontaneously and individually, as with
Arrow's scramble up the Forest Service building, or by group
consensus.
The lack of hierarchy may be refreshing, but the Forest
Service finds it threatening. The local USFS office has
laced public statements with thinly veiled accusations that
the CFA is a breeding ground for eco-terrorists.
Some CFA allies also say the free-flowing structure of
the organization makes CFA vulnerable to people. Others
have no patience for them at all. Says one enviro lobbyist:
"Why don't you get out of the trees and try to change the
system?"
For all its publicity, has Cascadia been effective in stalling
the Eagle sale? It's certainly open to debate. Since protests
began in 1998, there have been seven arrests and
nearly 40 percent of the trees have been cut. But for the
past two years, there has been a standoff. The tree people
stay in the trees and Vanport Manufacturing, which bought
the timber, doesn't press. The fact is, Vanport is happy
to stall, because timber prices are in the tank.
It was Ivan Maluski, as a CFA representative, who went
to Vanport in the first place. Without CFA, Vanport would
have been forced to meet its contract with the Forest Service.
CFA has also been tenacious in lobbying Sen. Ron Wyden,
Rep. David Wu and City Commissioner Erik Sten to join the
Eagle protection team; even Mayor Vera Katz signed on after
Arrow took residence on the ledge. Without Cascadia's persistent
presence, Eagle would have been just another of the TK
timber sales logged in the Mount Hood National Forest
every year.
It's true that there are plenty of people living in the
woods under the Cascadia banner who don't have a clue what's
going on--who drop in and out over the summer. But at the
heart of the group are old-style take-no-prisoners greenies
who know what they're doing.
Crystal Ball: With this group, there's no telling.
But we predict that the young activists working with Cascadia
are going to be some of the brightest stars working for
the environment in the future. Maluski is now on staff at
American Lands, another environmental group. Brenna Bell,
a CFA activist, is the new student body president at Lewis
& Clark's Northwestern School of Law.
Audubon Society of Portland
Founded: 1902
Members: 8,500
Annual budget: $1.1 million
Paid Staffers: 23
Top Dog Dave Eshbaugh
(and salary): ($45,000)
Past glories: In 1908, lobbied Theodore Roosevelt
to have the Malheur refuge declared a national monument
and won.
But what have you done for me lately? 1995, worked
to pass the $135.6 million Metro bond measure to purchase
green spaces within the urban area.
It isn't unusual for a passionate staffer to define an
environmental group. What is unusual is when one defines
an entire movement for a city.
"If there were such a thing as a green stamp on a project
in this city," says Erik Sten staffer Rich Rodgers, "it
would be held by Houck."
Mike Houck of the Audubon Society of Portland is no ordinary
bird watcher. For 18 years Houck has defined the urban environment
in the Portland region, working hours that put caffeine-injected
dot-commers to shame.
While some environmentalists live in trees to keep them
from getting cut down and others file lawsuits to stop pollution,
Houck uses information as power, and his word has become
gospel. The fastest way to a computer crash is to be on
Houck's email list. He serves on 13 committees and testifies
at nearly every hearing relating to land and water use--from
Ross Island Sand & Gravel's land-use permit to the minutia
of everything Metro puts forth. When it comes to writing
letters to politicians, editors and anyone whose thinking
needs tweaking on environmental issues, he is as prolific
as Stephen King.
Steve Johnson, a neighborhood activist who lives on the
banks of Johnson Creek, says he was at a meeting with commercial
real-estate people two years ago negotiating environmental
zones. Houck was supposed to be there, but uncharacteristically
wasn't. "He didn't actually need to be there," Johnson says.
"The real-estate people said, 'We know what Houck would
say on this'...and they were right."
The Audubon Society of Portland is, of course, more than
Houck. It's the oldest and biggest home-grown environmental
group in the state and is by far the biggest and most activist-oriented
Audubon in the country. The Bay Area chapter, for example,
is one-third the size of Portland's.
Audubon of Portland has a million-dollar headquarters and
sanctuary nestled in Forest Park that includes four miles
of nature trails. The center gives the group a physical
base and a means to interact with the public that most environmental
organizations do not have.
Like all Audubons, it has a wildlife education component
with a bird focus. That's where most of the money goes.
In fact, the urban environment program that Houck leads
has a budget of less than $100,000, which includes his salary
of just under $38,000. Like all Audubon program directors,
he has to raise half his budget.
Audubon, of course, also spreads its wings outside the
urban growth boundary. Paul Ketchum, who this year jumped
ship to (you guessed it) Metro, impressed both industry
and environmentalists as the voice of reason on the Tillamook
Working Group, which wants to protect the state forest from
destructive logging. Like Houck, he is considered a science-based,
clear-thinking advocate who is slow to make enemies.
Houck gets some indulgent eyerolling for his obsession
with urban greenspaces. But he is respected, even revered,
among policy makers in the region. Critics say that's a
problem. In 1993, he took a break from Audubon and was hired
as a consultant on the Metro greenspaces campaign; he kept
an office at Metro headquarters that was too close for comfort
for some. Others charge that Houck has become too much the
public face for environmentalism in Portland--that his green
stamp is a whitewash.
"They set up a committee and they need to check off the
environmental box, so they get Houck," says one.
He is often at odds with hardliners. The city is required
by law to reduce the percentage of combined sewage overflow
that spills into the Willamette when it rains. Houck is
advocating to let the city reduce the required reduction
and use the saved money for widespread watershed repair.
Crystal ball: While Houck has spread his religion
through most of Portland, it's been a tougher mission in
Washington County. He's in the middle of the tug-of-war
between westside officials and Metro to wrangle fish and
wildlife habitat along urban streams from developers.
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