dear Oregonians, a letter from FAUNA | Stoney Moss

Dear Friends and Advocates of Urban Natural Areas,

This coming Tuesday February 14 at 1pm the Oregon Senate Environment and
Natural Resources Committee will have a public work hearing on SB 1582.
The hearing will be held in room: HR C in the Capital Building.

SB 1582 is one of a handful of dangerous wetland related bills in the 2012
Legislature that would undermine or eliminate key regulatory safeguards
protecting wetlands in Oregon. In short, SB 1582 weakens the Division of
State Land?s authority to require development to avoid wetlands
destruction and/or compensate for development impacts to wetlands. See
details on SB 1582 and Oregon?s imperiled wetlands below.

We need to you contact the Committee members ASAP and urge them to oppose
SB 1582. It will also be critical to cc: your comments to your senator and
house representative (see how to find them below).

***Senate Environment & Natural Resouces Committee Members**

Jackie Dingfelder, Chair
sen.jackiedingfelder@state.or.us
503-986-1723

Alan Olsen, Vice-Chair
sen.alanolsen@state.or.us
503-986-1720

Mark Hass
sen.markhass@state.or.us
503-986-1714

Floyd Prozanski
sen.floydprozanski@state.or.us
503-986-1704

Chuck Thomsen
sen.chuckthomsen@state.or.us
503-986-1726

Find your legislators and call or email them too:

http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/

***Background on SB 1582 and Oregon Wetlands***

SB 1582 would undermine Department of State Land?s ability to protect
wetlands and waters of the state. It sets up an arbitration process when
permits are denied and when there is a disagreement on a wetland
delineation. This extended process does not ensure that qualify wetland
scientists would review decisions and arbitrators which would partially
be appointed by
the applicant and would have the power to overturn DSL final order.

SB 1582 has many problems. First, it sets up fox-guard-the-henhouse
approach to regulation that will lead to weaker protections of Oregon?s
because it dramatically tips the balance in favor of those seeking to fill
and remove wetlands. Even if the new arbitration system is not evoked,
state regulators will be more inclined to settle for less wetland
protection in order to avoid it. The bill would also add time and cost to
permitting. Other provisions in the bill limit additional information that
the Department might need in delineating wetlands and extends the period a
wetland delineation is valid from the current five years to 10 years.

To read the bill see:

http://www.leg.state.or.us/12reg/measpdf/sb1500.dir/sb1582.intro.pdf

(Changes to existing law are in bold)

We Need to Expand not Rollback Wetland Protections in Oregon

Wetlands provide some of our most valuable bird habitats in the Oregon,
especially in cities where native birds make up about 2/3rds of native
vertebrate species. Wetlands also play an essential role in maintaining
clean cool water in Oregon.s rivers during our hot summers. Hence, they
support a wide diversity of aquatic life as well as water-based recreation
from swimming to sport fishing. The absorptive capacity of wetlands also
helps reduce the losses of life and property by helping contain raging
winter flood waters, like those that struck the Willamette Valley this
past January. When these functions provided by wetlands are lost, they are
very difficult and expensive to replace. One study valued wetlands in a
local watershed in Washington State at $36,000-$51,000 per acre just for
flood control.

In the Willamette Valley, approximately 57% of wetlands have been lost to
land development. While state and local wetland protections adopted over
the last 30 years have slowed the pace of wetland loss, one study found
that the Willamette Valley continues to lose more than 500 acres per year.
Rate of loss may be even higher in and around cities, since urban or
exurban development is the leading cause of wetlands loss.

Given these trends you would think our elected officials would be
safeguarding our wetlands by proposing legislation to increase protections
for these vital natural ecosystems. Remarkably and unfortunately the
opposite is the case in the current legislative session. So far the 2012
Legislature has produced a handful of bills that would undermine or gut
many wetlands safeguards, especially in cities.

The Albany legislator who introduced SB1582 made the outlandish claim that
wetland protection laws are ?one of the greatest obstacles to economic
development.? These wetlands bills are illustrative of the
anti-environmental legislation and divisive rhetoric being pushed in Salem
under the false-pretention of creating ?jobs? and ?economic development.?

We need you to push back! These and other anti-environmental bills in the
2012 Legislature can be stopped if enough Oregonians make their voices
heard.

Please become a member of Friends and Advocates of Urban Natural Areas
(FAUNA) or Audubon Conservation Team (ACT) to receive email action alerts
and legislative updates. There can be a narrow window of opportunity to
influence legislation and this will allow us to rapidly alert you to the
need to contact lawmakers.

You can join FAUNA or ACT at
http://audubonportland.org/issues/get-involved.

Also please check our website (www.audubonportland.org) or facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/PortlandAudubon) for legislative updates.

Thanks for your support!

Jim

No related posts.

Source: http://stoneymoss.org/2012/02/11/dear-oregonians-a-letter-from-fauna/

ben breedlove kid cudi ben breedlove matt barnes jim jones hcm loretta lynn gene kelly