(East Hakki Parcel)
We sent out this press release this morning in response to comments made by Kathy Jones of Seneca Jones timber company. To see links to her statements, follow links at the bottom of this post.
Cascadia Forest Defenders, an organization composed of dozens of community volunteers, would like to express our apologies for causing the owners of Seneca Jones timber company, who are some of the richest and most powerful people in Lane County, to feel so bullied.
In this day and age, when many of us are separated from the 1% by dramatic differences in the way we experience daily life, it can be hard for us to remember just how threatened the rich and elite can feel when challenged by those so far below them.
We recognize now that a company like Seneca Jones, a company that admittedly can afford to spend millions of dollars out of spite by bidding on a land sale in the Elliott Forest because they “refuse to be bullied ” must find it terrifying to have a group of community organizers suggest that people and planet should come before profit and property lines.
However, there are some things that we are confused about. If Seneca Jones wants to clearcut ecosystems for “our children’s well-being”, why is the company’s biomass plant, which pumps an estimated 14 tons of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and other chemical goodies, located within three miles of three separate schools?
Folks within that Eugene zip code have almost twice the rate of asthma as the rest of town – that same zip code also has the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line. If Seneca Jones is submitting a bid on the Elliott “for all Oregonians”, why does it seem like the wealthiest are profiting at the expense of the poorests’ physical health?
Additionally, the United States Forest Service states that only 5% of Oregon original coastal forests remain intact. Obviously, it was naive of us to think that killing most of an ecosystem could ever be enough, that the millions and millions of dollars in profit could ever be enough.
Jones family, we are sorry that we may have to prevent your family from owning yet another million dollar racehorse, which is obviously more important then clean drinking water, critical fish habitat, and resilient, healthy forests.
We really owe you one, Seneca. Something about your recent media comments has activists flocking in, hoping to meet you in the woods. Perhaps it was publicly admitting you intend to clear-cut old growth in East Hakki, which according to the Oregon Department of Forestry has “trees more than 300 years old” which “contain platforms that are suitable for marbled murrelet nests”.
Perhaps, it’s our own excitement, generated by the group of people that saved most of the Trapper Timber sale (remember, that old growth you tried to log in the Willamette National Forest?). Perhaps it is all the neighborhood residents who can no longer breathe in their backyards due to your dirty power plant spewing toxic fumes all over the neighborhood.
*****
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/04/seneca_jones_bids_on_elliott_s.html#incart_river
The Roseburg News Review has also been churning out Kathy Jones articles, but those are only accessible if you pay online, which we wouldn’t recommend.