If the soundtrack of Schoolhouse Rock’s “How a Bill Becomes Law” is an earworm in your head, it’s time to exorcise the demon. It no longer works that way.
Read MoreFigure 1. One of four Army Corps of Engineers salmon killers on the lower Snake River. Source: Save Our Wild Salmon.
A political opportunity may now be arising for a grand bargain that restores the salmon runs and at the same time makes existing economic interests whole or better and helps out federal taxpayers and regional electric ratepayers.
Read MoreFigure 1. There is lots of money to be spent by taxpayers and made by the fire-industrial complex. Fires boost the local economy. Source: National Interagency Fire Center.
The fire-industrial complex needs to be redirected to only set fires on wildlands and only put out fires on buildings.
Read MoreWe must simultaneously rapidly decarbonize our economy and occasionally don N95 masks.
Read MoreThe largest organism on Earth is one quaking aspen clone with more than forty-seven thousand stems (trees). This organism is being cow-bombed and otherwise abused.
Read MoreBuy the book. Go take a hike. Demand congressional protection.
Read MoreFig. 1. Mary Gautreaux (left) enjoying the remarks of Takilma elder Grandma Agness Pilgrim at a public meeting in Grants Pass. Source: KalmiopsisRivers.org.
If not for Mary Gautreaux, many good things would not have happened for Oregon’s public lands. Several wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers or additions to them would not have happened. Portland’s drinking water sources, the Bull Run and Little Sandy Rivers, would be dirtier. The view along the Mount Hood corridor would have more clear-cuts. The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument might not have happened. Millions of acres of ancient forest would have been clear-cut. Etc. Etc. Etc.
This is a pre-remembrance similar to those I’ve done previously for other living Oregon conservation legends: Bob Packwood, Jim Weaver, Norma Paulus, and Barbara Roberts. All, save Norma, are still with us. All are/were elected officials who made a dent in the Oregon conservation universe, and dents for the better. It is always an interesting exercise and a challenge to write a remembrance of someone not yet passed. This pre-remembrance is highly selective and personal, as Mary (“MG” to her friends and colleagues) and I have been friends for decades.
Who the hell is Mary Gautreaux? you may well be wondering. While she never held elected office, for more than a quarter century she has served as the trusted aide, friend, and—in matters of Oregon public lands management—the alter ego of Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). On matters of federal public lands conservation in Oregon, Mary was the state’s third senator.
Alas, MG will soon leave us. She has been diagnosed with inoperable and spreading liver cancer with a prognosis of two to six months. As if we needed another example of why life is not fair.
My life partner, Randi Spivak (of the Center for Biological Diversity), and I recently spent a lovely and touching afternoon with MG in her northeast Portland home, emptying, among others, a bottle of Argyle Winery’s Brut Rosé (an Oregon vintage, of course). MG has always loved the bubbly, but the morphine has done a number on her taste buds. Because this vintage tasted good to her, we ended up cleaning out the stock of a downtown Portland wine shop.
MG is approaching the end of her life as she ran her life previously: in charge and pragmatic. She’s in home hospice and is preparing to possibly avail herself of the option of Oregon’s Death with Dignity statute. She’s well supported by friends and colleagues at work as well as her family. In the short time Randi and I were visiting, two different sets of neighbors who had left the neighborhood had come back to see her, and two other neighbors dropped by to check on her.
Behind Every Great Senator Is Great Staff
While it is certainly the case that MG’s accomplishments are also, if not more so, the accomplishments of her boss, it’s complicated. Yes, Wyden is the one with the string of election certificates from the Oregon Secretary of State, but behind every great senator is great staff. Senators have a lot to do, and to worry and think about.
It comes with the territory, but all elected officials are politically (and a few clinically) paranoid (because there really are people, lobbies, political parties, institutions, and others who really are out to get them.) Good staff both protect and advance the interests of the official.
A federal elected official has to outsource much of the work to trusted staff. For the natural resources portfolio, Wyden has long trusted MG. Over the decades, similarly competent staff have helped Wyden achieve his public lands conservation victories, including, but not limited to, now legislative director Sarah Bittleman, former chief of staff Josh Kardon, former Bend representative David Blair, and current legislative assistant Malcolm McGeary.
While nature conservation is important to Wyden, it’s never been among his top passions. Wyden knew he needed someone working with him for which it was a passion. Enter MG.
Mary spent 1994 in DC as a Forest Service fellow, still getting paid by the agency but working for then Representative Wyden. Wyden soon figured out she was indispensable and hired her. I’m pretty sure a condition of her employment was that MG would never have to spend another minute in DC.
Wyden has this thing about holding a town hall meeting in every one of Oregon’s thirty-six counties each and every year. The tally is more than eight hundred, and MG has accompanied Ron to almost every one of them. This means countless accumulated months of quality time in the car together for Ron and Mary. Plenty of time to discuss and debate the issues, time for Ron to push MG on some things and for MG to push Ron on other things.
Mary is fiercely loyal to Ron and is instinctually protective of him in a political sense. Public lands conservation issues, if they are important, are controversial. Yet Mary knows that Ron wants to do as much as he can and still get re-elected. MG has threaded the needle skillfully.
MG and Me
My first recollection of MG was when she was working for the Forest Service. It was a bit of an agency renaissance and the timber beasts were in retreat. Mary was part of that breath of fresh air. I first heard of Mary from Oregon Wild’s legendary eastside representative, Tim Lillebo. Both Tim and Mary were living in Grant County, Oregon, working on the Malheur National Forest—Mary working for the Malheur as staff, and Tim working over the Malheur as advocate.
Another Oregon Wild legend, Erik Fernandez, and I often joked about being “gautreauxed” (verb: to be, with no notice, commanded to produce information [maps, legislative language, speech language] or action [examples omitted to protect the guilty], due immediately). Given the plethora of junk calls these days, I don’t answer my phone unless I see who’s calling. The one exception is “CALLER ID BLOCKED” as it is usually coming from Mary’s desk phone in the federal building near Lloyd Center. Occasionally, such calls would begin with “Hey, it’s me” as if I didn’t know. More often, Mary would skip any formalities and just launch into the subject at hand.
MG’s Final Wish
MG is leaving indelibly positive marks on Oregon public lands. She had a lot more that she wanted to do, but she knows that is not going to happen. Wyden and his staff will carry on, and more of Oregon’s public lands will receive permanent congressional conservation.
Ever the advocate and pragmatist to the end, MG has told Ron that she’d really like the Owyhee to be saved, if not before she goes (again, pragmatic), then soon afterward. Earlier Wyden had tasked Mary and his legislative director, Sarah Bittleman, to come up with legislation to save the Owyhee. Talks have been convened between local interests and a delegation of conservationists to explore possibilities.
“Saving” the Owyhee may be another example of the oft occurring conflict between short-term economic interests and the long-term national public interest. The incomparable Owyhee won’t be truly saved unless
• millions of acres of wilderness are protected,
• additional wild and scenic rivers are established,
• a voluntary grazing permit retirement facilitation provision is included,
• the Oregon Desert Trail is established as a national scenic trail,
• off-road vehicle abuse is banned, and
• cyanide heap leach mining for gold is prevented at Grassy Mountain and other places.
Designating a national what-have-you (conservation, monument, recreation, etc.) area that doesn’t have very high conservation standards and enforceable management language would mean that while the color on the map would change, the management on the ground would not.
It would be appropriate to name a new wilderness area in the Owyhee after Mary. It would be entirely fitting if that new wilderness area were larger in area than the Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness, named for a U.S. senator from Oregon.
In Tribute
On the occasion of Mary’s seventieth birthday in October 2017, Ron paid tribute to MG in remarks printed in the Congressional Record. He said, in part:
The deeper truth is that anybody who knows Mary knows she is an original and unforgettable force of nature—fierce on behalf of Oregonians, bold in her problem-solving, always willing to help, and just as ready with a smile to lighten any situation. She has a gigantic heart matched only by her passion for public service and protecting the natural treasures we Oregonians all hold dear.
Oregon is a better place and Oregon’s public lands are in far better shape than they would have been without Mary Gautreaux.
Thanks, Mary!
Fig. 2. I’m guessing there might well have been a glass of pink bubbly just out of frame. Source: Twitter.
Fig. 1. The County Courthouse in Baker County, Oregon. Source: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives.
There has long been tension between short-term local interests and long-term national interests in the nation’s public lands. Understandably, but incorrectly, those living closer to federal public lands tend to feel they should have a greater say in how the nation’s public lands are managed.
Read MoreFigure 1. Darlingtonia California, a carnivorous plant, along Rough and Ready Creek in a watershed of extraordinary biological diversity. The watershed is threatened with nickel mining, and wild and scenic river status would help end the mining threat. Source: Sandy Lonsdale. First appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness by the author.
While Oregon leads the nation in number of units in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (NWSRS), Oregon trails in (1) total number of protected wild and scenic river miles, (2) total acreage within the NWSRS, and (3) percentage of the state’s total stream mileage protected in the NWSRS.
Read MoreCompared to its political equal Washington, arch-liberal California, arch-conservative Idaho, and politically purple Nevada, Oregon has the least designated wilderness acreage and the smallest percentage of the state’s lands protected as wilderness.
Read MoreVery high on my bucket list is to see a California condor in the wild (Figure 1), ideally over Oregon. If my timing is good and the condors cooperate, this could happen.
Read MoreThe conservation community must now also contend with an emerging existential threat to the nation’s public lands posed by fringe groups of left-wing crazies who seek to tribalize public lands.
Read MoreFigure 1. There is a difference between conventional (business as usual) forestry and that kind of forestry practiced on a Forest Stewardship Council-certified forestland (see below). Source: Forest Stewardship Council.
When one has to consume tree flesh, more commonly known as wood, it’s best to use wood certified as coming from a responsibly managed forest. However, one person’s definition of responsibleis another person’s nightmare. Whether forest management is a nightmare or a dream depends on both the reference point one starts with and who owns the land.
Read MoreFig. 1. Crabtree Lake in Crabtree Valley, which contains some of the oldest trees in Oregon, is in the proposed Douglas Fir National Monument, located in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Source: David Stone, Wildlands Photography. Previously appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004), by the author.
Less than a week after President Trump signed the Oregon Wildlands Act into law (as one of many bills in the John D. Dingell, Jr., Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act), Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-3rd-OR) convened an Oregon Public Lands Forum on Monday, March 18, 2019.
Read MoreWhile the how, when, where, and why of mining on federal public lands is important (see Part 1), at least as important is where notto mine on federal public lands. These include places where the public’s interest in the conservation of natural, historical, and cultural values outweighs the value of any minerals that might be had, places that have been reserved for the benefit of this and future generations rather than for the benefit of today’s corporation.
Read MoreToday anybody, including foreign companies (as long as they own a domestic corporate shell), can enter most federal public lands and stake a claim, which the government treats as a right to mine. The government cannot say no to such hardrock mining, no matter how inappropriate.
Read MoreFig. 1. Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County, California. Source: Wikipedia.
Today, of the 71,055 acres of federal public land within PRNS, about 18,000 acres are still fully dedicated to the industrial production of domestic livestock by thirty-five private operations.
Read MoreDebunking Creation Myths About America’s Public Lands. 2018. John D. Leshy. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. $7.95 (Amazon $7.15).
America’s public lands are often in need of a good lawyer, and they have one in John Leshy. He has served America’s public lands (and its owners) as an academic, author, and advocate. In his long career, he’s published legal textbooks, written briefs, argued cases, and taught law students, and he was the top lawyer in the U.S. Department of the Interior for almost as long as Bruce Babbitt was secretary of the interior.
Read MoreIn play right now in Congress are two bills that would elevate the conservation status of 442,620 acres of public land in Oregon.
Read MoreWhen Representative Greg Walden (R-2nd-OR) hears “the Rogue,” he happily dreams of the roar of chainsaws. But now Walden is down and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-4th-OR) is up, and the stars have aligned to save the Wild Rogue. You can help.
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