So it wasn't a top-down solution, it was a plea for protection from the grassroots up. But Shannon McDaniel, who manages the South Columbia irrigation district adjacent to the reach, saw the move as pure election-year politics designed to get votes from easterners. I don't think that it had anything to do with how complex our irrigation project is, or how it impacts people around our county. It's my opinion that he came in to put on a show. He did his show and left.
Conservation is about a lot more than national landmarks.
It's about protecting the air that we breathe and the water that we drink and the land that we love. One of the administration's first environmental controversies took place in 1993 when it brokered the Northwest Forest Plan. It allowed logging to resume after a federal judge had blocked most timber sales on national forest land because the habitat of the northern spotted owl was jeopardized. Loggers and mill operators say the administration pledged at the time that there would be a predictable supply of timber from public lands, but the industry says that pledge has been broken and that they've been allowed to harvest only about a quarter of what they were promised. Chris West is with the Northwest Forestry Association.