Activity Report Explorer

Central Oregon Bitterbrush Broads • Entered by Mary Fleischmann on January 24, 2025

Leadership Meeting

January 13, 2025

Key Issue: Multiple apply
Activity Type: Other Administration (reporting, emails, calls, planning)
Key Partners: Sierra Club, Land Watch, ONDA, Oregon WIld

Short Description of Activity

Monthly leadership meeting for planning for 2025, look at what issues we are working on, status of previous issues, planning Broadchat’s and possible Broadwalks.

Reflection/Evaluation

Bitterbrush Broads Leadership Meeting – Embark
January 13, 2025

Attendance: Fiona, Alice, Joanne, Mathieu, Amy, Rynda, Pam, Mary, Gale

What’s happening at Broads National? — Rynda
1) Rynda on transition committee with former ED Shelley Silbert and others. All position statements are being written, simplifying processes like activities reports. Will get new ED when building in Durango is sold or use a bridge loan. Dealing with challenges, chapters are the real work for the Broads. 45- 50 chapters nationwide. Rynda has been working with the national office on a committee called Transition advocacy committee. Working on a number of issues, including closing out, grants, applying for new grants, major donors, helping staff with simplifying, policies, procedures, etc., Review and update position statements (Mathieu and Amy worked on impacts of roads and vehicles). Have the resources to pay staff for the next year. 2) Rynda is on the strategic planning committee for the Owyhee; unlikely there will be a bill that we can support protecting the Owyhee. 3) Klamath dams restoration – Micky and I working with David Meier from RES, https://res.us/home/about-us/. Plan a pilot trip to view the restoration and help stewardship projects in October of 2025. They have offered us a campground for people who want to go. They would like us to gather acorns to plant oak trees. Date proposed is October 6-9. This will not be widely advertised as it is a pilot trip. Let Rynda know if you are interested in attending. 4) Membership – Rynda monitoring monthly new members and making sure they receive our emails. I also have regular contact with a lot of our members who hike or attend our other events and provide updates on what we are doing. 5) Communication with our members – Transition Committee is evaluating how many emails should come from the national office to all members of the Broads. We can do more to educate the members about issues and events that may interest them. There is also a lot of information in the YooHoo but needs to be repackaged to send them. We should discuss the types of communication we want to continue to do with our members and how often

Broad Chats –
Lunch meetings on Wednesdays 12-1:30 Broad Chat Brown Bag
Action Item: Rynda will contact Environmental Center for Broad Chats for location

February 26 – wildfire mitigation – home hardening – Elemental
Action Item: Fiona will ask Corie Harlan for towns and cities and Kristin
Action Item: Rynda will ask Sami for good speaker from OR Wild re wildfire

April 23 – Peg Herring – Action Item: Mary will contact Peg for presentation on new book of forests “Born of fire and Rain”; Oregon Wild doing webinar with Peg – April Broad Chat (Sami will have recording) March 5.

March 26 – Action Item: Pam and Amy – dam impacts to natural resources, role of dams
Doing Klamath BroadWalk in 2016 and field trip this year. Give the Dams A Boot!

PIELC: Starts last Friday of February in Eugene

Local and Regional Issues – Ongoing Issues
Thornburgh Resort
Landfill issue for City of Bend
Water issues on Deschutes River, lower Deschutes – DRA – finger pointing at PGE and CTWS
Bridge over Deschutes R in Bend
Region 6 USFS – connect with Dan Shively re forest livestock grazing AOIs and maps posted online???
Women’s Community Rally to build coalitions for democracy – Saturday Jan 18 at Drake Park at 9am
Region 6 grazing allotments
Region 6 Blue Mtn Forest Plan Revisions, NEPA comments on ongoing projects like North Fk Crooked River, Morgan Nesbit, and many more, Eastside Forest Coalition
Owyhee Monument – Wyden – Owyhee Coalition Group still meeting
Biomass – big in the PNW with big multinational corporations trying to cut our trees – maybe a public presentation at Worthy Brewing?

Partner Organization reports, some submitted by email, updates or questions

Sierra Club, Mathieu – 1) Getting ready for more fights and fewer wins. 2) Expect ranchers and loggers to be pushing harder for profits now, not long-term planning. 3) Chapter hired a new staff person, Alice Weston, who will help with eastside issues and membership development. 4) PNWFPA DEIS: Working on comments. Group has national staffers, and members from WA, OR, and CA. PNW Broads also has a group working on this, led by Chandra. 5) Owyhee: ONDA has meetings scheduled starting 21 Jan. SC National unlikely to support any legislation Wyden and Bentz propose given it will allow too much grazing and control by ranchers. 6) State Forests: Chapter has group working on state forest issues, mostly westside. 7) Biomass: Chapter has group working on forest biomass, monitoring and preparing to oppose; part of PNW Forest Climate Alliance biomass group. 8) Blue Mt FP Revisions: monitoring as part of Eastside Forest Coalition for Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman NFs. Expect bad things to happen. 8) Harvest Projects: The NFs in Juniper Group area (eastside of OR, the Blue Mt + Ochoco, Deschutes) issuing notices for harvest projects called “thinning for fire control”. We monitor and comment, get expert advice from other EFC groups. Expect more salvage projects. Expect bad things. 9) OR Politics: Gretchen is our local leader. Chapter has good group working state politics that includes Gretchen. We will be at the Bend rally on the 18. 10) Outings: We hope to do campout(s) like we have in the past. We have a few people now qualified to lead hikes, and hope to do more. SC has strict rules about training requirements for hike leaders. 11) Land Use: Expect more issues around solar farms, mining, and recreation (mt bikes) to come up this year. Also resort developments and landfills. We will address as we can.

Oregon Wild, Sami – 1) Oregon Wild’s new Executive Director, Quinn Read, will start Monday, January 13! Quinn was with Bird Alliance of Oregon for the past few years and started her career at Oregon Wild about a decade ago. 2) NWFP amendments: DEIS is out and the comment period runs until March 17. 3) Chandra is working with Broadbands on submitting comments. The FS is hosting a public meeting about the amendments in Sisters on Feb 13. Some allies are also planning a rally for the NWFP at PIELC in Eugene. 4) River Democracy Act and other Wilderness/Wild&Scenic/Public Lands bills: very unlikely to pass over the next two years. It will be incredibly important to keep up the momentum (LTEs, attending townhalls, emails/calls, postcards, etc) so that these bills are still top of mind and ready to go if/when Congress flips in 2019. 5) An anecdote for hope is that the last Wilderness area designated in Oregon was the Devil’s Staircase in 2019 during the first Trump term and after the House flipped to the Democrats in the midterms. 6) Bad public lands bills: unfortunately, likely to see very bad bills introduced with the Republicans in charge for the next two years. Likely targets are the Endangered Species Act and NEPA, but also threats to undermine the Wilderness Act, Antiquities Act, etc. One bad bill is the “Fix Our Forests Act’. This passed the House in the last Congress but didn’t get to a Senate vote. This bill is terrible and would weaken the Endangered Species Act and NEPA to allow more logging on public lands. Reaching out to Merkley, Wyden, and Bynum and tell them to oppose it. 7) Events: On the fun side, Erik is giving a presentation on how to snowshoe and where to go at Worthy Brewing on January 29 6-7pm. Details: https://oregonwild.org/event/snowshoeing-central-oregon-how-to-snowshoe-what-to-bring-where-to-go/

Central Oregon Landwatch, Fiona – 1) NWFP – LandWatch working on comments on the Northwest Forest Plan Amendment, focused eastside-specific issues relevant to the portions of the Deschutes National Forest covered by the NWFP. 2) North Fork Crooked River Project (Ochoco NF) – Wrapping up the objection process on the North Fork Crooked River Resilience Project. In December, LandWatch, Great Old Broads, and the Sierra Club attended an objection resolution meeting with the Ochoco NF and currently countering the ONF’s resolution offer. 3) 2025 Oregon Legislative Session – The full session kicks off the week after next, and LandWatch is excited about and involved in several legislative concepts re water management/policy, spot zoning, and funding for wildlife crossings. 4) Bend to Suttle Lake Wildlife Crossing Initiative (B2S) – Work to construct four overcrossings on US20 near Black Butte continues, with LandWatch leading a coalition of ~20 partners hoping to improve wildlife habitat and migration corridor connectivity. Having completed a feasibility study on crossing structures in 2024, the focus in 2025 will be on fundraising for engineering and design. 5) Closely monitoring HCP (2020) implementation and level of compliance or lack thereof. Working with Crag on this…bull trout, steelhead, spotted frog. Beaver bill “Living with Landowners”. 6) COLW webinar on upcoming legislative session on Jan 29 noon to 1 pm. Fiona will send to members.

ONDA, Mark – presentation on Owyhee Friday Jan 17. Expecting Biden admin to finalize 2 areas – Lakeview RMP and Sage grouse plan amendment. Will share retrospective on Friday to protect the Owyhee launched 3 years ago and failure of Biden and Wyden to protect Owyhee. Rynda or Mark can send out email to members.

Broads:
Pam – Halfway – LSRD meeting Jan 27. Pat Ford – writer – writing article in Feb re Imnaha and Grand Ronde fish about to go extinct. “Salmon tours” around NE Oregon. Pam finding people for Pat to interview. Debra, Pam, Berna went to Nez Perce event. Good connections with tribal members. Also working with GHCC, tribes, BB working on B2H powerlines and salmon tours. Donated funds to documentary (“the Snake and the Whale”) movie premiering in February. 75 minutes long. Maybe do a follow-up movie with members? Maybe some street activities with rolling pins and pulaskis. Still ending out postcards for LSRD dam removals and can be sent to new Congress and president. Ione Jones – Palouse – April 19 – first event at Sacajawea St Park. Camp at park. Nez Perce donated log for making a canoe. Healing Canoe Journey – starts May 4, ends May 10 at Fishhook Park (near Ice Harbor Dam). Weeklong event. NE tour thing – maybe get politicos out there. Northern Blues Restoration Partnership – Feb 26-27 in Baker City. Focus on monitoring and adaptive management.

Gale – Prairie City – waiting for livestock season to start and information on AOIs.

Juniper management – WWP put on zoom webinar on juniper. Alice will send out the recording. Amy on zoom call with WWP and others meeting with Jessica Keys (Merkley natural resource aide in Baker City).

Presentations on Mature and Old Growth – Amy has PowerPoint from presentation to Nor’Easter group.

Finances – good shape, sometimes get funds from Elly’s family group (trust) and Sherry Brainerd, Closed local bank account, National is good about refunds.

Membership Development – Need to let members know what we’re doing. Rynda wants to send out a short summary of our issues and names of our leaders working on these issues. Also if you want to work on an issue, come to the next leadership meeting. Take a lead on an issue.

Also recommend to National to send out some positive news on transition. Keep members informed and moving forward. Rynda will let transition team know to proceed

How to Deal with the Next 4 Years of Trumpism: Support and continue activism under new administration. Focus on local and regional stuff and do what we can with our natural resource issues. Be positive. Put your energy into doing what we do best for conservation issues. Focus on our vision. Uniting Our Voices – build coalitions and support common issues like environmental and social justice. Modeled on MLK service day and women’s march. Peaceful demonstration Jan 18. Also a landing page (QR code) that will list all organizations part of new coalition.

Our GOALS for 2025 – Edward Abbey’s quote – “One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey