Scott Swanson
Local tourism has gotten what is likely to be a major boost with the designation of an Oregon Solutions Team by Gov. John Kitzhaber which, participants say, will likely trim years off the development of a community forest east of Sweet Home.
The action by the governor creates a group of interested and affected parties representing federal, state and local interests, who will gather every few weeks over the next six to eight months to effectively cut through red tape and other hindrances to the establishment of a forest of public and private lands between Sweet Home and Cascadia – and possibly beyond.
Goals to be addressed include improved access to the South Santiam River, improved forest health and recreation, and creation of local forest-related jobs.
Another goal is to transfer Cascadia Cave, a site currently on land managed by Cascade Timber Consulting, to public ownership and management.
“We’re just trying to open up access but do it in a way that’s sustainable and that connects Sweet Home to the national forest,” said Sweet Home District Ranger Cindy Glick, one of the members of the team.
The impacts could be “significant” for Sweet Home, said City Manager Craig Martin, a member of the team, calling it “another piece of our economic revitalization.”
The project plays right into the city’s 2020 Vision, which identifies local forest and their natural resources as not only an income source for the community, but contributing to Sweet Home’s quality of life, he said.
“Not only could this capitalize on specialty forestry products that could result from the effort, but increased tourism and recreation, which is a portion of our economy. This could provide for expansion of that particular economic benefit,” he said.
Steve Bryant, a staff member for the Oregon Solutions program based at the National Policy Consensus Center in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, said the governor and staff members see “tremendous opportunity” in East Linn County.
He said the governor’s team got interested when “several Sweet Home stakeholders began talking about working together in collaborative way with the U.S. Forest Service and other public agencies in the area to try to build the Sweet Home economy with a focus on natural resources.”
The management team being established for the project will consist of a wide range of individuals from various government agencies, universities and private entities.
Thus far, local members include Glick, Martin; Sweet Home Economic Development Director Brian Hoffman; County Commissioner Will Tucker, Eric Hartstein of the South Santiam Watershed Council; Brian Carroll, director of the Linn County Parks and Recreation Department; and Dave Furtwangler of Cascade Timber Consulting, which manages thousands of acres of private timberland in the area under consideration.
In addition, the group will include Bryant and Oregon Solutions colleague Michael Mills, Cynthia Solie, executive director of Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments, an association of mid-Willamette Valley cities, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties and other government entities; Thomas Maness, dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University; Nathalie Gitt of OSU, Maness’ executive assistant; Emily Jane Davis of the University of Oregon, a rural economic development consultant; Eric White of OSU, a professor in the College of Forestry who specializes in enterprise projects and a holistic approach to using the forest in a healthy manner that produces economic benefits; Nikola Smith of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station; Dan Whelan of Sen. Jeff Merkley’s office; Juine Chada of Sen. Ron Wyden’s office; Nick Batz of Rep. Peter DeFazio’s office; and Pat Moran of ODOT’s Scenic Byways program.
Also, Tucker will recommend some local citizens, including one from Cascadia.
Bryant said the goal is to bring in representatives from Linn-Benton Community College and the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific-Northwest in Lebanon.
“The advantage of getting everybody together in one room is we’re focusing on the common benefits for all folks,” Martin said. “Now that we’ve got potential benefits for all the folks at least preliminarily identified, it creates focus towards moving forward to positive solutions. It also helps minimize potential for conflicts and concerns that could potentially hamper the effort.”
The fact that it is a collaborative effort also helps, because those involved have “common desires, looking at whatever the benefits may be,” he added.
“Everybody engaged in the process is a significant stakeholder, who has the potential to see a lot of benefits here.”
Tucker said the very fact that the team has been authorized is turning heads.
“This is a big topic,” he said. “I’m all for trying to find a way to make this work. Having the governor’s focus also brings in federal connections, senators, the Forest Service, and a number of people from federal-level staff to help us as well. This designation helps strengthen our position with our federal partners.
“We’ve done cooperative things – environmental, archaelogical, in the Quartzville corridor – we’ve done a lot of broad topics before. I think we could have done this (community forest) but it would have taken many years to do what we could accomplish here in a year or two.
“This brings people together who are trained in collaboration and facilitation. The governor is saying. ‘I think this is an important project for the state of Oregon. I’m going to give you staff resources.’
“We put the money up, but we’re getting a team of forestry experts from OSU, managers from a regional solution center coming to our meeting. The management team is coming, saying, ‘How can I help you?’ Instead of calling up the alphabet soup and trying to guess who we need to talk to, they’re calling us.”’
The project will be chaired by two conveners – Maness and Solie – and managed by Bryant and Mills. The various members, representing business, government and nonprofits, will meet every three or four weeks for the next six or eight months, with possible additional meetings for subcommittees, to agree on what role each can play to address the various needs.
“We’ll brainstorm ideas for throwing projects together that will help create jobs, tourism opportunities and protection for cultural resources,” Bryant said. “We’re very interested in gathering ideas and hearing from community, how we can help the community thrive by focusing on the assets that are there.”
Specifically, the project has several possible components.
Trails
The team’s goal is to establish a trail running between Sweet Home and Moose Creek possibly anchored by the proposed county park planned for the property foreclosed by the county from Western States Reliance Trust.
Bryant said one concept is to establish a network of trails “radiating out” from River Bend Campground, including a route for hikers and bikers along the river.
“Ultimately, a lot of people think it would be really beneficial to the Sweet Home community to have access from Foster Reservoir to the Willamette National Forest,” he said. “It might require some bridges across the river to get from one side or the other, to avoid private land. We could build on the historical aspects of Santiam Wagon Road.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hop on your bike and be able to get all the way to Soda Fork? If you look at what Oakridge has been able to do to attract mountain bikers to the terrain around Oakridge, why not in Sweet Home? This is an opportunity to do that.”
South Santiam River
“We want to create opportunities so the public can not only go to the lakes, but go to the river,” Glick said. “We want to create more access for fishing, swimming and canoeing in addition to hiking and other trail activities.
“The river is where we get drinking water, but working together with different landowners, we want to make the water healthy – clean, cold water. We don’t want to have a lot of littering and sediment entry into the stream. We would like to restore the fishery that was here – winter steelhead and Chinook salmon.”
Bryant said some participants have already made a preliminary trip to Bend to talk about how its parks department developed use of the Deschutes River.
“It’s amazing, the amount of users on that river that then add to the local economy,” he said. “They rent paddleboards, kayaks, canoes, rafts. Then they eat at restaurants and stay in hotels. They then created that shopping area in the old mill district.
“Sweet Home has similar opportunities. It has an old mill site that has huge recreational potential. How that old mill site gets developed is not part of this project, but it could easily serve as an anchor for the west end. The other end is where the old Tomco mill site is, which also has some river frontage. Something could happen there.
“There are beautiful sections of the river with no public access. People are using kayaks when the flows are high. Why not build on that?”
Timber Industry
Glick, who worked in Sisters before moving to head the Sweet Home Ranger District, said that, in addition to recreation, the local forest could be providing “a multiplicity of outputs” – particularly biomass and special forest projects.
“That’s what a community forest is all about – the community getting reconnected to the forest – a healthier forest through recreational access and creating jobs.”
Bryant noted that Glick likes to use the term “working forest.”
He said that concept is what has roused the interest of the OSU faculty members.
“What attracted them to the project is that we have a great laboratory – some of the best timber in the world,” he said. “They are interested in helping both private and public landowners to take advantage of the unique forestry environment and showcase how to manage the forest for the economic gain of community.”
Cascadia Cave
The primary “cultural resource” in the area is the rocky overhang that features petroglyphs from centuries ago. The cave, east of Cascadia State Park, is on Cascade Timber Consulting-managed land and has been the object of looting and vandalism by unauthorized visitors over the years, officials say.
“There’s a big collaborative effort with the current landowner, State Parks, the tribes, and all the other stakeholders interested in that unique cultural site,” said Glick.
The alphabet soup of government agencies, the wishes of various tribes and other factors have complicated discussion of what to do with the cave in the past, officials have said. They have said, privately, that an approach like the one provided by the team may be a way to work through the difficulties.
“What’s different about this is once they accept the project – and they have – the governor and federal partners are now aligned to make the project work more smoothly than it otherwise would have,” Tucker said, referring to the project in general.
Hoffman said the project provides very obvious benefits for Sweet Home.
“I really truly believe that our strength is our quality of life and this enhances our quality of life,” he said. “Quality of life is what makes people want to live here and open up businesses here. This effort will really connect all our natural assets to our community and really solidify that linkage.”
Bryant said the biggest challenge will be focusing on manageable projects.
“There’s no shortage of ideas and projects to work on,” he said.
Martin said the nature of this group and the effort promises longer-lasting results, since putting the pieces together may take some time.
“This is a longer, rather than shorter effort,” but that usually means it will be more stable and sustainable in the future,” he said. “There will be longer-lasting results, more benefits for all involved.”
Tucker said an open house/town meeting will be held in “early December” to give local residents a chance to weigh in on things that are happening in East Linn County – “everything from the possibility of getting a Cascadia Post Office again to the fish ladder at Foster to, possibly, ODOT work on Highway 20.
“I’m trying to put together a huge community meeting.”
“I think Sweet Home has been left out sometimes, but now it’s in the center,” he said. “This is not just a Sweet Home thing, though. In addition to recreation, these jobs will help everyone. This is the tip of the iceberg, but this is an iceberg that’s coming to town.”