New Zealand... polluted?
Nov. 28th, 2004 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeIn today's paper, I was surprised to read the following about New Zealand, in an article on why Oregon needs to maintain its environmental vigilance.
"Our family moved there for most of 2003 while my husband was on a sabbatical, and although we loved much about New Zealand, its environmental laws (of lack thereof) reminded me of where Oregon was heading in the 1960s.
"Native forests are sparse, protected only in national parks. Remaining forestland consists mostly of commercial forests planted with Monterey pine and Douglas fir - species originally imported from the U.S. Everywhere else is horribly overgrazed by New Zealand's famous 40 million sheep, which tread and eliminate freely in all the country's rivers and streams.
"As a result, city water supplies often are heavily treated and only marginally drinkable. We lived in Dunedin, a lovely old city on the south end of South Island. After the tap water made all of us sick, we discovered where many citizens get their drinking water: from a public spigot on the side of the Speight's Brewery building downtown, a spigot that taps the brewery's artesian well. All day, any day of the week, there is a steady procession of people to and from that spigot, each of them hauling a 10-gallon plastic water container.
"I wouldn't recommend swimming at the city's public beaches, either, because Dunedin's sewage (after being filtered once for the largest solids) is pumped directly into the ocean not too far away.
"In the winter, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the higher of Dunedin's hillside neighborhoods, you'll avoid the blanket of black fog that settles over the lower part of the city. (It's even worse in Christchurch.) The smog is from coal stoves, a common home heating fuel."
The full article:
Oregon, My Oregon? Passage of Measure 37 threatens to unravel 30 years of pioneering planning
By Heather Henderson
There's something about our state that many of us, I fear, have forgotten: Oregon didn't just happen. The Oregon that delights tourists, the Oregon in which we enjoy living and playing, is the result of three decades of pioneering land use legislation.
Because of the work of visionary governors, planners and, yes, voters, Oregon is ours in which to hike, drive, swim, take photographs, canoe, hunt, go off-roading, boat, camp, backpack, comb beaches, snowmobile, ski and fish.
When my mother moved to Portland in 1952 to marry my father, the Willamette River was virtually an open sewer. She said the smell and sight of it was so revolting that people never walked along the waterfront, and the only boats you saw were cargo ships. Industries and cities up and down the river discharged their wastes directly into the water.
In the 1960s, when I was a kid, I remember roadsides in Oregon clogged with litter, especially cans and bottles. At the beach we'd see litter, too, much it thrown out the windows of cars driving on the sand.
Strip development was cropping up all over the state, the results of which still mar places such as Highway 101 in Lincoln City, Canyon Road in Beaverton and even the southeast desert, where tract lines of the Christmas Valley subdivision - a get-rich-quick real estate scheme that only half succeeded - are still visible amid tumbleweed and sagebrush.
If this Oregon of yore is hard to remember (or for some of you, imagine), there are plenty of places you can visit that still look like it. Drive through Kentucky, Pennsylvania or any of the other 38 states that don't have bottle bills, and you'll see what roadsides look like when up to 50 percent of their litter consists of nonreturnable beverage containers.
Florida is a stunning example of where Oregon was headed in the 1960s. Most cities there consist of strip mall after strip mall, and the only limit to helter-skelter development is the availability of land (or swamp).
Go to Connecticut and try strolling along the beach. (Hint: you'll have to start at Hammonasset Beach State Park, if you can find somewhere to park; it's one of the only places in Connecticut where the public can touch sand.) Your beach walk, alas, will be a short one; once you reach the park's boundaries you'll be stopped by a fence stretching from someone's backyard all the way into the water. Gaze farther up the shoreline and a whole procession of fences will be evident, subdividing the sand as far as the eye can see.
OK, forget the beach walk. Why not go camping instead - say, on beautiful Vancouver Island, B.C.? Here are your choices: privately owned RV parks, timber company campgrounds (usually at old logging camps) and a few national parks that require reservations months in advance.
It's illegal, by the way, to just throw your tent down anywhere on "Crown" (federal) land. And watch out for cougars: More than 75 percent of Vancouver Island's forests have been logged, and cougars use logging roads as highways, hunting from clear-cut to clear-cut.
Well, then, at least there are still places such as New Zealand. You know, that utopia from "The Lord of the Rings" movies? Our family moved there for most of 2003 while my husband was on a sabbatical, and although we loved much about New Zealand, its environmental laws (of lack thereof) reminded me of where Oregon was heading in the 1960s.
Native forests are sparse, protected only in national parks. Remaining forestland consists mostly of commercial forests planted with Monterey pine and Douglas fir - species originally imported from the U.S. Everywhere else is horribly overgrazed by New Zealand's famous 40 million sheep, which tread and eliminate freely in all the country's rivers and streams.
As a result, city water supplies often are heavily treated and only marginally drinkable. We lived in Dunedin, a lovely old city on the south end of South Island. After the tap water made all of us sick, we discovered where many citizens get their drinking water: from a public spigot on the side of the Speight's Brewery building downtown, a spigot that taps the brewery's artesian well. All day, any day of the week, there is a steady procession of people to and from that spigot, each of them hauling a 10-gallon plastic water container.
I wouldn't recommend swimming at the city's public beaches, either, because Dunedin's sewage (after being filtered once for the largest solids) is pumped directly into the ocean not too far away.
In the winter, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the higher of Dunedin's hillside neighborhoods, you'll avoid the blanket of black fog that settles over the lower part of the city. (It's even worse in Christchurch.) The smog is from coal stoves, a common home heating fuel.
Why is Oregon so different from New Zealand, British Columbia, Connecticut, Kentucky? How did it manage to take another path?
The reason is that throughout our state's history, and particularly under the leadership of (Republican) Gov. Tom McCall in the 1960s and early 1970s, visionary leaders have crafted one plan and law and policy after another to protect our natural areas and carefully manage anticipated growth.
And in this, Oregon has led the nation. The term "bottle bill" was coined here in 1971, when Oregon was the first state to create a law that required return refunds for bottles and cans. Its passage was followed by some of the country's earliest recycling programs and an energetic "Keep Oregon Green" anti-littering campaign.
Within eight years, our roadside litter had been cut in half, and our landscapes were transformed. I remember a New Yorker article in the late 1980s about this wonderful new discovery called "Portland," where things were clean and people were nice. The East Coast writer summed up her praise by telling how she had watched in amazement as a bum finished off a bottle of whiskey and then walked all the way up the block in order to dispose of it in a trash can.
In 1973, the Willamette River Greenway Act was passed to regulate riverside development and activities that contribute to water pollution. It isn't nearly enough - water quality in the Willamette is degrading rapidly - but it stopped the worst of the industrial polluters at the time.
In 1967, the famous "Oregon Beach Bill" was passed, designating as public easement all land from vegetation seaward, and protecting public access to the beaches. Oregon remains the only state in the union where the beaches are free for the walking.
I was an eighth-grader in 1969 when, under Governor McCall's guidance, Senate Bill 100 was passed, creating the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). Some of us remember how controversial it was, but how many realize its extraordinary success?
Guided by a board of citizen volunteers, LCDC has helped cities and counties across Oregon develop comprehensive long-range land use plans that perform a complex juggling act: preserving forests, farmlands and other natural resources; protecting our coastline; and helping cities maintain sustainable development.
It's because of LCDC that citizens are more involved in their land use planning here than anywhere else in the country. It is because of LCDC that the Gresham-to-Mount-Hood corridor doesn't look like Route 66. I can attest to this personally; as a high school student in the early 1970s, I served on the Citizen's Advisory Committee for the Mount Hood Planning Unit.
It's because of LCDC that between 1982 and 1997, Oregon lost only 1 percent of its farmland - compared to 8 percent in Florida, 7 percent in Pennsylvania and 4 percent in California. It's because of LCDC that most estuaries and other sensitive coastal lands are protected.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were many attempts to appeal all or part of LCDC. But McCall's inspiration held, and his successors in Salem (another thing I remember: it didn't matter as much then whether you were Republican or Democrat) preserved his legacy.
From the late 1980s onward, however, there has been a steady, subtle erosion of these philosophies and policies. It's true that LCDC has its drawbacks; it is a cumbersome regulatory agency with powers more limited than many people would like. But it's still one of the most effective land use programs in the United States.
If these recent trends are unsettling, the passage of Measure 37 is downright scary. Unfunded and indiscriminate, it represents the single largest step backward this state has taken since 1969, threatening to unravel 30 years of careful land use planning.
It's simple: Population growth plus strong land use planning equals Oregon. Population growth plus poor land use planning equals Florida. Where would you rather retire?
Some Oregonians are too young or have arrived here too recently to have this before-and-after viewpoint on our state. Others seem to have developed a kind of complacent amnesia, blinding themselves to what Oregon could become. We're taking our beautiful state for granted.
And so I have a message to the voters who passed Measure 37 and to the legislators who for years have been picking away at the work of LCDC. Congratulations. Pretty soon, Oregon will look just like everywhere else in the world.
Source: Eugene Register-Guard, November 28, 2004
"Our family moved there for most of 2003 while my husband was on a sabbatical, and although we loved much about New Zealand, its environmental laws (of lack thereof) reminded me of where Oregon was heading in the 1960s.
"Native forests are sparse, protected only in national parks. Remaining forestland consists mostly of commercial forests planted with Monterey pine and Douglas fir - species originally imported from the U.S. Everywhere else is horribly overgrazed by New Zealand's famous 40 million sheep, which tread and eliminate freely in all the country's rivers and streams.
"As a result, city water supplies often are heavily treated and only marginally drinkable. We lived in Dunedin, a lovely old city on the south end of South Island. After the tap water made all of us sick, we discovered where many citizens get their drinking water: from a public spigot on the side of the Speight's Brewery building downtown, a spigot that taps the brewery's artesian well. All day, any day of the week, there is a steady procession of people to and from that spigot, each of them hauling a 10-gallon plastic water container.
"I wouldn't recommend swimming at the city's public beaches, either, because Dunedin's sewage (after being filtered once for the largest solids) is pumped directly into the ocean not too far away.
"In the winter, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the higher of Dunedin's hillside neighborhoods, you'll avoid the blanket of black fog that settles over the lower part of the city. (It's even worse in Christchurch.) The smog is from coal stoves, a common home heating fuel."
The full article:
Oregon, My Oregon? Passage of Measure 37 threatens to unravel 30 years of pioneering planning
By Heather Henderson
There's something about our state that many of us, I fear, have forgotten: Oregon didn't just happen. The Oregon that delights tourists, the Oregon in which we enjoy living and playing, is the result of three decades of pioneering land use legislation.
Because of the work of visionary governors, planners and, yes, voters, Oregon is ours in which to hike, drive, swim, take photographs, canoe, hunt, go off-roading, boat, camp, backpack, comb beaches, snowmobile, ski and fish.
When my mother moved to Portland in 1952 to marry my father, the Willamette River was virtually an open sewer. She said the smell and sight of it was so revolting that people never walked along the waterfront, and the only boats you saw were cargo ships. Industries and cities up and down the river discharged their wastes directly into the water.
In the 1960s, when I was a kid, I remember roadsides in Oregon clogged with litter, especially cans and bottles. At the beach we'd see litter, too, much it thrown out the windows of cars driving on the sand.
Strip development was cropping up all over the state, the results of which still mar places such as Highway 101 in Lincoln City, Canyon Road in Beaverton and even the southeast desert, where tract lines of the Christmas Valley subdivision - a get-rich-quick real estate scheme that only half succeeded - are still visible amid tumbleweed and sagebrush.
If this Oregon of yore is hard to remember (or for some of you, imagine), there are plenty of places you can visit that still look like it. Drive through Kentucky, Pennsylvania or any of the other 38 states that don't have bottle bills, and you'll see what roadsides look like when up to 50 percent of their litter consists of nonreturnable beverage containers.
Florida is a stunning example of where Oregon was headed in the 1960s. Most cities there consist of strip mall after strip mall, and the only limit to helter-skelter development is the availability of land (or swamp).
Go to Connecticut and try strolling along the beach. (Hint: you'll have to start at Hammonasset Beach State Park, if you can find somewhere to park; it's one of the only places in Connecticut where the public can touch sand.) Your beach walk, alas, will be a short one; once you reach the park's boundaries you'll be stopped by a fence stretching from someone's backyard all the way into the water. Gaze farther up the shoreline and a whole procession of fences will be evident, subdividing the sand as far as the eye can see.
OK, forget the beach walk. Why not go camping instead - say, on beautiful Vancouver Island, B.C.? Here are your choices: privately owned RV parks, timber company campgrounds (usually at old logging camps) and a few national parks that require reservations months in advance.
It's illegal, by the way, to just throw your tent down anywhere on "Crown" (federal) land. And watch out for cougars: More than 75 percent of Vancouver Island's forests have been logged, and cougars use logging roads as highways, hunting from clear-cut to clear-cut.
Well, then, at least there are still places such as New Zealand. You know, that utopia from "The Lord of the Rings" movies? Our family moved there for most of 2003 while my husband was on a sabbatical, and although we loved much about New Zealand, its environmental laws (of lack thereof) reminded me of where Oregon was heading in the 1960s.
Native forests are sparse, protected only in national parks. Remaining forestland consists mostly of commercial forests planted with Monterey pine and Douglas fir - species originally imported from the U.S. Everywhere else is horribly overgrazed by New Zealand's famous 40 million sheep, which tread and eliminate freely in all the country's rivers and streams.
As a result, city water supplies often are heavily treated and only marginally drinkable. We lived in Dunedin, a lovely old city on the south end of South Island. After the tap water made all of us sick, we discovered where many citizens get their drinking water: from a public spigot on the side of the Speight's Brewery building downtown, a spigot that taps the brewery's artesian well. All day, any day of the week, there is a steady procession of people to and from that spigot, each of them hauling a 10-gallon plastic water container.
I wouldn't recommend swimming at the city's public beaches, either, because Dunedin's sewage (after being filtered once for the largest solids) is pumped directly into the ocean not too far away.
In the winter, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the higher of Dunedin's hillside neighborhoods, you'll avoid the blanket of black fog that settles over the lower part of the city. (It's even worse in Christchurch.) The smog is from coal stoves, a common home heating fuel.
Why is Oregon so different from New Zealand, British Columbia, Connecticut, Kentucky? How did it manage to take another path?
The reason is that throughout our state's history, and particularly under the leadership of (Republican) Gov. Tom McCall in the 1960s and early 1970s, visionary leaders have crafted one plan and law and policy after another to protect our natural areas and carefully manage anticipated growth.
And in this, Oregon has led the nation. The term "bottle bill" was coined here in 1971, when Oregon was the first state to create a law that required return refunds for bottles and cans. Its passage was followed by some of the country's earliest recycling programs and an energetic "Keep Oregon Green" anti-littering campaign.
Within eight years, our roadside litter had been cut in half, and our landscapes were transformed. I remember a New Yorker article in the late 1980s about this wonderful new discovery called "Portland," where things were clean and people were nice. The East Coast writer summed up her praise by telling how she had watched in amazement as a bum finished off a bottle of whiskey and then walked all the way up the block in order to dispose of it in a trash can.
In 1973, the Willamette River Greenway Act was passed to regulate riverside development and activities that contribute to water pollution. It isn't nearly enough - water quality in the Willamette is degrading rapidly - but it stopped the worst of the industrial polluters at the time.
In 1967, the famous "Oregon Beach Bill" was passed, designating as public easement all land from vegetation seaward, and protecting public access to the beaches. Oregon remains the only state in the union where the beaches are free for the walking.
I was an eighth-grader in 1969 when, under Governor McCall's guidance, Senate Bill 100 was passed, creating the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). Some of us remember how controversial it was, but how many realize its extraordinary success?
Guided by a board of citizen volunteers, LCDC has helped cities and counties across Oregon develop comprehensive long-range land use plans that perform a complex juggling act: preserving forests, farmlands and other natural resources; protecting our coastline; and helping cities maintain sustainable development.
It's because of LCDC that citizens are more involved in their land use planning here than anywhere else in the country. It is because of LCDC that the Gresham-to-Mount-Hood corridor doesn't look like Route 66. I can attest to this personally; as a high school student in the early 1970s, I served on the Citizen's Advisory Committee for the Mount Hood Planning Unit.
It's because of LCDC that between 1982 and 1997, Oregon lost only 1 percent of its farmland - compared to 8 percent in Florida, 7 percent in Pennsylvania and 4 percent in California. It's because of LCDC that most estuaries and other sensitive coastal lands are protected.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were many attempts to appeal all or part of LCDC. But McCall's inspiration held, and his successors in Salem (another thing I remember: it didn't matter as much then whether you were Republican or Democrat) preserved his legacy.
From the late 1980s onward, however, there has been a steady, subtle erosion of these philosophies and policies. It's true that LCDC has its drawbacks; it is a cumbersome regulatory agency with powers more limited than many people would like. But it's still one of the most effective land use programs in the United States.
If these recent trends are unsettling, the passage of Measure 37 is downright scary. Unfunded and indiscriminate, it represents the single largest step backward this state has taken since 1969, threatening to unravel 30 years of careful land use planning.
It's simple: Population growth plus strong land use planning equals Oregon. Population growth plus poor land use planning equals Florida. Where would you rather retire?
Some Oregonians are too young or have arrived here too recently to have this before-and-after viewpoint on our state. Others seem to have developed a kind of complacent amnesia, blinding themselves to what Oregon could become. We're taking our beautiful state for granted.
And so I have a message to the voters who passed Measure 37 and to the legislators who for years have been picking away at the work of LCDC. Congratulations. Pretty soon, Oregon will look just like everywhere else in the world.
Source: Eugene Register-Guard, November 28, 2004