Water Quality Archives

Feb 2015

Hope for sufferers from herbicide drift: Sensible legislation promotes health in forestry practices

Lisa Arkin

Today, the announcement was made that the Oregon Legislature will take up a bill to address forestry chemical use.

Two courageous Oregon legislators, and seven other co-sponsors, filed a bill to protect the health of rural Oregonians living near industrial forests and farm land. When I first read the text of SB 613, the Public Health and Water Resources Protection Act, my eyes started to tear up. I thought of the heartbreaking journey that pesticide drift victims have traveled to arrive at this moment.

Oct 2014

Why am I weeding a watershed?

Lisa Arkin

I just spent a large chunk of the day bent over patches of meadow knapweed with a sickle in my hand. Why in the heck am I spending a day swiping at an invasive weed near a river when I have plenty of weeds crying out for attention in my own yard? I do it because there is a lot at stake in one small, humble project to keep herbicides out of the Siuslaw watershed.

Apr 2014

Toxic Trespass Knows No Barriers

Niria Garcia

As an Environmental Studies major I’ve gotten very used to discussing issues of injustice and land degradation through a scholarly/objective lens, however I had never drawn these connections back to myself and how they affect me as an Oregonian. Never would I have imagined that a trip out to interview a community affected by pesticide drift – a predominantly middle class, white conservative community in Gold Beach – would connect directly to the working-class Latino-immigrant farmer community I grew up with in the Rogue Valley.

Oct 2013

Oregon lacking in the science of forestry

Lisa Arkin

Profitable timber production can readily coexist with protections for water quality and community health. That is the lesson of commercial logging operations in Washington, California and even Idaho.

Then there is the way we do it in Oregon.

Sep 2013

The future of Oregon’s clean-flowing drinking water

Lisa Arkin

Over the past few months The Register-Guard has held a back-and-forth debate about Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio’s plan to increase logging in Oregon’s federal forests.

What’s at stake? Nothing less than the future of Oregon’s clean-flowing drinking water.

Aug 2013

Oregon and pesticides: our chance to make a stand for safety

Lisa Arkin

Oregon has become somewhat of a focal point for pesticide issues. That is hardly cause for celebration for a state that wears its green credentials on its sleeve. The only hope is that Oregon will respond to the crisis with better regulations, safer policies and a commitment to protecting Oregon from pesticide poisoning.

Jun 2013

What’s Up with Brownfields and Environmental Justice?

Lisa Arkin

The City of Eugene, the City of Springfield, and Lane County are looking for public input in the process of finding, cleaning up and redeveloping brownfields. Brownfields are abandoned properties that are not being re-purposed because of the likely presence of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants. Brownfield result in neighborhood “blight;” they make people feel unsafe and they drag down property values.

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May 2012

A Day of Protecting our Local Watershed

Lisa Arkin

I was amazed that when I woke up this morning, my back and shoulders weren’t very sore, just my forearms. That was after a full day of watershed restoration work near Fish Creek, one of the salmon habitat streams in the Siuslaw Watershed in Western Lane County.