HRVRC is pleased to be a supporter of Sense a Place, a lecture series produced by Gorge Owned GO! and we are especially pleased to be the sponsor of  Oregon’s Special History in Conserving its Environment: An Evening with Michael McClosky" on March 4, 2015 at 7pm at the Columbia Center for the Arts. Learn about the roots of Oregon’s conservation movement from one of its earliest activists. Born in Oregon, Michael McCloskey started his career as the Conservation Director for the Sierra Club, where he worked for 40 years both as the CEO and Chairman. In his book, In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club, McClosky traces Oregon’s conservation movement from the 1880s to 2013. Learn about the key players and the impacts their work had on making Oregon one of the country’s most innovative states for environmental conservation.  Cost is $8 general, $5 for GO! members. More info. . .

COOPER SPUR PROTECTION UPDATE In 2009, Congress passed a bill which President Obama signed into law which provided the Forest Service with a year and a half to complete a land trade and permanently protect thousand of acres on the North side at Cooper Spur as Wilderness. Over five years have passed and the Congressionally-mandated land trade still has not been completed. The good news is that work on the land trade is still moving forward, although at a much slower pace than hoped. In response to a recent inquiry, Mt. Hood National Forest Supervisor Lisa Northrop reports that the necessary fieldwork has been completed to begin the land exchange process. As required by the legislation, the Forest Service and Mt. Hood Meadows are in the middle of negotiating a conservation easement for the protection of wetlands and public hiking trails on the property in Government Camp. Once that easement…

Kudos to the County Board of Commissioners! On June 23rd the Commission voted to create a code enforcement officer position. HRVRC has encouraged this move for years. The District Attorney has long made it known his office has no time to pursue nuisance, building or zoning code violations. Our hats are off to the Commission and particularly to Planning Director Mike Benedict for advocating long and hard for such a position.

HRVRC’s participation in the Hood River Collaborative Stewardship Crew (Stew Crew) continues. During our spring and summer field trips and meetings, the Stew Crew developed  recommendations to the Hood River Ranger District for protecting and improving forest health in the Pollallie-Cooper planning area of the Mt. Hood National Forest. The complex nature of forest treatment issues is truly fascinating, but takes time to absorb. Our field trips provide an “on the ground” opportunity to assess different forest conditions and terrain, then various treatment options are discussed and recommendations formed during alternate meetings in Hood River. In the Pollallie-Cooper planning area we have focused on the reduction of fuel loading in fire-adapted plant areas in the Cooper Spur Wildland Urban interface, which is located in the East Fork of the Hood River watershed.   This past summer the Stew Crew also applied for a grant from the National Forest Foundation to…