The Astoria District Office of the Oregon Department of Forestry is planning a 91-acre, 2026 clearcut at a site designated Mothball Hill. The forested area is between the John Day Recreational Area and the Eagle Refuge further east. It also abuts residential property, and is very close to the Columbia River Estuary, making the forest an important habitat for birds, in particular.

If this planned cut goes through, it will require 1.5 miles of road being built in important wildlife habitat, and in all likelihood will include aerial spraying of pesticides before replanting, which creates the potential of chemicals drifting into the John Day and the Columbia.

To make matters worse, this parcel qualifies as a legacy forest because it includes numerous mature trees, the kind needed to mitigate climate change. While our ODF gives lip service to the climate issue, their rationale seems to be that the proposed habitat conservation plan covers that base, so no need to consider it in their Annual Operations Plan.

This wrongheaded clearcut was scheduled for this year, but was put on an alternative docket after hundreds of people wrote in to the ODF to protest. The public’s concerns have not changed but, seemingly emboldened by Trump’s maleficence, our Clatsop ODF is again trying to ram this clearcut through, in spite of public disapproval.

Public comment can be submitted by email at odf.sfcomments@oregon.gov, online at tinyurl.com/89r3vw5z, or mailed to ODF Public Affairs, 2600 State St., Salem, OR 97310.

ROGER DORBAND
Astoria