How It All Began
The Forest Service ranger and his companion state trooper came around the bend into the dilapidated mining camp. This business of burning down these relic inholdings had been an interesting mission. Already the camp on Tin Cup Creek was but a memory and soon Jawbone Flats would also be history.
Out of the bushes jumped George Atiyeh and Indian Billy. They leveled their rifles on the intruders and disarmed them. After a short exchange, George and Billy sent them packing.
Two days later George and Billy surrendered to a SWAT team and, at their later court hearing, they were acquitted. The judge issued a judicial reprimand to the Forest Service. She found George and Billy within their rights to protect their homes and property.
This dramatic early-70s event saved Jawbone Flats and set the tone for the fierce defense of central Oregon's Opal Creek, the spectacular waterway of ancient forest and mighty waterfalls that meet with Battle Ax Creek at Jawbone flats and form the Little North Fork Santiam River--the only undammed native salmon and steelhead river left in the entire Willamette River system.
New Wilderness After 12 Barren Years
On September 30, 1996, years of effort finally paid off and Congress passed retiring Senator Mark O. Hatfield's last act (a rider, what else!) to set aside 13,000 acres of Opal Creek as Wilderness. Another 13,000 acres along the Little North Fork and its tributaries will be a Scenic Recreation Area and the little- known but wondrous Elkhorn Creek, home of the lowest-elevation intact ancient forest in the Cascades, will be a Wild and Scenic River.
These are the only ancient trees that have successfully been set aside in the last 12 years--since the 1984 Oregon Wilderness additions! How did it happen?
Blueprint for Success
For years, George and his cohorts, including myself, operated a camp at Jawbone Flats. We dug around in the old mine tunnels, keeping the Forest Service at bay with a small mining operation. We chased off the occasional hiker who wandered in, keeping up a tradition started in the 30s by Grandpa Jim Hewitt, father-in-law of George's uncle, former Oregon Governor Vic Atiyeh. It was Vic Atiyeh himself who succeeded in getting State Wild and Scenic River protection for the Little North Fork in 1982.
In 1980, Dave "Chainsaw" Alexander became district ranger of the Detroit Ranger District and vowed to "cut Opal Creek." Alexander, now Idaho's Payette NF Supervisor, was the district ranger who cut more timber that any other in history (1.25 billion board feet in ten years). Alexander began a concerted campaign of harassment of George and his "mining" operation. George dug in and defended his "church."
In late 1981, the Forest Service placed clearcut boundary markers on the giants of Opal Creek and surveyed the p-line for the road. Things were heating up.
In 1982, Mike Swaim (Salem's current mayor-elect) appealed and then brought suit against the sale. The national Sierra Club revoked the charter of Swaim's local group in response. Yep, the Sierra Club didn't think Opal Creek was worth fighting for.
Opal Creek was originally included for wilderness designation when then-Sierra Club NW representative Brock Evans first drew the lines on a 1967 map of areas to be considered for the first wilderness bill. Industry knew where the big trees were, so the final bill removed Opal Creek, Breitenbush, the Kalmiopsis, Middle Santiam, South Umpqua (and other areas we've been fighting for ever since) from Brock's original proposal. The area was also included in another wilderness bill in 1984, only to be yanked at the last moment by none other than Hatfield. Once, Opal Creek was part of a 1989 Oregon Senate bill designating it a wilderness state park. All sorts of efforts were mounted and then beaten back by industry. But the trees still stood. After a few more years of standing off the Forest Service, George, myself and a committed group of friends realized that we had to broaden the base of support to keep Opal Creek intact.
One fine day in 1988, George, Lane County Commissioner Jerry Rust and I roamed the watershed plotting the construction of a trail. I came back later and flagged it out. One memorable weekend a handful of us built what became known as the Bear Trail--the first cleared way in to Opal Creek.
Dave Alexander responded by threatening to arrest George and me for "felony destruction of government property." We said, "Please do. You plan eleven miles of roads and 1,800 acres of clearcuts in there and we're the ones destroying government property?" The six-foot, eight-inch tall, Paul Bunyan-esque ranger wasn't stupid by any means, and the arrests never came.
In early 1989, an Earth First! civil disobedience training was held at the lodge at Jawbone Flats. Mary Beth Nearing, Freda London, Karen Wood and Calvin Hecocta trained some 30 folks to nonviolently defend Opal Creek and other areas. The training paid off right away at the 1989 "Easter Massacre" at adjacent Breitenbush.
The Senate bill to designate Opal Creek as a state park also came to a hearing in early 1989. We unveiled a multimedia slide show, written and produced by Mark Ottenad, Trygve Steen, George and myself, at the state capitol amid hundreds of timber protesters who had been given the day off and bussed to the hearing. Timber protesters went head to head in the highly charged circus atmosphere with hundreds of middle school children who came to defend their heritage.
Also in 1989, Brock Evans, now-Vice President of the Audubon Society, shepherded the Audubon special "Rage Over Trees" which brought national exposure to Opal Creek. Ted Turner showed it six times without commercials on his network, because industry succeeded in gaining an advertiser boycott. In that show, Cathie Olcutt vowed to block any log trucks sent toward the trees of Opal Creek. The very image of Cathie and her septuagenarian grandmother friends barricading the road was one of the main reasons industry knew they'd never cut Opal Creek.
In 1990, David Seideman's excellent book Showdown at Opal Creek and Trygve Steen's magnificent photo essays brought even more national attention to the area.
In 1994, Oregon Representative Mike Kopetski succeeded in getting his Opal Creek bill through the House only to see it die for lack of a Senate champion. "Hello?, Senator Hatfield, hello!?"
The End Game
Then last winter, Hatfield, seeking to use Opal Creek to greenwash his record of millions of acres of stumps, set up the Opal Creek Working Group. Five conservationists--George Atiyeh, Oregon Natural Resources Council's (ONRC) Regna Merritt, The Nature Conservancy's Russ Hoeflich, Friends of Opal Creek's Marty McCall and myself--spent countless hours meeting with industry representatives and politicians (same thing) with the help of a Willamette University mediator. We held tough for full protection. It was one of the more impressive united fronts I've seen the movement produce.
Then Hatfield unveiled his bill. Attached were some bad provisions which I spelled out in the August- September, 1996, issue of the EF! Journal. Marty McCall and the also-retiring Andy Kerr of ONRC (who was operating behind the scenes) wanted to settle, to take what Hatfield offered and call it a victory. McCall went so far as to propose a toxic waste dump on the Friends of Opal Creek's land to settle one sticky issue over mining tailings. But, even though it was better than the usual "cut-the-baby-in-half" deal, most of us would not settle.
I wrote a July 29 opinion piece in the Oregonian staking it all on these problems. ONRC wrote a piece almost identically critical. Many times people accused George unfairly that "he would trade off all the other old growth, if only Opal Creek were protected." We hated the idea of these other issues being tied to Opal Creek.
In the end, in a phenomenon I'd never before seen, Hatfield's bill got better. A proposed 59,000-acre public lands transfer to the Coquille tribe for logging was scaled back to 5,400 acres and those lands are subject to Option 9 (for whatever that's worth.) A two-year moratorium on cutting and a study of the Little Sandy watershed was gained. Hatfield even appropriated $750,000 to haul the disputed tailings out of the watershed. It's not all roses, however. There is still a gaping hole in the watershed along Big Cedar Creek, site of a proposed copper mine. But, by and large, it has to be seen as a major victory.
From George and Indian Billy risking their lives to those committed to civil disobedience to those who wouldn't accept the first bone offered, it was the good fight.
A Little Perspective
Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and John Trudell performed a forest benefit concert October 8 in Jacksonville, Oregon. 2,500 supporters arrived to a highly charged atmosphere. The artists courageously used the presence of 300 timber protesters led by disgraced Congressman Wes Cooley to conduct a little teach-in on the issue. The synergy between crowd and musicians was electric. Afterwards, Browne, Quiltman, Nina Donnelly, Trudell and I were talking Opal Creek.
Browne was happy about Opal Creek, as we all were, but questioned whether any protection schemes will work. "They just keep changing or suspending the laws and we lose anyway."
Nina pointed out that "Wilderness designation is the only thing that has really worked for us to date."
Jackson replied, "I wonder how long that'll last?"
John piped up, "Oh, about as long as the grass shall grow."
We all shared an ironic laugh.
Unfinished Business
Congratulations all around for those who stood up for Opal Creek. Opal Creek was saved because of the tenacity of her defenders. We must replicate this effort. There are still a lot of other special areas out there that are threatened and we must redouble our dedication to saving them. Given the extinction crisis, we obviously can't afford to go 12 years between protecting areas. We must save all that's left and we need to do it now.
We also need to keep Opal Creek from being loved to death. An estimated 50,000 people visited this year. If you can help with trail work and other methods of lessening human impact, contact the Friends of Opal Creek at (503) 897-2921 or the Friends of the Breitenbush Cascades at (503) 585-8551.