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News -
Advocacy
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, March 09 2011 07:07 |
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Foreword: This is just one of many emails that Tom Wolf sends out to the leaders of Trout Unlimited throughout Oregon. His tireless efforts are truly amazing for me to be witness to, and I cannot think of a better suited representative of the Trout Unlimited mission here in Oregon. - Gabe Parr, Communications Chair for the Deschutes Chapter of TU. This article is taken verbatim from his email, and if there are any questions regarding its content, or if anyone is interested in some of the attachments mentioned in this article, please contact me directly at communications@deschutestu.org.
Monday-met with Bob Van Dyke , Wild Salmon Center, to talk strategy about natural conservation areas, HB 2736 and a possible concept for a forest reserve in Tillamook forest-which I will talk more about later.
Tuesday - Salem Legislative session reconvenes. Attended OCN weekly meeting and some natural resources committees. No bills that would effect TU priorities were up.
Wednesday- Had meeting with ODFW about their 2011-2013 budget from Governor's Balanced Budget as part of EBAC. I have attached budget sheet and their POP sheet. Overall, ODFW has fared very well in Governor's budget proposal with a $40 million increase in budget and over 70 new FTE positions. They will suffer $2 million cut in General Fund and $3 million cut in lottery funds. But they are getting large increases of Federal money which ODFW has assured us is a guarantee. I sent you data on this earlier.
Thursday-Attended special presentation by Water Resources Department to a few stakeholders about their proposed 2011-2013 budget in Governor's proposal. WRD stays about the same in General Fund money, lottery funds and Federal Funds, but gets a big input of projected bond money to use for Columbia River water development projects, feasibility studies, and Klamath Basin restoration. WRD has to cut 4 FTE's but it is much better then originally project cut of 30 FTE's. TU plans on assisting WRD and Waterwatch in passing a bill that would charge $100 for each water right, thus bring in an extra $2 to $3 million a year for WRD. That will help. Also had a Fish Con meeting in Wilsonville to talk about projected fish bills.
Friday- First had a morning meeting with Measure 76 coalition to talk about LC 2504(attached) which is a potential bill that would push forward the referrall measure to voters to cap Mesure 76 funds, set 25 year sunset and have emergency clause. I talked to you about this last summer. Rep. Doug Hunt is pushing this current version(still only Legal counsel language, not a bill yet). It has some problems-pushes election date of measure to Nov. 2012 instead of May 2011 as agreed. I will talk more about this later.
Testified at ODFW Commission meeting on proposed 2011 Columbia/Willamette River white sturgeon season. As the Friday Oregonian article pointed out. legal size white sturgeon population is crashing at an alarming rate with projected number of 77.000 legal size sturgeon left in lower Columbia/Willamette systems. 10 years ago that number was close to 200, 000 legal size sturgeon. I asked that instead of the projected 17,000 number of sturgeon allowed harvest this year, ODFW should bring that number below 10,000 and even think about possibility of shutting down all harvest for a few years in the future. Of course , the Commissioners went along with staff recommendation and opted for the 17,000 harvest number. But at least I got my 2 cents in.
Met with Rep Earl Blumenhauer at noon to talk about OCN bills and other things OCN groups are doing. He explained a concept on economically compatible environmentalism he has, of which I have attached a law school presentation he did.
Finally, at 3pm , at the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, I testified about HB 2632, a bill which would allow more hatchboxes on the coastal streams and get rid of all bag limits on non-native fish, not allow stocking of said non-natives and requiring focus on native fish. I testified my concerns about section 1 but support of Sections 2, 3, 4 . Didn't have time to write up testimony but see attached bill. Of course ODFW testified that they were already addressing all aspects of the bill in their management plans. So this bill will probably die in this committee- it only got a hearing because it is sponsored by co-Speaker of the House Arnie Roblien.
So, in this upcoming week, HB 2338 , the TU supported felt sole ban will have a hearing on Wednesday afternoon at 3pm. I am writing up testimony on bill right now and will send out more details on this hearing on Monday.
As always, if you have any questions contact me. Tom
Tom Wolf, Chair
Oregon Council Trout Unlimited
22875 NW Chestnut St. Hillsboro, OR 97124
503-640-2123
503-883-1102 cell
tmilowolf@msn.com (email)
www.tu.org website
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