Articles:
- Western Juniper Tree Removal
- The Truth About Permitting a Mine in Oregon
- The Task Force in Opposition to the Wilderness/Monument Proposal of the Owyhee Canyonlands
![Western Juniper Tree Removal](<h1%20style="text-align: center;">Western Juniper Tree Removal</h1> <a href="http://www.bentzsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/001.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-489" src="http://www.bentzsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/001-600x449.jpg" alt="001" width="446" height="334" /></a>The Western Juniper tree—we have all grown up seeing it and living near it, but now it has grown too big for the house, so to speak. Even in my short 55 years in South East Oregon, I have watched the march toward an issue we all face today. Where once a handful of trees could be viewed on a hillside, now those landscapes are covered with juniper choking out other vegetation. To one degree or another, many agencies and some forward thinking operators have tried a number of treatment options, including hand falling and leaving in place or falling and burning a year or two later. Recently, there have been some mechanical forms used for tree removal, but until now, they have been faced with a more expensive method of removal and no market for the use of the wood to offset the extra cost. The entrance of the Western Sage Grouse issue has taken treatment with fire off the table in all but a few locations with a juniper tree problem in South East Oregon. Central Oregon does not have the bird issue for the most part, so they have even less focus when it comes to government funds and an ability to gain some help in the improvement of the land. No matter the treatment method used, we must understand that the land will see visible tree regrowth in 30 years. That said, in no way should that be used as an excuse to not treat your ground today. In today’s world, most of your range ground can show positive returns to your operation with a $200+ per acre treatment cost. So what can this kind of investment do for your land? I believe it can pay for a treatment that will leave you with very few heavy branches and logs on your ground to interfere with your livestock and wildlife when done. <a href="http://www.bentzsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_2727.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-490" src="http://www.bentzsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_2727-600x449.jpg" alt="IMG_2727" width="409" height="306" /></a>Let’s look at the current problem you or a neighbor has if you have already treated an area. With heavy growth and the “normal” way of just falling the trees with a chainsaw and limbing to a 4-foot standard or leaving the limbs on with hopes of later burning the treatment area. You will soon find out that it is not an option due to restrictions for Sage Grouse preservation. I have seen many treatment areas that makes one wonder if but only for the water gained you would not have been better off to leave the darned trees. The ground is covered with fallen trees and their limbs, in any steep canyon draw, large numbers of the trees have rolled to the bottom and now nothing can move up or down them or around any area that had a heavy growth of trees before falling. I propose that almost every treatment area of 800–1000 acres needs a careful evaluation as to what treatment solution is best suited. Almost every treatment contract will need more than just one type to complete successfully. Some parts of it will need to be felled with a faller and left due to their location. Some areas with be best suited for mastication and draw bottoms and some others will need to be skidded out to limit the duff layer or hazard/obstruction of use by livestock, buckaroos and wildlife. These trees can then be used for other ranch needs in building, firewood, or used to improve erosion in your washes and other selected locations. With the right equipment, moving a placement of trees in areas to reduce erosion and build water table is greatly enhanced. Bentz Solutions, LLC in a consulting firm that offers, among other services, a preview of your landscape as it relates to the removal of juniper trees. We are also able to find the right contractor to fulfill your needs in getting the results that are most advantageous to your operation. Bentz Solutions also owns specialized equipment to perform the treatment for you if it fits the needs of the land. There is seldom only one treatment method that will work best. We can also clean up a contract if it was just felled and left. <h2 style="text-align: center;"></h2> <h2 style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>If you want a preview just give us a call, it does not cost you anything.</strong></em></h2> <h2 style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Bentz Solutions, LLC is connecting the right people to your needs!</strong></em></h2> <p style="text-align: center;">Andy Bentz is the managing member of Bentz Solutions, LLC and lives in Ontario Oregon. Give us a call at <strong>541-881-6320</strong> or email <a href="mailto:%20andy.bentz@bentzsolutions.com"><strong>andy.bentz@bentzsolutions.com</strong></a>.</p>){kind=link}
The Task Force in Opposition to the Wilderness/Monument Proposal of the Owyhee Canyonlands
Presentation to the Malheur County Court
25 November 2015
11:00 AM
Thank you for giving us time today to address you on the status of your Task Force in Opposition to the Wilderness/Monument Proposal of the Owyhee Canyonlands Coalition.
We want to give you an update on what your task force’s has been doing along with presenting some options that we think are open to you as the County Court and to give some ideas to where we think this will go in the future.
We are more than happy to answer any questions that you may have for us as members of your task force.
Let’s reviewing how we got here:
A coalition of outdoor recreation businesses and environmental groups are proposing to change the use on 2 1/2 million acres of BLM lands located in central and southern Malheur County. It is somewhat of a disjointed coalition due to the fact that in this case one of the members, ONDA continues to put forth a proposal of wilderness areas and national conservation areas that make up the 2.5 million acres and you can see from the map that they have connected all of the wilderness study areas that exist in that area today on BLM land into one area making up the 2.5 million acres.
Other coalition members such as Keen Footwear based in Portland, Oregon funded a campaign across the nation promoting and gathering signatures from any and all people that would listen on a petition to present to the President of the United States to declare these 2.5 million acres along with others throughout the west as a National Monument under the Antiquities Act.
Since publicly they are not promoting the same action it makes their proposal very difficult to talk about with anyone because no one is sure what the request is, what the plan is, or what they want. History does tell us that they have no interest in multiple use for that land. History also teaches us that the coalition will take any new status as long as it is not mutli-use and basically locks up the 2.5 million acres of our corner of the state. We should never lose sight of their larger focus which in time helps them connect the Owyhee Wilderness Lands in Idaho and the Steen’s Mountain Wilderness Lands in Oregon, both already operating under special designations to each other for one large land mass of non-use in the Northern Great Basin.
The Task Force members have met many times and studied, discussed, argued and put a great deal of thought into this and we agree on the following facts:
This proposal for a Monument/Wilderness Area is a gross over-reach and miss-use of existing laws and policies. Which we cannot influence very effectively.
If made a Monument or Wilderness Area the health of the land will suffer greatly due to the progress just started on addressing the invasive species will be stopped or made cost prohibitive. Exotic Annual Grasses cover most of the lands in question and some also have issues with the Western Juniper encroachment.
A Monument or Wilderness area this size will greatly impact the economic future of our Industries, Tribes, Businesses, Disabled Veterans, Senior Citizens, Communities, Schools and our Children’s future.
That the survivability and the sustainability of rural Oregon and its people and communities are in the same boat as the vast majority of the rural West and that is we are fighting for our lives and the future of our children. The citizens of rural Oregon and the Tribes of Oregon share a great deal. We all know what happens when people are moved off the land and away from their traditional and cultural uses and access to the land. That model has been proven to be a disaster by what was done to the tribes. It certainly has not worked for them so why do we believe that will work any better the second time around.
Those of us that live in the environment and open spaces of South East Oregon, share the belief that it is not land just to visit while on vacation. For all of us it represents our culture, our customs, its spiritual, it’s our economics, it’s our livelihood, it’s our home while others see this land as only a place to occasionally recreate. By rafting a river if and when there is enough water in the spring or going for a hike and maybe a camping trip. Unfortunately the recreation that can occur and does occur today on this land for people that do not live here is mostly for wealthy people and does not have an economic benefit that the other side keeps promising.
The uses of this land if made a Monument or Wilderness will not be available for the poor, the at-risk the underserved the underprivileged inner-city, the disabled, none of those, only the well-heeled that don’t care about rural communities, our children or the poverty that their regulations and environmental policies have created. Nor do they care about the human cleansing of the west that they and their ideas are facilitating.
Your Task Force recognizes there are three options:
Instruct us to do nothing and let what happens just happen.
Instruct the task force to continue to gather signatures in opposition, both hard copy and electronically. Continue getting letters of support of Malheur County’s opposition from other County, City and Businesses to hold in the opposition package. Continue to attempt to get face to face meetings with the Secretary of Interior, both of Oregon’s Senators and the White House before a decision would be made. None have been receptive to date.
Instruct us to set up a meeting with members of the coalition that is proposing this land-use change on the 2.5 million acres to see what the real request and/or want is.
Please do not mistake number three for a negotiation on what it anything our communities should give up or change. It would be simply a meeting to listen and learn what is truly being put forth.
What all of us have known for many years is that the other side of this debate is not going to go away nor are they going to change what they want, but only continue to evolve on how they try to accomplish their goal of locking up land from any economic use. For those reasons I think it is prudent that a County such as Malheur that has been targeted in the past is today and will continue to be in the future must have some kind of a long-term plan. As you know this will take a great deal of careful thought, negotiations, work and inclusion.
This is your report and those are the three options that we need directions on from you as the County Court.
Thank you for your time and interest. I would be remise if I did not point out and thank the work done by the members of the Task Force and the leadership of Commissioner Wilson for making the Task Force happen.
I think the letters of support for the Counties position speak for themselves on the work being done and we also want to thank Rep. Cliff Bentz and you the County Court members for hosting the town hall meeting in Adrian last month. What a great turn out and it is safe to say that the citizens around here don’t want a Wilderness or Monument of the kind being proposed.
We look forward to your directions.
Contact:
Andrew P. Bentz
Task Force Member
541-881-6320
The Truth About Permitting a Mine in Oregon
Oregon does not have a rule problem when it comes to mining. Oregon has a Process and Perception Problem.
When the mining industry left Oregon in the early 1990s they really left Oregon and have not been seen again.
I along with clients have been laughed at by investors, brokers, and analysts from all over the world for even thinking of attempting to permit and open an industrial mine in the state of Oregon. Everyone thinks they know about Oregon and those in the market do not like what they think they know about us.
Oregon sends the wrong message when it comes to mining. It has given the impression to the market place that Oregon does not want any part of mining, even environmentally responsible mining. Oregon could market the state as “open for business” to those companies that are responsible and well-capitalized that could invest in Oregon. If you look at the DOGAMI website you can find information on earthquakes, tsunamis, thunder eggs and geologic sight-seeing but not much about creating jobs by providing any information for mining or our mineral resources.
Oregon does not promote itself like many of its competitor States and Countries do. It does not have any organized outreach process to explain to the world how Oregon has established rules in law, Division 37, to facilitate the exploration, permitting, opening, operation and reclamation of mines in Oregon to anyone. Division 37 is believed around the world, to prevent any kind of open pit or chemical mining in Oregon and that is the opposite of what Division 37 was passed to do. These regulations establish a well-defined process for permitting a mine in an environmentally responsible manner.
This perception problem causes two issues:
The first one shows itself in the fact that very little if any exploration work takes place in Oregon. The only way to have the exploration money and jobs flowing into the state is for the world to know that if an economical resource is developed there is a reasonable likelihood of the project being permitted.
The second challenge and probably the most important is that it makes it very, very difficult to raise the needed capital from investors to move a project forward in Oregon.
Now onto the process challenges:
When I say Oregon does not have a rule or law issue what I mean is that almost everything Division 37 is asking the State Agencies and the Mining Industry to identify, measure and investigate are items that the Mining Industry needs and wants to know about, State Agencies want and need to know about and the people of Oregon need to know about. Where the challenges come is in the timelines and seemingly lack of flexibility or unwillingness to formulate the process within the boundaries of best practices or established standards.
Case in point, one of my clients attempting to permit a mine has been waiting nearly 4 months for a decision on whether or not they have to shock a waterway to count the fish in the fall in a location that the spring studies already showed there is “no” waterway and there are “no” fish. Now on the surface it would not seem that this would be a difficult question but it is.
Within division 37 there’s no designated time line on the upfront process which is meeting with all state agencies together in the Technical Review Team, (TRT) to figure out the methodologies for gathering the baseline data and what studies need to be done. Only after an application is submitted is there a time line placed on anyone and that is the State of Oregon.
The process is cumbersome, Division 37 consolidated permitting of mining operations regulation were not developed to encourage a multi-level, multi-agency bureaucratic review process. The intent was to have small 2-4 person subcommittee’s with special expertise reviewing permitting deliverables and making timely decisions on these outputs. This has been shown to work effectively and timely when done.
Oregon and the Federal Land Management agencies do not seem to have a protocol for working together to avoid the duplication of efforts where those efforts should meet each side requirements. It is listed within Division 37 that they will but that has not proved to be the case up to this time. So far the process is looking to be duplicative. Division 37 was not intended to result in overlapping federal, state and local jurisdictions’ laws and regulations. To the contrary, the intent was to avoid duplication and repetition. This issue will take some kind of a legislative fix to make it truly a consolidated permitting process.
One client company is the first company through the door in Oregon to attempt to permit a mine in years so logic would tell us that it’s going to be the first time most of the State Agency personnel have ever dealt with a commercial gold mine also. This company has been very patient in helping when allowed and in waiting the extra time needed for State staff to get up to speed on their processes. There needs to be some flexibility developed in the interpretation of the laws and implementing the needed regulations. This could be accomplished with some room for best “Professional Judgment” or established “Best Mining Practices” to be used when viewing and reviewing a project in its totality.
Because of the TRT process used in division 37 and there being no track record for technical experience within the agencies involved, each regulator or staff member assigned to the team for review is interpreting the rules very stringently and independently of the overall project so the project then gets tied into dealing with some biases based on that staff members application of laws in other areas of their duties.
Exploration Companies, Mining Companies and Investors need certainty.
- They need certainty in the rules.
- They need certainty of timeline in the process.
- They want to work with communities and governments that have demonstrated a willingness to work with them if they are responsible companies.
I started this out by saying Oregon does not have a rule problem when it comes to mining.
But a threat that is weaved throughout the process is very serious. That is, all governmental agencies have a hyper sensitivity to the real problem when it comes to the management of our natural resources, LITIGATION.
Ever since special interest groups have been able to earn an income and stop about any kind of job creation by suing land management agencies the process has slowed to a crawl with everyone afraid to make a decision and over analyzing each and every word trying to guess how it will be challenged later in a court.
While this has been good for the special interest groups it has begun the cleansing of rural Oregon of people and the associated jobs from natural resources in which this State was created with. With these factors the citizens and their children left behind have slipped into a level of poverty that should make us all ashamed of ourselves.
This all is a fixable issue. We need some strong leadership with a clear vision of the future and a solid understanding of our past. If Oregon will do this it will attract environmentally responsible mining companies with demonstrated track records and the available financing to invest in our people and our State.
Andy Bentz is the managing member of Bentz Solutions, LLC and lives in Ontario, Oregon.
541-881-6320 www.bentzsolutions.com
Western Juniper Tree Removal
The Western Juniper tree—we have all grown up seeing it and living near it, but now it has grown too big for the house, so to speak. Even in my short 55 years in South East Oregon, I have watched the march toward an issue we all face today. Where once a handful of trees could be viewed on a hillside, now those landscapes are covered with juniper choking out other vegetation. To one degree or another, many agencies and some forward thinking operators have tried a number of treatment options, including hand falling and leaving in place or falling and burning a year or two later. Recently, there have been some mechanical forms used for tree removal, but until now, they have been faced with a more expensive method of removal and no market for the use of the wood to offset the extra cost.
The entrance of the Western Sage Grouse issue has taken treatment with fire off the table in all but a few locations with a juniper tree problem in South East Oregon. Central Oregon does not have the bird issue for the most part, so they have even less focus when it comes to government funds and an ability to gain some help in the improvement of the land.
No matter the treatment method used, we must understand that the land will see visible tree regrowth in 30 years. That said, in no way should that be used as an excuse to not treat your ground today. In today’s world, most of your range ground can show positive returns to your operation with a $200+ per acre treatment cost. So what can this kind of investment do for your land? I believe it can pay for a treatment that will leave you with very few heavy branches and logs on your ground to interfere with your livestock and wildlife when done. 
Let’s look at the current problem you or a neighbor has if you have already treated an area.
With heavy growth and the “normal” way of just falling the trees with a chainsaw and limbing to a 4-foot standard or leaving the limbs on with hopes of later burning the treatment area. You will soon find out that it is not an option due to restrictions for Sage Grouse preservation. I have seen many treatment areas that makes one wonder if but only for the water gained you would not have been better off to leave the darned trees. The ground is covered with fallen trees and their limbs, in any steep canyon draw, large numbers of the trees have rolled to the bottom and now nothing can move up or down them or around any area that had a heavy growth of trees before falling.
I propose that almost every treatment area of 800–1000 acres needs a careful evaluation as to what treatment solution is best suited. Almost every treatment contract will need more than just one type to complete successfully. Some parts of it will need to be felled with a faller and left due to their location. Some areas with be best suited for mastication and draw bottoms and some others will need to be skidded out to limit the duff layer or hazard/obstruction of use by livestock, buckaroos and wildlife.
These trees can then be used for other ranch needs in building, firewood, or used to improve erosion in your washes and other selected locations. With the right equipment, moving a placement of trees in areas to reduce erosion and build water table is greatly enhanced. Bentz Solutions, LLC is a consulting firm that offers, among other services, a preview of your landscape as it relates to the removal of juniper trees. We are also able to find the right contractor to fulfill your needs in getting the results that are most advantageous to your operation. Bentz Solutions also owns specialized equipment to perform the treatment for you if it fits the needs of the land. There is seldom only one treatment method that will work best. We can also clean up a contract if it was just felled and left.
If you want a preview just give us a call, it does not cost you anything.
Bentz Solutions, LLC is connecting the right people to your needs!
Andy Bentz is the managing member of Bentz Solutions, LLC and lives in Ontario Oregon. Give us a call at 541-881-6320 or email andy.bentz@bentzsolutions.com.