Birds Before The Storm

In what is essentially a textbook case of scapegoating, Fish & Wildlife have begun this years round of sea lion killing. For background about the whole thing, there’s an ORC article from two years ago that sums up the problem (the short version is: there’s a dam in the river that kills salmon, and the fish pool up at the base of it, so sea lions hang out at the base to hunt, but people get upset because they want to raise fishing quotas and can’t because the sea lions are eating some tiny percentage of the fish). Anyhow, In Defense of Animals set up a protest the day after the first killing of the season. We drove up to Bonneville Dam and had ourselves a little media spectacle of a protest. What matters, though, is a continued presence, to let people know that yes, folks are watching this despicable act.

I also got to see a fish ladder in person, and see some awesomely pretty fish. More pictures after the break.
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I’ve been continuing to document the Palomar Pipeline and its course through the public lands of Oregon. This time, I went out to the Solo Timber Sale (timber sales have funny names like “Straw Devil”, “Biscuit”, and, in this case, “Solo”). It was a controversial timber sale that’s been fought for by environmentalists and won. Tree sits were erected, rare lichens were found, and the courts and the public reached the conclusion that it ought not be logged. But, of course, pipelines are immune to all those pesky environmental restrictions, so they’re planning on punching right through this isolated, beautiful bit of old growth forest. A friend and I went up to explore, and I took my sturdy minivan on sketchy icy roads that of course I probably ought not have.

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On Sunday I went out with some friends to where the Palomar Pipeline is set to cross the Clackamas river. It’s one of the many, many places that this pipeline will be remarkably disruptive: in this case, running across a beautiful section of river and then clearcutting a whole bunch of old-growth. For fun, go ahead and check out the gas company’s myth-busting of common Palomar myths! For example:

MYTH: Palomar will require clear cutting, and the construction will destroy sensitive environmental areas.

Clearing the right-of-way is very different from the clear-cutting claims project opponents have made. Palomar proposes a temporary 120-foot-wide construction easement reduced to a 50-foot-wide permanent easement once construction is complete

this one is awesome cause it’s like: myth: we’ll be clearcutting. When in fact, we’ll be clearcutting. The myth about eminent domain is pretty good too.

anyhow, more pictures of the area after the break.

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Last week I went hiking with two friends out along Fish Creek in the Mt. Hood National Forest. I went to go take pictures of the areas that are going to be clearcut for the Palomar Pipeline LNG project. The super-short version of this is: they want to build more fossil fuel infrastructure in Oregon, including hundreds of miles of clearcutting to run pipelines of Liquefied Natural Gas. Well, technically the pipelines are for normal natural gas, but the idea is that it is shipped from overseas in its supercooled state. There are a lot of things wrong with this.

• Building new fossil fuel infrastructure is ridiculous and generally backwards-thinking.
• LNG tankers are ungodly explosive.
• Clearcutting hundreds of miles through sensitive areas sucks, a lot. A long line of clearcut is actually significantly more invasive than the same acreage felled in a square, because it divides wildlife, creates new false edges to the forest, etc. etc.
• No one actually wants this but gas companies. These terminals were successfully driven out of California, and now Oregon has to deal with it.

Anyhow, Fish Creek is an area that the Forest Service admitted it needed to protect better, and they actually pulled out all the roads in the area so as to let the forest heal. And now? A damned pipeline looms. The bridges you see in these pictures are remants of the old roads… you have to hike miles to get to them. Personally, I’m a sucker for ruins, for abandoned elements of civilization. I actually think they’re prettier than regular, untouched nature. I guess that’s why I’m post-civ, not primitivist.
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By and large, baltimore continued to function, only everyone walked everywhere. Good stuff.
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It’s snowing in Baltimore. Like, a lot. This could actually fall under the Things I Love, Things I Hate category: it’s beautiful outside, and wandering around is like wandering around an abandoned city, in a lot of ways. On the other hand, the Red & Black Ball was supposed to be tonight, but it was postponed. And I was supposed to go wandering around Falls road (pictured) with a friend of mine, who got snowed in elsewhere.

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I just spent several days up in Ithaca, NY. I went to do a book talk, but stayed for the waterfalls. Well, and the company of course. Seriously, Ithaca is absolutely stunning. The autumn leaves and the fair weather didn’t hurt at all. And guess what, travel kids: they want more travel kids to show up. Well not oogles or scumfucks of course. Nobody wants oogles or scumfucks. But interesting folks interested in neat stuff? Go to Ithaca! Well, I can’t say more than it was nice for the 3 days I was there. But boy howdy, was it pretty. More pictures after the break. [click on pictures for bigger versions]
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Alright, I’m trying out this Flickr thing again, basically out of happiness that it automatically resizes things. Anyhow, here’s some of what I shot yesterday. Nothing particularly exciting, just a general sense of obnoxious levels of police harassment, mostly of folks trying to serve food. And a deer in a graveyard.
At my Flickr page

I’m becoming obsessed. It might be with caves, it might be with photography. Actually, it might be with bats. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. It holds the largest cave room in the western hemisphere, and it’s pretty spectacular. Well, it kinda dwarfs words like “spectacular.” It kinda dwarfs most anything, really. And then, at night, half a million mexican freetail bats come out of the cave. I didn’t take photos of that. But here are some of the photos from the cave. I’ll probably post more in the next week or so as I finish processing them. Click on a photo for a slightly larger version.

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I’ve been cooped up in the EF! Journal house for two months, but I finally got to head out to the mountains, right before I leave town. Always is that way… I don’t really like a place till I’m leaving, it seems. We drove up the top of Mt. Lemmon and went for a hike. Through Douglas fir, some of it even old-growth. Even the burns looked like Cascadia to me. It’s amazing, this sky island. We went up the fire-watch tower (which is actually a shack on a rock outcropping) and sat about and marveled, as one ought. Then, on the way home, we got to see the sunset through distant storms. It might be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. More photos after the break.
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