Tag Archives: Columbia River Gorge

environmental news

This kid is going to pay for the rest of his life

A 15-year-old boy from Vancouver, Wash., decided in 2017 to toss a firecracker into a forest along a scenic Oregon hiking trail.

What happened next was stunning in its scope. The kid started a fire that roared through the Columbia River Gorge, one of America’s true scenic wonders.

Well, there’s justice. The boy has been handed a $36 million fine by a judge. He has received a sentence that he’ll never pay off, but he damn sure should be forced to contribute money for the rest of his life for restitution to the damage he caused.

The blaze became known as the Eagle Creek Fire. It torched tens of thousands of timber land along Eagle Creek, which becomes Multnomah Falls, one of the Gorge’s scenic jewels. Wind blew embers across the Columbia River and into Washington, scorching more valuable land.

The kid who started the fire won’t be identified in the media, because he is a minor. A part of me wishes to know the kid’s name, but I understand why we won’t know — at least for the foreseeable future.

The fire choked the sky with smoke and ash, which blanketed Portland about 40 miles west of where the blaze began.

I have a keen interest in this story. I grew up in Portland. I have hiked along Eagle Creek. I have peered over the top of Multnomah Falls, which cascades more than 600 feet into an estuary pool next to the mighty Columbia River.

It sickened when I heard about the fire. I ventured to Oregon this past October, but was unable to see too much damage, given that it never stopped raining while I was there; the weather restricted a lot of local sightseeing.

The fire starter’s mother said the event produced a lot of “trauma” for the boy. Good. It should have.

According to the Washington Post: “Every day I think about this terrible decision and its awful consequences,” said the boy, who was identified by the judge only by his initials, A.B. “I know I will have to live with my bad decision for the rest of my life.”

And now, he must pay.

His attorneys have said that the $36 million restitution amount is steep, arguing that such a number violated the U.S. and Oregon constitutions, believing the amount to be “cruel and unusual punishment,” according to court records. But (Hood River County Circuit Judge John A.) Olson in his opinion wrote the restitution was “clearly proportionate to the offense because it does not exceed the financial damages caused by the youth.”

I happen to agree with the judge on this one. The kid has to pay for what he did.

national news, State news

Nature’s wrath eclipses political controversy

I created this blog some years ago as a forum for “politics, policy and life experience.”

To be candid, events of the past few days have ripped my mind away from the worldly political concerns that have dominated High Plains Blogger since its inception.

Hurricane Harvey stormed ashore on the Texas Coastal Bend. Then it backed out over the Gulf of Mexico and returned to the Golden Triangle as a tropical storm and inundated Houston and the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange areas under 50 inches of rain.

Meanwhile, way out west, my hometown of Portland, Ore., had been choking in the midst of a cloud of smoke and ash blown in by that forest fire along Eagle Creek. The Columbia River Gorge has been scorched. The fire jumped the mighty Columbia River and has burned many more acres of tall timber in Washington.

Now it’s Hurricane Irma that’s devastating Florida after tearing through the Caribbean Islands region.

My wife and I worry greatly about our friends along the Texas coast from the Coastal Bend to the Golden Triangle; we worry more about family and friends affected by the Eagle Creek fire; now we worry about the handful of friends who live in Florida.

And, of course, we are praying for the safety of all those millions of Americans who have been stricken by all the savagery that has attacked them.

Somehow, in this context, Donald J. Trump’s ongoing troubles — ranging from his big mouth, his Twitter tirades, un-presidential conduct and “The Russia Thing” seem strangely inconsequential.

Hey, this moment will pass in due course. I know that. I am ready for it. For now, though, I intend to concentrate on the human suffering we’re all witnessing, along with a touch of “life experience” commentary thrown in for good measure.

Meanwhile, more prayers are on the way.

environmental news

Climate change is real, NW fires notwithstanding

I’m seeing a bit of social media chatter that needs to be put in perspective.

Some of it is conflating a couple of key issues: climate change and those horrific fires that have scarred many thousands of forestland in Oregon and Washington.

Critics of climate change deniers are pointing to the Oregon and Washington fires as evidence that climate change is real.

I agree with the notion that Earth’s climate is changing, that its temperatures are warming. The fires that began along Eagle Creek just east of Portland, though, were the result of a dumbass who allegedly was playing with fireworks in tinder-dry woodlands above the Columbia River.

Oregon State Police have a suspect. He’s a teenager. He is a minor, so we won’t know his name, which I guess gives me license to refer to him as a dumbass.

Back to the issue of climate change/global warming. It’s playing out far from the Pacific Northwest.

The Texas Gulf Coast just got hit with a Category 3 hurricane/tropical storm. It dumped 50-plus inches of rain on Houston and the Golden Triangle; it brought killer winds to the Coastal Bend. It has created unspeakable grief, agony and misery along the coast.

But wait! Now there’s a Category 5 storm blasting its way toward South Florida. It has winds of 185 mph; gusts are reaching 225 mph.

Meteorologists and other scientists are speaking in unison — more or less — on this subject: We’re going to see more catastrophic storms in quick succession in the future because of climate change.

The debate, though, centers on the cause of this change. The scientific consensus appears to suggest that human activity has exacerbated the change, through carbon emissions and immense deforestation.

The fire will be extinguished. I remain supremely confident that the forest will be restored over a lengthy period of time. Humankind can repair the damage done by a single thoughtless idiot.

The frequency of those storms? The rising sea levels? The intensity of the savagery that boils up out of the ocean?

That problem requires our immediate attention, if only we’d stop bickering over whether the climate is changing. It is. Let’s get busy finding solutions to this worldwide crisis.