Timber tax cuts cost Oregon towns billions. Then clear-cuts polluted their water and drove up the price.
Updated on Jan 01, 2021;
Published on Dec 31, 2020
The 400 residents of Wheeler, Oregon, where muddy logging runoff filled the town’s reservoirs. (Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian) Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
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On a damp night in November 2019, dozens of residents packed into the local firehouse in Corbett, Oregon, a town about 30 miles outside of Portland. Water manager Jeff Busto told the crowd that logging had devastated a creek that provided part of the town’s drinking water supply.
A timber company had clear-cut thousands of trees along the creek, leaving only a thin strip standing between the town’s drinking water and recently flattened land strewned with debris. A single row of trees was left on either side to protect it from mud, herbicides and summer sun. After many of those trees were bowled over by wind, the creek flow dropped so
Timber Tax Cuts Cost Oregon Towns Billions. Then Polluted Water Drove Up the Price. ProPublica 1/1/2021 by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Rob Davis, The Oregonian/OregonLive
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This article was produced in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive. You can sign up for The Oregonian/OregonLive special projects newsletter here and Oregon Public Broadcasting’s newsletter here. Oregon Public Broadcasting is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
On a damp night in November 2019, dozens of residents packed into the local firehouse in Corbett, Oregon, a town about 30 miles outside of Portland. Water manager Jeff Busto told the crowd that logging had devastated a creek that provided part of the town’s drinking water supply.