Crag Law Center

A View of the Summit – Spring 2009 Edition- Focusing On Our Clients
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The Crag Law Center provides services to clients on a wide range of issues affecting the earth’s natural systems and community livability. This issue highlights Crag’s work with the Gifford Pinchot Task Force to protect old growth forests in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Crag’s collaboration with the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition on the Coastal Law Project to protect Oregon’s coastal and ocean environments. Crag’s relationships with these organizations illustrates our commitment to supporting grassroots clients and their mission and serve as good examples of how Crag’s work empowers clients to have even greater impacts on the communities and resources of the Pacific Northwest. The issue also features articles on Crag’s work to protect the Tongass National Forest in Southeastern Alaska, the lessons learned from Measure 37 and the recent passage of the Mount Hood Wilderness Bill. This issue also introduces new staff attorney Tanya Sanerib.

A View of the Summit – Fall 2008 Edition- Environmental Justice
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The Crag Law Center launched its environmental justice initiative less than three years ago. Crag now represents groups throughout Oregon, Washington and Alaska on cutting edge and high-profile work to ensure justice for all people. This issue focuses on Crag’s work for native Alaskans on the North Slope who are battling Royal Dutch Shell over plans to drill offshore in their traditional subsistence hunting and fishing grounds. For thousands of years, the Inupiat people have hunted bowhead whales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The Inupiats way of life and diet are tied to the whale, and the people have managed to sustain themselves and healthy populations of whales for centuries. Staff Attorney Chris Winter has been working closely with the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, the Inupiat Communities of the Artic Slope and local conservation groups to ensure that their interests are not ignored by the Mineral Management Service. This issue also contains articles written by our summer interns about the other work we are doing in our Public Lands Program, Coastal Law Project and our Livable Communities Program.

A View of the Summit – Winter 2007 Edition- Seeing the Forest for the Trees
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The Crag Law Center has been working with a diverse set of conservation groups on a great variety of issues since its founding in 2001. Diversity is the key to life, and, likewise, we have taken diverse approaches to problem-solving for our clients. This issue of the Summit contains articles about Ralph Bloemers’ efforts on the Federal Forestland Advisory Committee to find common ground in the battle over the future of Oregon’s public lands. This issue contains an article about a recent win that the Crag Law Center obtained for the Lands Council, the Hells Canyon Preservation Council, Oregon Wild and the Sierra Club in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. On behalf of these groups, the Crag Law Center challenged the Forest Service’s plans to conduct a massive post-fire logging operation in an area of the the Umatilla National Forest burned by wildfire, and won.

A View of the Summit – Winter 2006 Edition- A Legacy For Mt. Hood
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Mt. Hood is a special place for many Oregonians, our alpine gem. For centuries, people in the NW have lived by the mountain. In the late 1800s, people began to ski, climb and hike on the North side of the mountain. The first Wilderness was designated soon after the Wilderness Act was passed. For the past century local residents in Hood River and Sandy have farmed the land below her flanks. Hood River County is the most productive pear farming valley in the entire United States. For the past five years, the Crag Law Center has assisted a diverse group of local residents, recreation clubs like the Oregon Nordic Club and the Mazamas, conservation groups like the Friends of Mt. Hood, the Oregon Natural Resources Council, BARK, Portland Audubon and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club to advance their vision for the mountain. In 2006, Congressmen Blumenauer and Walden hiked around the mountain, held a public hearing in December, and then introduced legislation to protect special places around the mountain. This issue of the summit discusses their proposal and the work that led to this historic settlement. For more information, visit our Public Land Program page and click on Cascade Peaks Protection.

A View of the Summit – Summer 2005 Edition
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The Oregon Coast is home to Sebastes Melanops, a black rock fish that lurks in the depths of Tillamook Bay. The Crag Law Center is assisting local residents seeking to protect Tillamook Bay and the Miami River that flows into it from a gravel mine expansion. We are also working with local residents in Tierra Del Mar to protect the Sand Lake estuary from a proposed destination resort and golf course development. The area is home to diverse species of fish and wildlife. This issue of the Summit also talks about our recent successes on Mt. Hood, the Deschutes River and in the Malheur National Forest.

A View of the Summit – Winter 2004/2005 Edition
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The Strawberry Mountains are in the rugged eastern part of Oregon and these lands are home to the bull trout, mountain lions, bears, goshawk and pileated woodpeckers. Late in 2004, a whistleblower emerged from the forest to report that the Forest Service had claimed that hundreds of old growth trees near the Wilderness were being logged under the Healthy Forest Initiative. The claim was that these trees were dead or dying, but the reality on the ground was that the fire claimed little trees and left just enough dead trees for the woodpeckers and other birds that thrive on them. This issue of the Summit tells those stories, and also provides a look at the economics of watershed protection. The Crystal Springs watershed is a key drinking watershed in Hood River County and the watershed is threatened by development. This Summit also contains articles about our work on pesticide free parks in Portland, the abuse of science by federal agencies, and the launch of our environmental justice initiative.

A View of the Summit – Spring 2004 Edition- Hood River Watershed
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The Hood River flows from the east, west and northern flanks of Mt. Hood through old growth forests and one of the richest pear farming valleys in the world. The north side is home to wildlife and the Crystal Springs watershed. This issue of the Summit explores the impacts of potential development on the watershed, wildlife and way of life in the valley. The edition also contains an introduction by Chris Winter, an article about recent changes at the federal level to a forest plan standard designed to protect aquatics and a piece about a highlighted volunteer.

A View of the Summit – Summer 2003 Edition- A Tribute to Mt. Hood
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Are you interested in reading about Mt. Hood Meadows plans to pave paradise and put up a parking lot? How about learning what the public did not know about Hood River County’s decision to trade away its watershed for peanuts to a real estate developer?

In this issue, key evidence was obtained through discovery of documents in a challenge to a sweetheart land deal that the County completed with Mt. Hood Meadows. The 158 families in the Hood River Valley Residents Committee, a local citizens’ organization that is seeking to protect the historic north side of Mt. Hood, brought the challenge. The Crag Law Center also represents BARK, the Friends of Mt. Hood, the Mazamas, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Wildlife Federation, the Friends of Tilly Jane, the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the Hood River Valley Residents Committee on a challenge to a logging project that the Forest Service claims will reduce the risk of fire. This issue of the Summit describes the legal issues with this project, as well as the current fire hysteria that is gripping the west.

This issue of the Summit is dedicated to the local residents and all Oregonians who enjoy Mt. Hood. The elk traversing the last remaining east-west migratory corridor do not care whether the massive development built in the way has low-flush eco-friendly toilets in mauve or taupe, and, we hope, neither does the public!

A View of the Summit – Winter 2002-2003 Edition- Inaugural Edition
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Crag’s inaugural issue starts with an opening statement from Chris Winter describing why we created the Crag Law Center. This issue contains articles about our work to protect the threatened bull trout in the headwaters of the Willamette River, as well as our successful effort to challenge ecologically unsound post-fire salvage projects in Eastern, Oregon.

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