Water and land

Looking out at the snow-covered Cascades is an unparalleled gift. Sure, the skiing community is freaked out with all the fun; however, in summer the snow will transform into water - and that is the REAL gift.

Water is going to become a key factor in the economics of the Pacific Northwest. If there is any doubt in your mind, just remember what Detroit Lake looked like last summer.

If it was concern for water and land that led land-use planners to put the kibosh on the more than 900 homes, 474 overnight units, and three golf courses Thornburg/Loyal Land requested on 2,000 acres of Deschutes County, it was - environmentally speaking - a very wise move on their part.

Destination resorts use more water than any other development in the Northwest, and I have a hunch such business schemes are doomed for the future in this neck of the woods. We don't have the water for such luxuries.

Then too, that entire area on the south and west sides of Cline Buttes is a natural wonder. Just ask the people who ride horseback, bird-watch and hike in that beautiful sagebrush-and-juniper biome. Ask the golden eagle that raised a fledgling on the BLM land adjacent to the Thornburg holdings, the mule deer that use it as summer and winter range and a myriad of other wildlife.

Environmentalist Governor Tom McCall put the machinery in motion that everyone should have listened to the day he said it: "Protect the Land." He pushed ORS 197.030's seven-member Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) to adopt state land-use goals and implement rules, assure local plan compliance with the goals, coordinate state and local planning, and manage the coastal zone program.

Today's water crisis shows us how wise McCall was.

Back in the '60s, during the Sputnik era, science became a high point of education. In the course to learn more about our Earth and it's inhabitants, a powerful voice came out of the University of Wisconsin - Aldo Leopold - who looked at new ways to protect the land.

Leopold proposed that the expansion of ethics should include nonhuman members of the biotic community, collectively referred to as "The Land." He stated the basic principle of his land ethic as: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. It changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow members, and also respect for the community as such."

That's what LCDC does for Oregon.

It's our entire biotic community that makes Oregon what it is; it's the reason people come to live here. But it's also the main reason some people - who just want to make more money - come here as well. Commerce is a necessary part of society, but safeguards should always be in place to protect The Land from those who see it as merely a money generator.

And that's what we face with destination resorts and growing pot in Oregon. I do not, and never will, approve of smoking pot, especially for recreation. Some people claim it's no worse than when Prohibition went down, but the science of pot-smoking does not agree. To me, it's just another indicator of a dying society.

Taxing pot-growers to the fullest extent is just fine with me. Placing strict controls on how much water they can buy/take/use to grow pot is beyond argument.

As a social moralist I'm a flop. However, as someone tied to all aspects of what Leopold defined as "The Land," I shall be a champion to my last breath.