Why Oregon’s Owyhee deserves protection

Tim Davis
6:16 p.m. PDT June 19, 2016

... We’ve all been hearing a lot about the Owyhee. People have been working to protect this area for decades, and Idaho protected its side of the Owyhee in 2009.

Let’s not forget why protection for this place is even a subject of discussion: Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands is world-class, with clean fish-filled rivers, some of the best intact wildlife habitat left in the Lower 48 and spectacular canyons. The hunting, fishing and hiking are astounding, the night skies don’t have a lick of light pollution and only three paved roads cross it in Oregon.

Despite its lack of roads, these facts remain: These public lands that belong to all of us are not currently protected from industrial development, such as oil and gas development and mining. Just outside the core of the Owyhee there are proposals for a gold mine and a uranium mine. In the last 15 years, nearly 200,000 acres of oil and gas leases have been issued in Malheur County near the Owyhee.

Simply put, remoteness will no longer protect the Owyhee. That means doing nothing is not an option ...

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/06/19/oregons-owyhee-deserves-protection/86096450/