Pass Wildfire Safe Bill
We need the Oregon legislature to pass Senate Bill 762, the “Wildfire Safe” bill, to protect Oregon from future wildfire disasters.
Last year’s fires produced irreparable damage to homes, livestock and 1.2 million acres of land. Thousands of people had to be evacuated, and at least nine lost their lives. The damage cost us $1.5 billion.
We can count on having wildfires in the west, and they’re getting more frequent and more intense with climate change.
SB 762 will help mitigate the risk because it:
• Invests in our communities through restoration of forests and rangelands to reduce wildfire risk.
• Adds firefighter capacity, and additional resources for wildfire response and firefighter safety.
• Establishes defensible space standards.
• Provides financial resources to protect communities and critical infrastructure.
• Creates the Oregon Wildfire Workforce Corps Program to reduce wildfire risk to communities and to provide workforce training to the next generation of land managers.
I’ve asked my elected officials, Rep. Anna Williams and Sen. Chuck Thomsen, to support SB 762, and I encourage others to do so too. We’ve already seen the need for improved wildfire safety in Oregon.
Cindy Allen
Hood River
Fire concerns
Columbia Gorge News announced state fire restrictions began on May 15, the earliest in 40 years. Most concerning was the fact that "to date, 22 human caused fires have burned more than 200 acres. The 10-year-average for this time frame is 10 fires, burning 32 acres."
Having lived in Oregon my entire life, the news of the escalating fire season is concerning. As we see our local fire season growing in length and fires growing in force, I recognize the expanding needs of our communities. One of the vital necessities being to weatherize our communities' homes in order to reduce people's exposure to smoke.
Weatherizing our homes not only protects us from the elements, but also reduces our energy bills and creates jobs in home retrofitting.
I am an eager supporter of the Oregon Clean Energy Opportunity (OCEO) campaign, particularly House Bill 2842 Healthy Homes. The bill would support home improvements in low-income households across Oregon, including smoke filtration and other improvements that make homes more fire resistant.
Everyone deserves to have a healthy home as a refuge from bad environmental conditions. Additionally, we have Gorge community members who are energy burdened (paying more than 6 percent of monthly income on utility bills). Home upgrades can reduce family energy bills and help rural counties in Oregon, which face the highest rates of energy burden.
I really wish to highlight how our home health and efficiency affect so many areas of our lives. Weatherization is vital to Oregonians' health when we spend $28 million on asthma-related hospital visits each year. Not to mention that asthma is the leading reason for missed school days.
We also need to recognize our community members who have suffered due to contracting COVID-19 and those who will be permanently affected by lung and breathing issues. Wildfire smoke in their homes should not be another worry they face.
As wildfire smoke becomes a seasonal companion, I hope to see our community disaster resilience increase and our energy burdens decrease with the passage of HB2842. With that, I ask Rep. Anna Williams and Sen. Chuck Thomsen to vote yes on HB2842.
Lisa Muñoz
Hood River
Grave error
I am writing this letter about the pressing issue of the recent conflicts between the Palestinian people and the state of Israel. I believe that the U.S., by tacitly supporting Israel's apparent right to defend itself but denying the same right to the Palestinian people both in Gaza and the occupied territories, is engaging in a grave error.
We are complicit in the deaths of hundreds of people (including scores of children) who have been killed by Israeli airstrikes which we have funded by providing billions of dollars of non-conditional military aid to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
The U.S. has further compounded its error by blocking the U.N. Security Council from condemning the violence and calling for a ceasefire.
The U.S. has been biased towards Israel in this conflict for years, and President Biden's claim that we are neutral rings hollow when he has made clear that the U.S. believes that Israel has a right to defend itself free from criticism, but that any Palestinians who do so should be labeled as terrorists. The U.S. has clearly chosen a side, and our government needs to immediately take a step back, cancel its military support for Israel (or at least place reasonable conditions on it) and reevaluate the situation from an unbiased perspective that respects the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis equally.
Gabriel Roth
White Salmon
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