Jackson County to host Cascade-Siskiyou Monument meeting
MEDFORD — The
Jackson County Board of Commissioners will host a public
hearing at 6 p.m. Thursday, on the proposed expansion of the
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to a news
release. The meeting is open to everyone and will be at the
North Medford High School Commons, 1900 Keene Way Drive,
Medford.
“We look
forward to hearing from the citizens of southern Oregon
regarding this expansion,” said Commissioner Colleen
Roberts. “The outcome of this decision will have dramatic
long-term effects on our communities.”
The purpose of
the hearing is to capture a comprehensive discussion
concerning the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument. The board hopes for testimony from all points of
view to create a balanced report. From the public hearing,
the commissioners will forward the testimony to Secretary of
the Interior Sally Jewell, who they hope will then share
with President Barack Obama before he concludes on this
decision.
According to a
report from the Medford Mail Tribune, Sens. Jeff Merkley and
Ron Wyden have proposed expanding the 16-year-old monument
by more than 66,500 acres inside a new, more than
100,000-acre footprint that stretches northwest past Dead
Indian Memorial Road, west to Emigrant Lake, east into
Klamath County and south into California near Iron Gate
Reservoir.
The 90,328
acres proposed for expansion within Oregon includes 56,245
acres of Bureau of Land Management land, including Hyatt
Lake and land surrounding Howard Prairie Lake, as well as
chunks of the upper watersheds of Jenny Creek tributaries
whose lower reaches are now part of the monument.
The current
monument covers about 66,000 acres within an 85,000-acre
boundary inside Jackson County east of Ashland.
“We need to
make sure we send input back to Washington, D.C. that
reflects the true opinions of all those who live here,” said
board chair Rick Dyer. “We want to hear from ranchers,
recreational groups, hunters, environmental groups, hikers,
the tourism and timber industries and everyone else that
this decision affects.”
For more
information, contact Joel Benton, Jackson County counsel, at
541-774-6160, orBentonJC@jacksoncounty.org.
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