Word: monumentality
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...sling hands out oatmeal cookies; moments later, a bunch of yahoos heckles the moderator, asking for equal time. Observing from the sidelines is Dave Hill, vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, representing powerful logging interests like Boise Cascade, which hopes to derail the monument. "We'd just like to narrow the area to the significant features that warrant monument designation," says Hill. Contrasting sharply with both the big-money forestry firms and the well-organized Greens, a ragtag crew of ranchers show up to forecast in plain terms how the monument will destroy their way of life...
...most passionate voices belong to homeowners like Paul Martin, a businessman whose hundred or so acres lie within the monument's outer boundaries. "The only people who want to shrink the boundaries are timber companies and cattle owners," he says. "If you don't believe they ruin the land, imagine what your street would look like after a cow or a logger with a chainsaw spent some time there. I don't understand why they insist on ruining this tiny speck on the map when they have millions of acres nearby they're allowed to destroy...
...public meeting ended in White City, the angry ranchers began sounding less like noble John Ford homesteaders and more like Oliver Stone conspiracy theorists convinced the feds are on a land grab. The ranchers and loggers seem outnumbered by monument supporters (people who attended three public hearings seemed to favor the designation by a ratio of 2 to 1). But this week the Jackson County board of commissioners will make recommendations to Interior Secretary Norton, and it is expected that the wide-ranging public support will be tempered with the concerns of businesses...
...thing is certain--if even a single inch is taken away from the monument's boundaries, activists like Dave Willis will give no quarter in their battle to protect the forest...
Made a national monument in the final year of the Clinton Administration, it includes 53,000 scattered acres, putting at odds property owners, timber companies, ranchers and environmentalists...