I know about Cannon Beach, I just can not name the various rivers that run through it. Most of the coastal towns have more than one river that runs through them and most of them are very odd names like Umqua, Slitcoos. The Willamette “could” go through there but it doesn’t seem likely to me since the Willamette runs south to north and dumps into the Sandy, and that dumps into the Columbia and that dumps into the Ocean. Almost all of the coastal rivers go East to West and dump right into the Ocean.
There is a Yellow slug that apparently only lives in the Oregon coastal area, many laws have been past to protect it. We call it the banana slug but there is a much longer name for it. There is also a bird on the coast called the snowy plover. Apparently it only nests on the beach so laws were (attempted) to pass to stop all people from the beach from the months of April to September (tourist season) At first they were trying to make the laws that no one can be on the beach but after much uproar by the local community because banning human life from that 150 mile stretch of beach during the only time they would actually want to come would kill business for those communities. So the law changed to you can not fly kites on that stretch of beach or ride a bike but you can be there. We horrid conservatives like to tease that our state and the Taliban are the only two groups who banned kite flying. In Pendleton Oregon where my family is from has a lot of trouble with beavers. They dam up sections of the Umatilla river, that river is what wateres the wheat, pea and corn crops. It is against the law to break up the dams, though people do when ever they can. In the case of my family there were environmental activists in the area and when they attempted to break the dam the police were called. The police did not agree with it but had no choice but to side with the environmentalists. That years crop failed. Environmentalists are not very welcome in Eastern Oregon. They live in the city on the western part of the state and only come out to the Pendleton area to make sure their laws are being followed. They have no idea what farm life is like, but due to the population of the bigger city’s they make most of the laws. I had no idea that Canada’s national animal was the beaver, and I have no anger at beavers. I actually like beavers. The beaver was doing what beavers do, but the farmers also need to do what they need to do.
Oregon is beautiful I agree. There is not much garbage at all on the streets, we have prisoners from jail pick up trash and weed the sides of the road Monday through Friday.
Salem Oregon (Marion County) passes indigenous plant laws. It all started with Scotch Broom. It was not native here, and now it’s taken over. I don’t have an issue with educating the public on the dangers of bringing in new types of plants or animals. Using the Scotch Broom as an example or in maybe Florida how they have Constrictor problems due to people releasing snakes after they get too big. I have a problem with government mandates and being treated like we are not a free people. You must not pay a lot of attention to Oregon issues. Fights over the right to cut down a tree is in the news almost every day. Fights for land use are also in the news daily. One land use case that I know of is heading to the Supreme Court.
The bottle bill is a good law; many things can be good laws. It helps the homeless make money. It is just the people who populate the west part of the state needs to consider the people in the eastern part of the state when voting and realize the fact that life for them is totally different and they have different needs.
