With the better intentions of a century ago, residents got Congress to establish a municipal watershed on Marys Peak, enabling Corvallis to acquire properties in the Rock Creek watershed. Timber theft soon ended, O&C Railroad lands and other inaccessible parcels ceded to the National Forest Reserve system, and local prominent lumberman, including Spaulding and Clemens, parted with their Rock Creek lands for a song.
But Corvallis government soon wrested control of the independent Rock Creek water district. It found the recreated Forest Service willing to “manage” their own water supply landscape. Revenues from old-growth clearcutting subsidized the costs of a newly needed treatment plant, and paid for upgraded pipelines besides. Still nearly half of those old forests remain.
“Sustainable development” now accelerates. Less water, higher treatment costs, more watershed lands needed to extract water. More timbering, less and dirtier water, reduced forest carbon, excused to cover the costs of “restoration” and “stewardship.” Spaulding’s gift to OSU was recently traded away for more recreation land in MacDonald Dunn, in trade for industrial timbering in the watershed.
All without recognition of the sacred or its peoples. Not by OSU. Not by City Council. Public Works alone is now privatizing timber management to regress the unique to the mean. The worst is soon to come, as the Trump organization has this month moved to dismantle the Forest Service entirely. The city’s watershed, and even its unique inhabitants, will be sold for parts.
Please put an end to this nonsense.
Jim Fairchild, Philomath
Letter to the Editor, submitted April 2, 2026, Corvallis G-T