Sadly, the details out­lined in Al Sandine’s 2003 book Plun­der­town, USA: Coos Bay Enters the Global Econ­omy wherein Wey­er­hauser and GP logged old growth at a rate that exceeded regrowth rates and then aban­doned the area to repeat the process in Indone­sia and Brazil, is about to be replayed. This time the resource is chromite and other met­als to be taken via strip min­ing from Coos County for­est lands for a pal­try roy­alty of 3%. ORC the for­eign owned cor­po­ra­tion tasked with extract­ing the ore and a min­eral lease from the County is now dis­cour­ag­ing the County from doing any due dili­gence such as test drilling and has even refused to reveal the results of their own test drills. In other words, ORC wants Coos County to sign a min­eral lease with­out know­ing what is in the ground.

Guess what? Com­mis­sion­ers Nikki Whitty and Kevin Stuffle­bean are keen to take the word of ORC and just sign a deal pos­si­bly giv­ing up mil­lions or even bil­lions of dol­lars of pub­lic resources for the promise of 70 jobs (minus the 22 from the road crew, so really less than 50 jobs). Only Bob Main is keen on doing the nec­es­sary research to pro­tect pub­lic assets. Dan Smith, dis­cour­aged the com­mis­sion­ers from doing their own test drilling at a cost of $70k as unnec­es­sary and then refused to share their own core sam­ples with­out a signed lease first. ORC’s sur­vival as an entity is depen­dent on out­side fund­ing which is con­tin­gent upon Smith extract­ing an inex­pen­sive min­eral lease from Coos County.

Write, call and raise your voice at the next BOC meet­ing in April
Next BOC meet­ing — April 6th — 9:30 a.m. — Coos County Com­mis­sioner Court­room, Coos County Courthouse.

Bob Main:
(541) 396‑3121 or (541) 756‑2020 ext 770
bmain@co.coos.or.us

Nikki Whitty:
(541) 396‑3121 or (541) 756‑2020 ext 247
nwhitty@co.coos.or.us

Kevin Stuffle­bean:
(541) 396‑3121 or (541) 756‑2020 ext 281
kstufflebean@co.coos.or.us