Silver Falls State Park. Courtesy Oregon Parks and Recreation.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Oregon State Parks system was on the brink of collapse. After years of budget cuts, park maintenance had fallen so far behind that more than five dozen state parks were in danger of shutting down.

But a group of Oregonians came to the rescue, and in 1998 voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure dedicating 15% of lottery revenues to fund state parks, protect watersheds, and restore habitat for fish and wildlife.

That measure expires in a few years. So with time running out, many of the same supporters are working on a new ballot measure to make the funding permanent.

Currently known as the Water, Parks and Wildlife measure, the work that’s needed to get it on the ballot is just getting underway. The official kick off is expected later this month when supporters start gathering signatures.

What It Means For Parks

One of the groups behind it is the Oregon Recreation and Parks Association. ORPA’s Amanda Rich says that before the 1998 measure was approved, “state parks were in a dreadful state of disrepair.”

There was a maintenance backlog of more than $100 million. The Parks and Recreation Department was so short of money it couldn’t meet payroll and pay for upkeep. Department spokesman Chris Havel says some park buildings were so dilapidated that you could “push your fist through the roof.” 64 parks were put on a closure list.

So far, about two-thirds of the money available for repairs and updates has been spent.

But the 1998 measure didn’t just keep parks open, it provided money to create new ones.

A trail at Stub Stewart State Park. Photo from Oregon Parks and Recreation.

Perhaps the best known example is Stub Stewart State Park in Washington County. This 1600 acre park opened in 2007, the first new full service park in more than three decades.

But there have been others – Thompson’s Mills Heritage Site near Albany, Crissey Field by Brookings and later this year the opening of Beaver Creek Natural Area near Waldport. Oregon has opened a new park every year since 2005.

The next big opening is the Cottonwood Canyon project along the John Day River near Condon. Current plans call for an 8,000 acre park, plus another possible 8,000 acres of additional recreation area. That would make it, by far, the biggest state park in Oregon. It’s expected to open in 2014.

Havel says lottery funding is what makes all this possible. It gives Parks and Recreation a reliable source of money, allowing them to plan projects years in advance. “There’s been an era of support for the state park system that Oregon has never seen before,” he says.

The Parks Department gets about 41% of its funding from the lottery. It receives nothing from the state’s General Fund. Approving a new ballot measure to keep the money coming is a “life or death” matter for state parks, according to Rich. “We’ll be back in the position of having to close state parks if this measure doesn’t pass.”

Rich says the lottery park money also funds local parks and playgrounds. About $3 million in matching grants will be available this year.

What It Means For Water and Wildlife

The money raised by the ballot measure is split with parks getting half – watersheds and wildlife getting the rest.

Stephen Anderson with the Nature Conservancy in Oregon says that’s important for the state’s natural resources.

The money helped preserve 1700 acres of the Table Rocks near Medford. Another area being protected is Zumwalt Prairie in Wallowa County.

Most of this money is administered by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB). OWEB’s mission is to work on a voluntary basis with landowners and watershed councils to restore stream and salmon habitat. OWEB has helped pay for hundreds of these projects, affecting every county in Oregon. This is what’s called the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. Federal efforts to restore salmon runs have little impact on private lands. The Oregon Plan was created to fill in that gap.

While most of these projects are small, Anderson says they’re now a critical part of the state’s economy, supporting local businesses and putting people to work. Anderson says, “We want to make sure these jobs will be there in the future.”

Passing the update ballot measure this fall, says Anderson, “Will give Oregonians what they want and what’s important, clean water, well maintained parks, healthy fish and wildlife.”

Keep This In Mind

The new Water, Parks and Wildlife ballot measure isn’t a change. It’s a chance for Oregon voters to say they want to keep 15% of lottery money going to these causes on a permanent basis. And because the money comes from the lottery, voting for it won’t raise taxes. Voting against won’t lower them.

For More Information

Oregonians For Water, Parks and Wildlife

According to the Nature Conservancy, 85% of the world’s wild oyster reefs are gone. In our state, they’ve been teetering on the edge of extinction for almost a century.

Confused? Wondering where all those oysters you’ve gobbled up in restaurants come from?  Here are some answers.

A Brief History Of The West Coast Oyster

The decline of the wild Olympia oyster of the west begins in 1849 with the California Gold Rush.  Dick Vander Schaaf with the Nature Conservancy of Oregon says when gold miners struck it rich, they went to San Francisco for “wine, women, song and oysters.”  The booming population of the Bay area quickly ate up all the local oysters and began to import them from the Pacific Northwest.  In the late 1890′s, Washington oystermen were shipping 130,000 bushels of oysters a year.  A decade or two later, the Olympia oyster was pretty much wiped out along the West Coast.

Oyster bed restoration in Netarts Bay. Courtesy The Nature Conservancy © Stephen Anderson/TNC.

Vander Schaaf says during this period, the oyster industry in Oregon was centered in three areas; Netarts Bay in Tillamook County, Yaquina Bay near Newport, and Coos Bay.  Over harvesting was just one of the problems.  Oyster habitat was degraded by heavy sediment released by logging and forest fires in the Coast Range.  The muck that flowed down the rivers suffocated the oyster beds.

The impact was devastating.  Where huge colonies of millions of Olympia Oysters once blanketed the tidal areas, there was nothing.  The oyster went extinct at Netarts Bay and a small population managed to hang on at Yaquina  Bay.  At Coos Bay, researchers thought the Olympia oyster was extinct until a small colony was discovered about ten years ago.

The Comeback Story

This part of the story begins about five years ago when the Nature Conservancy, working with the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery, started reintroducing the native Olympia oyster in Netarts Bay.  Money for the project came from NOAA and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.   The research area belongs to Oregon State University.

It’s hard work.  At the Whiskey Creek Hatchery, oysters spawn and produce larvae that attach themselves to discarded shells.  When the tide is low, volunteers lug heavy mesh bags to the mud flats, laying them out and building new oyster beds from scratch.  They’ve constructed about ten acres of wild oyster beds.  While that may not sound like a huge area, Vander Schaaf estimates there are now one to two million Olympia oysters in the bay.  That’s a big enough colony for the oysters to start reproducing on their own. In ten years, they should be completely self-sustaining.

The lessons they’re learning here will be used to help restore the populations at Yaquina Bay and Coos Bay in Oregon and Puget Sound and Willapa Bay in Washington.

Benefits To The Environment

Vander Schaaf says the’ve already seen an improvement in water quality at Netarts Bay.  He says oyster beds are terrific filter feeders, “sucking in huge amounts of sea water, spitting it out and eating the algae.”  A single oyster filters about 25 gallons of water each day.

The reefs provide valuable habitat for other species such as flounder, Dungeness crab and a multitude of other species.  Vander Schaaf says the juveniles hide in the nooks and crannies of the reefs, giving them a better shot at surviving into adulthood.

The reefs act as natural buffers that protect estuaries from storm surges and rising sea levels.  These are important habitats for young salmon.  Vander Schaaf believes oysters can play an important role in helping restore salmon numbers.

As for those oysters you’ve been eating all these years?  They may be fresh but they are not native.  They are Pacific Oysters that were introduced into the area from Japan after the native species was almost wiped out.     Pacific oysters make up the bulk of the commercial harvest except for some small boutique operations.  And yes, they provide some ecological benefits.  But Vander Schaaf says the native Olympia oyster does a better job.

According to the Medford Mail Tribune, more of this area will be protected thanks to the Nature Conservancy.  The group says it’s completed a $4 million deal to buy more than 1700 acres of Table Rocks land.  What the Nature Conservancy doesn’t own has special protection under the Bureau of Land Management.  Both organizations want to keep the area open to the public.