This article was published in the Estacada News. It will be interesting to see what kind of personal presence will remain after the ranger station is gone. Maybe I should have posted it in Historical Items of Interest since there won't be any ranger stations left soon. :(
Clackamas River Ranger District office will move from Estacada
PMG PHOTO: EMILY LINDSTRAND - A sign welcomes visitors to the Clackamas River Ranger District office in Estacada. In early 2020, district staff will relocate to Sandy.
Employees of the Clackamas River Ranger District will be based in Sandy beginning next year.
Rather than continuing to occupy the building at 595 N.W. Industrial Way in Estacada under a renewed lease, Clackamas River Ranger District employees will join the Mt. Hood National Forest Headquarters staff at 16400 Champion Way in Sandy.
Combining the offices was a joint decision by staff at the Mt. Hood National Forest and the General Service Administration, the federal government's leasing agent.
Laura Pramuk, Mt. Hood National Forest public affairs officer, noted that both the Clackamas River Ranger District and the Forest Headquarters buildings are under occupied.
The building on Champion Way will be remodeled later this year, and although both the National Forest headquarters and the ranger district will occupy the space, they will each have separate offices.
"(Each) will still have its own identity, and its own staff," Pramuk said.
During the remodel, which will begin in May, current employees of the Champion Way building will work from offices in the Clackamas River and ZigZag Ranger districts, or telecommute.
The Clackamas River Ranger District employs 30 full-time employees and approximately 20-30 seasonal employees. District staff members work in administration, biology, fisheries, timber, visitor information services, fire prevention and law enforcement.
At the district office, visitors to the forest can purchase maps and permits and obtain all manner of forest-related information.
Located southwest of Mount Hood, the Clackamas district spans approximately 400,000 acres.
Leaders in the district plan to maintain a presence in the Estacada area, though they are still determining what that will look like.
"We feel it's important to maintain some kind of presence along Highway 224," said Pramuk, noting that forest staff are "exploring what kind of services and products are important to people, what needs to be available and what the opportunities are to provide that."
Pramuk added that forest service staff have spent several years exploring options for relocation.
"We searched throughout Estacada and Sandy to try to find space to accommodate the forest headquarters office and the Clackamas River Ranger District Office," Pramuk said. "We will do everything we can to help the public and local community through the transition."
I see it as yet another way to distance themselves from the forest that they supposedly manage. The farther away they are, the easier it is to forget about what they are managing.
Managing, that's what you call this. Ever since the 70's the environmentalists took over science and the shit hit the fan. My mentor, a biologist with ODFW, ended up spending more time in litigation (i.e. court) than out in the field doing what he had always done the previous 20 years. He had a pilots license and plane and horses at his disposal for whatever he needed to do with the staff he had, mostly 1 or 2 individuals depending on the year. It's all litigation now days. Good for lawyers, not so much for those who seek science out in the field.
In 1974-75 in my senior year @ Baker High School (now Baker City) we had a class called "Diversified Occupations" which allowed students to go out in the public sector once a month during a school day to experience or check out a field you want to pursue. I experienced what a city cop goes through on a shift as well as county sheriffs in delivering court orders or pulling over people for vehicle violations or giving testimony in court proceedings. But the best time I had was working with the game biologist for the last 6 months of my high school. We transplanted troublesome beavers to favorable habitat; feed deer and elk on the winter range; trapped troublesome elk and transported them; built and installed bird houses; did animal surveys counts to let game commission know how to direct the next hunting season; did habitat rehabilitation on farms to bring back the wildlife. Then I went to college in the fall of '75 at OSU to pursue a degree in Wildlife Science.
And the rest you do not know.
Don