Gordon Reeves Oral History Interview, August 26, 2016

Samuel Schmieding: Good afternoon, this is Dr. Samuel J. Schmieding, Forest Ecosystems and Society Department, College of Forestry, Oregon State University. I am here on August 26, 2016 in the home of Gordon Reeves, Research Aquatic Ecologist for the PNW Station of the U.S. Forest Service. We are going to do an oral history interview recording today that is part of a project being sponsored by the PNW Station [U.S. Forest Service], and we are going to be talking mostly about the Northwest Forest Plan, which is the focus of this oral history project, but also about Gordie's life and career. Why don't we get started right away? Anyway, hello Gordie. How are you?

Gordon Reeves: Just great.

SS: Very well. Start as basic as you can. Where were you born and raised?

GR: Well, I was born in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, and raised in Niagara Falls, New York.

SS: And what was your childhood like in relation to the natural world?

GR: Oh, we spent a lot of time outside. It was weekends going places to camp and 00:01:00fish, and then I almost fished almost every day during the summer, places around Niagara Falls. We'd ride our bikes and walk to them, and spend the whole day by a river.

SS: Was the place in Canada just on the other side of the border?

GR: It was. It was directly right across from the falls. [Niagara]

SS: Okay, so when you talk about it, you were literally in the same neck of the woods, both times?

GR: Yeah. It was like going from here to Linn County [adjacent to Benton County, locale of Corvallis], going across the bridge and you were in Canada.

SS: What experiences did you have when you were young that got you interested in nature and science and what you became as a professional?

GR: It was just always enjoying being outside and being in places that were not crowded. A lot of trees and water. It just felt really good.

SS: What were some of your favorite places in either the Canadian or the New 00:02:00York side?

GR: There are a couple places that come to mind immediately. Algonquin Park in northern Ontario. I used to go there most summers and canoe and camp. With the Boy Scouts, we used to go down into the southern tier [local term for southern part of western New York] in New York, into the Allegheny Mountains, and do a lot of camping and fishing down there.

SS: Were you always fascinated with the water?

GR: Oh, totally.

SS: In the sense that, obviously, your career became water-based?

GR: Yeah, yeah. I always had an interest in rivers. And I had an aunt, who was-she was an old-maid, my Aunt Rose. We'd go visit her on Friday nights up in Canada, and she would take me down to the river to catch "minnies," as she would say, and we'd fish for yellow perch. And that was like a highlight of the week, to go up and get Aunt Rose, and go down to the river and fish with her.

SS: When young, what did you notice about land and natural resource management in your home region that made an impact on you, maybe that set something up in your mind; I like that, I don't like that, or --?

GR: In upstate New York, and particularly Western New York, it was very industrial. The places that weren't strongly affected were scarce, as everything was affected back East and in that part of New York by some type of human activity. Even on the farm land, there was always patches of woods, and that's it. I remember the deer and the pheasants. That was the thing that always used to capture my fascination, these little patches somewhere out in the field, you'd go there, and invariably there were white-tail deer and ring-necked 00:04:00pheasants. Then, as I got a little older and started being able to go to Ontario and see that northern Ontario was not developed, just the enormity of it, the scale of these lakes and how neat it was to be able to fish in them and just walk around them.

SS: Basically, up on the Canadian Shield up north. Right?

GR: Shield, yeah, exactly. Yep.

SS: So, being around that area at that time, pre-environmental age, what do you remember about pollution and water and what you were told, you can't swim there or that kind of thing?

GR: Well, it was interesting because we would play hockey in the wintertime, and looked for areas that were frozen. Any spot that had frozen water on it, we'd gravitate to it and use it as long as we could. There were some places around 00:05:00plants, these various industrial plants in our neighborhood that never froze. Or if they did, it was always just a very thin layer, and it was like, that's not water. (Laughs) There's something going on there.

SS: It was a little bit too chemically-altered to freeze at normal temperatures?

GR: Exactly. And then, my dad was a millwright, and he worked in a carbon factory. You could just see the toll that whole lifestyle took on people. Most everybody, all the men in our neighborhood, their desire was to make it to 65, so they didn't have to work. And many of them didn't, and those who did, didn't last very long past 65.

SS: Was that because of the toxic environment they were exposed to when there really weren't many protections for citizens and workers alike?

GR: Yeah, totally, totally.

SS: Interesting. When did you first travel out West?

GR: I had never been west of Pennsylvania until we moved. My wife and I moved to Arcata, California, to go to grad school in 1976.

SS: So, you were really an easterner?

GR: Oh, totally. And I'd spent a lot of time in northern Maine, into New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. But I had never been west of Pennsylvania until I was 22 or 23-years-old.

SS: When I met you, Gordie, I was trying to figure out your accent. It wasn't quite Boston, but it wasn't quite New York.

GR: It's western New York.

SS: Western New York.

GR: That flat A?

SS: Now I know, thank you. So you did not come out west until later. What was 00:07:00the first thing that you remember about the West? What places made an impression?

GR: Well, having never been to the West, I remember we were driving, and it was in a Volkswagen bug. We had everything we owned either on it or in that bug, and in fact, whoever wasn't driving, had to put a box in their lap.

SS: You drove across the country in a Volkswagen bug? That's a great story.

GR: Yeah. I remember seeing a sign for Denver, a day-and-a-half into the drive, and I thought, "Well, God, California can't be that far." You know, because Colorado was "the West" in my mind. Then we realized, we weren't even halfway. We were about halfway across the country.

SS: How did your bug do over the passes in Colorado that go up to almost 12,000 feet?

GR: Well, we drove in third gear for the whole day. And our engine didn't last 00:08:00very long once we hit Arcata.

SS: You really torched it on that trip, didn't you?

GR: Oh, we did. We pushed it way beyond its limits. I blew a valve six months after we got to Arcata.

SS: So you were an undergraduate. What was your training in?

GR: In biology, a liberal arts degree in biology.

SS: At what university?

GR: It was at the State University of New York College at Oswego.

SS: Okay.

GR: That was right on Lake Ontario.

SS: Isn't that the Finger Lake area?

GR: No, it was right on Lake Ontario.

SS: Oh, Ontario, okay.

GR: Yeah, directly north of Syracuse. The dorm was literally twenty feet from a lake. The dorm I lived in on the campus was right on the lake. SS: What took you out west in terms of the program at Humboldt State?

GR: I always wanted to go west. And there was a fellow where I worked at a research lab on campus after I graduated, and the fellow who was the physical oceanographer, he came from Humboldt. He was working at that lab. I was telling 00:09:00him, I would really like to go into fisheries, and he said, "Oh, you've got to go to Humboldt State." And I didn't even know where Humboldt State was. I was working in northern Maine that summer and I submitted an application to Humboldt State, and I hadn't even looked on a map as to where it was. It was in northern California. I knew it wasn't San Francisco, so I thought, "Well, okay, that should be fine."

SS: This is when you looked on the map and said, "Eureka, I have found it."

GR: I found it, exactly.

SS: Sorry, I had to throw that one in. (Laughs)

GR: Well, Eureka, we did find it.

SS: For you guys on the record, Eureka is the sister city [adjacent] of Arcata.

GR: Exactly. I got a call in March on a Thursday night, and this fellow said, "My name is Terry Roelofs. I just accepted you at Humboldt as a grad student." 00:10:00And I said, "Great." He said, "But you have to be here next week."

SS: So, that's why this sprint across the country in the bug?

GR: Yeah. So I asked her [wife], and Meg was literally getting ready to go to bed, and I said, "Hey, Meg, you want to move to California?" She said, "Why?" I said, "I just got accepted at grad school." She said, "Sure, let's do it." We both said yes, and both quit our jobs on Friday. After we hung up the phone, we called up friends and said we're going to have a party tomorrow tonight. They said, "What are you having a party for?" We said, "We've moving." They said, "You're moving? Where are you moving to?" "California." "No." We both walked in the next day and quit our jobs. We had a party that night and we gave almost everything, things, stuff we didn't want, away. After people left on Saturday afternoon, we drove down to Meg's family in New Jersey and said goodbye. We came home on Sunday. My sister and brother-in-law came and helped us, my mother had 00:11:00just bought us a new bed, so we were giving the bed back to my mother. We moved it to my mother's house on Monday, and on Wednesday morning, we jumped in the car and drove to Arcata. We were there on Saturday.

SS: And I take it, you liked Arcata?

GR: Here's the funny thing. The plan was, okay, I'll get my masters and then we'll go back east. We lived in Arcata three days and decided we were as far east [U.S.] as we were ever moving again.

SS: In other words, at least through the Ph.D.

GR: Yeah, we lived in Arcata for about two-and-a-half, almost three years. Then Meg went to law school in Eugene, I started a Ph.D. program at OSU, and we never left.

SS: Where did you live, Eugene or Corvallis?

GR: Well, for the first two years, it was Meg's second year of law school when I 00:12:00started school at OSU, so I commuted between Eugene and here. Be in Corvallis during the school year. Then during the summer, Meg got a job in Corvallis or in Salem, and we lived here. And then in May of '81, we moved here permanently.

SS: What professor, during either your undergraduate or graduate work, made the biggest impression on you, as a person, as a teacher, or in terms of theory and content?

GR: Well, I would point two people out, and they were-well, three people. Two of them were at Humboldt, Terry Roelofs and Dave Hankin. Terry was my major professor at Humboldt, and Terry was going to be on sabbatical and David came as 00:13:00a sabbatical replacement, and it was just a really cool experience. Terry was a really wonderful teacher, but he pushed you to really think different, which was neat. David, he was a biometrician, and the rigor and the demand that David had was just incredible. It was just one of those things where you wanted to be pushed. And the harder David pushed, the harder I worked. He would just push. He said, "I couldn't believe how hard I pushed on you, and you didn't just-"

SS: Now, when you started graduate school, what did you want to be, and at the end, what did you want to be? Same question for both. How or why did that change during graduate school?

GR: No, it only reinforced that I had done the right thing. So, when I got out 00:14:00of Humboldt, I really want to keep going, and had an opportunity. I heard Fred Everest talk in a meeting I was at. Fred was at the [PNW-USFS] research station, and he was talking about a project that he had. He was going to look for a grad student to work on this project. So, I went up to him after the meeting and said, "Look, I'm here. I'll do it." SS: What was the project? Do you remember?

GR: He was looking at the effect of turbidity. He wanted to look at the effect of turbid water on the interactions between juvenile steelhead and a native minnow. He had done other things with some other parts of the study, but he wanted to finish it up with a Ph.D. student. And so, I just walked up to him and said, "I'll do it." And he said, "Well, come and see me." I said, "When?" I was 00:15:00there the next day, showed him my master's thesis. And he said, "Alright, let me see what I can do." And within a week, I had been accepted at the school.

SS: Were there any particular places in northern California or the Pacific Northwest during that period when you and your wife moved out here, down in northern California, but also up here in Corvallis and Eugene, that you started saying, this is my place, or I really enjoy this? I mean, how did your constellation of places start to develop?

GR: Well, the first part was the Trinity and Klamath Rivers in northern California. Terry and David were both avid fly-fishermen. So, it was like, come on, we're going to go fishing, for steelhead, and I never had never done this before. I remember it being like when I was growing up, my dad would get Sports 00:16:00Afield, Outdoor Life, and Field and Stream.

SS: Field and Stream, that's the one I remember.

GR: There were three of them, and they came out every month. I remember my mom and dad would go shopping on Thursday nights because that's when my dad got paid. And the first Thursday of the month, I couldn't wait till he got home because I wanted to look in those magazines. The thing that always fascinated me were these guys that were fishing for salmon and steelhead in Idaho. This was before a lot of the dams were on the Columbia, so these guys needed big, black raincoats and black boots, and were holding up these monster fish.

SS: Back when the fish could actually get up that far?

GR: Yeah, get up there, exactly. And so, it was like, wow! I want to see that, and so that always fueled my interest in getting west. But once we started doing that, and David [Hankin] would just, we were talking about our relationship of the last almost 40 years, about how we always were pushing each other to do 00:17:00something more than we would normally do. And so, David had a class he taught at 8:00 a.m., on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And the class was over at 8:50. At 9:00, he'd pick me up and we'd head off to the Trinity River, and just go explore.

SS: Did you tie your own flies? GR: Yes, I learned to tie my own flies, make my own rods.

SS: And you're still a big fisherman?

GR: Oh, yeah, totally.

SS: Yeah, I can tell. In other words, how many times have you read Norman McClean's book, right? [A River Runs Through It]

GR: Yeah. (Laughter) Right.

SS: And that's when you're supposed to say, the movie isn't quite as good as the book, right?

GR: Well, right.

SS: How do you think the contrast between where you were raised, the Northeast, and here, affected how you saw the landscapes here which were less human 00:18:00impacted, but still where issues were happening? How do you think that affected the context of how you went into a career of science in relation to land management?

GR: You know what, I think the difference was the awe of these systems out here compared to what they are back East, and just the wildness of them compared to what you see back East. And so, it was like, whoa, man, these things are just really wild in terms of, not in just how they looked, but you could just see, if you started looking around, at how they behaved.

SS: Any particular streams or places in particular that was like, became like your favorite places to go, either play or work?

GR: Like I said, initially, it was the Klamath and the Trinity.

SS: But here, up north?

GR: In Oregon, one of the things I was doing as a grad student, was helping run 00:19:00field crews and do all of data analysis and report-writing for the Forest Service, of the work they were doing. So, we got to go over to Cummins Creek on the coast, which was a wilderness area. That was my first introduction to a wilderness area. And you know, it's on the coast with these monstrous spruce and cedar, big Doug firs, and big-leaf maples, and the whole bit. There were landslides everywhere, and these weren't human-caused landslides.

SS: So, it wasn't in connection to clear-cutting and that?

GR: No, no, no. It was just like you'd look and say, wow, these systems are really wild.

SS: It's also because there's so much moisture on that slope that you're going 00:20:00to have a lot more earthflows and landslides. Yes?

GR: Right. But then, they wanted us within. I started school in January of '80, and then, in May, St. Helens blew. And Jim Sedell had come here. Jim and I arrived at the lab in January to start school, and Jim arrived in March to work at the Forest Service. St. Helens blew in May.

SS: May 18th.

GR: Yeah. And I remember, it was a Friday afternoon, I was walking through the lab, and Jim said, "What are you doing?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'm not doing anything." "Alright, you're with me." We got in the car, we drove to Portland, got in a helicopter, and this was a week after St. Helens blew. We got to St. Helens on a Friday, and St. Helens blew the Sunday before.

SS: Right.

GR: This was five days after St. Helens blew. We were in a helicopter flying 00:21:00over the eruption zone looking for streams.

SS: Was this the same helicopter with Jerry Franklin, or a different one?

GR: No, this was-

SS: Just a different one. Right?

GR: It was a different one, yeah. We were allowed to walk around, but we couldn't go more than just a very short distance from the helicopter, and you could see the mountain steaming and stuff.

SS: Steaming?

GR: And there were places that you didn't want to walk, and you had to be careful where you stepped, because there was still hot areas underneath the ash. It was like, holy mackerel, you can't be serious. This is crazy! And it was so wild to see this place completely blown apart.

SS: And you'd never seen it, of course?

GR: I'd never seen anything like that.

SS: But you'd never seen St. Helens before?

GR: No, not at all.

SS: It was always the perfect "Fuji-esque" symmetrical cone of the Northwest. On the Portland horizon, there was Hood [to the east] and there was St. Helens [north across Columbia River], when I was growing up.

GR: Oh, wow.

SS: So you saw those two things, and now it's like as I describe it, as if 00:22:00"God's meat cleaver" just kind of sliced off one side of St. Helens.

GR: Right. Oh, it was absolutely wild. I remember coming home and Meg said, "Where were you?" I said, "You wouldn't believe what I just did." (Laughs)

SS: And she said, "Hum, you should have told me." (Laughs)

GR: That was in the day before cell phones.

SS: Was there a bit of trepidation and nervousness in front of this?

GR: No, I think that it was there, but it was overrun or overwhelmed by the pure excitement of being there, and being with Jim and Fred. And they were like little kids.

SS: Fred Swanson? [Geologist also involved with MSH Studies]

GR: No, Fred Everest.

SS: Fred Everest, okay.

GR: They were like little kids. Wow, I've never seen this before. There were massive trees all over the place.

SS: It must have been an overwhelming experience?

GR: Yeah, and we found sculpin, and it was like, what!

SS: Found a what?

GR: Sculpin. You know, they're a type of fish, a bottom-dwelling fish.

SS: They were still alive?

GR: They were in these streams, you know, and they were just amazing.

SS: Did you see Spirit Lake?

GR: Yeah.

SS: Back then it was-

GR: Spirit Lake, you could hardly see it for all the trees and stuff in it. [From eruption, there was a large "log raft" floating on an elevated lake surface.]

SS: Right.

GR: Yes, we saw Spirit Lake, but did we see much water? We didn't see much water.

SS: So, were the flowing areas or the places where there were fish, down a little bit lower farther away from the mountain?

GR: No, these were just right at the very base.

SS: Really?

GR: Yeah. Oh God, it was just amazing. It was just absolutely amazing. I mean, Jim, he was like, he just couldn't believe what we were seeing.

SS: Well, not too many people get to see that.

GR: No, no, it was absolutely amazing.

SS: Was it also kind of somber because you realized a whole bunch of people died?

GR: Yeah, there was certainly that aspect to it. And especially, not on that 00:24:00particular trip, but then we went to later trips when we flew all around the area, and you'd get there, and here's a car, you know, just completely charred. Or there was a campsite that you could see where the remnants of [people] were, and from the heat something was left and you knew somebody was like there [in past]. So, that was sobering.

SS: What do you think that did to you, obviously emotionally, but what did that do to you intellectually, specifically how it related to your career in aquatic biology?

GR: Well, that was the idea that it really started, the beginning of thinking about systems and the common dogma about aquatic ecosystems that they were all relatively stable, and that they bounced back to this stable condition if 00:25:00they're perturbed, in a relatively short time. You look at this, and say, no way that's bouncing back in a short time. This is going to be a while. And I think it's where Jerry Franklin started thinking about the importance of these early successional systems.

SS: Well, the little colonizers that he found.

GR: Definitely.

SS: The little lone species out there on the pumice plain, for instance?

GR: Where the elk were booming, and fire weed was coming back. And so, there was this whole, you could see terrestrially, but there were things going on in streams that were equally incredible, you know.

SS: How did it change the chemistry of the streams? Obviously, dramatically.

GR: Yeah, it had some really significant impacts. I'm trying to remember all the numbers, what alkalinity and pH, and there were significant changes, but the 00:26:00specifics I don't remember. But I remember Jim just being, like, "holy mackerel." But, within a short time, the aquatic invertebrates were starting to recolonize these areas. The tailed frogs were coming back.

SS: How would you characterize it today? I mean, the last time that you've been there?

GR: You know, it's a going place. The big thing was, it's not clear how rainbow trout got into Spirit Lake. They were there before, and did they survive or were they introduced? But, you know, the rainbow trout population in Spirit Lake now, it's a trophy fishery.

SS: Is that because they're really large now?

GR: Oh, they're very large, you know, five and six pounds are very common. And 00:27:00the productivity of that lake has just gone through the roof.

SS: And why would that be in your view?

GR: Well, you have a tremendous amount of organic material blown into or blown onto the lake. And it's decomposing, becoming available to microorganisms and it worked its way through the food chains and the plankton. It's just a booming place. Now that will tail off as that vegetation is used up.

SS: It will reach a different level of stasis, you mean? Right? GR: Yeah.

SS: So, you come out of the St. Helens experience. Now, did you stay involved with that or was that just kind of a one-time deal?

GR: No, I stayed involved for the first couple years with it, with Jim going back up on a fairly regular basis to do water chemistry, stream surveys, collect 00:28:00fish and so on. But I had a dissertation to finish.

SS: What was your dissertation on?

GR: I looked at the effect of water temperature on the interactions between a redside shiner, which is a native minnow, and juvenile steelhead. I built artificial streams at the lab and then I did field work. I played around with Jim and Fred for two years at St. Helens, and then I decided that, I've got to get moving here. So, I eased out of the whole thing.

SS: Where was most of your field work in relation to your dissertation?

GR: Down on the Umpqua, on the North Umpqua, a couple tributaries of the North Umpqua, and then down on Cow Creek on the South Umpqua.

SS: Did you work around Coyote Creek, in that area?

GR: I did.

SS: South Umpqua Experimental Forest?

GR: No, this was down lower.

SS: Okay. So, how did this transition into the Forest Service, how did that happen, or were you Forest Service right out of college?

GR: No, as I said, I went there and when I started with the grad program, the Forest Service was sponsoring my research. The first summer, I was building artificial streams over at the lab, and there was only Fred Everest and Jim Sedell there, but they had no field crew and they had one technician. So, the agreement was, I would go in the field and help them do their work, and then they would help me with building the stream channels. When we weren't in the 00:30:00field, everybody was working on, well, Fred and Carl MacLemore, who was the technician, and I, were working on the channels. Jim would come down and talk, but he wasn't much inclined mechanically or otherwise to do those types of things. But we would work on, we would go back-and-forth, and so I got to see a lot of the Coast Range, and then like I say, St. Helens, with those guys.

I did that, and then the field crew expanded, and eventually I ran the field crew during the summer while I was doing my own research, plus helped Jim at St. Helens. Then I did all the data analysis and report writing for the Forest Service for all the work they did during the summer. And finally, after doing that for two seasons, Jim said, this is unfair, you can't do this. So, they [U.S. Forest Service] gave me an appointment as a fish biologist, which was called a term appointment, which is a temporary appointment. And this was in 00:31:00October or November and the first of 1984. The first assignment was, they gave me an office and told me I wasn't supposed to come out of the office until my dissertation was done.

SS: And how long was that, about six months?

GR: That was about six months. That was like November, and I finished in March.

SS: So, you come out finished in '85. Correct?

GR: Yeah.

SS: And you basically went into the Forest Service?

GR: Well, I was working on a term appointment.

SS: But I mean, that continued, is what I'm saying.

GR: Then, after I graduated, I still had this appointment and was working with Jim and Fred, and started doing some stuff up in southeast Alaska with some folks. And then I worked mostly down on the south coast down on the Elk River 00:32:00near Port Orford [Oregon]. That's where things really started to happen at Elk River. We started seeing these systems and how amazingly diverse and dynamic they were, and started thinking about how did fish ever persist in this environment. And then you start looking at, oh, let's look at histories of an average fish or an average salmon.

SS: (Sneezes) Excuse me. Okay.

GR: We started thinking about things really, really differently as a result of that experience. I can remember calling Fred and Jim up and saying, "You've got to get down there. I've got to show you this." It was the north fork of Elk River. We had gone in there and it was just absolutely amazing. There were 00:33:00terraces, fifty and sixty feet stepping terraces, that were fifty or sixty feet above the existing stream channel, and there were pieces of wood protruding from it. And you could see where there had just been this massive hillslope failure [landslides], and it dammed up the whole valley. You could see where there was a lake formed. And now this was some of the most productive habitat on the whole coast.

SS: Now, how did your real life experiential knowledge that you were gaining as a young professional, compare and/or contrast with the book-learned knowledge that you had from undergrad, masters, Ph. D.?

GR: Well, I remember then one of the most exciting lectures I ever heard was by Ken Cummins and Jim Sedell. I was taking this stream ecology class. It was one of the first courses I took when I came and went into the Ph.D. program. They 00:34:00were talking about the river continuum concept, and they had just published on it. It was a really neat idea about how streams operate in different parts of the [riparian] network. But out there, I remember talking to Jim and saying, "Jim, the continuum doesn't work." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Look at this system. If we had been here fifty years ago, we'd be seeing something very different than what we're seeing right now." So we started talking about how variables of streams and forests operate based on time. And the prevailing dogma was about stability and absence of variability, and yet, you get out on the ground, it's like, whoa, wait a minute, these systems are really variable, not just amongst themselves, but even within themselves. And so, it really started to spark a wave.

SS: How did Jim modify his river continuum concept? [Concept originated from 00:35:00Robin Vannote of Stroud Water Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania.]

GR: I think Jim started to think that maybe the river continuum wasn't the right concept, that it indeed lacked a temporal aspect to it. And so, we started thinking about it, and that led to us thinking this is really interesting. At that time, we were into the "timber wars." [Also called "forest wars"] And the timber wars were not just owls; a lot of it was dealing with fish and the concerns about the impact of timber management practices on fish. You sort of step back and say, "Why are the timber guys saying they see it one way, and the fish guys are standing there and they're seeing it in a very different way." You 00:36:00think about it for a little bit and it all has to do with world views, which we very seldom ever surface or articulate, and yet, we'll argue, yes, it is, or no, it isn't, until the cows come home, and we never understand why I'm saying yes and you're saying no. And often, I think, much of it has to do about how you view the world.

So, you've got the timber people and the people in general who have this view of the world that's very dynamic, both in space and time, and so change is a natural part of your thinking. On the other hand, you've got the aquatic people, who have paradigms shaping their thinking that are all very static and predictable, so any change is viewed as negative. And so, you've got these two groups who are talking to each other, and really arguing with each other, who 00:37:00are coming from very different perspectives, and yet that never gets articulated, to try to understand those things. So, it started us thinking about, okay, what is it that's really going on?

SS: Well, it is world-view differences.

GR: It's world-views we don't communicate right. But it doesn't hardly ever get surfaced or acknowledged.

SS: Well, for instance, some science, and especially environmentalists, view an idealized nature as having humans removed.

GR: Right.

SS: And then they insert themselves, whether it be activism or science, into that, but sometimes I don't think they're able to reconcile the fact that they are humans interfering in the system, even if it's just intellectually. Right?

GR: Yes, exactly.

SS: So, anyway, yeah.

GR: But it was interesting, really interesting, talking, particularly with Jim, 00:38:00about this whole thing. Like wow! This is really interesting! It provided much better insights into what was going on than I ever had before.

SS: Now, tell me about, because you were here in the '80s --

GR: Right.

SS: Tell me about the "Forest Wars," and what you saw as a young, up-and-coming science guy who just was finishing graduate school, coming out. What was it like? What did you hear about? What did you see? What did you feel?

GR: Oh, everything in the science was geared towards to show how bad timber harvest was. That was really what it was all directed towards. There was this presumption that timber harvest was negative and had no ecological benefits at all. So, a lot of the research was geared to support that premise.

SS: But do you think that was mainly because of the type of timber harvest that was dominant [clear-cuts], versus all timber harvests? [Less intensive]

GR: Well, yeah, I think there were a number of things going on. That was part of it, you know, that it was all clear-cutting. But underlying that whole controversy was not just the timber harvest, as a lot of the real issues about jobs, were about automation of the industry. The mills were starting to move towards more efficient ways of dealing with the lumber. It was taking fewer people to produce the same amount of boards. There was a growing recognition we were running out of big trees, and the social/legal aspects of it as well. It 00:40:00was a really cool to be here beginning one's career.

SS: Because it was definitely a synergized, energetic, intense time?

GR: Yeah, right. And then mixed into that was the whole legal aspect, where, that was at the end of the Reagan administration, the beginning of the Bush I administration, and those guys were going to cut timber. You knew they were going to cut timber.

SS: Well, Ronald Reagan said, "You've seen one tree, you've seen them all."

GR: We were living in Arcata when he made that statement.

SS: And you're in the middle of the Redwoods?

GR: Yeah. That was the end of the era where there was part of one [single] redwood [log] on a logging truck. But it was like they were getting the last of 00:41:00the really big trees. On [Route] 101 in Arcata, I can remember either driving or walking across the 101 bridges, and every couple minutes, here came a truck with one piece of wood that covered, you know, where the whole trailer was a single-log load on a logging trailer.

SS: Part of one log.

GR: Part of one log, exactly.

SS: Did that make a negative impression on you, or was it more --?

GR: The other thing going on, it was just before the establishment of Redwood [State & National] Park. All of the private timber companies were liquidating the trees on their land because they knew the Park Service, or the government [state and/or federal], was going to buy the land.

SS: But you're talking about the extension of Redwood Park, because '68 was the 00:42:00original, and '80 was the expansion? Correct? [Redwood State and National Park - collection of reserves on northern California coast.]

GR: Right, the extension, the expansion, yeah. Simpson Timber, and I can't remember who the other companies were, they were cutting trees like there was no tomorrow. You could just see that on the highway, and it was all in anticipation of the park.

SS: What would you say that your environmental ethics and philosophy were before you came out here, but then, as you developed as a young professional, and viewing these things that we're talking about here?

GR: Well, I would say, it was the ethics. I was developing the ethic back East, I think just from some intuitive sense, but it was really hardened, I guess, I 00:43:00don't even know how else to describe it. I was reading Sand County Almanac [Aldo Leopold], a reading that Terry [Roelof] had us do. Another book, I wish I could remember the name of it. It was a series of essays that Terry had us read for his fish ecology class, that even more so than Sand County Almanac, started and really pushed me to really think about the environment, what the environment was, and what we were doing, how we were fitting into it or not fitting into it. Man, I wish I could remember the name of the book. I remember it had a blue cover?

SS: Was it an anthology, or was it one particular author?

GR: One author. And, it's funny, I was just talking to Ken Cummins about this back in Montana. He was talking about the advent of using the bathrooms, of 00:44:00humans having indoor plumbing and having bathrooms, and forcing us to spend, causing us to spend more time inside than we would have, and particularly at all times of the day. He was talking about when you had to use an outdoor toilet, you saw more of nature and experienced more of nature, because you would be going out there at night, you saw something different than you did during the day, but you were always having to go outside to do something, to do this particular task. And how that was a real interesting idea, that chips away at that connectivity that we have.

SS: So, how did your career develop that first, let's say, five to seven years, before the Northwest Forest Plan process started?

GR: Yeah.

SS: In other words, what led into you becoming the person that you were 00:45:00professionally, that then got asked to join this massive project?

GR: Well, we continued. We were working in Elk River. It was supposed to be a one-year project, and it turned into a twenty 20-year project, and just because we were starting to pick on these dynamics of variability and other stuff. Then, we started expanding from there into different parts of the coast. That was the real focus leading into challenging some of the dogma that was there. But what happened, one of the things that really was a very interesting experience; after the first year, either the first or second year we worked in Elk River, one of 00:46:00the things we were identifying was the North Fork of the Elk River and how incredibly productive it was for a variety of fish. The Forest Service was proposing a big timber sale in there. This was right at the very end [era of industrial forestry before the NWFP], they were still hanging on [trying to log in national forests].

SS: Was this in the redwoods? [Zone of species coverage.]

GR: No. This is the Elk River on the Siskiyou National Forest.

SS: Because you're north of the main range [of redwoods], right?

GR: The Forest Service put out a notice that they were going to have a massive timber sale and build roads and the whole thing, in the North Fork [Elk River], and we were starting to get attention for our work down there. I had made presentations to various groups, and I was actually asked to testify at a congressional hearing on it because it was being considered for Wild and Scenic 00:47:00[River] designation. So the Siskiyou National Forest was moving ahead with a massive timber sale in there. I was asked to come down to meet with [Congressman] Peter DeFazio. It was one of his first terms in Congress.

SS: By the way, he also drives a Volkswagen Bug. You know that?

GR: Oh, I know.

SS: I had to bring that up because of your car.

GR: And so, I was asked by-I can't think of, Bob, Bob, what was his name? I want to say Bob Weaver. Jim Weaver was the guy he replaced.

SS: Yeah.

GR: Bob, I can't remember his name, was his natural resources staffer. [Bob Warren] He asked me to come down to meet with him. I was really just starting my career in the Forest Service, and he said, "I want you to come down to a meeting." It turned out that he had the environmental groups in his office, and 00:48:00the Forest Service, the supervisor and the district ranger, were there. I had never been involved in anything like this before, so I had no idea what this was all about. So, I go down there, and they are talking about this timber sale. The forest supervisor was talking, and he said, "Gordie approved this timber sale." But I'm like, I looked at the guy, and it's like, huh?

SS: Did you understand that you had approved the timber sale?

GR: No, not at all. Not at all.

SS: Okay. GR: And so-

SS: What environmental law or paradigm would have been necessary for a science person to approve to make that okay?

GR: Well, first of all, a science person, a scientist, can't approve of anything.

SS: I know that, but I'm making a point about the background science or -- ?

GR: Well, I think he assumed that I would bless his proposed actions, because I worked for the Forest Service. And so, DeFazio's aide said to me, "Is that true?" I said, "No, it's not true. In fact, that's a really highly erosive area of the entire Elk River, and you are likely to have massive erosion events if you went in there and logged." He said, "Do you approve of them logging?" I said, "Not my job to approve of them logging. My job is to tell them what's 00:50:00likely to happen or not happen if they do it." He said, "Did you ever [guy's name was Abel Camareras] tell Mr. Camareras that you approved?" I said, "I've never had a discussion about that at all." He looked at the guy and said, "I'll tell you what, you go ahead with that sale and your career in the Forest Service is over." End of the meeting. Well, they tried to go ahead with the sale, and I don't know where that guy ended up.

SS: Needless to say, he wasn't your best friend?

GR: Oh, no, no. I got the forest supervisor, he was the acting forest supervisor, who called up Fred [Everest] and said, I wasn't a team player, so on and so forth. Fred said, "Look, his job is not to be a team player, his job is to give you an assessment."

SS: And of course, this was the beginning, well, maybe not the beginning, but 00:51:00when it was obvious to the typical timber guys, that the "ologists" were having more and more of a role.

GR: Oh, right. SS: In terms of how decisions were made. Correct?

GR: Well, it wasn't just the "ologists." What was going on is the scientists were --

SS: Well, that's what I meant by that. Any scientist.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: I used that phrase [ologist] because you hear a lot of people describe that.

GR: Well, I think there's a lot of "ologists" in the agency, in the management side of the agency. But it was the time when the credibility of the Forest Service was being severely diminished by the clear-cutting system. They were losing suit after suit after suit. Pretty soon, they had no credibility. So the legal system was turning to the scientists, which was what FEMAT's all about. The reason that FEMAT came about is because the agency, the management side of 00:52:00the agency, had no credibility, legally or otherwise. The court systems and the agencies turned to the scientists to help them get them out, you know, to help break that log jam.

SS: Within the context of environmental laws.

GR: Exactly.

SS: Which changed how multiple-use and the traditional mission of the Forest Service was interpreted.

GR: Right, right.

SS: I mean, sustained-yield and the whole dynamic that was very technocratic and economic, had a new paradigm it had to steer towards.

GR: Right. And the agency wasn't able to do that, or be willing to do that.

SS: They didn't do it easily.

GR: Right.

SS: That's what you're saying. How was clear-cutting, and I'll call it traditional silviculture [post-World War II U.S.], affecting hydrological dynamics and water quality in streams, big and small?

GR: It completely alters the way water comes off the landscape, and it alters 00:53:00the quality of the water coming off. So, instead of being held on the land, hitting leaves and the forest, and being held in storage with the root systems and everything else, it doesn't happen, so the water is just running off. And a lot of that has to do with roads. Basically, the road networks that are associated with these management activities become streams, a lot of these first-order streams that channel water off the landscape faster. So, you're moving the water off the landscape faster, and you're also causing erosion. So, you're driving sediments into the stream.

SS: And the water is much more turbid?

GR: Well, yeah, with the turbidity.

SS: You're talking about your early project, and I'm going back to the turbidity 00:54:00thing. So, it was interesting that you studied that, and of course it's a direct by-product, often immediately, after clear-cuts? Right?

GR: Right, yeah.

SS: So, what were some of the most dramatic examples that you saw early in your career before the Northwest Forest Plan?

GR: Mapleton was the big place, I remember when I first came on, where there was all kinds of controversy. When I first started grad school, and even into the early part of my career with the Forest Service, Mapleton was the centerpiece for all of that, for the whole clear-cutting effect on fish debate. You went over there, and there were massive clear-cuts that you could see were changing the whole nature of the way things were operating.

SS: And this was still at the time when there really was no opposition to speak of against clear cuts?

GR: Oh, I think there was.

SS: Well, starting.

GR: It was starting. It definitely was starting. And it was not just the enviros, as there were people, a lot of the so-called "ologists" inside the management section of the Forest Service and BLM, who fully recognized clear-cutting was an issue. This was in the early '80s, and it's hard to imagine, but that was when any type of stream protection was just starting to happen. We were starting to see, it was the earliest time riparian buffers were being implemented. Often times, they were either, one, really small, or you could do a lot of activity within them under the guise of management. But it was the beginning. It was the beginning.

SS: You also had recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen concerned with 00:56:00the quality of the water and the effect on the fisheries too. Correct?

GR: But that was beginning. You know, people hadn't thought about it, and the Clean Water Act [1972] really hadn't come into the picture.

SS: It was in place, but it hadn't been used that much.

GR: Yeah, it hadn't been used, exactly. So, there were a lot of things that were starting to emerge and coalesce in the mid to late '80s around concerns about environmental effects. Then you had the rigor of the-like you say, in the last part of the Reagan administration and then into the Bush administration, just the total resistance to anything but "get the wood out." Eventually, the court systems under the guise of ESA and the owls, began to really challenge the 00:57:00agencies about what they were doing.

SS: What particular examples that you remember, of especially dramatic erosion events or water quality issues, in that period of time before the Northwest Forest Plan process [Early 1980s to 1993-94], when you were out in the field, either recreationally or working?

GR: I remember where it just really hit home was on Canal Creek, a tributary of the Alsea [River]. It's on Forest Service lands down toward Waldport near Tidewater. We were doing surveys in there. You went in and the sand and fine sediment in the channels just completely overwhelmed everything. Like a year before, there had been a lot of activity up above. We drove up and you could see the road with the rills in the bank, and the gullies on the hillside and 00:58:00everything. You'd look down, and the thing is, where all the dust sets up, is in the most productive areas for fish, which is sort of these flat, low-gradient areas.

SS: And when it fills in the pools, it affects their spawning grounds and everything?

GR: Oh, all kinds of stuff goes on, yeah.

SS: Now, how would you characterize the aquatic habitat stream and water quality in a classic old-growth forest?

GR: The view was that it was the pinnacle of habitat suitability, and that there was lots of wood, pools and so on and so forth. But after walking around the Coast Range and looking at systems, we started questioning that. I mean, it's a 00:59:00very interesting history there. What that was about, if you look at the history, the importance of large wood [terrestrial and streams] originated in the Andrews, and Jim Sedell and Fred Swanson really went on a rant of making this known. It was also the time when there was a growing recognition about the ecological importance of old growth. It wasn't just the decadent and barren successional stage it had been made out to be, as there was all kinds of biodiversity and other stuff going on. But the whole old-growth deal, and then, associated with that was the assumption the streams are in great shape, or that streams are the type of things we want to emulate for fish. Again, if we go back and ask, why did we do that? Why did we make that assumption? Again, it has to do with this idea of stasis or stability. These are the conditions we think are 01:00:00best. There certainly is a lot of wood, but there are very few studies that had looked at other successional stages and the productivity of those for fish and other aquatic organisms. So, we ran with this idea that old growth was best, and no one really looked at what assumptions were being made, what the limitations of those approaches were. SS: What did you find that those limitations were?

GR: So, there's two basic building blocks to fish habitat. It's sediment, and that's the range of sediment sizes from small stuff to big stuff, and wood. Okay? So, an old-growth system has a lot of wood in it, but it doesn't have a wide range of sediment sizes. That's because that system hasn't been disturbed for a long time. What we're learning is that the sediment supply to the streams 01:01:00in much of the Northwest, are coming in on these very big disturbance events. A fire followed by landslides or floods, are bringing in the sediment in these massive pulses, then the system works with it, erodes it, and transports that through time. If you go in an extended time period without this input, you've got lots of wood, but you don't have much in terms of sediment, or all you've got is the really big sizes. So, the emerging evidence is that old growth isn't the panacea for fish that everybody expected. It looked like, at least in the Coast Range, and certainly in the Cascades, that forests about 80 to 120-140 years out from big natural disturbance events, are indeed the most productive. 01:02:00You have intermediate amounts of wood, but they've got a lot of pools and complexity provided by the substrates.

SS: Now, if you were going to make a regional assessment, maybe offering an example of grades, how would you rate the aquatic habitat in the decade or the five years before the Northwest Forest Plan process? If you were going to say, here's an example of good, medium, bad.

GR: Well, I think the one thing is that you've got to realize, these systems, we presume a lot of these things are pristine. Right? They were significantly impacted well before logging really kicked into gear, modern-day logging kicked into gear, by activities that went on with initial settlement of this area. One 01:03:00of the first things that happened, was in river systems, in order to facilitate transportation and commerce, the amount of wood that was removed is staggering, dynamited, just cut up, and so on and so forth. And in other cases, beaver were trapped out. Beaver were trapped out of much of Oregon by the 1850's.

SS: This is a very historical question, because I used to teach American West history. One of the things I discussed was how we'll never know exactly how much the hydrological dynamics of the whole West, even in the Southwest, was changed because the beavers were all taken out?

GR: You go back and look at history; Jim Sedell discovered the Secretary of War 01:04:00records, which included early military surveys done in much of the West to help the military identify where to establish bases or forts. You look at them and they have incredibly-detailed records, and you see that much of this area and the West, was really wet. It had wet meadows, and there were issues with malaria and other things because of standing water. Areas that are dry now, 150 years ago, were totally wet. A lot of that has to do with the fact that some of the first activity in it was to trap beavers.

SS: There was a fad in Europe in the 1820's and '30s where beaver pelts and hats were in vogue, and that literally was the market for it. Of course, they trapped 01:05:00them out, and then, about the same time in the 1830's, early 1840's, that they were pretty much trapped out, the fad changed.

GR: Right.

SS: But by then, the damage had been done, because they literally stripped the population [beaver] of a lot of areas. There wasn't a sufficient population base in many areas where you could start a new population. It was pretty much, I won't say extinct, but they were close.

GR: Well, it was close.

SS: Yeah, so anyway, continue on.

GR: I'm just saying, we've seen massive changes because of that. And then you look at the first places where people want to settle, they tend to be valley bottoms near rivers. And so, the channels are constrained or moved around. Even before the 1940's and 1950's when things really picked up with modern-day 01:06:00logging, many of our river systems were heavily altered.

SS: Well, by removing all those catchment basins and mini-dams and slow-downs to the streams, not ramping rates, that's for individual streams and events, but overall runoff rates and distribution. You understand.

GR: But, there were interesting changes that happened. For example, in the Oregon Coast Range, historically, there were relatively few salmon, particularly, fall chinook populations. Because there was a lot of slow water, and that's not conductive to chinook. That was conducive, really geared towards coho [salmon]. When many of these valley areas were settled, the channels were 01:07:00straightened and confined. The first thing you lost were the coho populations, but you saw an uptick in fall chinook populations. So, there are these trade-offs going on. There are probably more fall chinook in the Oregon Coast Range now than in Washington, and probably northern California as well, than there were historically.

SS: The stream shapes and the channels were changed.

GR: Exactly.

SS: Because of dredging or jetties or whatever. GR: Yeah, and if that goes to an extreme, then you end up even losing the fall chinook. But, there's winners and losers the whole way around, all the way along. You lost this, gained that, but what's the effect?

SS: You were going to give examples, good or bad in the Northwest. We got to the 01:08:00substance, but not places.

GR: Yeah, I think where you saw probably some of the better places tended to be either small systems that the people just didn't gravitate to, or just systems that were higher in the network because we hadn't gotten there yet in our march upward. And that's where it's happened, the federal lands, if you look at it, they tend to be the more marginal areas. They've got a lot of trees. But from an aquatic perspective, they're probably not the best places in terms of fish production. They tend to be steep, more confined, less favorable, particularly 01:09:00for the salmon species.

SS: But they happen to be the source for the water and the nutrients that come down through the system?

GR: They're through the systems, exactly.

SS: So, that's the key point, I think, going into what we're going to talk about changing forest planning. What has been more harmful affecting fisheries in the Pacific Northwest and aquatic biology in general, the major networks of the dams and diversion projects, or aggressive timber-cutting?

GR: Undoubtedly, timber-or the dams. [Amending answer]

SS: The dams, okay.

GR: Oh, by far. Once you put a dam in, you completely change the nature of the stream. Timber harvest can change it, but if you can work with timber harvest, you can keep some semblance of that stream which is going to allow for other aquatic values to be expressed. So, if someone says to put it in the pecking order of effects, you know, put urbanization at the top, and then, you have 01:10:00dams, and timber harvest falls out down below, and agriculture; there's a whole set of other things. It's always interesting as to how the battle's always being fought over timber harvest. But there's this multitude of other things that we're just ignoring. And I remember having a conversation with Bart Starker one time about we were on a tour.

SS: Who is that?

GR: Bart Starker, he's one of the owners of Starker. [Starker Forests, a family forestry company based in Corvallis/Philomath with holdings of 70,000+ acres of forest land in the Coast Range.] SS: Okay, Starker.

GR: Starker Forests, yeah.

SS: Right.

GR: I remember saying, "Bart, it's really interesting you guys are getting beat up over riparian areas and what you do or don't do, and the ag [agriculture] interests just skates free in this whole thing."

SS: Basically, the runoff and what comes off into the water system?

GR: Yeah, and the fact they've [agriculture] had no riparian requirements, they don't have to, you know, do nothing. If you looked at what the timber industry 01:11:00is required to deal with and how they manage their land, compared to the agriculture interests, I mean, it's like night and day.

SS: So, what examples, well, the most dramatic examples, I guess they are everywhere in Oregon and Washington, about dams and diversion projects and how maybe overbuilt they were?

GR: Well, the Columbia is the poster child for that. You just can't change it from a running river system to a pond system.

SS: And how much help are the fish ladders and other systems, to at least the fish getting up to spawning grounds; ten percent, twenty percent?

GR: Well, there is like a ninety percent mortality rate at any one dam, of juveniles passing down, which is incredible. I want to say 90 percent, but I wouldn't bank on that. I'd have to go back and look at it, but it's very high. You think if you have a ninety percent mortality at every dam, and you have to go through, what, ten dams at least.

SS: It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out.

GR: It's amazing anything gets back, you know?

SS: The question, where have all the salmon gone? Well, right?

GR: Right, and then you throw on top of that the fact that what we're trying to use hatchery fish to maintain this whole thing. And once you put a fish into a hatchery, Mike Blouin's work is just showing, within one generation, you've lost 01:13:00tremendous reproductive capacity.

SS: In other words, their biological toughness and ability to keep going, is diminished. GR: Yeah, you're breeding it out in the first generation, and you go to successive generations, you're losing it altogether.

SS: What was your first experience with forest planning? You were within that situation with the Elk River supervisor, but, well, you were more of a "prop," really?

GR: Yeah. It was probably the Gang of Four.

SS: So, that was when that happened. Okay.

GR: Yeah, I had never been involved with anything like that before.

SS: What did you sense before you got thrown into the deep water, so to speak, during the Northwest Forest Plan experience? And what did you see going on in the planning world and within the Forest Service, from your perspective as a 01:14:00young scientist?

GR: Well, it was just, connect with people who were on various boards and their struggle in trying to do things to benefit fish. We would talk to those guys all the time, and try to feed them information to help. But it wasn't until getting involved in the Gang of Four that I actually sat down and started to read forest plans, and that was an amazing eye-opener to do that.

SS: So how would you describe forest planning policy in the Pacific Northwest before the Northwest Forest Plan? Because obviously when you were preparing to do that, you read some previous forest plans.

SS: So how would you characterize what you saw, and then, what you were moving towards?

GR: Well, what was clear is that timber was king and you got the maximum amount 01:15:00of timber out with supposedly the minimal amount of damage. And it was hard to argue for doing anything different that didn't maximize the amount of timber coming out.

SS: So, that paradigm was unquestioned by the power structure of the Forest Service?

GR: Totally, yes, it was driven. The paradigm [max. harvest] drove the agency.

SS: Did that bother you when you first got into the Forest Service?

GR: You know, I was somewhat naïve. You don't realize it until, it's like, oh, wow! Because what I saw of the Forest Service when I first started, was not what the Forest Service was all about. Research at the time, was a necessary evil as 01:16:00far as a lot of the people in the National Forest system were concerned. It was nothing but a pain. They did nothing to help us. They only hindered us. But I was just in the environment of research, a lot of that didn't start to happen until-

SS: So, you knew it was there, but it didn't affect you too much?

GR: Well, I was not even sure I knew it was there. I think I knew it was there, I just didn't realize the intensity of it.

SS: Now, in your view, were these pre-Northwest Forest Plan plans sustainable ecologically? [Those based on 1976 Forest Mngmt. Act]

GR: Again, I didn't look at it [philosophy shift] until the Gang of Four. [1990s]

SS: So, you really didn't know at that point, okay.

GR: Then, it was very clear after we got into the Gang of Four, there was no way. [Earlier forest plans would not be accepted with new standards.]

SS: You're taking me up to the Gang of Four, so we're going to go into that now. You told me a story a while back about how you were approached.

GR: Right.

SS: You were doing your science thing, and please tell me kind of how the sequence of events happened that brought you into the fold?

GR: Well, it was May of 1991. It was a Monday night. I could go back and find the exact date. But I got a call from Norm Johnson, it was about 9:00 at night. And he introduces himself. I had no idea who Norm Johnson was. He said, "I'm doing some work for Congress, would you mind coming to Portland to talk to us?" Okay, but I wondered who "us" is. He said, "Could you be here tomorrow morning at nine?" I said, "Sure, right, yeah," and I'd go talk to anybody. So, I remember calling Jim Sedell afterward, or Sedell called me a little while later. 01:18:00He said, "Do you know what just happened?" I said, "Some guy named Norm Johnson called and he wanted some help, he wanted to talk us." And he said, "This is big." I said, "What?" And he said, "This is big. You know who these guys are?" I said, "I don't even know who they are, much less what they are." I had heard Jack Ward Thomas' name. Jerry Franklin, I had heard about, but I didn't really know. And John Gordon, I had no idea who he was, and I had no idea who Norm was. But Jim said, "Pick me up at 6:30 tomorrow morning because we've got to go to Portland." And I said, "Okay."

So, I get in the car and Jimmy says, "I'm driving." (Laughs) "We've got to come up with something." I said, "What! We've got to come up with what?" He said, "A plan." He also said, "We're about to be interviewed by these guys." And I said, 01:19:00"What?" He said, "Just tell me what you"-he said, "Tell me if you were king, what we should do for fish?" I said, "Okay," started writing ideas down, and then, all the way up to Portland, we talked about it. And I had just stuck an issue of Fisheries, which is a magazine that came out from the American Fisheries Society, and there was an article that Willa Nehlsen, Jack Williams and Jim Lichatowitch, had done, called "Salmon at the Crossroads," which really surfaced the idea that many of our salmon populations were in trouble. I had just fortuitously stuck that in my briefcase and I wanted to read it. We got there and were put in this room, and Jack Ward Thomas and John Gordon and Jerry 01:20:00Franklin and Norm introduced themselves. And I was thinking, "Okay." And there's all these people, this was at the Coliseum [Portland Memorial Coliseum], the old Coliseum in Portland. There were all these people working around tables and drawing maps and stuff.

SS: So, this is the ISC activity? [Interagency Scientific Committee]

GR: No, this was after the ISC.

SS: Okay, right, that was '90.

GR: Yeah, and I'm thinking, "Oh, okay."

SS: You were in the Coliseum?

GR: Yeah, they rented the Coliseum.

SS: You mean, where the Blazers [NBA team] used to play?

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: Okay,

GR: Well, they had meeting rooms, big, massive meeting rooms. We weren't out on the basketball floor.

SS: I was going to say, when you said it was big, okay. (Laughs)

GR: Well, it was. It was a big room, but it wasn't there.

SS: You made it sound - .

GR: And so, they said, "Well, tell us about fish?" I said, "Well, look at what is happening, and there's this really neat article that just came out, and it 01:21:00talks about that thing, man and fish, and the fish are really in trouble." They're like, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, look at this." I showed it to them. And they said, "Well, what would you do?" I had the little list, and read off the list, about the establishment of key watersheds, something called conservation areas or emphasis areas for fish, and we could make bigger riparian areas, and I forget what also was on the list. And they said, "Okay. You got, can you -Oh, how did they say it? I just remember John Gordon saying, "Okay, this game just changed."

SS: So, he was the one that kind of lit the fuse that led to the aquatic addition?

GR: Well, no. They all jumped, they all saw it. But John, I remember him sitting 01:22:00there and saying, "This game just changed." He said, "You know, Joe Blow," These were his exact words. He said, "Joe Blow doesn't give a shit about owls, and they're totally confused about this whole owl/old-growth thing, and owl-job thing." But he said, "I tell you what, when we tell Joe Blow that his fish are going, and the fish in the streams are going down the tubes," he says, "It's going to change the whole nature of the debate." I'm like sitting there, and it was like, "What?" (Laughs)

SS: And it is rather interesting in the context of the Endangered Species Act, which was by that time almost fifteen to eighteen years old.

GR: Right.

SS: And they'd had major precedents with the Tellico Dam snail darter [Tennessee] and the whooping crane. [Nebraska]

GR: Right.

SS: That they didn't realize that, well, it's not just the owl.

GR: Well no, but nobody had petitioned. There were no petitions or nothing.

SS: But still, it potentially could. Correct?

GR: Well, but I think there was a real effort to suppress that information.

SS: The fisheries stuff?

GR: The fish stuff.

SS: Even before you came to that meeting?

GR: Yes, yeah.

SS: Okay, all right.

GR: I think there was-I think the agencies, NOAA and Fish and Wildlife Service [U.S.], were just in denial.

SS: Denial or intentionally suppressing?

GR: Probably a combination of both, because it was probably suppressed for political reasons, but also, it's the agencies who didn't want to have egg on their faces as having been responsible, sort of, but now they couldn't deny it. It was like right out there front and center in the Journal of the Professional 01:24:00Association of Fish Biologists. And we-I don't think I came home for almost two weeks after that, I think. I can't even remember how I got clothes and stuff. But they said okay.

SS: You were there for two weeks in the Coliseum?

GR: Yeah.

SS: So, this is before the "pink tower"?

GR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SS: For the record, the pink tower is where the FEMAT report was produced after the Clinton Summit, and which Gordie will talk about in a minute.

GR: Yeah, so this was two years before, probably, close to two years before the pink tower. And we started calling people. "You've got to come to Portland." "Well, I can't come to Portland." "Congress is telling you to come to Portland." I mean, that was it. Congress had given Norm and Jerry and that group money and-

SS: And they were by that time, the Gang of Four. Correct?

GR: They were the Gang of Four, right.

SS: Who came up with that tag, by the way?

GR: The Oregonian, if I remember correctly. And it had to do with Chairman Mao. Wasn't it the "Gang of Eight" in China? There was something about Chairman Mao, and remember, that whole upheaval in China about that same time? [Various versions of Gang of Four naming story exist.]

SS: Well, the Cultural Revolution [1960s in China] was way before that. GR: Yeah, well, there was a gang of something, and I remember the joke always had to do with the Chinese, but-

SS: Anything.

GR: We started calling the fish biologists on the various forests in the owl region, and said, "You've got to come to Portland." They were interested in participating, but the universal response was, "Well, the forest won't let us go." We said, "It's not each forest or the Forest Service that's asking you to come here. It's Congress telling you that you have to come here." With that, 01:26:00just about every biologist that we called came to Portland.

SS: But the Forest Service traditional guys were saying, "Don't go there." Correct?

GR: Well, it was interesting, because of the lot of the fish people, this was their opportunity to finally feel like they could tell the truth.

SS: Did you even sense that at this early stage in your career, or were you just too naïve at that point and too new to know what political land mine field you were walking into?

GR: No, it wasn't. So, we were in the Coliseum for about two weeks, I think. And there was all of us, Norm and Jerry, Jack, John, myself, Jim and four or five other people. We went over-it was Norm who arranged for us to go to the OSU Alumni Center. And we worked in the basement at the Alumni Center for about the next month, compiling all the information and analyzing it, and then developing 01:27:00these alternatives for Congress. It was really cool interacting with these guys and learning about the policy aspects of this work.

SS: And were you working with BLM people and other agencies?

GR: Yeah, BLM, Forest Service, no fishery, or Fish and Wildlife Service, not at that time, on the fish issues. We were going to go back to D.C. to report to Congress, and Jack Ward Thomas came up to Jim and myself and he said, "I'm going to take you guys to dinner tonight." And we went to this really nice restaurant and he says, "All right, this is it." He said, "You guys have got a decision to make. If you get on that plane in the morning, your career will never be the same." "It's going to be changed in ways you can't even imagine." He said, "But 01:28:00if you leave here tonight and you don't want to get on that plane, we all respect what you did, we understand why, and we'll represent your work the best we can. So, right now, either you go. If you stay, we're all together." It's like, what? (Laughs) And I thought, it was like, holy shit!

SS: This is the first time maybe somebody said that this is really big, that maybe where you started to really understand that.

GR: And when I finally realized the magnitude of it.

SS: Because like when Jim Sedell called you on the phone that one night, you still didn't really quite get it?

GR: I'd never been involved in anything like this and had no idea about or appreciation or the implications of doing so [high profile a project].

SS: Did you have a talk with your wife before you made that decision, or you 01:29:00just went?

GR: Just went.

SS: Did she have any idea, or you have any idea, really?

GR: We had no idea.

SS: Okay.

GR: Except afterwards, we went back there. That was a really funny night, I just laugh because that wasn't yet the end of an intense evening."

SS: You mean, the night with the dinner with Jack Ward Thomas?

GR: Yeah, and Jim and I forgot to get a hotel room. We worked until like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, all of us, getting everything ready, getting it all packaged up. And we had like a 6:00 or 7:00 flight out of Portland. So Norm said, "Well, why don't you just come back." He had a room somewhere and he said, "Just come back to sleep in my room." And so, Jim and I went back to Norm's room. There was barely enough room between the wall and the bed to sleep, and 01:30:00Norm had all the blankets and we were sleeping on the floor with no blankets. I said, "All right, screw this," and I took the blankets off of Norm's bed, left him with the sheet, and gave Jim a blanket and myself a blanket, and we slept on the floor. Norm laughs about that still. He said, "I was cold all night," and I said, "Well, the floor wasn't very comfortable, either."

SS: Do I have permission to ask him during his interview about that?

GR: Oh, yeah, and we laugh about it all the time. The next day, we got on the plane, got back to D.C. and went to Congress. We went to the area where the congressional offices were, and we were put into this big room. There were these three guys who came to help us, various [congressional] staffers. One was Jim 01:31:00Lyons, one was, let's see, what's the guy who had-Tom Tuchman, and who is he?

SS: One of the primary authors on that final report, the Northwest Forest Plan.

GR: Right. They were all working for various congressional leaders, and Will Stelle, head of NOAA. They were all aides to various congressmen who had the panel that sanctioned the Gang of Four. They went out and got us pizza and other stuff while we were working, and we worked until really late that night. The next morning we were going to testify before Congress. Now, Jim and I weren't going to testify because we were agency people. They didn't want us front-and-center. And so, John Gordon, Norm [Johnson], Jerry [Franklin] and Jack 01:32:00[Ward Thomas] were going to testify. But beforehand, we had a meeting with the Northwest delegation in this closed room, just us and the delegation, so the delegation knew what was going to be said at this hearing. They went through the owl and the old growth issues, and everybody was like, "Oh, okay." Then John Gordon said, "And we have fish." The look on people's face was like, what? You have fish? John asked me to give a quick summary, and I told them 214 populations that are troubled, and we've lost blah, blah, blah. Bob Smith, who 01:33:00was a congressman from eastern Oregon, his head literally bounced off the table. It was like, what? We've got fish? They were just totally shocked.

SS: How were you able to make the causation between certain activities, whether it be timber or water diversion, dam projects? How were you able to tie that into the same process?

GR: Well, this report, the "Salmon at the Crossroads," had identified habitat degradation as the number one cause for decline, and that degradation came from dams, that degradation came from --

SS: The whole, everything.

GR: Everything. But it was very clear, there was lots of evidence about the issues with dams. So, we did that behind closed doors. There was just an absolute silence. There was like, you could just see just, oh, my God, you know 01:34:00[concerning people's reactions]. Then we did the public hearing. And again, Jim and I didn't testify.

SS: Was the public hearing also in Washington?

GR: Yeah. It was later that day.

SS: So, it's the same?

GR: It was before a committee.

SS: The same trip, okay.

GR: Before the congressional committee that sanctioned it. And the Chief of the Forest Service, Dale Robertson, he came to it and they went through the whole thing about the owl and old growth. Then John Gordon began talking about fish. And I think Jim and I would have been hung right there, if they could have hung us. And finally, Dale Robertson gets up and storms out, and the full cadre of people with him just get up and leave the hearing en masse. And I didn't think 01:35:00much of it, you know?

We get back to the hotel, we're going to do to dinner, and we're sitting in the lobby and I see Norm get up and go in one direction, I see Jim go in another direction, I see Jerry go in another direction, and John Gordon go in another direction. All of a sudden, it's just Jack and me, and he said, "All right, you'd better hang on because here they come." All of these sort of high deputy "muckety-mucks" in the Forest Service came and invited us to dinner. So, I'm watching this, and pretty soon they separate me from Jack, and they start telling me what a bad employee I am, like I never should say this stuff, and I need to retract what I was saying.

SS: You didn't say anything, they said it for you.

GR: They said it for us, yeah.

SS: Yeah.

GR: Where did you get this information? And so on and so forth. We went to dinner, and it was just like, wow, this is really-

SS: You got attacked pretty hard-core, huh?

GR: Yeah. But it was still like, what? I'm just being totally naïve. I didn't know. I can't remember the guy's name. He says, "You can't say this stuff." And I said, "Look, I'm not saying anything that isn't true." He said, "None of that's true." And I said, "It says it right in the forest plans." I said, "Have you read the forest plans?" "Oh, I've read every one of them." What I had done, is I had xeroxed all the appropriate pages out of the forest plans, and then 01:37:00highlighted the same for every forest in the Northwest Forest Plan area. I said, "Here, look at this." He said, "Where'd you get that?" I said, "I read the forest plans." He said, "We never said anything negative in the forest plans." I said, "The Siuslaw says you're going to lose twenty percent of your habitat. The Umpqua says you're going to lose fifteen percent of it. The GP [Gifford Pinchot National Forest] is dependent on making paper and fish. You're going to cut the shit out of a place, but you're going to restore it so you that you don't lose this." I said, "It sounds to me like fish are in trouble." He said, "Let me have that." I said, "Here it is." I gave it to him.

Jack and I went back and the next day, and then we had to visit every person in the Northwest delegation, the congressional delegation; we went to their 01:38:00offices. The phones started ringing and somebody would come in while we were talking to the congressman or congresswoman, and say, "Gordon, you know, the Forest Service wants to talk to you." So, I'd go out and there'd be somebody saying, "Now, what forest plan was this?" And, "Which one are you talking about?" Then I said, "Look at the top of the page, it'll say Umpqua, it'll say Siuslaw." "Okay." I'd go to the next office, "And where did you find that?" I said, "It's right in the forest plan." It went on for the whole day. Finally, they said, well, we never said this. And I said, "I'm not making this up. It's right there in black and white." Then they sanctioned an assessment of the work 01:39:00Jim and I did, the Forest Service. They appointed a guy who was at Utah State. He worked for the Forest Service, but was at Utah State in terms of training, and basically put on short courses and stuff with continuing education.

SS: Not McMahon?

GR: No, this was Jeff Kirschner.

SS: Okay. He was somebody else anyway.

GR: Jeff did this report. And we did get a call from Jim Lyons, and I remember, he said, "They're about to fire your boy." It's like, our boy? "They're about to fire Kirschner, because he agreed with what you guys said." We said, your job, Jim Lyons, is to save Jeff Kirschner's job. You've got to get to Harold Volkmer 01:40:00[D-Mo.], the guy in charge of the committee on Natural Resources and Merchant Marine, or something like that. You've got to tell them what they're going to do. And it ended up that he went and there was no way they were going to fire Kirschner.

SS: Well, what about you guys? The hearings are over now. Your little congressional office meetings are over. Then, you come back?

GR: Well, no, it was really just strange. When I really knew how serious it was, was afterwards. First of all, Jack Ward Thomas was sent a message from the Chief [Forest Service] that he was no longer welcome in the Forest Service building, and neither were Gordie Reeves and Jim Sedell.

SS: But he was Fish and Wildlife at that time?

GR: No, he was Forest Service. SS: Oh, he was?

GR: Yeah.

SS: Oh, okay.

GR: Jack had to go to the Forest Service building, and he said, "We're going to go to that building. I've got to do something, I've got to talk to some people in there." "But Jack, they just said." "Don't worry about what they said." We were going down these alleys and somebody lets us in the back door. And I mean, we're meeting in the basement.

SS: It sounds like a spy movie.

GR: Oh, you know, it was that sort of thing. And Norm, well, I'll let Norm tell you about what happened to him.

SS: You mean within the College of Forestry? [OSU]

GR: Yeah, yeah. You know, he was denied tenure.

SS: I'll talk to him about that later.

GR: Yeah, and we're sitting in a cab. Norm's writing his letter of resignation to OSU. And Jim and Jerry are saying, "Don't do this!" I'm just like watching this whole thing, thinking, like holy cow, this is amazing.

SS: Did you by this time realize that you had shaken the hornet's nest?

GR: Whooh! Big-time, big-time.

SS: Were you worried for your career?

GR: No, not really.

SS: No?

GR: I don't know why, but it was just like, what? (Laughs) You know, I think part of it may be naïvete. I just didn't feel like I did anything wrong.

SS: You just did science.

GR: I just did science. As John Gordon said, what we did within the Gang of Four, was science assessment. We didn't produce new science, we assessed the science. And he was very clear. I thought that was a very elegant way to describe it.

SS: Well, you didn't create a new wheel, you just plugged facts into the discussion at hand. Correct?

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: Why do you think the Forest Service was in such denial, or did they want to be in denial?

GR: I think politically, they couldn't be anything but.

SS: Because they were basically so tied in with the timber industry?

GR: Yeah, and you know, it was a Republican administration telling him what they 01:43:00had to do. And Congress was telling them what they had to do.

SS: You come back from this. Tell me about between then and when things really got busy in terms of the Clinton Summit and FEMAT. I know there were some planning attempts starting to be implemented or finished under the Bush administration. But if I recall, they just kind of were left there. [Not enacted or completed due to legal challenges.]

GR: They were left there, exactly. Then, I think it was Judge Dwyer who said we had to work for him. [Fulfill requirements of Endangered Species Act.]

SS: The second injunction, correct?

GR: The second injunction.

SS: Right.

GR: And that was just Forest Service scientists. So, it was Jack, Jim Sedell, myself, Bruce Marcot, Marty Raphael, and other people. Basically, we had to do 01:44:00the same thing for Judge Dwyer that we had just done for Congress, in terms of offering him options for resolving the problem. The interesting part about the fish, there were no ESA listed species or ESU's [evolutionarily significant units], at the time. So, there was no legal mandate to deal with fish, although people knew this was coming. We end up working on the SAT, and Jim and I were able to do most of the work there.

SS: The SAT, for the record, what was that?

GR: The Scientific Assessment Team.

SS: Okay, that was after the ISC, after the Congress, but before FEMAT?

GR: After the Gang of Four, before FEMAT.

SS: Okay, right.

GR: So, we got that done, and then, Clinton came. You know, Clinton during the campaign, had said that if elected, he would help resolve this whole issue and bring some semblance of sanity to it. So that happened, Clinton gets elected in November. In March [actually April], he's out here having a summit. And while all that's going on, Jack's organizing the FEMAT effort. So, we knew about FEMAT before it was announced.

SS: Did you go to the summit?

GR: No.

SS: Jim Sedell, didn't he attend?

GR: Yeah, Jim did.

SS: What did Jim say about that? It must have been quite an experience.

GR: It was really funny. You know, I was glad Jimmy did it. I didn't want to. I 01:46:00would have been too nervous to do it.

SS: Well, you already got shaken up by your Washington trip and experience.

GR: But Jimmy was definitely a much more confident person around political dynamics. I'm a scientist in my early career. I did not have the standing that Jim did.

SS: Oh, okay.

GR: I understand why he did it, but he was really nervous. And I remember, I helped him with what he was going to say. I get a call at, it must have been 1:30-2:00 in the morning, and he said, "Gordon, I can't do this. I'm really nervous, I don't know what I'm doing." I said, "All right, I'll be right there." I got up and I drove to Portland. I remember I met him at this Kinko's somewhere downtown at 3:00-3:30 in the morning, and we worked on what he was going to say.

SS: For that morning, right?

GR: For that morning, yeah. He wasn't speaking too soon. I left there about 01:47:008:00-8:30 and came home, got home about 10:30. And we all went down to Squirrel's because it [Clinton Summit] was on the TV at Squirrel's. It was broadcast. I remember it was about noon when Jimmy got his chance, and then we were eating, having a burger, and Jimmy did a great job.

SS: What was his spiel? On the aquatic biology?

GR: Yeah.

SS: What do you think the Summit did for the whole dynamic of what became the Northwest Forest Plan, and in general, the culture and atmosphere surrounding old growth and natural resource management in the Northwest?

GR: Well, I think it gave us legitimacy, made it more legit, and gave it some sense of importance. Now, here's the President saying that we're going to get 01:48:00this resolved, and I want you scientists to help me do it.

SS: You guys weren't ready for that, were you?

GR: At that point, we were, at least I felt much better prepared for it, than I was with the Gang of Four. At that point, you're starting to think, okay, fool me once, fine, but you're not going to get me twice, that type of thing.

SS: Was it the Gang of Four that was charged with leading the FEMAT report, or tell me how that went?

GR: Well, because it was a federal committee, you're under FACA rules [Federal Advisory Committee Act-governs establishment and operations of advisory committees]. Technically, Jack was in charge. Norm and Jerry were brought in as advisors, as was John Gordon. [Norm, Jerry, John were academics, not federal employees, which some viewed as a violation of FACA processes.] So, there were a lot more federal scientists involved in it, and Jim and I were the co-leads for 01:49:00the aquatic component.

SS: How did the whole ninety days go? It's supposed to be sixty days, originally, then it was extended to ninety.

GR: Correct, ninety.

SS: And you were in one floor of the U.S. Bank building in downtown Portland, called the "pink tower"? [Term given by FEMAT participants]

GR: Right.

SS: Is it really pink?

GR: Yep. SS: Okay. Tell me about how that came about?

GR: Well, Jack rented it. He was looking for a space where we could all work together. It was a massive room with a couple small meeting rooms off of it, and the idea was to try to facilitate more interaction among the various groups. The aquatic group was in one part, the owl guys were here, the vegetation people there. As we called them, the "low-lifes," which were the "survey and manage" people, were in another section [Focused on non-charismatic species, such as 01:50:00lichens and fungi]. Murrelet people were somewhere else. And we all met a lot together, the various teams, so everybody could see; what the old growth people are thinking about this, and the owl people are thinking about that. And we're thinking, the aquatic people, are thinking something else. And a lot of really interesting discussions, so it was really-

SS: That kind of thing doesn't happen very often?

GR: No, no, no. It was an once-in-a-lifetime experience. And the thing is, we were drawing on mylar maps with magic markers. Somebody then would have to take them and digitize them, and we'd have to wait for a few days to get an answer back, to see if it is five acres or is it five hundred acres.

SS: This is a time when connectedness was not what it is now. You obviously had 01:51:00some computers there, but primitive ones by today's standards.

GR: Yep.

SS: How did you get your data and information together so everybody went up there and you were ready to go? How did that all happen? Everybody just grabbed everything they had, threw it in a car, and went up there?

GR: Yeah. That was basically it. And then we got there and the aquatic area was roped off, and then, Jim and I assigned areas; let's get the hydrologist sites on this side, we'll get the biotechs over here. We got together and said, let's outline the framework that we're going to work towards.

SS: Wow.

GR: Yeah.

SS: Some especially interesting anecdotes that you could share about that experience that you remember?

GR: No, it was just, going sixteen to eighteen hours a day, hard.

SS: Seven days a week?

GR: Seven days a week.

SS: How did you survive that? That's some pretty serious hours.

GR: Those were serious hours, yeah. I don't know.

SS: Much worse than a dissertation?

GR: Yeah. I remember the most challenging part was where we developed, I think we developed eight options, and thought we were all done. We got them all tied up, evaluated and packaged up, and gave them to Jack. He then went to D.C., and we were still working.

SS: Are you talking about what they called the alternatives or options?

GR: Yeah, the alternatives. It was like, here's what we do for fish, here's what we do for owls, here's what it's going to be for timber production, so on and so forth; these assessments. He [Jack] went back, made a presentation to the White House, came back, and said, "None of these work."

SS: So, this was after the sixty days, correct?

GR: Yeah. This was probably about day seventy, because we were still behind.

SS: Okay.

GR: He came back and said, "These aren't going to work."

SS: What was the reason given to him?

GR: They just couldn't find enough protection and enough timber. I remember it was a Friday afternoon, and he said, "Okay, nobody's going home. You've got until Monday morning to come up with two new alternatives." It was Friday afternoon. We cleared the room, everybody brought their maps out, and we started trading. Okay, I got a key watershed that's got this old growth in it, but if I can move my key watershed over here, you can get more old growth, and that puts this into the Matrix, which helped with the timber base. And if you can move this LSOG [Late Successional-Old Growth] over to this key watershed, I can do this and you can do that. We sat there and literally went over every inch of ground in the Northwest Forest Plan area, trying to figure out how to 01:54:00reconfigure this to gain some acreage and still maintain a sufficient level of protection.

Working till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning on Friday, and on Saturday, being back in there at 8:00 am and going at it again until 8:00 or 9:00 at night, coming back in on Sunday morning at 8:00 in the morning and going at it till probably 2:00 in the morning on Monday. Then, when Jack walked in, we had-

SS: Was that what became Alternative 9?

GR: Uh-huh.

SS: When looking at the categories, and I don't want to use the word matrix, because matrix is a title for one of the types of zoning [in NWFP], but if you were going to look at the categorization scheme, and what it was meant to do, what did you think about how they came up with the LS Old Growth Reserves, the Riparian Reserves, the buffer zones, the Matrix, and the AMA's [Adaptive Management Areas]. Were there any others?

GR: Yeah, those were the biggies.

SS: Yeah.

GR: Again, we all had to talk to each other because we needed to know what each other was doing. We just spent a bunch of time together, and I'd say, I can put a key watershed over here in this LSOG, and move this one. If we move this key watershed, then it might give you, it might put a little bit more land back in the Matrix. And I'm not exaggerating, we went over everything, we'd sort of get done with the whole area, and then we'd put a map up and look at it and say, does that look right? Does the distribution look right? Are there gaps somewhere? And we'd take the map down and start all over again.

SS: Because you're thinking about not only riparian, but owl habitat and connectiveness, and there's BLM, and there's Forest Service, and there's 01:56:00private, and there's all this [land ownership].

GR: Yeah, and we didn't have the luxury of the sophisticated tools you have today for that type of analysis. We were literally drawing on Mylar, hanging it on the wall and stepping back, and asking, what do you see? Well, I see a gap over here. So, it was like the domino thing, if you move this one, then everything else sort of falls apart.

SS: Even with that.

GR: We spent an entire weekend drawing the map, redrawing the map, reconfiguring the map, and just going back-and-forth, talking to Eric Forsman about the owls, and Jack about the owls, and Marty would talk about murrelets, and then we'd have this fish thing. We'd have to call somebody, wait a minute, and tried to do something on the Umpqua [National Forest]. I would call Jeff Dose, the Umpqua biologist, and say, "Hey, Jeff, what about if we were to put this watershed in 01:57:00instead of that watershed?"

SS: You were horse trading?

GR: It was a total horse trade. It was a total horse trade.

SS: Now, what do you think about the product that came out in the form of Alternative 9? At the time, how did you feel about its scientific integrity?

GR: I think it was strong. We brought a bunch of people in to rate the options, and these were people from industry [timber], there were academics, I'm trying to remember if there were regulatory people. I think there were maybe some people from different agencies, NOAA for fisheries, in anticipation of the listings. We had to get up and explain to them each option, show them the map of the whole region, and explain why we did things. I did all of that. That was 01:58:00like a two or three-day process. Then when we developed the new options, we brought them back in and did it all over again. So, I knew the gory details of everything, because I wanted to make sure if somebody had a question, I could answer it.

SS: You had been learning since the first, the start of this whole thing, that you do not want to be caught with your pants down.

GR: Totally, totally.

SS: Because somebody very important could say something that you'd better at least be able to give an intelligent answer for.

GR: And be able to explain stuff. So, I was responsible for directing the development of these things and the assessments, but then having to go make the appearances, you know, do all the presentations on them.

SS: So, what happened? Alternative 9 is presented. Jack Ward Thomas, did he take 01:59:00it back to the White House?

GR: Uh-huh (affirmative).

SS: And?

GR: That one got a thumbs-up.

SS: Okay.

GR: And then we had to wrap everything up. SS: What happened after that?

GR: Well, it was a mad scramble to finish.

SS: Which meant what?

GR: Well, getting the report done, making sure all the assessments were completed.

SS: That's the FEMAT report, the big monster, which is 500 or 600 pages?

GR: Yeah. So, it was a scramble to get that done and handed off to the people who were going to do the environmental impact statement. [Compliance issues under NEPA.]

SS: And that would eventually lead to the Record of Decision, the guidelines and all that. Right?

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: So, you were out of the "pink tower," you're back in your regular office environments, doing this collectively, from different locations? Correct?

GR: Uh-huh (affirmative).

SS: Okay.

GR: Except, I came back. I remember I came home after the last day in the pink 02:00:00tower. I'd barely got home. I hadn't slept for, I think, three days. We were up for three straight days. I can't believe I stayed up. I don't drink coffee or caffeine, and I just stayed up.

SS: You must have been wasted?

GR: Oh, I was. I think I took one nap. I went in under Jack Ward Thomas' desk at about 4:00 in the morning. At 6:00, I felt somebody tapping me, and it's Jack. He said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I've been up for sixty hours." He said, "What?" I said, "I've been up for sixty hours." He said, "Get out of here." I said, "I can't go yet." He said, "You've got to get out of here." So, we finished up. I came home. I don't even know how I drove home, how I ended up there. I had all this stuff. I dropped my wallet when I was coming in the house, 02:01:00and someone picked it up.

SS: Was it on the street?

GR: Yeah, right out front here. I had no idea who it was. And they ended up using my credit card.

SS: What?

GR: Yeah.

SS: So, the price of all this is that you basically got credit card-frauded?

GR: Yeah. Fortunately, when they saw the signature and stuff, it was pretty clear. But I just remember just coming home, just collapsing and sleeping.

SS: Wow.

GR: And then I was useless. I mean, it'd been like three years of constant activities [connected to NWFP and planning in general].

SS: So, this was just insane, from '91 until '94? Right?

GR: Yeah. Jim and I both went in to Fred Everest and said, "Look, we need a break. We've got to get out of here." Fred said, "Okay, figure out where you 02:02:00want to go for six months and I'll make it happen." We went to New Zealand.

SS: South Island, North Island, or both?

GR: Went to the North Island. There was a student who worked with Jim Hall, who had gotten a teaching position at Waikato University in Hamilton. I got a hold of Brendan [Hicks]and said, "Hey, can you get me an office?" He said, "Yeah, why?" I said, "Well, I think I can get a sabbatical for six months to come to New Zealand." We finished [NWFP-related work] at the end of July, and the first of November, I was in New Zealand.

SS: And this was for what purpose other than R&R?

GR: It ended up that I had some of the most productive research and writing periods of my life.

SS: So, it was research, but it was R&R?

GR: Definitely. We had to get out of there. And Meg took a leave of absence.

SS: She went down with you?

GR: Oh, yeah. She took a leave of absence from her job. We took the kids out of school. We went to New Zealand for six months. I came home, we came home. We went in November, we came home at the end of April. Then in June, Jim went to France for six months. So, we traded off doing it, but it was exhausting.

SS: How do you feel that in the long run this affected your career trajectory at the Forest Service? Didn't you tell me before that somebody kind of had your back, one of the politicians, when you were early-on in this process, and Robertson [Dale] and some Forest Service people got all po-ed?

GR: Oh, yeah. It was Jim Lyons and folks in Congress who did it.

SS: Okay.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: You come back and this is now the law of the land. How do you feel that this [Northwest Forest Plan process] affected your Forest Service career?

GR: Well, we never really left it, as it's been part of my career ever since.

SS: You've been involved in the monitoring and review process since? Right?

GR: Yeah, I tried to direct myself out of it, though there was supposed to be a monitoring program that's part of this. There were four attempts, I think, at developing a monitoring program, and none of them worked due to different squabbles in the agency. Someone finally came to me and said, "Look, you need to be in charge of this to make this happen." And I did.

SS: Of the monitoring program? [Aquatic portion]

GR: The monitoring program. I thought it was pretty innovative in the way we did things. But then, you're constantly thinking because you knew what the 02:05:00individual intent of this was, and how we came up with things. So, it has always been, if you've got a question, I'm the person they came to.

SS: Let's talk about the plan itself now. How pleased were you with the final product regarding aquatics and the buffer zones that are in the reserves? Talk a little bit about that.

GR: I thought we had just hit it out of the park, and that we had really done well. It was really innovative, very creative, and really a major advancement in terms of thinking about aquatic ecosystems.

SS: How would you compare it to what was the thinking before, or at least the planning and implementation before?

GR: Well, prior to the Northwest Forest Plan, if you looked at what was in the forest plans themselves, there was a riparian management area with maybe one 02:06:00hundred feet on some of the better plans, like the Willamette, and as small as fifty feet or less in many of the forests. And that was only along the fish-bearing streams. So, we did two things. One, we said, "Look, what you have to do is think about the outer boundary of the aquatic ecosystem." Start there and work your way in. Don't set some arbitrary distance because we wanted to focus on the ecological processes that were really important to maintain the long-term productivity of these systems. So, that was one thing. Secondly, we said, "You've got to think about non-fish-bearing streams." We were just getting an inkling about the importance of these in terms of a number of different things. So, we really pushed the envelope in terms of what people thought an aquatic ecosystem was. And I can remember thinking that I was really proud of 02:07:00myself. And I was also proud of everybody who worked on this, that what we did in ninety days was quite spectacular. But then I went to New Zealand and I started asking myself, "What did we really do?" Or how is this going to be interpreted, regarding what we did? I came away much less convinced that we had done a really stellar job.

SS: And why was that? Do you think it was more buyer's remorse or -- ?

GR: The idea was, if we draw a line on the map, it means something ecologically.

SS: In other words, you kind of realized that maybe some of these things, although they really sounded and looked good, might have been arbitrary?

GR: Yeah. Then I started thinking about it and communicated with Jim while I was in New Zealand, and thinking about what was it that we really did, as opposed to what we intended to be done. And ended up then, really spending a lot of time reading. I just went to the library all the time and just read. It was such an amazing thing.

SS: In New Zealand?

GR: In New Zealand.

SS: Also, you were in a new context ecologically?

GR: Yeah, oh, yeah.

SS: And so, you were looking at things through that lens also.

GR: Yeah, but that was just sort of a minor thing. The real experience was having the luxury to step back and critically examine yourself and what you were thinking, and then challenging myself and asking--is that really true?

SS: What came out of that whole process?

GR: We wrote a paper, Jim, myself and a couple other people involved with FEMAT, that we really described how we thought things should work, and it was published in 1995. That paper still gets a lot of play today.

SS: What was it called?

GR: "A Dynamic Perspective on Aquatic Ecosystems," something like that. I can't remember the name. We also gave a presentation at the American Fisheries Society Symposium on Salmon, and the ESA [Ecological Society of America] in Monterey [Cal.]. That would be, if I could look at a pinnacle in terms of scientific fun and accomplishment, that would be it.

SS: In other words, after you had climbed the mountain, you realized you needed to reassess the mountain?

GR: That's right. That's right, yeah.

SS: So, it was a moment of humility, but also enlightenment?

GR: Exactly. And there was the thought-"Wait a minute, that's not how are you 02:10:00going to interpret what was in option 9, to put it into play for management." We didn't do a good job, I don't think, of providing that [for managers in NW Forest Plan area]. This was an attempt to do that.

(Break in Audio)

SS: Okay, we're picking things back up where Gordie had already talked about New Zealand, and was reassessing the science and what he had done with the aquatic portion of the FEMAT report and the Northwest Forest Plan. Would you want to just continue?

GR: So, I came back. I started the shell of a paper about the ideas, talked to Jim [Sedell] and Kelly Burnett, who was involved with the Northwest Forest Plan, and Pete Bisson, who was also involved. I also started talking to other people about, okay, did we really get it right? I think we had the pieces right, but 02:11:00the question was about the interpretation of the pieces and what that meant. And so, that's been a real focus of the career since then.

SS: How well do you think the old-growth people got their section right, which was often seen as the high-profile one [part of NWFP]?

GR: Well, yeah.

SS: Everybody thought about the big trees and the owl, but--?

GR: Obviously, they were right, but they were right at the expense of not thinking more broadly, you know.

SS: How so?

GR: For example, there's an acknowledgement that the early successional stage is also an important thing to be managing for, in terms of the very important ecological values of that. That wasn't even considered in FEMAT. We did the best 02:12:00we could in 90 days, and we've learned a lot since then. So, we just have to be honest about the assessments.

SS: Now, in terms of listings, since then, have fish been listed?

GR: Oh, yeah.

SS: What ones [species], how have they been impacted, and how has that affected the implementation of the forest plan that you created?

GR: At the time, what's listed for fish, and particularly for salmon, are what are called the ESU's, or Evolutionarily Significant Units. Rather than the whole species being listed, there are population segments listed. And so, the only one that was listed at the time we went into the Northwest Forest Plan, was the Sacramento winter chinook, which was on some of the forests, I think the 02:13:00Shasta-Trinity [National Forest], and some other ones in the southern part of northern California, the very southern end. We had anticipated that there would be numerous ESA listings once people got their petitions together. This was all developed with the eye towards helping with that, to contribute to the recovery of the populations that we thought were going to be listed, or expected to be listed. And so, we had a representative of NOAA Fisheries there right from the get-go, and made sure that what we were doing would be acceptable for the Forest Service and BLM in any consultation process.

SS: This is FEMAT?

GR: This is FEMAT, yeah. We had a person there. We even got a letter from NOAA Fisheries, saying if option ["alternative"] 9 was selected, it would be sufficient for the Forest Service to meet ESA needs. Well, there's two things have contributed to the-the option not being, I think, implemented as we fully expected. One was the listing, and then, NOAA Fisheries decided that there was going to be essentially no activity in the riparian reserves. We had said we expected that there would be silvicultural activity for restoration purposes in the riparian reserves, because many of the riparian reserves were nothing but overstocked plantations.

SS: With hatchery fish?

GR: No, I mean with the trees.

SS: Okay, I'm sorry.

GR: Because prior to the Northwest Forest Plan, up until the late '70s and even 02:15:00the early '80s, in many cases there were no riparian rules, and trees were harvested right to the edge of the stream. Then, in order to increase timber production, they planted Doug-fir, primarily back in the riparian areas.

SS: Regardless of what was there before?

GR: Regardless of what was before.

SS: Because it was the fastest-growing, commercially-conducive species?

GR: There was that mindset; we're all about growing wood.

SS: Well, it's an agricultural model.

GR: Exactly. We knew one thing that had to be done was to restore these riparian areas in terms of their vegetative structure, composition and diversity. We fully expected that as part of the restoration process, there would be silvicultural activity in there, to push these riparian zones back in a direction we thought they needed to go. Well, it turned out, the NOAA Fisheries 02:16:00decided after-the-fact, they weren't going to allow that to happen. They were concerned about the effects on wood recruitment [delivery of big wood to streams], and water temperature. They essentially said, no activity in the riparian reserves. The analysis I'm just doing now for the Northwest Forest Plan science census, by our wildest guess, in the twenty years since the Northwest Forest Plan was implemented, maybe three percent of the total riparian reserves in the Northwest Forest Plan area had activity [cutting of trees] in them. Three percent.

SS: Now, even though they weren't listed, what was your concern and that of Jim Sedell and your team, what were the species, let's stick with fish, first of 02:17:00all, you can address invertebrates and other parts of the organic [food] chain, shall we say.

GR: Yeah, right.

SS: What were the fish you were most concerned with? First of all, there's commercial interests, and, shall we say, the charismatic fish, if you want to use that term, but also the fish that are important to the whole system, that may not be commercially important or well-known.

GR: Well, the focus was primarily on the Pacific Salmon, the genus Oncorhynchus.

SS: Okay.

GR: So that's the steelheads, chinook salmon, coho salmon; those were the big three.

SS: Okay.

GR: And then there's pink salmon and chum salmon, and to a lesser extent, sockeye, and some others in a few spots in the Northwest Forest Plan.

SS: The silver?

GR: The silver is a coho.

SS: Coho, right.

GR: So, the coho, chinook and steelhead were the big three, and then there were cutthroat and bull trout. And bull trout are in some areas, a char, they're not a salmon. But those were the biggies that were being analyzed, where the focus 02:18:00really was.

SS: There still was a commercial-economic center that wasn't purely ecological?

GR: Yeah, the idea was, there was a big economy built around the commercial fishing.

SS: How involved were the Indian tribes?

GR: Hardly at all.

SS: During the process, before and after?

GR: Not hardly at all. Now, I'm trying to think when the Boldt Decision came in. Boldt, I think, was slightly before FEMAT; I want to say 1989 or something. [1974 - Washington state Indian tribes given equal fishing rights and responsibility to manage resources.] But in the Northwest Forest Plan area, there really isn't a lot of interactions between the tribal nations, the Forest 02:19:00Service and BLM.

SS: Well, not any more.

GR: Not anymore.

SS: Because of what's happened in history.

GR: It's not like the Columbia.

SS: Right.

GR: There's some, you know, the big area for that is in northern California, with the Yuroks, Hoopas, and Kuroks. I can't remember the other tribes.

SS: In the Redwood zone, right?

GR: In the Redwood zone and up into the upper Klamath [river basin] there.

SS: All right.

GR: But for the most part, there wasn't a lot of tribal involvement.

SS: How did it affect their lands, though? I mean, were they immune from the zoning [NWFP] or not? They were zoned the same way, weren't they?

GR: Well, outside of the Coquille tribe, they each had their own lands. It was not affected by the Northwest Forest Plan.

SS: So, that's my question is about how they were involved in some way. They certainly have been in the reports and the follow-ups.

GR: Right.

SS: But they were not central players?

GR: No.

SS: Okay.

GR: And the big aftermath of the Northwest Forest Plan, particularly with regards to the riparian areas, is it put a lot of focus on the states and their riparian regulatory conditions. The State of Washington moved really close to what was in the Northwest Forest Plan. The State of Oregon just dug in its heels and it hasn't modified hardly anything. SS: In terms of?

GR: The size of riparian areas or what you can do in them. California also made some pretty significant changes.

SS: Why do you think the difference is there in the cultures and the governments? [Washington, Oregon and Washington].

GR: I think it's how much political clout the industry has in Oregon compared to California and Washington.

SS: Even today?

GR: Even today.

SS: Because the skyline, if I want to call it that, in Eugene where I grew up, doesn't look the same as it used to, when smokestacks were everywhere.

GR: Oh, yeah.

SS: And you couldn't swim in the Willamette River.

GR: Oh, yeah, yeah.

SS: But the power is still there.

GR: Yeah.

SS: But Washington is different; Weyerhaeuser was bigtime up there, and it's just a different dynamic.

GR: Yeah. And I have no idea how true this is, but someone has said the biggest supporters of the Northwest Forest Plan have been Weyerhaeuser and Georgia Pacific. [Have large private timber holdings]

SS: Because?

GR: Because it took the federal lands out of competition.

SS: They had such huge, private land stocks, that this would push prices up.

GR: If you go back to D.C. and look behind the scenes about who is actually pushing for support of the Northwest Forest Plan.

SS: How interesting. So, it was the medium and smaller players that got really 02:22:00hurt by this?

GR: Yes and no. The hurt was already there. What's really hurt the industry is automation. The industry wants to blame the federal government. But truth be told that, mills dare run now with a fraction of the people that it took historically. And the other thing is, who wants big logs? Mills aren't geared for big logs.

SS: Well, the smart ones [mills] retrofitted for smaller and medium logs.

GR: Right, exactly. And so, you look at what is in demand from an industry perspective now, it's not a big tree. It's a tree you can get a two-by-four or two-by-six out of, so you can laminate it together to make a big beam.

SS: Which are stronger anyway.

GR: Which is stronger anyway, exactly. Yeah.

SS: Right, yeah. So, how did things shake out in the first few years after this, you're talking about coming back from New Zealand. Eventually, you became part of this assessment [NWFP monitoring] team.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: Just kind of tell me how that shakes out, and then start taking me through the process of the five- and the ten-year reviews, just looking at things.

GR: I was thinking back on how after the Gang of Four, Norm, I and the group, felt what we should do is go around and explain to every national forest what we did and why we did it, so they could understand our assessments. So, Norm and I went on a speaking tour. Norm and I were the ones designated to do it. We went to every national forest.

SS: In three states?

GR: In three states. And made a presentation to the [national] forests on what 02:24:00we did, why we did it, how we did it.

SS: And this would have been '90?

GR: This is '92, probably.

SS: So this is before the pink tower [FEMAT-1993] and all that? Okay, so it's after the original meeting. Got you.

GR: Yeah, after the Gang of Four [report] came out.

SS: Okay, got you.

GR: And we went to every national forest, sat down with them, and went over the gory details of what we did and why. They would ask us why did we say something, and I would just pull out the forest plan, and say, look, I didn't say anything other than what you said. So, here it is. Here it is in black and white. "But, we didn't say that." [They might say as example]

SS: And so, they generally went into denial mode?

GR: Yeah, yeah. And then, what we later learned, was many fish biologists had slipped things in at the last minute.

SS: The local fish biologists, not you guys? So, you found out there was 02:25:00subterfuge going on at the forest level? Wow, interesting. Did anybody lose their job over this that you know about?

GR: You know who took the biggest hit in this whole thing, Willa Nehlsen, who works for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

SS: Willa Nehlsen.

GR: She was the lead author on "Salmon at the Crossroads," and her career was ruined.

SS: Because it went against the power structure. Did she leave Fish and Wildlife?

GR: Eventually. You know, it shifted back to D.C. and then they sent her to "Podunk." [Unattractive or remote agency posting]

SS: In essence, sending her to Siberia.

GR: Exactly. Yeah.

SS: That's always kind of sad when that happens, isn't it?

GR: Oh, I know, I feel so bad for her. She paid such a price.

SS: Now, you guys did not.

GR: Nope.

SS: So, do you have any particular anecdotes in remembering about your march across the territory and meeting all these people, some of whom were probably not too happy? GR: Some people. Like when we went to Mount Hood. One thing that happened, is the forest leadership people were not allowed into the Coliseum when we were doing the Gang of Four. If they came, they had to wear an orange vest when they went out on the floor to look, and they couldn't talk. They had to wear an orange vest and they couldn't talk to anybody. Anybody outside of who was working, people from the Washington office came, they'd put on an orange vest. The chief, I can't remember if he came, I want to say he did, but I don't know for sure.

SS: Well, Robertson [Dale] was there then. [USFS Chief]{

GR: Yeah.

SS: He was there until '93.

GR: Right, I know, but people were coming, and Jack Ward Thomas was adamant that 02:27:00they would wear this orange vest.

SS: I bet they didn't like that very much.

GR: No, some people found humor in it. Like I remember when we went to the Mount Hood [National Forest]. We went to the Mount Hood and they made Norm and I wear orange vests when we were talking. It was a joke. I still have the orange vest in my office.

SS: It's funny, though. (Laughter).

GR: No, no, no. All's fair in, you know, all's fair here in love and war.

SS: Yeah, it's like, payback's a bitch, right?

GR: Exactly. No, no, no, it was really funny. We went to the Siskiyou. And there were two people who were really belligerent. We went to the Siskiyou and there were two guys, the planner and somebody else, I can't remember who it was. They started giving me a hard time about how I could say anything about what they were doing, how I could say that there were issues with fish. And I was explaining that I just read the forest plans. "Well, you shouldn't say that sort 02:28:00of stuff." I said, "Look, someone asked me what I think, what I know, and it's my job to tell them." And then they got all over Norm.

SS: Like ugly?

GR: Oh, ugly, yeah. I mean, it was getting ugly with me, but when they turned to Norm, they just unleashed. And Norm finally, they were recording, this whole thing was being recorded, and Norm said, "Turn off the camera." And he went and he got in these two guys' faces. He said, "You will not do that anymore. This is disrespectful and a disservice to both of us. And we are not going to tolerate that anymore." And turned back on the camera, and it was all over. And then we went to the Siuslaw, and the guy, he was the planner, threatened to beat me up.

SS: Threatened fisticuffs?

GR: He got up and he was coming at me, and people grabbed him. Norm stepped in and said, "We're not going to do this." And this guy, just every couple of minutes, was just ready, "I was the worst, you know, SOB he'd ever met," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How could I do this? I worked for the same organization.

SS: Continue with the fisticuffs.

GR: Oh, you know, there were definitely some hard feelings.

SS: Basically, because their world view and their paradigm was threatened?

GR: That, and I think they felt embarrassed that someone would say that they weren't doing a good job. That's how it was construed. And they, and the truth be told, they were doing what they were told, there was a tremendous amount of 02:30:00pressure on them, and they had to deal with the agency.

SS: Well, the traditional agency powers were pressuring them to keep the old way going.

GR: Exactly.

SS: And what you guys did was like a punch in the gut?

GR: Well, yeah, and some people were saying, it was like, wow, it is about time this happened. And I'm so glad you did this because we've been suffering with this for years, and so.

SS: So, you did this and you came back from this. What came out of that particular experience, other than more information and experience you took toward FEMAT? Because, we're jumping back in time here.

GR: Yeah. The Gang of Four sort of set the foundation for moving into FEMAT, which is one of the reasons we could do it in ninety days.

SS: Because you had a lot done already?

GR: We had a lot of that done already. Yeah. So, what I was always listening for, is the science wrong? Is the logic or the science assessment wrong?

SS: Because that's your job.

GR: That's, yeah.

SS: You're not a politician, you're a scientist. Correct?

GR: My thing was, okay, did we not put something together right? Did we not interpret something right that led us to some conclusion? That's what I wanted to hear. I would ask straight up--is there something wrong with the logic or the science that we put into this? They all said no, but some said, "But, you shouldn't have done it." Okay. All the no's, you had me at no. You know, that is how I was looking at it.

SS: Do you feel that anybody in the FEMAT group, or any of the other people, ever steered toward advocacy, or was science a pretty consistent rudder for the experience?

GR: I can tell you with absolute truthfulness, in all of these efforts, we never 02:32:00discussed whether we liked an option or not. We never said, I like option 1, or I like option 9, or I like option 8. ["Alternative"- term used in NWFP] We never had that discussion, and there was never even any attempt to do that in any of these things that I have been involved with.

SS: What involvement or pressure came from the environmentalist-activist side of things in the lead up to the ISC, the congressional hearings, FEMAT, and all that? What was the noise on the outside, but also their involvement, during maybe the public participation portions of it?

GR: There were two things that I can think of. And I learned one of them after the fact. I asked Norm, "So how did you end up calling me to be involved with 02:33:00the Gang of Four?" I was barely out of grad school, I had a few publications, that sort of stuff. I said, "So, why me?" And "why not" he said, "We wanted you, we knew we had to get Jim because we all liked Jim, but Jim was a great idea guy but didn't really carry through on stuff, and didn't know how to explain things really well," he said. I said, "So, why me, Norm?" And he said, "Well, we were told by George Miller," who was from northern California in the Bay Area, he was in the House Interior Committee or something. He was a pretty powerful guy.

SS: George Miller from California, the Democratic congressman?

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: Okay. I was thinking of somebody that was in the Forest Service or the 02:34:00university at Humboldt State.

GR: We were told by George Miller that he would sanction our effort if we brought one of three people into this effort. He said it was myself, Reed Noss, or Dave Perry.

SS: How did he know you?

GR: It was the Pacific Rivers Council, which was in discussions with George Miller. George was saying, if you had, who would you put on this group, if we can get somebody on? And the Rivers Council gave him my name.

SS: And your life was changed forever.

GR: And my life, forever, yeah. So, Norm told me they talked about it, the group talked, the four of them [Gang of Four] talked about it. And they didn't feel 02:35:00like they needed any more terrestrial people. They talked that maybe they should have an aquatic person.

SS: Well, they had to reassess even the paradigm of their pre-planning planning. [New process and world-view]

GR: Oh, yeah.

SS: Because they said, "Oh, my God, we've got to bring a fisheries guy in." Well, you need to bring in a full team, not just a couple guys?

GR: Right, and then we go back, and as Jerry tells it; Harold Volkmer, Congressman from Missouri [Democrat], in the Natural Resources and Merchant Marine Committee in the House, something to that effect. Harold Volkmer was chair of that committee. He said to these guys, I want you to resolve this, and he made this off-hand comment, "Don't let some damn fish scuttle this." He was just making a joke, but they took it seriously. So with George Miller saying he would sanction the Gang of Four effort if they took one of these three people 02:36:00[identified earlier in transcript], they settled on a fish/aquatics person."

SS: Can you imagine a discussion like this happening with today's Congress?

GR: No. No.

SS: I don't mean to get too political, but yeah.

GR: But then, you know, it was interesting. One time, we were called back to D.C. by George Miller, the six of us were called back. We went into his office, and he had this office off his office, which was like his private office. We were sitting down, and he wanted to know if the enviros were trying to really expand the amount of old growth, and this was in the Gang of Four [report] that they wanted in. What we discovered was that there were a bunch of enviros who had these private inholdings inside these old growth areas, and they were adding 02:37:00on where their particular cabins were.

SS: So, this is what you'd call a bad manifestation of limousine liberalism?

GR: Yes. Yes. And he was furious, and Jerry was the one that figured it out. And we were looking at all of these maps and they're trying to add all these things down here. I'm like, what the hell? There was this little postage stamp thing and they weren't going to support it unless they got, these things got added in. And Jerry figured it out.

SS: Was this like, what rich groups are we talking about?

GR: I don't remember.

SS: Can't remember? Yeah.

GR: But he was just furious. I mean, he cussed them up one side and down the other. He said, there was this classic statement that we all repeat. He said, 02:38:00"You know, you guys stopped the stagecoach, gave the enviros the strong box, and now they're sticking around for their watches and their rings, and they're gonna get shot. They're going to lose the whole thing." And that was his analogy about what was going on.

SS: So, what did the environmentalists legitimately want? You know, aside from these selfish, little things.

GR: Well, I think that the thing was, they wanted old growth. They wanted-

SS: As much as possible?

GR: As much as possible.

SS: Right. And at that time, what was estimated what was the left?

GR: Oh, it was just a fraction.

SS: Five, ten percent?

GR: Something like that, yeah.

SS: I mean, similarly, isn't it the estimate of the redwoods that were basically salvaged through the little park system down in northern California, something like five to eight percent?

GR: Yeah, just some small remnant population, a segment of what was there originally.

SS: But they were more concerned with the old growth and the charismatic species like the spotted owl. They weren't as focused on riparian stuff?

GR: No, but once once we surfaced that issue--

SS: Then they glommed onto it?

GR: Then they glommed on it bigtime, yeah.

SS: How did that manifest itself, both during the planning process and since?

GR: They have just been pushing really hard that nothing happen in there, and keep it as big as possible.

SS: In terms of the riparian reserves, correct?

GR: Yes.

SS: How does that intersect with laws like the Clean Water Act, Wild and Scenic Rivers Act? How were those things tied in with what you guys did?

GR: The Clean Water Act was a real big part of it, because trying to minimize any additional listing that is in 303(d) [section of Clean Water Act concerning 02:40:00listing of impaired waters], where the listings occur, you know, and prevent things from going on from there, or helping them in avoiding legal issues. So, yeah, so there was a lot of stuff going on.

SS: So, tell me about the aftermath and how your involvement developed after the plan was actually implemented. Oh, wait. I will first go back to address the following: Please clarify, what are Tier 1 and Tier 2?

GR: Key watersheds?

SS: Yes, yes.

GR: The key watershed idea was developed back in the Gang of Four. The idea was that we would have watersheds distributed throughout the Northwest Forest Plan area where there was an emphasis on managing for aquatic values, and these were 02:41:00the key watersheds. The Tier 1 key watersheds were watersheds that had either existing strong populations of fish and good habitat, or in the judgment of the various fish biologists, had the best potential for restoration. Additionally, some people were concerned about drinking water, so we developed Tier 2 watersheds to protect municipal drinking water sources.

SS: Like, for instance, Bull Run in Portland, right?

GR: Bull Run in Portland, or the Ashland watershed [southern Oregon].

SS: Or the McKenzie in Eugene?

GR: Exactly, yeah.

SS: Where does Corvallis get its water, by the way?

GR: The Willamette, this time of year, it's primarily Willamette. But during the winter, it's, oh, God, where?

SS: Mary's River?

GR: It's not the Mary's, it's a tributary of the Mary's, not Greasy Creek. Anyhow, it's out there. [Rock Creek on the east flank of Mary's Peak in the Siuslaw National Forest.]

SS: It doesn't matter. Anyway, back to what we were talking about. How did your role develop and crystallize as the plan is, it's in place, it's the law of the land, and you're going forward? How long before you started to develop a monitoring assessment review process?

GR: Well, it took almost ten years.

SS: Right.

GR: And that's because the agencies couldn't agree.

SS: You're talking about BLM and Forest Service?

GR: Well, it was BLM, Forest Service, EPA, and [National] Park Service.

SS: NOAA?

GR: And NOAA. Okay.

SS: What was the debate, and what was the disagreement?

GR: In all sincerity, I stayed out of it. I just kept my head low and was 02:43:00dealing with other things. Finally, the RIETS, or Regional Interagency Executive Team, made up of representatives from each of the major agencies, who are to oversee management implementation, asked me to help, as there had been three or four unsuccessful attempts to come up with something everybody could agree upon, and they needed this done.

SS: You mean, just even a schematic for doing it?

GR: Yeah, they couldn't even get it.

SS: Is that because of the interlocking oversight of different areas or -- ?

GR: Yeah, it was that, and nobody knew how to deal with this thing called a 02:44:00watershed. Nobody had ever monitored it before.

SS: How do you define a watershed?

GR: We define it by the 6th level field hydrologic unit system from the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) layer for Oregon, a data-set delineated to the 6th level drainage systems. Their boundaries are defined by hydrographic and topographic criteria that delineate an area of land upstream from a specific point on a river, stream, or similar surface waters. I can't remember the exact acreage of the aquatic landscape. It's characterized these days by what are called hydrologic unit codes. A small one, like the smallest watershed at the top, gets two numbers, and that's a first order, a first code. Then, the aggregation of those at some point gets a second and third. A sixth is something 02:45:00the size of like the Mary's River, or Elk River on the south coast [Oregon]. The Alsea is probably a fourth or third code. Anyhow, it's defined on an aerial basis, the drainage of a given area in its entirety. So, if you look at the Aquatic Conservation Strategy [NWFP], that's what it's about; what are the watersheds and maintaining the integrity of those watersheds. And so, the monitoring naturally should be about these watersheds.

SS: Whatever that unit was.

GR: Whatever that unit was.

SS: Right.

GR: And people couldn't agree on how to do it.

SS: Was that also because some of the watersheds were cut up in terms of who owned what?

GR: That was part of it, so that was one of the big challenges. When you have some 6th field watersheds, only five percent of it might be federal. Well, that, and particularly for the BLM, that's what really came into play with the checkerboards [land ownership]. You couldn't effectively monitor. I mean, you could monitor it, but could you really look at the effectiveness of the Northwest Forest Plan, or the aquatic conservation strategy, when ninety-five percent of the watershed is being affected by something else?

SS: How did you come to the point, after ten years, to decide on what to do?

GR: Yeah.

SS: How did you decide what to do, and when you did what did that reveal about what was happening with aquatic resources, what had happened since implementation of the plan, and how effective the plan and its various parts were?

GR: Well, the development took probably about a year. And I think it helped, because I had a real understanding about what was intended and could explain it to people. Then maybe it was just the particular group that got together, we sort of started rallying around my way of doing it, which is, you don't go for the home run, let's hit singles first. When we get the bases loaded, then we can talk. So, it started small. Okay, can we agree on X? We agree on Y, and then started putting it together. Now, if we can agree on X, Y and Z, how do we pull that together? I remember, one of the big issues was, is there such a thing as a watershed? EPA says no. If you look at the Clean Water Act and the monitoring 02:48:00for the Clean Water Act, it's in stream miles. They talk about the number of stream miles that are impaired. They don't recognize the ecological unit of a watershed.

SS: Which is more of a point-source pollution model, like their original, you know, based on the evils of industrialism, in other words?

GR: Exactly, right. So, you know, it was going back-and-forth with the folks from EPA. And finally, what we ended up doing was a person from EPA and myself, and we debated about the merits of a watershed, or the points type of approach. We debated between the Director of PNW, the Director of the USGS Research Group, and EPA. And then those three voted on whether the group should do watersheds or 02:49:00point source.

SS: And?

GR: They voted on watersheds.

SS: Doesn't that fit in tune with what the whole? [NWFP model]

GR: Oh, totally, yeah. I mean, it was-

SS: Holism behind the concept, anyway.

GR: Yeah, it was a rigged vote, because the PNW wasn't going to vote against me, and the EPA wasn't going to vote against their guy and their policies. Right?

SS: Exactly.

GR: Yeah.

SS: So anyway.

GR: But we did it.

SS: So, you got it in place.

GR: Yeah.

SS: You're doing the monitoring, and that's through today? For ten years?

GR: Twenty.

SS: No, but I mean-

GR: Well, we went back, and because some of it was not being done, things you could be doing, measuring remotely, like the number of roads, number of other things, vegetation patterns, and that sort of stuff.

SS: So, you historically reconstructed the ten years before?

GR: Yeah. And so we've done a ten, a fifteen, and now, we just finished up a twenty-year report.

SS: Taking the major points of the plan, your goals, your hopes, what have the reviews told you?

GR: The monitoring had basically said we're making slow, steady progress in terms of improving watershed conditions. One thing about the assessment of option 9 from an aquatic perspective, if you look at it, it was the lowest of the various components, considering it was lower than owls, or it was lower than old growth, it was lower than murrelets and everything else.

SS: You mean, in terms of its grade, meaning forest health?

GR: Yeah, how well we thought it would work.

SS: I meant your predictions were right.

GR: So there was this assessment. The White House wanted us to assess it.

SS: To predict if this going to work, what's your chance of success.

GR: Exactly. They restricted it, and there were two things. They restricted it to 100 years. Will this be successful, and what will things look like in 100 years? Will there be a vast improvement, small improvement, so on and so forth. We said there will be improvement, but that it would probably be relatively small. It's going to take a long time, and this has nothing to do with logging, nothing to do with it. With modern logging, these systems have been vastly mistreated for a long time. And it's going to take a long time for them to recover. Now, the White House didn't particularly like that, because they wanted everything to be like really high up there.

SS: This is back in the Clinton administration?

GR: This is the Clinton administration. They didn't like that. They asked us to 02:52:00"reassess," and I said, "No." I told Jim we're not going to do that. That's our answer, the final answer. And nothing, we would do nothing different the second time around, so we just told Jack that we weren't going to do it.

SS: So, you didn't.

GR: Yeah, we didn't.

SS: Concerning the ten years to now, and you're going to look back at the previous ten years, and off towards twenty, if you were going to draw a sketch since then, how would you state what has happened, what goals were met, what goals were not met, and what are the hopes and plans for the future?

GR: Well, there has been a steady improvement. And in part, one of the major things has been road-decommissioning. So, I think there's been a major effort by 02:53:00the agencies, particularly in the key watersheds.

SS: In other words, reducing erosion, sedimentation and turbidity in the water?

GR: Yeah, all the things that go along with the roads.

SS: Right.

GR: There had been a major effort, a concerted effort, particularly in the key watersheds, to get rid of the roads. So that's been quite good. There's been, just because of natural growth, an increase in the size of large trees in the riparian areas. However, two things that were just surfacing in the twenty-year science censuses, is that, as I talked about, only a very small fraction of these plantations, these overstocked conifer plantations, have been treated [logged] in the last twenty years. What we're finding out, and NOAA does operate 02:54:00on the assumption if we don't anything and that we're having no effect, we won't have any negative effect. But what we're finding out is it appears not doing anything is actually having effects, and they're not good. What we're doing is suppressing the development of diverse vegetation in the riparian areas, so we're losing.

SS: How so?

GR: Well, we're losing hardwoods. Two things, we're losing the hardwood component, and the hardwoods with the leaves and stuff, is a major energy source for many of these streams.

SS: The organic, the biogeochemistry of what's in -- ?

GR: The food chain. So it's likely we're having quite significant effects on the 02:55:00food chain.

SS: In other words, having "too coniferous" of a forest.

GR: Right, exactly.

SS: It actually is hurting the biogeochemistry and the decomposition chain in the riparian system.

GR: And so, you have this cascading effect with the food chain. That's one aspect of it. The other thing is, we're retarding the development of the largest trees that really need to get into the channel. Historically, if you look at "unmanaged stands," the largest trees came from really close to the channels where you had low densities of conifers. Now we've got these dog-hair plantations the regulatory agencies don't want any activity in.

SS: Which does what to the riparian ecosystem?

GR: It retards development of the big trees, and eventually, the recruitment of 02:56:00those trees to the channel. That's one thing, and then, we're finding that fire suppression has an effect. The absence of fire in these landscapes is having some pretty significant ecological implications. Fire is a major disturbance in these systems, and after fires, we had landslides, debris flows and other erosion events, that delivered sediment and wood to the channels, which are the basic building blocks for good fish habitat. We've completely altered that process. Many of these systems where we haven't had fire in a long time, are now particularly sediment-starved.

SS: What does that do nutritionally to the food chain, not just to the fish, but what they eat?

GR: Nutritionally, it has to do with the complexity of the substrates. So, 02:57:00there's two things. One, if you've got a stream bed that is either larger materials or bedrock, you can't deform it to form pools. Also, you don't have any inter-gravel flow that helps cool water, and finally, you don't then have the variety of substrates to support the invertebrates.

SS: Part of the food chain.

GR: Yeah, so there's all kinds of implications we never even thought about.

SS: How about the chemical breakdown of the water in that kind of situation? What is it starving? [biota] What is it missing? [chemical/mechanical]

GR: It's going to be missing a lot of nutrients because you don't have the processing of deciduous [plant] material. There is no place to store it.

SS: How much of the dynamics of breakdown [erosion, hydrology, biogeochemical] and things going into rivers and streams, is mechanical, and how much of it is chemical, in terms of supporting the system?

GR: It's a combination of both. The transport is going to be the mechanical 02:58:00aspects of it. The actual chemical breakdown is more bacterial, and the invertebrates, the bacteria and fungi actually decomposing the leaves, and then the invertebrates coming in and eating the fungi and bacteria.

SS: But when I mean mechanical, I also mean-

GR: Well, just the transport of it.

SS: The mechanical nature of things once they're there, creating pools and places of harbor.

GR: Well, yeah, but in order to create a pool, it's not just bringing in wood, you've got to have something to form the bed.

SS: The whole, right.

GR: We're changing that process. Instead of like in the past, in which periodic influxes of these materials, these building blocks, enter the system and are has some period to work with it. One can imagine, the transitions may not be real 02:59:00favorable in the beginning, but it transitions into something, and it's really favorable, and then it's going to dip down. The other aspect of it is when you look across these landscapes historically. The way fires operated on this landscape, is the whole landscape didn't burn, but there were patches left. You can imagine the variability in conditions amongst these watersheds that existed historically. There's this myth that in the "good-old days," you could have walked across the back of salmon in any stream in Oregon. You know, that didn't exist.

SS: It's the "golden age" mythology that exists everywhere in all cultures.

GR: Exactly. Yeah, and so, we have these false expectations or illusions that are really difficult to overcome.

SS: The "good-old days."

GR: Yeah, right.

SS: So, you're doing the twenty-year synthesis now. Correct?

GR: Right.

SS: Is this what you're telling me about now kind of part of that?

GR: Yes.

SS: Do you want to continue a little bit more talking about that?

GR: Well, I think what we're seeing is that we've got to figure out two things. We've got to challenge this notion that no activity has no effect, or it looks like you can't do something in the plantations; that we're not having an effect, but we are having an effect. It's going to be a challenge, and how do we deal with that from a regulatory perspective? What it is someone is going to have to do? And you have to think about if we are willing to take a short-term potential negative effect for a long-term positive gain. Then somebody has to make a 03:01:00decision and take responsibility for it.

SS: Take the heat.

GR: To take the heat. Exactly. Or, are you just going to say, we're not going to do that. Now, I think we'll be able to start to have the discussion, and when you say you're not going to do that, that's not no effect. That is an effect. [Inaction can have effects]

SS: What has been the biggest surprise for you, first, from the aquatics, portion [NWFP], but also in general, effects, good or bad, from what was expected or hoped for with the original plan? You can start with aquatics, but you can also reference old growth and that kind of thing.

GR: I think we've advanced aquatic conservation strategies. Norm [Johnson] said that of all the stuff which came out of the Northwest Forest Plan, the Aquatic 03:02:00Conservation Strategy was probably the most innovative, creative and effective thing that happened. And it was totally new. He felt it was the biggest thing. But he doesn't like to say that around Jerry because it upsets Jerry, and he thinks they [aspects of NWFP] all sound good. But, I'll take it.

SS: You don't want to shake the guru, do you?

GR: No, you don't want to poke the old dog in the eye. But the truth be told, I think it really is [innovative]. But having said that, it's been implemented in a very protective way. [Limits on activity, affecting innovation.]

SS: The aquatic part?

GR: Yes, the aquatic part. There has been very limited activity in the Riparian Reserves, when there was expected to be a fair amount. There have been very few attempts to think big or develop work to apply over a large area.

SS: Which is still the paradigm of the Forest Service, BLM, and pretty much everybody?

GR: Exactly. We assume that by doing active management that we are not having an effect. However, we often creating unintended affects that will be expressed in the future [range of issues regarding ecosystems].

SS: Give me an example?

GR: Well, again, you know, with fire suppression, we're trying to protect something, right?

SS: Right.

GR: Well, in many of our streams, there's a serious deficit of sediments.

SS: Because there's not enough erosion?

GR: There's not enough erosion. And even when we have a fire, what's the first 03:04:00thing we do?

SS: Put it out.

GR: We put it out. But after a fire, the number one priority of the Forest Service is to stop erosion.

SS: Do whatever you can to plant stuff?

GR: Right, to stop erosion. Okay, I understand, you've got the Clean Water Act, property and stuff, but don't do it under the guise of saying you're protecting these stream systems, because you're actually not.

SS: About the Clean Water Act, how much better do streams of the Northwest fulfill provisions of the Clean Water Act since twenty years ago?

GR: Well, it's probably better, but again, it's coming at a price. The Clean Water Act says every stream should be drinkable, swimmable, wade-able, fishable, 03:05:00whatever-able, whatever they call it. It says every stream shall do this. That never happened, it never will happen, and if it does, we're in trouble.

SS: Because?

GR: We need this inherent variability. [In aquatic/terrestrial ecosystems.]

SS: Right.

GR: If you look at the fish we're trying to protect, they're built for disturbance. You look at them, they're nothing more than "weeds," you know, aquatic weeds. That is indicative of an evolving landscape that was very dynamic and very unpredictable, and we're trying to force them into a much more stable, predictable landscape, and that's just not going to happen.

SS: It shows, I think, the limitations of even the best-laid human plans.

GR: Exactly, exactly.

SS: Mother nature is still boss, in other words.

GR: Yeah, that's right.

SS: We're just temporarily visiting here.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: What would you say the biggest disappointment or shortcoming of the plan was in terms of the plan itself, but also how it's played out over time? Stick again with aquatics, unless you want to make other comments.

GR: If I could go back in time and change one thing in the plan, it would be to not call the riparian reserves, "riparian reserves." That completely sent the wrong message. You know, we used the "R-word" and we never should have done it. [Implied to many, preservation without active management]

SS: Which means something like a park preserve? Don't touch.

GR: Exactly, don't touch. And that was never what the intention was. The intention was, let's identify the outer boundary of the aquatic ecosystem, and manage it in a very dynamic way.

SS: Preserve made it sound like it's a park.

GR: Exactly.

SS: Right.

GR: That sent a message that these were really no-touch zones. So, in part, the scientists are responsible for what's happened. I'm not trying to lay it all on the managers or the regulatory agencies. We were in part responsible just because of the terms we used. And I know why we did it. We did it because everybody was tired and we were losing our creativity. We had been through the Gang of Four, we'd been through SAT, we'd been through PACFISH, INFISH, whatever else we did in between before we got to FEMAT. We were trying to change the terms, but we didn't come up with new terminology. You can only call a dog so many things, and then you run out of terms. We did that. We knew that was going 03:08:00to be an issue from day one, and we just didn't deal with it.

SS: What do you think going forward, is going to happen? We're twenty years in, and that's a generation. It's inculcated into the culture now, although there will be more challenges because of the barred owl-spotted owl thing.

GR: The Forest Service mentality has always been to act more like a district, composed of many independent entities not accustomed to being under the direction of a single plan. Now that plans [forest/district levels] are up for revision, it is not clear how the current plan [NWFP] will be followed or modified. What the political pressure will be like is unclear. Under the Obama 03:09:00Administration, there was essentially benign neglect of natural resource issues. What happens under the new administration [Clinton or Trump - interview during 2016 campaign] remains to be seen.

SS: And it certainly wasn't on the Bush administration either. Correct?

GR: Well, it was low there. You know, with Obama, it's just been benign neglect. Bush was purposefully neglectful.

SS: Yeah.

GR: Now, I don't expect much to happen given how close we're getting to the election. But what will happen after the election will be interesting. Is it going to be a high priority if Hillary wins, and what would they do? If Trump 03:10:00wins, you know, it's just going right out the window. It'll be dead before he's sworn in.

SS: So, you're not sure what's going to happen after the next election? We're kind of in a static period right now.

GR: Is the Forest Service going to, in unison, continue with the Northwest Forest Plan with some adjustments, or tinkering around the edges? Or is everybody going to go their own way again, roll the dice, and the Siuslaw does something different than the Umpqua, the Willamette, and who knows?

SS: Yeah, it'll be hard to change the momentum that's been built, but clearly the timber companies and the local communities, especially since the O&C lands aren't bringing in money anymore, they're certainly looking at changing the paradigm back to something more like it used to be. Correct?

GR: Yeah. I think that, too. But you know, the other thing is, science no longer holds sway like it did twenty years ago, truth be told.

SS: Denial of everything, really. Facts are no longer important.

GR: And in the National Forest system, I think if they can avoid using the science, they're going to do it.

SS: Interesting. Anyway, you want to talk a little bit about Jim Sedell on the record?

GR: Other than Jimmy was one of the most wonderful people that I know.

SS: Just for the sake of this introduction here, Jim, who was a leading person in the Northwest Forest Plan, but also in many other areas in the private and public sectors, passed away, how many, three years ago?

GR: About three years.

SS: Three years ago, of pancreatic cancer. And Gordie and Jim were co-leaders on the aquatic portion of the FEMAT report in the Northwest Forest Plan, and good 03:12:00friends. So, anyway, talk about Jim a little bit.

GR: Well, I mean, what do you say? I don't even know what to say. It will definitely go down as one of the highlights of my life, having known and worked with Jim. There was nobody else like him. He was incredibly creative and energetic, and just a kind, wonderful person. We were talking the last time we got together before Jim passed, and he said to me, "You the one person in this world I never got mad at." I said, "Wow." And he said, "You knew how to talk to 03:13:00me and respect me, and when we disagreed, you just told me straight up." And I said, "Well, Jimmy, I got mad at you once." He said, "Yeah, I know." When you worked with somebody for twenty-five years, and you think, he never got mad at you, and you got mad at him once? Whoa! That's pretty special. That's really special.

When we would be introduced, someone would ask me what I do. And I'd say, "Well, I do everything that Jim Sedell says he's going to do and never does." I mean, the guy was just a creative genius. He just was thinking about stuff all the 03:14:00time, challenging assumptions and paradigms. But he wasn't a good detail guy. So, I think that is why we worked really well together. I could come in and do the detail work.

SS: You were the ying and the yang?

GR: Yeah, exactly. And we just were able to do it.

SS: How many ideas [aquatic-centered] in the Northwest Forest Plan, were primarily or originally his ideas, or was it truly collaborative? Or did he really drop the big ideas, and then you guys shaped them?

GR: I'm not exaggerating--the whole foundation was developed in the car ride between Corvallis and Portland on our way to the Gang of Four [Memorial Coliseum meeting]. It just matured from there. We had this conversation. Okay, what's going on? How do we think this world works? How do we take what we need, the 03:15:00difference between what we have now and what we think we need, and how would we go about doing that? So, we don't think the riparian ecosystems are correctly identified. How would we think about it? Well, maybe we shouldn't think about a distance, but maybe something about function. If we're talking about function and the processes, what are we thinking? And it was just this exchange; an idea from him, one from me, and we just jotted these things down. And then it sort of morphed and changed and was challenged in different ways. It was just an iterative process of continually challenging and not accepting anything. And I think that was really important. We're not resting on laurels, but constantly changing everything. In fact, we used to say that it would be totally surprising 03:16:00if these ideas held up for very long.

SS: So, twenty years is a success story?

GR: Twenty years, yeah. That's because what you're doing is just offering up an idea, and then, people go out and test it, and hopefully learn from those tests about what worked, what didn't work, and then offer up a new idea. It's not reasonable to think that your idea is not going to be challenged at some point. In fact, if they're good ideas, they will be challenged.

SS: Now, what role did he [Jim] have after the plan was actually created?

GR: Well, Jimmy went into more administrative roles. He was director of research for the Forest Service back in D.C. He became a director of the PSW [Pacific 03:17:00Southwest-California] Research Station. But we always stayed in touch. We always talked, sometimes every day for months. For example, he'd call me up and say, I got this problem, what do you think about X, or these other things? Or I'd call him up and say, Jimmy, I'm thinking about this, what do you think? What is your spin on it, or how do we talk about it? We just continually went back-and-forth on those types of things, all the time.

SS: Was he your best friend?

GR: He was one of my best friends. He was one of my best friends.

SS: Tough, huh?

GR: Yeah, it was, it was a shock, you know, but-

SS: It's hard to see big personalities go away like that prematurely.

GR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I have to tell you, you know, like having that discussion. What was really interesting is we both were sad, but we weren't scared. You know?

SS: You mean, when he was getting ready to die?

GR: Yeah, and we talked about it. It was like, wow, Jimmy, just amazing. It was absolutely amazing what we did together. And not only what we did together, but how we did it and how much fun we had.

SS: So, even amidst all this stress and pressure, it wasn't like, 'oh, my God, the sky is falling,' it's like, 'we're going to get through this kind of thing.'

GR: Yeah, "Eye of the tiger," he used to say. "Eye of the tiger." I remember we were down in Port Orford one time to deal with something, we had to meet with the folks on the Siskiyou about something. We were watching one of the Rocky movies and they played the music for "Eye of the Tiger," and that became sort of 03:19:00Jimmy's whole thing, "Okay, eye of the tiger, man, suck it up. We're going to go do this."

SS: Too bad it couldn't have been a better movie.

GR: Yeah.

SS: Well, the first one was great.

GR: The first one was great, then it went downhill from there.

SS: Yeah, they're still making them.

GR: Oh, yeah.

SS: Now, he's [Stallone/Rocky] coming back as a trainer to train the son of Apollo Creed.

GR: Yeah, okay.

SS: Anyway, we're getting close.

[End of Audio, Part 1]

[Start of Audio, Part 2]

SS: We are on File two of the interview with Gordon Reeves and Samuel Schmieding. We're just finishing up here, but we ran out of space on the previous file. So, we're now commencing a new digital file to make sure we finish this and don't get cut off mid-sentence, mid-paragraph, or mid-thought. Anyway, you were talking a little bit more about Jim?

GR: Yeah, I mean, it was just incredible, how fortunate I was to meet up with Jim, and to just work with him.

SS: Did you have a nickname for him, or nicknames?

GR: Oh, well, no. What was really funny, Ellen, his wife came up to me afterwards, after I did a eulogy at his memorial service. And you know, I used to call him Jimmy.

SS: Well, you still do. GR: Jimmy or J.R., but my favorite was the "adrenal gland with eyes." He was just going all the time, you know, and we used to joke about it. He was the adrenal gland with eyes.

SS: He was an energetic dude, wasn't he?

GR: Oh, he totally was, yeah.

SS: With a little bit of ADHD built in? (Laughs)

GR: Yeah. And again, I think that's why we worked well together, because we were really, as you said, the ying and yang.

SS: You're a little more chilled than him.

GR: Yeah, and there were several times I couldn't keep up with him on an intellectual level. He was three steps ahead of me.

SS: What was his background in terms of his training and reading?

GR: He was a philosophy major as an undergraduate.

SS: That's what I thought.

GR: Anyway, he went to grad school and went into aquatic ecology.

SS: So, that's where that came from.

GR: Yeah, totally.

SS: So, did he have a nickname for you?

GR: Nope.

SS: No, just Gordie?

GR: That was it.

SS: Just Gordie. Cool. What do you think the legacy of somebody like him should be? A guy, who wasn't like a company man with one agency where he stayed his whole career. He jumped all over the place.

GR: Right, yeah.

SS: What is the legacy of somebody like that?

GR: Wow. What would be Jimmy's legacy?

SS: And I'm asking you purposely.

GR: No, I know, I know.

SS: Because you knew him so well, and I intended on doing this in this interview.

GR: Yeah, I'm just trying to think about what or how I would even say, and it's hard. He was a real facilitator. And if I looked back at Jim, that is what I 03:22:00would say he was really about. He was a guy who made people think, and to think differently, and creatively to push the envelope. As a result, there were some really innovative things in the Northwest Forest Plan. He was really the pusher behind the stream continuum [River Continuum Project]. If you want a leader who has some charisma, can excite people and get them motivated, it was Jimmy. If you wanted a leader who was going to pay attention to the details, forget it, that wasn't what he was all about.

SS: So, sometimes he could be frustrating to work with because he didn't finish 03:23:00certain things?

GR: Well, that drove some people nuts. And my thing was, get over it. Look at what he did, and if you want it finished, finish it. He gave you the idea. That's what he does. Well, why didn't he do this? That's not Jim. He gave you the idea, and he's already three projects down the road from that.

SS: Well, thank you for sharing that.

GR: Yeah.

SS: What do you think the Northwest Forest Plan got wrong, and were some of the things were that have made it difficult to implement, especially certain aspects of it. I've heard the "Survey and Manage" policy being a big problem, but you know more about it than me, so fill in some blanks.

GR: Well, I think we all recognized this. When asked to evaluate the various 03:24:00options, we said, "Look, you can't evaluate these options unless you consider the whole landscape." In many places, from an ecological perspective, it doesn't matter what happens on federal lands. We could lock them up and things may not improve. We wanted to talk about that and bring that to the forefront, but we were never able to. But where we did that was in the CLAMS project, the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study. Afterwards, when a bunch of us were really concerned about the absence of being able to do that. And we initiated a 03:25:00ten-year study to do it. SS: She's saying, it's hot in here, I want the fan. [Family dog in room]

GR: Yeah.

SS: Anyway, she's panting. (Break in audio.) But continue on, with maybe a critique or reassessment of the plan and how it's worked out?

GR: Well, again, I think that-

SS: Not just your area, but anything else.

GR: I think in general, it's been successful. You know, the unanticipated things, like the barred owl. It was just like, okay, who saw that coming? (Laughs) And we didn't think about climate change.

SS: When you started, it [climate change], was barely on the radar. [Central in climate science, but not yet mainstreamed in society/other disciplines.]

GR: Right, right.

SS: I mean, 1992 was the first big international meeting about it.

GR: Yeah, so one of the things is that, okay, well, maybe we didn't get it right, but we've preserved some options by not going as fast at active management as we would have done otherwise.

SS: And when you mean active management, you mean intensive silviculture?

GR: Silviculure type of stuff, right. So, we slowed it down, and basically, we've had a "time-out" for a while. But this "time-out" also likely had unintended consequences that will likely express themselves in the future. So, it's been a success, but not without some downturns. And we may not fully yet 03:27:00recognize either the extent of the successes or the extent of the downsides. Evidence on those outcomes are just starting to emerge.

SS: What about the fact that the timber sales, especially in Matrix and AMAs, have been far lower than expected, for a variety of reasons?

GR: Well, is that the Northwest Forest Plan's fault, or is it, for example, we assumed that there would be some sale of old-growth, continued old-growth harvest, to keep up the numbers, right? Well, there's no social license to cut big trees any more. We didn't see that coming.

SS: What do you mean, social license? [Cultural paradigm shift.]

GR: Well, nobody. SS: It's not acceptable?

GR: It's not acceptable.

SS: Except in certain rural communities.

GR: And even there, it's not acceptable that much because the mills can't handle it.

SS: Because they've already retrofitted their stuff?

GR: Exactly.

SS: Exactly.

GR: So, a lot of it was premised, at least initially, upon harvesting some old growth. That didn't happen. And like the barred owl, we didn't see that type of stuff happening.

SS: Nature is a moving target.

GR: Oh, yeah, totally, totally. And like I said, we completely missed climate change. Not missed it, we didn't deal with it.

SS: Well, it just wasn't one of the main issues.

GR: It wasn't one of the big issues, exactly.

SS: At the time, you were focused with shorter-term stuff, really.

GR: Those type of things, I think, is where I think there's a downside. And that wasn't an intentional downside [low timber harvest numbers for example, spotted owl/barred owl, etc.], but it's something that we're going to have deal with as this thing morphs and moves forward.

SS: Now, how do you think climate change has affected stream temperatures in the Northwest, or is it too soon to tell?

GR: I think it's too soon to tell. We've been doing some stuff recently, and there's a lot more variability in stream temperatures out there within a given stream than we had fully appreciated. We're going to have to deal with variability and how aquatic ecosystems behave, and the expressions of that variability. This is going to be something that we've got to think about, and then figure out how you'd bring it in to management.

SS: Now, if you were going to put this whole plan and process and aftermath in the context of American history, environmental history, what would be a capstone statement that you'd characterize it as?

GR: It was really innovative and creative, and it served its purpose, but it needs to change. It needs to morph.

SS: And with that, we sign off.

GR: Okay.

SS: Actually, Gordon, I really want to say one more thing. Thank you very for spending this afternoon here in Corvallis with me for this important oral history project. We're going to be interviewing a lot of other people, and it will provide a really important retrospective on a very important policy document and event, in American environmental history. So, thank you.

GR: You're welcome.