The Conservation Column

by Pepper Trail

The Trump Administration Plans Could Destroy the Forest Service

At the end of March, the Trump Administration announced a massive overhaul and downsizing of the U.S. Forest Service. The plan would move the headquarters from Washington DC to Utah, would close or repurpose all nine of its regional offices, create 15 state offices, and shutter research and development facilities in more than 30 states.  This summary from High Country News does an excellent job of summarizing this disastrous plan:  https://www.hcn.org/articles/forest-service-overhaul-sows-confusion-concern/.

But I want to devote the bulk of this month’s Conservation Column to a local issue, and one on which I hope RVAS can have a strong positive impact: the pending sale of Ashland’s Imperatrice Grasslands.

What the Sale of the Imperatrice Property Will Tell Us About Ashland’s Values

Many Ashland residents aren’t aware that the city owns an ecologically precious 846-acre property, a remnant of the grasslands that once covered the lowlands of the Bear Creek valley.  Known as the Imperatrice, this rises east of I-5 above the truck weigh station.  It was purchased as part of a long-discarded plan for dealing with effluent from the water treatment plant. In recent years the lower area, below the Talent Irrigation Ditch, has been leased for livestock grazing, but the upper 556 acres is home to a remarkably intact perennial grassland community.

In the spring, the rolling hills of the Imperatrice are covered with a wealth of wildflowers, large numbers of pollinators, and echo with the songs of meadowlarks. Surveys by the Klamath Bird Observatory have documented that these grasslands are home to one of Oregon’s largest breeding populations of a threatened bird, the Grasshopper Sparrow; and the Siskiyou Chapter of the Native Plant Society has discovered the round-leaf filaree and other rare plants there. Rogue Valley Audubon, along with the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, KBO, and NPSO, have long advocated for the permanent protection of this irreplaceable property.

The Ashland City Council, facing serious financial challenges, has decided to sell the Imperatrice. How this sale is conducted will be a critical test of Ashland’s values.

On March 16, the City of Ashland convened a “community conversation” at the Bellview Grange on the future of the Imperatrice. (The possible sale of the 15-acre Hardesty property near the Water Treatment Plant was also discussed, but no decision on that has yet been made).  I attended as a representative for RVAS.

Mayor Tonya Graham moderated the discussion, and shared some important facts at the outset:

  • the Imperatrice was purchased with a grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund for $946,000, which must be repaid when the property is sold
  • the land is appraised at $3.8 million ($2.4 million for the lower irrigated 290 acres, and $1.4 million for the upper unirrigated 556 acres). Several audience members expressed that this appraisal seemed much too low.
  • the land is outside Ashland’s city limits, and thus is under county land use rules
  • it is zoned EFU (Exclusive Farm Use). That limits but would not preclude a buyer dividing the property into a number of parcels with homes as long as there is “farm income.” EFU zoning would also allow placing solar arrays on the property.

Community members shared a diversity of views on the value and possible futures for the Imperatrice, with two main themes: prioritizing the preservation of the Imperatrice’s ecological values, and emphasizing the property’s value as grazing land.  Many participants noted that these were not mutually exclusive. For example, grazing could be conducted on the irrigated lower area, while protecting the native grassland above the ditch. Staff of the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy were present, and expressed strong interest in helping to secure the land’s permanent conservation, potentially including conservation and/or working-lands easements.

What was NOT advocated by anyone in the audience was to simply sell the Imperatrice to the highest bidder, regardless of their plans for the property.  Almost all the private land east of I-5 from Emigrant Lake to Medford is chopped up into ranchettes, vineyards, and hemp farms.  No one wants that to be the fate of this unique large intact grassland.

The Ashland City Council has fiscal responsibilities.  But it also has responsibilities to honor the values which this town holds dear, and to assure that this city-owned property is sold to an owner who respects those values.

I urge members of RVAS who live in Ashland to contact the Ashland City Council and advocate that conditions be placed on the sale of the Imperatrice, or that the sale be offered to a conservation buyer such as the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy. Insist that this irreplaceable intact grassland must not be sacrificed to subdivision and development.

To contact the Ashland City Council, go to: https://ashlandoregon.gov/379/City-Council.

Thanks!