Imagine yourself living in a tribal village along with a small, closely-knit community, sustained by the pure waters of a clean-flowing river. Now imagine one thoughtless villager, for his own convenience, insisted on defecating in the river everyone drank from. This person would, of course, be sternly reprimanded and forbidden from polluting the river any further, and if he refused to mend his ways, banned from the village, or imprisoned.
While most of us are no longer living in tribal villages, this unfortunate analogy still holds true today for our town of Eugene. For there is a man who lives in Eugene committing a similar act of despoiling our drinking water supply: Aaron U. Jones, CEO of Seneca-Jones Timber Company. Jones and his company (among others) are responsible for logging thousands of acres of old-growth and mature forests in the McKenzie River watershed this past summer and fall. Removing trees from the watershed results in soil runoff, which muddies up the river we all drink from.
While most of the McKenzie sales have already been cut, this spring Jones plans to log the Trapper sale, a spotted-owl haven. Call Aaron Jones at 541-689-1231, and demand that he stop degrading Eugene’s source of drinking water! 
The only thing worse than a villager fouling the drinking water is an outsider doing the same. This outsider’s name is Rob Freres, V.P. of Freres Lumber Company in Lyons, OR, who has logged the Flatco, Kinkoe and Sten sales in the McKenzie. He can be reached at 503-859-2121.
Ben Castle
Eugene