Thank you for voting Yes on Measure 49!

It’s Your Oregon. Thank you for voting Yes on Measure 49!

The Board of Directors of the Oregon Environmental Council voted unanimously to endorse Measure 49. Here’s why we believe this issue was so important and deserved your support.

At the Oregon Environmental Council, we share a steadfast commitment to the responsible stewardship of Oregon’s natural legacy. That’s what we mean when we say, “It’s Your Oregon.” We only have one Oregon, one home, to cherish and protect. It is the spirit of protecting our home that we’re asking Oregonians to support Measure 49.

A “yes” vote on Measure 49 was our last chance to avoid major impacts on Oregon’s environment that would have resulted from implementation of Measure 37, passed three years ago by a slim majority of voters.

Measure 37 was billed as the way to provide small landowners with the ability to build a home or two on their land – for their kids or to fund retirement. And yet, in the two years since its passage, Measure 37 produced something much different:

• More than 7,500 claims for development have been filed on over 750,000 acres across the state – largely on valuable farmland, forestland, along precious waterways, and in water-restricted areas.

• Over 2,700 claims for massive far-flung housing subdivisions with another 2,000 possible subdivisions from claims for unspecified development on over 10 acres. The increase in vehicle trips from development of poorly-planned Measure 37 subdivisions in every corner of the state would be considerable, leading to more traffic and greater pollution of our air and water.
  

Other development claims would have put commercial and industrial development, such as strip malls, mines, rock-blasting operations, paint ball courts and more, on these same farm and forest lands, and in sensitive natural environments.

For example, a Measure 37 claim has been filed at the mouth of the wild Sixes River—perhaps the greatest natural estuary remaining on the Coast. The claim threatens wild salmon and steelhead habitat with 150 housing units, a 250-room hotel, golf courses, and parking lots on land that is in a beach and dune conservation area.

A pumice mine is proposed in the Newberry National Monument and other claims for massive developments on Steens Mountain, Mt Hood, and up and down the Oregon Coast have also been filed.

While most areas of our country have lost farmland, forests and natural areas to development, Oregon has – so far -- preserved the places that make our state special.

Measure 49 will bring balance back to Oregon’s land use planning - preserving farmland, forests and water-restricted areas from over-development by fixing flaws in Measure 37 that allow large housing subdivisions, big-box stores and strip malls where they don't belong. At the same time, it protects the rights of families to build a few homes on their own property.

Preserving Oregon’s Quality of Life

At the core of the Oregon Environmental Council’s mission is the idea that we all have a shared stake in Oregon’s future and with that a shared responsibility to protect it and do our best to make it better. There are very few elections in which we have had such a direct impact in making Oregon better.

Fixing Measure 37 has larger implications beyond protecting Oregon’s special places, it has broad ranging impacts on our quality of life. Our efforts to curb global warming, protect kids from toxic pollution, clean up Oregon’s rivers, promote healthy foods and local farms, and create a more sustainable economy also stood to suffer a giant step backward unless Measure 49 was successful.

It was.

Thank you, fellow Oregonians in voting Yes on Measure 49. Your vote made a difference in protecting what’s special and unique about Oregon in the years to come.