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The Coos Bay Wagon Road Lands is land managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management. The land was originally granted to the Oregon & California Railroad to create a road between Coos Bay, Oregon, and Roseburg, Oregon. The land was reconveyed to the United States in 1937.
The Coos Bay Wagon Road Lands (CBWR) were originally granted to the Oregon & California Railroad in 1866. They include odd-numbered sections in a six-mile swath between Coos Bay and Roseburg. The grant, which was intended to finance construction of a military road between the two towns, was forfeited by the railroad for violating grant provisions identical to those that caused the revestment of the Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands (O&C Lands). [1] On February 26, 1919 federal legislation was enacted [2] to reconvey to the United States approximately 73,583 acres of land in Coos and Douglas counties that had been conveyed by the United States to the Coos Bay Wagon Road. Congress enacted the Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937 (43 U.S.C. § 1181f), directing the Secretary of Interior to manage the reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road Lands for permanent forest production under the principle of sustained yield, for the purpose of providing a permanent source of timber supply, protecting watersheds, regulating stream flow, and contributing to the economic stability of local communities and industries. The act also directed the secretary to provide recreational facilities and establish a formula to pay revenues from forest production on the reconveyed lands to Coos and Douglas counties in lieu of taxes in proportion to the relative assessed value of the reconveyed lands in each county.
The Coos Bay Wagon Road Lands are currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a unit of the United States Department of the Interior. The CBWR and O&C Lands have both been subject to significant litigation over the management of timber resources, a portion of whose revenues are shared with local counties for public services. As litigation increased over the harvest of public timber in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s, Congress recognized that the potential reduction in timber sale volume and revenues associated with the controversy would cause extreme financial uncertainty for the O&C counties (including the two counties with CBWR). To stabilize payments to these counties, appropriations language in 1991, 1992, and 1993 included provisions for a "floor" payment to the O&C counties. The "floor" was equal to the annual average payments covering the five-year period between 1986 and 1990. In 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan was established to provide a stable supply of timber and protection of fish and wildlife habitat for 22.1 million acres of federal forest in Western Oregon, Western Washington, and Northern California (including 2.7 million acres of BLM-administered forests). [3] To account for lower levels of timber harvest necessary to protect water quality and habitat for fish and wildlife Congress created a county payment "safety net" and, in 2000, payments to O&C counties have been legislated under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (Pub. L. Tooltip Public Law (United States) 106–393 (text) (PDF)).
In 2011, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar endorsed a demonstration timber sale pilot project on federal forest lands along Coos Bay Wagon Road in coordination with two professors. [4] The pilot project is intended to demonstrate the ecosystem principles of K. Norm Johnson, professor of forestry resources at Oregon State University, and Jerry Franklin, professor of ecosystem science at the University of Washington. These principles include variable retention regeneration harvest (clearcutting with retention patches) in the Oregon Coast Range. Under the terms of the demonstration project, the Coquille Tribe and the Coos Bay District BLM will work together to plan and implement the project, combining the skills of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Franklin and the BLM and Coquille Tribe's natural resource professionals. Resulting timber sales was intended to comply with all BLM requirements, however the resulting timber sale was protested by conservation groups alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The pilot project will include about 130 acres of timber harvest. The Coos County Coos Bay Wagon Road lands are part of the Coquille Tribe's ancestral homeland. The Coquille Tribe was given over 4,000 acres of federal forest land through legislation adopted in 1995.
In 2011, a group of local stakeholders proposed a way to increase the revenues generated from the CBWR in order to provide Coos County with a stable amount of funding. The proposal, which would require federal legislation, is supported by Coos County Board of Commissioners and would keep the CBWR in BLM ownership. However, management of the timber on 51,000 acres would be transferred to the Coquille Indian Tribe and managed under the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act. Fifty percent of timber revenues would be given to Coos County. The other fifty percent would pay for forest management and restoration and investment in local economic development.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with oversight over 247.3 million acres (1,001,000 km2), it governs one eighth of the country's landmass.
Coos County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,929. The county seat is Coquille. The county was formed from the western parts of Umpqua and Jackson counties. It is named after a tribe of Native Americans who live in the region. Coos County comprises the Coos Bay, OR Micropolitan Statistical Area.
The Oregon and California Railroad was formed from the Oregon Central Railroad when it was the first to operate a 20-mile (32 km) stretch south of Portland in 1869. This qualified the railroad for land grants in California, whereupon the name of the railroad soon changed to Oregon & California Rail Road Company. In 1887, the line was completed over Siskiyou Summit, and the Southern Pacific Railroad assumed control of the railroad, although it was not officially sold to Southern Pacific until January 3, 1927. This route was eventually spun off from the Southern Pacific as the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad.
Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution, Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal lands, such as by limiting cattle grazing on them. These powers have been recognized in a long line of United States Supreme Court decisions.
Oregon Route 42 (OR 42) is an Oregon state highway which runs between U.S. Route 101 on the Oregon Coast, near Coos Bay, and Green, a few miles south of Roseburg on Interstate 5. OR 42 traverses the Coos Bay–Roseburg Highway No. 35 of the Oregon state highway system. The route splits at Coquille, where Oregon Route 42S heads southwest toward Bandon.
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 is a United States federal law that provides for the regulation of grazing on the public lands to improve rangeland conditions and regulate their use.
The Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad is a Class II railroad operating between Northern California and Eugene, Oregon, United States. It was previously a mainline owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) between Eugene and Weed, California via Medford, Oregon. SP sold the route on December 31, 1994, in favor of using its route to Eugene via Klamath Falls, Oregon and Cascade Summit.
The Coquille Indian Tribe is the federally recognized Native American tribe of the Coquille people who have traditionally lived on the southern Oregon Coast.
Abraham Walter Lafferty was a U.S. Representative from the state of Oregon. Lafferty spent the majority of his career both as a legislator and as an attorney attempting to have millions of acres of land previously owned by the Oregon and California Railroad come under Oregon state control, rather than the control of the U.S. federal government.
According to the California Protected Areas Database (CPAD), in the state of California, United States, there are over 14,000 inventoried protected areas administered by public agencies and non-profits. In addition, there are private conservation areas and other easements. They include almost one-third of California's scenic coastline, including coastal wetlands, estuaries, beaches, and dune systems. The California State Parks system alone has 270 units and covers 1.3 million acres (5,300 km2), with over 280 miles (450 km) of coastline, 625 miles (1,006 km) of lake and river frontage, nearly 18,000 campsites, and 3,000 miles (5,000 km) of hiking, biking, and equestrian trails.
Land use in Oregon concerns the evolving set of laws affecting land ownership and its restrictions in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The history of steamboats on the Oregon Coast begins in the late 19th century. Before the development of modern road and rail networks, transportation on the coast of Oregon was largely water-borne. This article focuses on inland steamboats and similar craft operating in, from south to north on the coast: Rogue River, Coquille River, Coos Bay, Umpqua River, Siuslaw Bay, Yaquina Bay, Siletz River, and Tillamook Bay. The boats were all very small, nothing like the big sternwheelers and propeller boats that ran on the Columbia River or Puget Sound. There were many of them, however, and they came to be known as the "mosquito fleet."
Santiam State Forest is one of six state forests managed by the Oregon Department of Forestry. The forest is located approximately 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Salem, Oregon, and includes 47,871 acres (193.73 km2) on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains in three Oregon counties: Clackamas, Linn, and Marion. It is bounded on the east by the Willamette National Forest and Mount Hood National Forest. Silver Falls State Park is located west of the forest. The rest of the land surrounding the forest belongs to the Bureau of Land Management or is privately owned. The forest is managed as part of the Department of Forestry's North Cascade District.
The Chamberlain–Ferris Act of June 9, 1916 was an Act of the United States Congress that ruled that 2,800,000 acres (11,000 km2) of the original 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km2) granted to the Southern Pacific Company in California and Oregon were revested to the United States, and put under the control of the General Land Office, which was to dispose of the lands and timber through auction sales. The lands were named the Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands.
County payments are the United States Forest Service payments of 25% of gross revenues from each national forest to the states for use on the road and school programs in the counties where the national forests are located. The payments are technically known as Payments to States, because the states determine which road and school programs can be funded. However, the payments are allocated to the counties based on the national forest acreage in each county. County payments were modified temporarily by the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.
The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 was a bill passed into law by the United States Congress on October 30, 2000. The law amended the United States Forest Service's county payments program for FY2001-FY2006 to allow states or counties to choose to receive the average of the three highest payments for FY1986-FY1999 in lieu of the regular 25% payment, but requiring that 15–20% of those payments be used by the counties for specified purposes, in accordance with recommendations of resource advisory committees for projects on federal lands, or returned to the Treasury.
Elliott State Forest is a state forest in Coos and Douglas counties of the U.S. state of Oregon, between Coos Bay and Reedsport in the Oregon Coast Range. The first state forest established in Oregon, it is named after the state's first state forester Francis Elliott. Trees commonly found in this forest are the Douglas-fir, western hemlock, western redcedar, bigleaf maple, and red alder.
The Coos Bay Wagon Road or Coos Bay Military Wagon Road was a pioneer road in the U.S. state of Oregon that connected Douglas County to Coos Bay starting in 1872. Travelers on the road could start in either Tenmile or Lookingglass near Roseburg. The route passed through Reston, Sitkum, Dora, McKinley, and Fairview, ending in Sumner south of Coos Bay. Eventually the road was continued to Eastside, now a neighborhood of Coos Bay. The road follows the East Fork Coquille River from near the Coos/Douglas county line to Dora.
The Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands, are approximately 2,600,000 acres (1,100,000 ha) of land located in eighteen counties of western Oregon. Originally granted to the Oregon & California Railroad to build a railroad between Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California, the land was reconveyed to the United States government by act of Congress in 1916 and is currently managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management.
Coquiller River Falls, is a two-tier waterfall located in the far north tip of the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest, just east of Port Orford, on the Oregon Coast in Coos County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. It totals 115 feet fall in two drops: the upper falls is 50 feet high and the lower tier, the tallest drop, is 65 feet. There are approximately 180 feet from the upper tier to the bottom drop of the waterfall.