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  • Environmental Impact Statement

Arts collective Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which we profiled back in July, have a call out to local makers of any discipline for "a show that will not happen if logging commences on the north slope of Mt. Hood." If you haven't heard of EIS, they're the group that takes local artists up to Mt. Hood, using the mountain as a catalyst for all manner of art, as a means of of documenting the impact developments like logging have on the area. What's interesting about this call for work, though, is that the potential projects will, per an email from EIS, be "submitted as part of the public record for the Polallie Cooper Timber Sale. They will be submitted in response to the Forest Serviceโ€™s analysis of the potential impacts from commercial logging on public land."

Here's what EIS is looking for, plus some context:

All disciplines are encouraged to apply. Installations and performative works may reference the dimensions pictured below. Project proposals need not be limited by funding or even possibility. Proposals will be collected in a forthcoming publication.

The nearly 3,000 acres of forests in the Polallie Cooper Timber Sale that would be lost contain unlogged forest, and the many miles of new logging roads will cause untold impacts for decades to come. More information about the proposed logging project is provided online by the watchdogs for Mt. Hood National Forest, Bark...

The Forest Service is required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to undergo a thorough evaluation of the environmental impacts from a logging project such as Polallie Cooper, inform the public of these potential impacts, and collect comments on whether the public agrees that the harm is worth the benefit. In their assessment, the Forest Service uses a metric called Visual Quality Objectives set out in their management plan to anticipate impacts on the way the forest looks after the logging. We are submitting these projects as standing ideas that would not be possible should the logging take place in this forest. These creative projects will be included with the many other environmental concerns that the people will submit during the public comment period.

Ideas cannot be destroyed, but forests can be.

Artists have until November 15 to apply here.