In an email dated Monday, April 26 to the board of directors of the
Rhododendron Water Association (RWA), board president Steve Graeper
announced an agreement had been reached with Chilton Lumber to preserve a
buffer zone on both sides of Henry Creek on property the lumber company
acquired earlier this year. The zone includes a 150-foot “no touch” buffer on
the south side of the creek in the 150-acre parcel and a complete no harvest
area on the north side of the creek in the parcel.

The agreement, which cost the RWA $175,000 and was pending signatures at
press time, will be written into the deed for the parcel and last in perpetuity.
“I’m much more positive than I was two weeks ago,” Graeper told The
Mountain Times, noting that the lumber company had taken a harder line
early in the process. He added that the result was a, “Fairly reasonable final
outcome,” and credited state officials and environmental groups to helping
bring Chilton Lumber to the negotiating table.

In an email dated April 10, Graeper outlined the situation to the board, noting
that Chilton Lumber intended to clear-cut the property and with current
guidelines and Henry Creek’s designation as a small type “F” stream, the “No
Cut Zone” could be as narrow as ten feet.

That buffer would impact the turbidity (the amount of suspended solids) in the
stream, possibly leading to periodic boil water notices or worse.
“If the private property is clear-cut, the turbidity levels in Henry Creek will
increase to a point we will not be able to filter out the impurities or Henry
Creek could go underground and Rhododendron could possibly lose its sole
source of clean safe drinking water to over 1,000 residents,” Graeper
explained in the earlier email, citing a similar situation with the Corbett Water
District, which lost the South Fork of Gordon Creek as a water source due to

similar circumstances. “Unlike Corbett, which has the North Fork of Gordon
Creek as an alternate water source, Rhododendron has no alternate source.”
Graeper added that logging on the property could begin as early as May 1,
noting how the price of timber is at an all-time high plus the need for
harvesting the lumber to take place before fire danger in the area reaches a
critical point that precludes logging.

The land is one of two privately held parcels, totaling 230 acres, in the RWA
watershed, while the majority of the watershed is in the Mount Hood National
Forest.

Graeper told The Mountain Times that the RWA has 365 members and serves
approximately 1,000 people. He noted that when he first became president,
he made a promise to never have a special assessment added to the bill.
“I’m not going to do that to our members,” he said, noting that he is exploring
a number of avenues to find funding for the agreement. “I’m just trying to
continue to maintain the clean, fresh, state-award winning best tasting water
to our members.”

He added that the RWA is one of 58 water systems in the Mountain
community, stretching from Government Camp to Alder Creek, and just three
of them, including the RWA, are surface water systems.

All others are groundwater systems, which are not impacted by logging
practices.

“We are unique upon the mountain in the fact that our watershed is so
vulnerable,” Graeper said.