An Environment's Environmenatalist - Eco-Warrior and Truth-Teller

[Keith Millea]

I just got home from talking to a new friend, another longtime activist. She told me of a campaign she participated in a few years ago to try to stop the government and transnational timber corporations from spraying Agent Orange, a potent defoliant and teratogen, in the forests of Oregon. Whenever activists learned a hillside was going to be sprayed, they assembled there, hoping their presence would stop the poisoning. But each time, like clockwork, helicopters appeared, and each time, like clockwork, helicopters dumped loads of Agent Orange onto the hillside and onto protesting activists. The campaign did not succeed.

“But,” she said to me, “I’ll tell you what did. A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills, and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascade, and the other timber companies saying, ‘We know the names of your helicopter pilots, and we know their addresses.’”

Peter I'm not sure what time frame this action was taken,but if it was back in the late 70s' this was OUR battle.If I'm wrong,then this is just another story of taking on the beast.And first a disclaimer,I am a Vietnam veteran,and I know nothing of the story about the Vietnam veterans in the above quote,Honest.........


I was part of the "counter culture" migration that moved North from the Bay Area up into the mountains of Northern California,Oregon,and Washington.I landed in the lush rainforests of the Oregon Coast Range mountains.Supremely wild and basically unihabited except for locals that worked in the mills,and the loggers that have lived there for several generations.Their families were the original homesteaders.This area has an average annual rainfall total of around 112-118 inches.Most people who live back in these woods use the many springs that come off the side of the mountains as their main water source.Simple gravity fed systems.So you see that the dioxin was finding it's way into our drinking water.


It was the women who first connected the dots.After having conversations with women from several other isolated communites,the women had come to a realization that there seemed to be an awful lot of miscarriages amongst them.This was the beginning.My only role in this fight was that once I drove into town and joined a protest at the Courthouse.My wife(we were not together then)was very much involved in the beginnings of this battle.This action was started from just a few women (real grass roots stuff here).Once they made this awareness known to the whole community,things started to role.


What most people don't understand is that these "Hippies",were not vagrant druggies like most percieved.These were people with a vision of a new way of living (The Utopians).Many of those who chose to "drop out",were indeed very well educated with PHDs' and so forth.In the small side valley that I lived in,there were about eight or so adults.Two lived there part time.One guy being a Marine biologist,and the other was working at Oregon State in some kind of forest biology department.These two were the leading researchers from my small community.Enough evidence was finally produced to take the Forest Service to court.A study was ordered which produced the conclusion that our women had miscarriages at 3 times the level of both Eugene and Corvalis.We proved our case,and WE WON.The Govt' was forced to stop spraying Dioxin(agent orange) on logged cleacuts.


Finally,I have read that this study was one of three that was used in the class action court case that Vietnam Veterans had against Dow chemical.We won that case also.

Just one small battle in the neverending war

Keith