Reasons To Support SB 30 - Becky Wood, Boise, ID

Dear Representatives:
I urge you to vote for SB 30 to protect the Metolius River Basin from resort development. Please consider the following:

1. The proposed development promotes private party profit interests only and is at a substantial cost to all Oregonians.

2. The proposed resort development would forever destroy the character and ecosystems of the Metolius River Basin which the public enjoys year after year. This great expense would be only to further private party interests.

3. The risk of fire in the area is extreme (please refer to my earlier research memo detailing wildfire risk and expense in the area) and is drastically increased with human imprint. If a fire occurred in the area due to the resort development, virtually millions of dollars of public money would be used to suppress it resulting in the developer's walking away with private profit at shocking public expense.

4. The proposed 3,500 home development would result in nearly 35,000 CAR TRIPS EACH DAY. This is intolerable for many reasons: this number of car trips would damage ecosystems, create pollution, contribute substantially to global warming, at a time when we should be reducing global emissions, and would forever change the nature and character of this extremely unique and scenic area.

It is absolutely essential to responsibly analyze the values that would be promoted by permitting resort development (and that value is simply private profits and limited increased tax base for just one county) and the extreme costs that Oregonians would bear as detailed above. The imbalance of the enormous public cost (and complete lack of public benefit) as it relates to the extreme private profit results in a shocking and indefensible subsidy of private profit interests.

As representatives, we are looking to you to prevent such shocking subsidy and we are looking to you to stand up and protect the priceless value of nature in this scenic area. There is a place for development and a place for human imprint and this is simply NOT the place.

Rebecca Biddle Wood Hardesty
Boise, ID