The “Dotterrer Amendment” – A Conversation With Oregon Senate Candidate Dave Dotterrer and Klamath County Commissioner Dennis...

The “Dotterrer Amendment” is a simple, elegant solution to prevent the Oregon Scenic Waterways Program from ever witnessing the sort of abuse by politicians and special interests that surrounded last year’s Senate Bill 401 three ring circus.

As part of his candidacy for Oregon State Senate district 3, Mr. Dotterrer has pledged to introduce an amendment to the Oregon Scenic Waterways Program.  It would mandate that anytime a body of water is proposed under the program, the people in the county (or counties) where the waterway flows will have the opportunity to approve or kill the proposal at the next regular county-level election.

This proposal has already gained traction and the endorsement of Senator Herman Baertschiger Jr.​ (District 2) and Senator Doug Whitsett (District 28).  The “Dotterrer Amendment” is necessary to correct what has become a magnet for government overreach and the excesses of the powerful environmental lobby.

Last year, Oregon State Senator Alan Bates sponsored Senate Bill 401.  This bill proposed adding 30 named waterways and some of their tributaries to the Oregon Scenic Waterways Program.  That worked out to 14,000 linear miles, and when factoring the “riparian buffer zone” of a quarter mile on both sides of each waterway, Oregonians were facing the hyperregulation of over 4.5 million acres of land.  A large percentage of this land is privately owned, and even rural residential property.  The economic impact would have extended far beyond property owners within the “riparian buffer zone.”

There’s usually nothing wrong with additions to the Oregon Scenic Waterways program if additions are done with full transparency and the process follows the spirit and letter of law.  Oregonians passed the Oregon Scenic Waterways Program in 1970 by a 2 to 1 margin.  Nearly all Oregonians want to protect our State’s environment and natural beauty.  But the program calls for the balancing of economic and private property considerations with conservation.  The program calls for extensive opportunity for community involvement and feedback during the process of considering the addition of any given waterway.  The “Dotterrer Amendment” will not change the existing process by which waterways are proposed and debated in Salem.  It will simply serve as a layer of protection on top of the existing process.

SB-401 was initially proposed with limited public relations and outreach.  Alan Bates’ office worked with the environmental lobby to develop the proposal and public relations efforts were made to contact environmental tourist economic interests like fishing guides to speak favorably about protecting rivers.  But there was next to no effort to have a discussion with broader, impacted communities.  The Bates office didn’t even contact some of the most important economic constituencies in his own district, including the Southern Oregon Winery Association and the Rogue Valley Association of REALTORS.  The Applegate and Little Applegate rivers were named within SB-401 and both flow within Bates’ district.

Listen to this brief interview to learn more, and visit DaveDotterrer.com.