Wheeler, Oregon, where muddy logging runoff filled the town’s reservoirs. (Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian)

by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Rob Davis, The Oregonian/OregonLive • Dec. 31, 2020

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On a damp night in November 2019, dozens of residents packed into the local firehouse in Corbett, Oregon, a town about 30 miles outside of Portland. Water manager Jeff Busto told the crowd that logging had devastated a creek that provided part of the town’s drinking water supply.

A timber company had clear-cut thousands of trees along the creek, leaving only a thin strip standing between the town’s drinking water and recently flattened land strewed with debris. A single row of trees was left on either side to protect it from mud, herbicides and summer sun. After many of those trees were bowled over by wind, the creek flow dropped so low that the town could no longer get water.

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