A public comment against rescinding the roadless rule

 I oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I live in Salem, Oregon. Public lands have a great impact on my life and personal well being. I am a nature photographer, Oregon forests volunteer, citizen scientist, and avid hiker. The lands highlighted in this proposal protect my community from nearby wildfires, as well as decrease wildfire smoke and bad air. They also provide our local watershed with clean water, create large amounts of jobs and revenue through recreation and help protect the whole planet from rising temperatures by acting as a carbon storage. 

I care about all wildlands in my state, specifically areas where I hike or would impact my community if this rule were changed. The Opal Creek area and Bull Of The Woods area impacted my community in 2020 during the Beachie Creek fire. This area is extremely fragile and still recovering after that devastating wildfire. Allowing more roads into this area would further endanger not only these forests but all life nearby. “Over 90% of all wildfires from all causes occurred within 1/2 mile of a road.” This is according to the Pacific Biodiversity Institute’s 2007 study by P. H. Morrison. According to the study, less roads directly correlate to less wildfires in forest land. The two most common causes of wildfires are the burning of materials or arson. They comprise about 40% of forest fires while lightning occurrences rank 3rd at 15%. According to a DEQ study published in the Central Oregon Daily news paper, the city of Salem has seen an increase from an average of 0 unhealthy air days to 4.9 unhealthy air days in the past 12 years. As far as fire extinguishing goes, recent aerial technology allows us to detect early hot spots to stop fires in remote areas before they become wildfires. And the current infrastructure is more than adequate to provide transportation to extinguish fires. Additional roads in roadless areas are a danger to the area and surrounding communities and increase fire risk in backcountry forests. The Roadless Rule helps protect areas that are fire resilient and less prone to wildfire ignitions. Studies show that fires are 4x more likely to start near a road than in a roadless forest, and logging can increase fire hazard.

As my city's drinking water comes from watersheds around Detroit Lake, I am particularly concerned about an increase in roads north of the reservoir in Opal Creek and Bull Run. Rescinding the roadless rule will allow increased logging and roads that threaten clean drinking water sources. The Roadless Rule helps safeguard watersheds that provide drinking water to over 2.2 million Oregonians.

In addition to protecting communities throughout Oregon, the roadless rule protects sensitive habitats and species such as in the dune lands south of Florence Oregon, important cultural areas such as foraging areas in the Drift Creek Wilderness and around Mt Hebo, livelihoods and income in the recreation sectors of our state such as back country skiing and hiking in the Hood and Jefferson Wilderness areas and breathtaking views of wild land that bring in tourism from all over the world in and around Hells Canyon and the Wallowa Mountains.

A personal story about me. A member of my family worked in Forestry and taught my siblings and myself to love the outdoors. As a result, we hike and explore the wildlands of our state and others nearby. I forage mushrooms in the Drift Creek Wilderness and they frequently hike in the Mt Hood Wilderness. The wildlands are a part of every Oregonian’s life and should be protected to continue our unique way of life. We passed the Roadless Rule with unanimous support and do not wish to see it ended. For the reasons listed above, fully or partially rescinding the Roadless Rule under Alternatives 2 and 3 of the draft EIS would be a huge mistake. I urge you to listen to the people and oppose the proposal to rescind or alter the Roadless Rule and support alternative 1, the No Action alternative.

A letter concerning further review of data center placement

 This is my comment submitted to the Salem City Council for the meeting regarding a proposed moratorium and zoning code chages regarding a data center at Mill Creek Corporate Center, and future data center proposals.

Comment:

I am submitting a comment to the Salem City Council for tonight's meeting regarding the consideration of the initiation of a moratorium on AI data centers and the initiation of amendments to the City zoning code to regulate AI data centers.

My name is [redacted] and I live in [redacted]. It is imperative that Salem initiates the amendment to zoning code regarding AI data centers as well as initiate a moratorium on data centers because of the harm they could cause to the city’s health and well being financially, environmentally and socially.

A data center, while possibly giving an economic boon in the form of tax revenue initially, will not benefit Salem financially in the long run. Data centers are run by companies in the trillion dollar tech sector and their CEOs have not been shown to be trustworthy, applying tricks and loopholes to achieve their goals. These goals often culminate in taking what they need by any means necessary as we have seen in our city’s relationship with Verrus. If Verrus is willing to change their plans as quickly as they did this past weekend and say they want to have a public discussion with the people of Salem, but leave a city hall meeting before the discussion can be had, our future relationship looks fraught with deception. As might other relationships with other data center companies.

The land applied for by Verrus was half owned by a real estate company and is near Corban University, industrial land and farming land. Salem is in need of both housing and industry. Verrus’s purchase of this land could deprive Salem of much needed housing and jobs, more jobs than Verrus or other data centers would supply in the long term. The 100 acres could hold more than one industry or multifamily homes. A moratorium on AI data centers could give Salem a chance to catch its breath and decide whether giving up this much land to one large industry with few local jobs is in line with our vision as a city, our want to be a city that welcomes families.

In addition to possibly being a financial mistake to Salem, data centers would greatly impact our local environment in many ways. Data centers have proven to harm waterways, local temperatures, wildlife, and clean air. Verrus’s closed loop cooling may use as much as 40% less water than older styles of data centers, but they may pollute more in water ways because of this type of cooling. The water released when their system is refreshed or leaked from the system will carry chemicals such as antifreeze, corrosion inhibitors, and biocides, which the EPA calls “a diverse group of poisonous substances including preservatives, insecticides, disinfectants, and pesticides used for the control of organisms that are harmful to human or animal health or that cause damage to natural or manufactured products”. Salem is surrounded by freshwater rivers, lakes and wetlands which would be affected by this pollution. Data centers, even close loop cooling centers still use an immense amount of water. They could use up 60% of the water that they draw due to evaporation according to specialists talking about Elon Musk’s AI Grok on both Linkd-In and substack. We need to do our research and find out exactly what a data center of this kind would do to our water supply.

In addition to water, data centers put out a large amount of heat and air pollution. As I stated in my previous comment dated July 27th 2026, data centers can increase the temperature around 3° for 6 miles from a data center. We are already dealing with drought, fire risk and dangerous weather due to rising temperatures. The land Verrus has applied for is near forests and grass fields which are a high fire risk. What if this risk were higher? Increased fires would harm Salem’s infrastructure and land; it would also harm our air, just as the increased output of diesel exhaust from data centers would harm our air. 

I have gone over how data centers could harm our city financially and physically. Data centers would also harm our city socially. Because of this industry's many negative effects the areas most impacted would become less desirable to own. This could potentially push many high earning Salemites, who live within a mile or two of possible data centers, out of our city. It would also produce hardship for lower earners who are already struggling to get by. 

We should make the right decision. It seems easy. Salem has little water and land to spare, and is in need of financial help. Bringing data centers into our city would only deepen our problems. Please consider an amendment to the zoning code regarding AI data centers as well as initiate a moratorium on data centers. Thank you for your time and efforts on this matter.

A Letter Concerning Data Center Placement In City Limits

This is my comment submitted to the Salem City Council for the meeting regarding a proposed data center at Mill Creek Corporate Center, future data center proposals and whether the Salem city council should sign NDAs regarding data centers.

Comment:

My name is [redacted] and I live in [redacted]. 

Data centers provide little to the communities in which they reside and have been shown via multiple studies by universities and other state governments that they cause more harm than good. Washington State Department Of Ecology, Cambridge University and the University Of Chicago are three examples that have run such studies. 

The University of Chicago and The WA department of ecology outline the impacts of data centers on air, water, and ground around the sites. The impacts include diesel air pollution, water extraction and pollution, chemical runoff that affects water and soil, hazardous waste disposal, and surges in use of the power grid which can greatly increase power costs in the area. 

There are also several incidents where data centers have not been truthful about their potential pollution, potential temperature increases, local infrastructure needs, and other negative impacts to an area. There are university studies from Cambridge as well as others on data centers in Europe and Central America which have had anomalic temperature increases, likely due to the data centers in the area, of 3.6 degrees on average and can span 6 miles or more. 

In Oregon alone, data centers have cost millions of dollars in taxes in such areas as Hillsboro and Prineville according to local news outlets. Because of these losses and harmful practices, it is necessary for there to be public input on data centers entering the area, this includes the potential data center in Mill Creek. 

It is also necessary for city council members to remain transparent in their dealings with companies such as Verrus and not sign NDAs. If a company will be controversial and have such great impacts on an area of Salem, we should be able to comment on and understand fully what is happening in conversations between city council and the company. 

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.