Coast Range Radio – Details, episodes & analysis

By now, many, if not most of you have heard that ICE has been secretly planning to build some kind of jail or detention facility in Newport here on the Oregon Coast.

The community pushback has been immediate, fierce, inspiring, and seemingly successful, at least so far.

This is a developing story, and only one skirmish in a wider war to protect our communities from these masked and lawless thugs.

The Newport City Council has been proactive, out front, and clear in their staunch opposition to ICE, so I invited Newport Mayor Jan Kaplan on to the show to talk through what’s going on with the facility, the huge groundswell of resistance, and what comes next.

Note: this interview was recorded on the morning on November 17th.

My email is coastrangeradio@gmail.com, I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, guest ideas, all of that.

Show Notes:

https://lincolnchronicle.org/evidence-mounts-for-possible-immigration-detention-center-in-newport-as-two-companies-advertise-for-work-there/

https://lincolnchronicle.org/my-dad-was-picked-up-sept-17-newport-girl-tells-packed-council-hearing-on-how-immigration-sweep-has-affected-her-family/

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

My guest today is Britney Van Citters, Political and Organizing Director at the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.

Britney joins to discuss how the Environmental Protection Agency is being refashioned into the Environmental Destruction Agency, OLCV’s legislative Scorecard, and what we can do to push Oregon legislators to meet this moment of overlapping crises with real action.

My email is coastrangeradio@gmail.com, I would love to hear what you think of the show!

Show Notes:

• https://www.olcvscorecard.org/2025/
• www.olcv.org/
• https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history
• https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5463771/epa-greenhouse-gas-regulations-cars-pollution
• https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/09/29/oregon-senate-votes-on-4-3-billion-transportation-package/

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

Just keeping up with the Trump administration’s all out war against our environment is exhausting.  Fortunately, we in the northwest are blessed with incredible activists, organizers, and more relevant to today, environmental attorneys to help us understand the attacks so we can fight back effectively.

One of the best of those attorneys is Brenna Bell, formerly of 350pdx and now with the Crag Law Center.  This episode features a recent presentation Brenna gave  along with Lauren Anderson of Oregon Wild and Grace Brahler from Cascadia Wildlands.

They covered the seismic changes happening via the Executive Branch, including to the National Environmental Policy Act, how the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act has changed to dramatically limit protections for species, and a lot more.

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

Andrew interviews award winning and prolific author, essayist, and commentator Robert Leo Heilman from Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Bob is the author of several books including Overstory Zero: Real Life in Timber Country, Children of Death, and The World Pool: A Literary Variety. He has also been a prolific contributor to guest columns in the News Review in Roseburg. 

Bob has recently been the target of violence for his recent writings in his local paper that call out rightwing extremism. We discuss the duty Bob feels as a writer to speak openly about the dangers of the extremism and fear he sees in his community. Bob describes the changes he's seen living in Myrtle Creek for over four decades and the impacts of declining material living conditions on rural people and communities.

Find his book Overstory Zero: Real Life in Timber Country to read his direct experience living in timber country.

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

In part two, we continue our conversation with Levi Van Sant (@LeviVanSant), an Assistant Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County Virginia whose work focuses on environmental (in)justice, particularly issues surrounding food, agriculture, and land use. 

Levi wrote a formative piece in Dissent on Land Reform and the Green New Deal that influenced the Coast Range Association’s recent Climate & Oregon’s Industrial Forests: A Green New Proposal. In this episode, Andrew and Levi discuss alternative land ownership models such as Frannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative and the history of colonization in the U.S. and indigenous calls for land back and how it relates to this conversation on land reform.

Resource Links:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/land-reform-and-the-green-new-deal

http://therednation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Red-Deal_Part-I_End-The-Occupation-1.pdf

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fannie-lou-hamer-freedom-farm-cooperative

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

In part one, Andrew interviews Levi Van Sant (@LeviVanSant), an Assistant Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County Virginia whose work focuses on environmental (in)justice, particularly issues surrounding food, agriculture, and land use. 

Levi wrote a formative piece in Dissent on Land Reform and the Green New Deal that influenced the Coast Range Association’s recent Climate & Oregon’s Industrial Forests: A Green New Proposal. Andrew and Levi discuss agricultural land transitions, the history of the First National Conference for Land Reform and the unifying opportunities that could come from including rural justice and land ownership solutions in the just transition mandate of the Green New Deal.

Resource Links:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/land-reform-and-the-green-new-deal

https://agriculture.auburn.edu/research/aers/alabama-timberland/

https://coastrange.org/challenging-wall-street-forestry/ownership/

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

Sam Krop interviews Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director at Cascadia Wildlands, on the connections between rivers, salmon and communities with a look at the proposal to remove the four lower dams on the Snake River.

Sam and Bethany discuss the history and cultural significance of the Columbia and Snake Rivers salmon runs, the current impacts of the dams on salmon and communities, the flaws in Representative Simpson’s concept for removal of these dams, and a vision of the future for our rivers and communities.

Resource Links:

Environmental Implications for Simpson Concept for Snake River Dams Removal

Snake River Dams Principles Statements

NW Energy dam replacement study summary flyer

Full NW Energy dam replacement report

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

Chuck Willer, Executive Director of the Coast Range Association, and Andrew discuss the release of the Coast Range Association's recent report, Climate & Oregon's Industrial Forests - A Green New Deal Proposal.
They highlight the need for Western Oregon's private industrial forests to store large amounts of carbon. The need for this important natural climate solution is put into context by analyzing industrial forest ownership by Wall Street investment firms and the economic hardships faced by rural Oregonians. Issues like Wall Street ownership and the economic disparities in rural Oregon are central to the call for a Just Transition in the Green New Deal.
They then discuss voluntary land reform with a transition of industrial forests to democratically managed cooperative, municipal and tribal forest ownership models. They end with discussing how a land ownership and justice analysis of forest issues has the potential to bridge the rural/urban divide, offering solutions that build carbon in forests while improving rural wellbeing.
https://coastrange.org/gnd-proposal/

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

In part two, Andrew and Abel discuss the ecoforestry practices used at Aprovecho to manage the forest there towards an old growth character forest. They discuss how this type of intentional land management connects to indigenous and climate justice. They also go into the history of indigenous genocide in Oregon and its connection to the landscape change from oak savanna to primarily Douglas fir forest at the site.

Article Abel references on Kalapuyan enthnohistory:
QUARTUX | Journal of Critical Indigenous Anthropology | David G. Lewis, PhD https://ndnhistoryresearch.com/tribal-regions/kalapuyan-ethnohistory/

Through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC, Abel specializes in Forest Stewardship Planning as a consulting forester for ODF and a Technical Service Provider for the NRCS.

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/

Andrew interviews Abel Kloster. Through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC, Abel specializes in Forest Stewardship Planning as a consulting forester for ODF and a Technical Service Provider for the NRCS. We talk on site about the ecoforestry work he stewards at Aprovecho outside of Cottage Grove, OR. We discuss the lessons he has learned in this work and the opportunities he has found in cooperative ownership and management of forests.

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/