Preparations underway for Rainbow Gathering

Several hundred people from the Rainbow Family of Living Light have already descended on the Malheur National Forest to begin setting up for the 2017 gathering, even as Forest Service staff continue to draft a makeshift management plan to protect natural and cultural resources.

The annual Rainbow Gathering was announced for July 1-7 at Flagtail Meadow off Forest Service Road 24, about 20 miles northwest of Seneca. Attendance is expected to peak between 10,000 and 30,000 participants, which would be roughly four times larger than the entire population of Grant County.

Groups of 75 people or more are typically required to obtain a special use permit in order to camp on national forest land. However, the loose-knit Rainbow Family skirts that rule by emphasizing they are a non-organization with no official leaders.

Instead, the Forest Service will assign an operating plan with conditions and criteria to protect natural resources, safety and public health at the gathering. The plan also addresses post-event cleanup.

Ethan Ready, a Forest Service spokesman in charge of handling the Rainbow Gathering, said 20 different natural resource specialists have visited the site to identify potential impacts. Their findings should be completed soon, Ready said.

Ready works for the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont, where last year’s Rainbow Gathering was held. He said Rainbow members are usually open to working with the agency and want to adhere to the rules.

“They’ve been receptive in the past,” Ready said.

The Forest Service is working with a number of partners in preparation for the gathering, Ready said, including the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, which has an interest in the area as part of the tribes’ ceded territory.

Chuck Sams, spokesman for the CTUIR, said the Rainbow Family did reach out to the tribal Department of Natural Resources as early as March, when members were scouting locations for the 2017 gathering.

At the time, Sams said the scouts proposed seven possible locations, including Flagtail Meadow — two on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, one on the Umatilla National Forest, three on the Malheur National Forest and one on the Ochoco National Forest.

The tribes spent months evaluating each location, Sams said, analyzing impacts to water quality and quantity, native fish, traditional plants and the possibility of ground disturbances at former village and burial sites.

On June 12, the CTUIR concluded that all of the sites were a high risk for damage.

“As for the proposed locations within the CTUIR’s ceded territory, given the potential impacts to both renewable and non-renewable resources, we would respectfully request that your gathering be held elsewhere,” the tribes said in its formal response.

Sams said the Rainbow Family members also asked tribal officials to bless the gathering, which the tribes declined.

“We can’t do that in good faith,” Sams said. “There just aren’t currently any facilities in any of those reaches they proposed that could deal with that many people.”

Sams said the tribes will continue to work closely with the Forest Service, which has jurisdiction over the area. Ready said they will have an incident command team on hand to deal with any problems that arise, and enforce the guidelines of the operating plan.

The incident command team will include roughly 25 law enforcement officers brought in to assist the Grant County Sheriff’s Department and Oregon State Police. Other staff will take charge of things like logistics, planning and fire hazard mitigation.

“You’re talking about a massive group,” Ready said. “We’re doing everything we can in the preliminary stages.”

Sams said the primary concern among the tribes is the protection of natural resources related to cultural sites and first foods.

“We just want people to be respectful and good stewards of the landscape,” Sams said.

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Contact George Plaven at gplaven@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0825.