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Opponents of the Measure 20-737 have raised more than 14 times as much money as supporters. Business and real estate interests have also made large donations.
Michelle Holman, the chief petitioner for Measure 20-373, known as the Lane County Watersheds Bill of Rights, checks her email often these days amid her work farming in Deadwood.
On May 5, she opened her inbox to see a message from a fellow volunteer that included a photo of a cease-and-desist letter from Weyerhaeuser, one of the world’s largest timber companies.
“(Weyerhaeuser) is in receipt of and has confirmed the circulation of a brochure recently distributed to residents in Lane County that purports to describe Weyerhaeuser forest management and spray operations. The brochure was apparently placed directly in residential mailboxes and appears designed to resemble company-branded materials,” said the letter, signed by the company’s assistant general counsel, Diane Meyers, from its headquarters in Seattle.
But Holman didn’t have anything to stop, she said.
“They just talked about some amorphous brochure. We had never seen it,” said Holman, who noted that interfering with mail is a federal offense the campaign would not commit. “They went from zero to 120 and made this assumption that we were behind it.”
Weyerhauser confirmed to Lookout Eugene-Springfield it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Community Rights Lane County over the flier, which listed the organization and several others as contacts. But the company declined repeated requests for an interview about why it singled out the organization or the brochure’s origins.
Community Rights Lane County is a nonprofit that advocates for communities over corporate interests, and many activists like Holman are connected with it as well as with Protect Lane County Watersheds, the political action committee that supports the campaign “Yes on 20-373.”
According to the ballot language, the measure establishes rights for watersheds and clean water beyond existing water regulations, and it is enforced by private lawsuits and Lane County.
The measure has divided not only the business community from environmentalists, but environmentalists themselves, with some opposing it and others remaining silent.
The fight over Measure 20-373 has also drawn heavy campaign spending from opponents, largely backed by timber and industry interests. For Holman, that made the timing of the cease-and-desist letter suspicious.
“Is it possible that it was meant to intimidate the campaign proponents?” Holman said. “And that the reason for doing so is that the opposition believes that the measure will pass despite all the corporate money being spent to convince voters otherwise?”
Timber, industry and Realtors spend big
The coalition opposing the measure, Protect Our County, also has a political action committee. It has raised $338,350 — about 13 times the $26,143 raised by the “Yes on 20-373” campaign, according to records from the Oregon Secretary of State as of May 13.
Protect Our County’s largest contributor was Oregon Business & Industry Issues PAC, which gave $110,000. The National Association of Realtors contributed $87,000, followed by its affiliate Oregon Realtors at $30,000. The Oregon Forest Industries Council gave $25,000.
Lookout Eugene-Springfield reviewed campaign finance records going back to June 2025, around the time volunteers with Protect Lane County Watersheds began organizing to place the measure on the ballot.
The records show a network of timber companies and industry groups contributing to political action committees (PACs) whose affiliated entities later funded opposition to Measure 20-373, including the Oregon Forest Industries Council and Oregon Business & Industry Issues.
Oregon Forest Industries Council
The Oregon Forest Industries Council is a trade association that represents large forestland owners and wood products manufacturers. Its political action committee is affiliated with the association, but they are legally separate entities.
The trade association funded opposition to the measure, while the PAC is restricted to contributing to state legislative campaigns, according to spokesperson Sara Duncan.
Contributors to the PAC include:
- Weyerhaeuser Co. – $15,000
- Sierra Pacific Industries – $12,500
- Giustina Land & Timber Co. – $7,500
- Giustina Resources – $7,500
- Georgia-Pacific (subsidiary of Koch Industries) – $5,000
- Koch Industries Inc. – $5,000
Oregon Business & Industry Issues PAC
The Oregon Business & Industry is also an association with an affiliated PAC, representing a range of industries across the state.
Contributors to the PAC include:
- Oregon Forest Industries Council – $25,000
- Koch Government Affairs – $25,000
- Sierra Pacific Industries – $10,000
- Western States Petroleum Association – $10,000
- Weyerhauser Co. – $2,000
Betsy Schultz, coalition organizer for Protect Our County who is a principal at a political consulting firm, downplayed the contributions from timber, pointing instead to a large proportion of the campaign’s cash coming from Realtor groups.
When asked about the overlap of timber, development and real estate interests, Schultz said, “I can see how you would say that, given that a lot of housing is built with timber.”
“They’re not in lockstep politically with the timber industry, writ large,” she said. “They have very different ideological frameworks often. So I think in this sense, they are uniquely aligned, just because of that concern to the proliferation of lawsuits in our community here, because of this measure, that would really negatively impact affordability.”
Schultz said opponents worry the measure could expose routine development and construction activities to legal challenges.
The campaign has amplified such arguments, with nearly $130,000 spent on advertising — ranging from social media to mailers — far more than what supporters of the measure have been able to spend.
“It’s a hard thing for us to counter,” said activist Rob Dickinson, a volunteer with both Protect Lane County Watersheds and the “Yes on 20-373” campaign. “They have a huge megaphone.”
‘They really must be nervous’
Most contributions to “Yes on 20-373” came from individual donors, including Dickinson. And, in addition to the limited finances, came limited support.
That’s because many of larger groups cannot support new proposals related to regulating aerial pesticide spraying because of a memorandum of understanding signed as part of negotiations over Oregon’s Private Forest Accord, which governs privately owned timberlands. Groups including Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, Beyond Toxics and others signed it in 2020.
“That has hurt us,” Dickinson said. “At least one of these groups was definitely going to support our measure, but they ended up deciding they couldn’t because of that MOU.”
Dickinson lives in Cottage Grove, not far from where the mysterious brochure at the center of Weyerhaeuser’s cease-and-desist letter said a harvesting operation would occur on Meyer Road.
Weyerhaeuser spokesperson Kyleigh Gill said in an email that the brochure shared inaccurate information, such as listing chemicals like glyphosate, which she said the company doesn’t use. She also said that there is no such harvesting operation in the vicinity in the months to come.
While Weyerhaeuser sent a cease-and-desist letter to Community Rights Lane County, it did not do so for other organizations listed on the brochure, including Lane Regional Air Protection Agency and Oregon Department of Forestry, according to calls Lookout made to the government offices.
For their part, Dickinson and Holman said have never seen a physical copy of the brochure, just a photo of what they said their organization’s attorney finally received after asking Weyerhaeuser about it.
But although they say they don’t know who produced the brochure, they say Weyerhaeuser’s response to it was telling.
“It sounds like an industry who’s afraid they’re not going to get their way anymore,” Holman said. “They really must be nervous if they’re threatening us.”
