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Trees
From C1
“That’s why it’s the canary,” says
Buhl. “Any tree that’s less drought
tolerant is going to be the canary
in the coal mine. They’re going to
start bailing (out).”
For thousands of years, people
have used red cedar to make ev-
erything from canoes to clothing.
Red cedar’s many uses have
earned the species endearing
names, including the “Tree of
Life.” More recently,scientists have
started calling this water-loving
relative of redwoods by a less flat-
tering name: “the climate canary.”
Last year, Buhl and colleagues
reported that red cedars were dy-
ing throughout the tree’s growing
range not because of a fungus or
insect attack, but due to the re-
gion’s “climate change-induced
drought.”
Red cedars aren’t alone.
In recent years, at least 15 native
Pacific Northwest tree species
have experienced growth declines
and die-offs, 10 of which have been
linked to drought and warming
temperatures, according to recent
studies and reports.
Many researchers, Buhl in-
cluded, are now arguing that these
drought-driven die-offs are the
beginning of a much larger and
long-predicted shift in tree grow-
ing ranges due to climate change.
Trees, and plants generally, have
growing ranges that are largely
determined by climate factors,
namely moisture and temperature.
For decades, scientists have ar-
gued that as atmospheric warming
continues, growing ranges in the
Northern Hemisphere will shift
upslope in elevation and farther
north, leaving many trees stranded
in a warmer, drier world.
As climate mismatch sets in,
trees are expected to die-off and
not grow back, according to pre-
dictions.
Daniel DePinte, Forest Service
aerial survey program manager,
suspects range changes are driving
“Firmageddon.” A term coined by
researchers, including DePinte,
“Firmageddon” refers to the more
than 1,875 square-mile die-off of
five fir species in Oregon, Wash-
ington and northern California.
“The forests are moving uphill,”
said DePinte.
DePinte and colleagues first
identified and named the mas-
Settlement
From C1
“I feel like I can’t really move on
while this is all hanging out in the
court,” Wencus said.
Purdue Pharma’s aggressive
marketing of OxyContin, a pow-
erful prescription painkiller that
hit the market in 1996, is often
cited as a catalyst of a nationwide
opioid epidemic, persuading doc-
tors to prescribe painkillers with
less regard for addiction dangers.
The company pleaded guilty
to misbranding the drug in 2007
and paid more than $600 million
in fines and penalties.
The drug and the Stamford,
Connecticut-based company be-
came synonymous with the crisis,
even though the majority of pills
being prescribed and used were
generic drugs. Opioid-related
overdose deaths have continued
to climb, hitting 80,000 in re-
cent years. That’s partly because
people with substance abuse
disorder found pills harder to get
and turned to heroin and, more
recently, fentanyl, an even more
potent synthetic opioid.
Drug companies, wholesal-
ers and pharmacies have agreed
to pay a total of more than $50
billion to settle lawsuits filed by
state, local and Native Ameri-
can tribal governments and oth-
ers that claimed the companies’
marketing, sales and monitoring
practices spurred the epidemic.
The Purdue Pharma settlement
would be among the largest. It’s
also one of only two so far with
provisions for victims of the cri-
sis to be compensated directly,
with payouts from a $750 million
pool expected to range from about
$3,500 to $48,000.
Lawyers for more than 60,000
Property manager James Bailey looks at a dead Douglas fir among several dead western red cedars Oct. 11 at Magness Memorial Tree Farm in
Sherwood, Ore., in the Pacific Northwest, where die-offs have been linked to a combination of drought and insects.
sive, drought-driven fir “mortal-
ity event” last year while surveying
area forests via airplane.
According to tree-range predic-
tions, climate-induced die-offs
are expected to start at the edges
of growing ranges, including at
lower-elevation locations that are
predicted to become too warm and
dry for many species.
DePinte’s survey revealed that
the largest die-offs associated with
Firmageddon are occurring at low-
er-elevation sites.
Buhl and colleagues found a
similar pattern with western red
cedar. Mortality was greatest at
sites less than about 650 feet in el-
evation west of the Cascade Range,
according to their analysis.
Scientists have also observed
a similar pattern for Douglas fir,
the region’s leading commercial
timber species. Douglas fir is cur-
rently experiencing a 720-square-
mile die-off, the majority in the
Klamath Mountains near the
southern Oregon cities of Ashland
and Medford.
The die-off is limited to the
lower elevations but is likely to
move uphill as temperatures warm
in the coming decades, according
to a study in the Journal of Forestry.
Ellen Isaacs, left, and Lee Nuss, both of Florida, embrace Dec. 3, 2021, and
sing a song of remembrance for Randall M. Nuss, Lee’s husband, during
a protest for opioid victims outside the U.S. Department of Justice in
Washington. Isaacs also lost her 33-year-old son.
victims who support the settle-
ment called it “a watershed mo-
ment in the opioid crisis,” while
recognizing that “no amount of
money could fully compensate”
victims for the damage caused
by the misleading marketing of
OxyContin.
In the fallout, parts of the Sack-
ler family story has been told in
multiple books and documenta-
ries and in fictionalized versions
in the streaming series “Do-
pesick” and “Painkiller.”
Museums and universities
around the world have removed
the family’s name from galleries
and buildings.
Family members have remained
mostly out of the public eye, and
they have stepped off the board of
their company and have not re-
ceived payouts from it since before
the company entered bankruptcy.
But in the decade before that, they
were paid more than $10 billion,
about half of which family mem-
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Douglas fir trees that died as a result of insect damage following heat
stress are visible Oct. 27 in the Willamette National Forest, Ore.
“Our analysis concluded that
if climate change continues as
predicted, we could see increased
Douglas fir mortality at higher
elevations,” said study coauthor,
David Shaw, a professor and forest
health specialist at Oregon State
University.
Shaw called the die-off “consis-
tent with predictions for climate
change.”
But whereas red cedar is believed
to be dying from drought alone, the
Firmageddon and Douglas fir die-
CAROLYN KASTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
bers said went to pay taxes.
Some testified in a 2021 bank-
ruptcy hearing, telling a judge that
the family would not contribute
to the proposed legal settlement
without being shielded from law-
suits.
Two family members appeared
by video and one listened by audio
to a 2022 court hearing in which
more than two dozen people im-
pacted by opioids told their sto-
ries publicly. One told them: “You
poisoned our lives and had the au-
dacity to blame us for dying.”
Purdue Pharma reached the
deal with the governments suing
it — including with some states
that initially rejected the plan.
But the U.S. Bankruptcy
Trustee, an arm of the Justice De-
partment responsible for promot-
ing the integrity of the bankruptcy
system, has objected to the legal
protections for Sackler family
members. Attorney General Mer-
rick Garland also has criticized the
AMANDA LOMAN PHOTOS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
offs have been linked to a combi-
nation of drought weakening trees
and insect pests moving in for the
kill.
“These insects are not normally
tree killers,” said DePinte. “This
is evidence that the forests are
reacting to climate change and
droughts.”
Douglas fir is not considered a
true fir and is not officially part of
Firmageddon, according to De-
Pinte.
The combination of drought-in-
Lynn Wencus of Wrentham, Mass., holds a photograph of her son Jeff on
Nov. 7. Wencus lost him to a heroin overdose in 2017. Families like her are
divided over OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s plan to settle lawsuits
over the toll of opioids.
plan.
The opposition marked an
about-face for the Justice Depart-
ment, which supported the set-
tlement during the presidency of
Donald Trump, a Republican. The
department and Purdue Pharma
forged a plea bargain in a criminal
and civil case. The deal included
$8.3 billion in penalties and for-
feitures, but the company would
pay the federal government only
$225 million so long as it executed
the settlement plan.
A federal trial court judge in
2021 ruled the settlement should
not be allowed. This year, a federal
appeals panel ruled the other way
in a unanimous decision in which
one judge still expressed major
concerns about the deal. The Su-
preme Court quickly agreed to
take the case, at the urging of the
administration of President Joe
Biden, a Democrat.
Purdue Pharma’s is not the first
bankruptcy to include this sort of
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duced stress and pests, said Patrick
Tobin, associate professor of dis-
turbance ecology at the University
of Washington, is analogous to a
person with a weakened immune
system dying from the flu.
“Drought-stress opens a win-
dow for biotic agents that might
otherwise not be able to overcome
a healthy, well-defended tree,” said
Tobin.
Tobin is a coauthor of a 2021
study in the journal Forest Ecol-
ogy and Management on the
widespread decline of big leaf
maples in western Washington.
Tobin’s study was unable to de-
termine whether drought alone
or drought in combination with
disease-causing fungi was killing
the native maples.
As for the climate canary, Buhl
believes red cedar is unlikely to
disappear from the landscape
entirely but probably won’t grow
back in areas where it’s dying off.
“Unless we turn back climate
change, there is no reason to hope
western red cedar is going to make
a comeback,” said Buhl.
Columbia Insight is an Ore-
gon-based nonprofit news website
covering environmental issues af-
fecting the Pacific Northwest.
STEVEN SENNE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
third-party release, even when
not everyone in the case agrees
to it. It was specifically allowed
by Congress in 1994 for asbestos
cases.
They have been used elsewhere,
too, including in settlements of
sexual abuse claims against the
Boy Scouts of America, where
groups like regional Boy Scout
councils and churches that spon-
sor troops helped pay, and against
Catholic dioceses, where parishes
and schools contributed cash.
Proponents of Purdue Phar-
ma’s settlement plan often assert
that federal law does not prohibit
third-party releases and that they
can be necessary to create a set-
tlement that parties will agree to.
“Third-party releases are a
recurring feature of bankruptcy
practice,” lawyers for one branch
of the Sackler family said in a
court filing, “and not because
anyone is trying to do the released
third parties a favor.”
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