While this is the first time a full-time worker from the Sierra Club will be placed in Coos County, it's not the first time the group has made its presence felt locally.

In September 2004, the Coos County Board of Commissioners settled a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club, the Coos County Coalition and Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Project, charging environmental damage by the construction of the county's 60-mile natural gas pipeline from Roseburg to Coos Bay.

Under the agreement, Coos County, which hired the contractor for the project, paid out $55,000 to cover legal fees. In exchange, the Sierra Club dropped its $4.3 million lawsuit against the county. Sierra Club attorneys had planned to argue that the county allowed Miami-based contractor MasTec Inc. to damage salmon spawning habitat while burying the pipeline.

The Sierra Club backed down from the lawsuit after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was successful in a suit of its own. That lawsuit resulted in the county paying $495,000 over several years, to complete a series of fish passage improvement projects along the pipeline route.

At the time, the fine was the largest in the Oregon Army Corps' history. The county is still involved in a lawsuit with MasTec, and if successful, will use the award money to recoup the Army Corps lawsuit.