Get Rogue off this list

Congress should expand protections for the river

Oregonians received one of those 3 a.m. phone calls last week when a prominent conservation group listed the Rogue River at No. 2 on its annual list of the most threatened United States rivers.

That the iconic Rogue made American Rivers’ top 10 list, much less was listed in second place behind the Catawba-Wateree River that flows through the Carolinas, should rattle the sensibilities of every Oregonian. That includes those fortunate enough to have boated, fished or hiked along this magical waterway — and those who have admired it from a distance as they drove past on Interstate 5 or read about it in a travel guide or Zane Grey novel.

The listing was prompted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s plans for logging in hundreds of acres along key Rogue tributaries in the Zane Grey Roadless Area. If the BLM’s Kelsey Whisky Project is allowed to proceed, the construction of new roads and logging of old growth would take a dismaying toll on the main Rogue, silting salmon streams and stripping forests that are integral to the watershed’s well-being.

The Rogue should not be threatened by the Bush administration’s rush to increase logging in the national forests in the final months before it leaves office. The river’s remarkable features, including the free-flowing tributaries and the prime salmon and steelhead habitat they provide, must be protected for this and future generations.

Oregon Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Earl Blumenauer recently proposed legislation that would help provide that protection. Their “Oregon Treasures” wilderness bill would expand the quarter-century-old federal wild and scenic river protections on the Lower Rogue River to include 143 miles of tributary streams, which are vulnerable to resource extraction activities such as the Kelsey Whisky Project.

The DeFazio-Blumenauer bill would block roughly half of the planned logging in the Kelsey Whisky project. The lawmakers can ensure that the project is completely blocked and the Rogue more fully protected by expanding the existing Wild Rogue Wilderness by 60,000 acres, as recommended earlier this year by a coalition of conservation groups, including American Rivers and Oregon Wild.

Any negative effects on Oregon’s timber industry would be more than offset by the resulting growth in tourism, which already contributes more than $13 million to the region’s economy. Protection of the tributaries also would enhance the river’s salmon and steelhead runs at a time when Oregon’s commercial and recreational fishing industries are teetering on the brink.

The BLM insists that the Rogue isn’t endangered and that its logging plans pose no threat to the Rogue. That’s hardly reassuring from an agency that is relentlessly pursing a new forest management policy that would nearly triple logging in Western Oregon. Despite warnings by the Environmental Protection Agency that the Western Oregon Plan Revision lacks a sound scientific basis and would damage water quality. Despite a warning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the plan fails to adequately protect salmon and steelhead. Despite six separate scientific peer reviews, five of them federally funded, that say the plan downplays the importance of protecting old growth.

The Rogue never again should appear on any listing of America’s most endangered rivers.

Congress can make sure of that by expanding existing protections for this most beloved of Oregon rivers.