Riding the Rogue
The soft green water of the Rogue River lapped the sides of our boats as we launched on the third day of the wild and scenic stretch.
We'd latched onto a trip with about 40 people pushing down the river, but our kind had no place in that sort of journey. We were out on our own, eluding the masses from a Portland paddle club. A couple of students from Portland State University agreed to schlep our gear down the river, giving us the opportunity to experience one of the wildest stretches of river in Southern Oregon.
Lush green moss lines the rock walls of the canyon, and thick Northwest forests fill the hillsides behind. Volcanic rocks of the Rogue formation create mesmerizing canyon walls through the area. Conifer and hardwood trees fill the forests with tanoaks, madrones and chinquapins dominating the landscape.
The whitewater on the three-day section of the Lower Rogue is nothing to write home about, but the relative solitude and wilderness feel create a stark contrast between it and the bustle of Medford and Ashland — where we came from.
The trip started slowly. We floated from the last great remnant of civilization — the bridge over the Rogue near Graves Creek — into one of the wildest places in Southern Oregon.
A handful of rapids offer a respite from nearly 30 miles on the river. Tributaries plummet down the hillsides with clear waterfalls and tight gorges on all sides of the river. It wasn't a nerve-wracking, rapid-choked run like I had grown used to in years. This run was about wilderness, and that's the debate over the area.
In 1968, Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act — designating the lower Rogue as one of eight rivers in the country deemed national treasures. In 1970, Oregon added the Rogue to the state's Scenic Waterways System.
As I marvelled at the green walls in Mule Creek Canyon and explored the pristine tributaries of the Rogue, a struggle began to designate much of the land surrounding this stretch of river as wilderness.
The second half of the protected stretch of river falls on U.S. Forest Service land and is designated wilderness. However, much of the surrounding area on Bureau of Land Management land is at the heart of debate over timber sales.
On Feb. 16, a federal appeals court ruled that a 22,000-acre federal logging project approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling, stating the project would adversely affect northern spotted owl habitat.
About 75 proposed timber sales are pending in the Rogue River Basin, many within miles of the wild and scenic stretch. In this area, environmental groups are trying to expand wild and scenic river protection to include 70 additional river miles. They are also pushing for wilderness designation in nearly 60,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. The area, located about 26 miles northwest of Grants Pass, includes the Zane Grey Roadless Area and numerous tributaries of the Rogue.
The BLM is in the midst of a Western Oregon Plan Revision that could change management practices for this area, and environmentalists with the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland and Portland-based Oregon Wild worry this could open the area up to logging old growth trees.
Joseph Vaile, campaign director for KS Wild, said the 46.600-acre Zane Grey Roadless Area could be logged pending the new management plan. Although the area is designated roadless, Vaile said he doesn't think the BLM will protect it as the U.S. Forest Service has protected the Wild Rogue Wilderness just downstream.
"A lot of it hasn't been protected as wilderness because it is BLM land," Vaile said. "They're a lot more interested in creating two by fours out of their forests rather than managing them."
Under the Bush administration, Vaile said he worries the new revisions will open up the area to old growth logging. The area is the largest intact forest managed by the BLM in the country, Vaile said. It provides habitat for sensitive species like the northern spotted owl and the Pacific fisher. Vaile said the recreational qualities of the area (tourism brings in more than $10 million annually in and around the Rogue) will create a better economic stimuli than timber harvests.
"To me, this is like a no-brainer place to protect," he said.
Meanwhile, amid closing libraries in Jackson County, some representatives are working to reauthorize a county payments program that funded local services.
The 2000 Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act allowed money from timber harvests on federal land to fund public services in rural counties in the state. Decreased timber receipts dropped the funding, and now congressmen like Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, are asking the federal government to reauthorize the payments.
Danielle Langone, spokeswoman for Rep. DeFazio's office, said the county payments program is the representative's main priority right now, so she was unsure what priority wilderness designation will take.
"Until we know specifics, it's hard to say legislatively what's going to happen," Langone said.
For representatives for the timber industry, like the American Forest Resource Council, more wilderness means less area to work in. Ross Mickey, Western Oregon manager for AFRC, said so much area in the Northwest has already been preserved under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan that a small minority of federal lands are available for sustained forestry. Mickey said of the 24 million acres of federal land in Oregon, only 3 million are available for sustained forestry.
He said the AFRC supports wilderness designation but only for those places that truly warrant it, and much of that land is already set aside.
"All of the places that were really, really special have been designated already," Mickey said.
But for Andy Kerr, senior counselor to Oregon Wild, it's finally time for Congress to do something to protect the Zane Grey Roadless Area. Kerr has worked on environmental issues for about 30 years in Oregon, and he said he has long fought for this area. He said the BLM has refused to recognize the area as roadless, so it is time to look to Congress.
"It's now time to make the political move to protect the wild Rogue," Kerr said.
He said Congress has already protected much of the surrounding area, and the rest deserves wilderness designation too.
"Why is it important?" Kerr said. "If you've ever been down the Rogue, your question's been answered."
Staff writer Alan Panebaker can be reached in the Grand Canyon. Have a good one Bakerman.
