PORTLAND, Ore. - A bill to protect thousands of acres and miles of river in Oregon has passed out of a key U.S. Senate committee.

The Oregon Wildlands Act, introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both D-Ore., would designate more than 200,000 acres as wilderness and national recreation areas and add more than 250 miles of wild-and-scenic river protections to the state.

Much of it is centered around the Rogue River, one of the original eight to gain wild-and-scenic protections 50 years ago, but Robyn Janssen, director of Rogue Riverkeeper, said those protections only extend a quarter-mile up the waterway's canyons, leaving much of the area vulnerable to development.

"The forest and wild lands way up on the ridge tops above the river aren't protected," she said, "and those really important tributary streams that feed lots of cold, clear water into the Rogue and support our amazing salmon fishery, those tributaries aren't totally supported and protected."

The bill would add acreage to the Wild Rogue and Devil's Staircase Wilderness areas and wild-and-scenic river protections to western Oregon rivers. It also would give recreation-area protections to the Molalla and Rogue rivers.

The bill, Senate Bill 1548, represents more than 20 years of negotiations, and backers have said it would conserve lands integral to Oregon's recreation economy, which generates $16.4 billion annually in consumer spending and supports more than 170,000 jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

Janssen said greater safeguards would protect jobs near the Rogue River.

"It is a really important resource for us in so many different ways, but especially for the local economy," she said. "And if it wasn't protected and it was being developed or being abused by resource extraction, those jobs would be threatened."

Tuesday was the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Chris Daughters, owner of the Caddis Fly Angling Shop in Eugene, said he believes that without protections, the region's world-class fisheries are in danger. He said he also wants the next generation to enjoy these lands.

"We can talk about the immediate needs of the angler, we can talk about the immediate needs for the businesses and the critical outdoor industry in the state of Oregon from fishing, hiking, boating, etc.," he said, "but we've got to look down the road for our children as well."

The text of SB 1548 is online at congress.gov, and OIA data is at outdoorindustry.org.

---

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


get more stories like this via email

The Bureau of Land Management recently released two rules that alter how the agency manages its 245 million acres of public lands, 48 million of which are found in Nevada.

The BLM's new Public Lands Rule will put conservation on par with other multiple uses, and the agency's Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process Rule revises outdated fiscal terms for oil and gas leasing operations.

Nevada is home to four national parks which bring the state more than $280 million in economic benefit from tourism, according to the National Park Service.

The National Parks Conservation Association's Senior Program Manager of Energy and Landscape Conservation - Beau Kiklis - contended national parks are not just what he called "islands of conservation," but components of a much larger connected landscape.

"In Nevada, in particular Southern Nevada," said Kiklis, "where we do have an abundance of BLM land, there is also an abundance of national park sites in the southern part of the state, going up all the way until Death Valley. "

Kiklis said the new rule will introduce a more responsible approach to where and how the BLM authorizes oil and gas leasing as they'll be taking a closer look at "leasing preference criteria."

Kiklis said that means the agency will be assessing whether there are historic properties, sacred sites and cultural resources that are within a proposed lease area.

If there are, he said the agency will look to other areas where operators already are.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation with the NPCA, argued the two rules will bring what he called a "semblance of balance back to public lands," and will allow the BLM to fulfill its obligation to manage those lands with a multiple use approach in mind.

He added that the oil and gas program was an example of how unbalanced management had been until now.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than a price of a cup of coffee," said Kirby. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to use that land, to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we are really on the path to fix that broken system."

Kirby said the oil and gas rule will enshrine what he calls "critical updates," that were a part of the Inflation Reduction Act - and includes increases on the royalties and rental rates and terms for leasing the development of public lands.

As critics work to roll back new Bureau of Land Management rules, public lands advocates are defending the agency's move to put conservation uses on equal footing with extraction and development.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the new rules can be used to benefit national parks, for example, by reducing pollution from oil and gas drilling on the 3.3 million acres of BLM-managed mineral rights in eastern Colorado.

"Thousands of feet higher than where the actual drilling is happening, you can go up to Rocky Mountain National Park," Kirby recounted. "You can't even see on some days, (in part) because of pollution that is coming from drilling activities."

The rules also identify conservation tools to restore degraded lands owned by all Americans, and to keep natural landscapes intact. Industry groups have called the rules a land grab. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have promised to repeal the rules finalized in April, claiming they block access to public lands and subvert the multiple-use requirement under the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Ninety percent of lands managed by the BLM remain open for oil and gas development. There are more than 31,000 orphaned wells within 30 miles of national parks and the new rules update bonding requirements to prevent more abandoned sites. Kirby noted until now, corporations have run the show.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than the price of a cup of coffee," Kirby asserted. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we're really on a path to fix that broken system."

The new rule also gives the BLM tools to steer any future oil and gas development away from national parks. More than 80 national park units sit adjacent to public lands managed by the BLM and Kirby argued any development affects parks, connected waterways and wildlife migration corridors.

"Wildlife migrate across borders, water moves across national park borders, air flows in and out," Kirby stressed. "What happens outside of national parks really is critical to national park resources."

Conservation groups, tribes and community organizers are praising President Joe Biden's decision Thursday to expand two national monuments in California.

Together, the monuments will gain about 120,000 acres. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is 90 minutes northwest of Sacramento and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument lies just east of Los Angeles.

Brenda Gallegos, public lands manager for the nonprofit Hispanic Access Foundation, said millions of urban families live close to the San Gabriel Mountains.

"A lot of our Latino communities don't have access to nature, prominently, like 67% of Latino communities don't have access to green spaces or blue spaces," Gallegos pointed out. "Having these expansions designated today brings us closer to closing that nature gap."

The president used his powers under the Antiquities Act to expand the monuments in order to increase public access and protect the watershed and wildlife habitat. The move also makes progress toward Biden's goal of protecting 30% of the country's public lands by 2030.

Gallegos said Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Lake County will include an area previously known as Walker Ridge, now renamed Moluk Loyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin tribal language.

"This is important because it establishes a co-stewardship with federally recognized tribes and will return the indigenous names of these lands to them," Gallegos explained. "This continues to build that great relationship with tribes."

Land managers will now create a new management plan for the area, which could include new campsites, hiking and mountain biking trails, and even off-highway vehicle-designated routes.