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Babbitt wants monument � eventually Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt talks to Kurt Stark, right, a Greensprings resident, and others opposed to a Siskiyou Wild Rivers national monument during a meeting Sunday in a conference room at the Bureau of Land Management Medford District headquarters. Public debate needed first; he will propose moratorium By Paul Fattig Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt firmly believes there should be a 1 million acre-plus Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument in Southwest Oregon�s Siskiyou Mountains. But Babbitt said Sunday that he would not make such a recommendation to President Clinton. Instead, he plans to ask Clinton this week to declare a two-year moratorium on new mining claims on an estimated 700,000 acres within the proposed monument area. "I think this is probably the most important, the most biologically significant, unprotected landscape in the American West," he said. "The Siskiyou should be a completely protected region � it should be a national monument." But there wasn�t enough time to put the proposal, which first surfaced early last summer, through the public debate he promised would precede any declarations by President Clinton under the 1906 Antiquities Act, he said. The proposed monument would cover 1.047 million acres, including 863,000 acres of the Siskiyou forest and 184,000 adjacent acres of the Bureau of Land Management�s Medford District. Most of that would be in Josephine and Curry counties. The monument would have contained portions of five nationally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers, including the Illinois, the north fork of the Smith, the Rogue, the Chetco and the Elk. The watersheds have the best salmon fishery in the Pacific Northwest as well as the highest concentration of rare, threatened and endemic plants anywhere in the region, supporters said. But opponents argued that the monument wasn�t needed, and that it would have harmed the local economy. Babbitt met with leaders of groups supporting and opposing the monument. A hiking trip by Babbitt into the proposed monument area was canceled at the last minute, possibly because of a large crowd of monument opponents who had gathered in the Illinois Valley. In a letter sent to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman on Wednesday, Democratic members of Oregon�s congressional delegation had asked for the moratorium. It would cover much of the Siskiyou forest, as well as connecting public lands administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management along the Rogue River and others which have been designated as environmentally sensitive. The area is largely protected from logging by existing laws and regulations, such as wilderness designations and a new prohibition on road construction. But it remains vulnerable to mining, particularly small-scale placer gold mining in creeks where salmon spawn, Babbitt said. In addition to declaring the moratorium on new claims, Babbitt said he also wanted to review the validity of existing claims. "Placer mining and suction dredges out in these rivers risks the destruction of the most important salmon spawning streams between the Columbia River and the Sacramento River," he said. "It is an immediate threat." The moratorium would allow the Forest Service to complete its evaluation of the health of the fishery in regards to mining, said Jack Williams, supervisor of both the Siskiyou and Rogue River national forests. It wouldn�t affect the timber harvest, he said. "I don�t think the timber harvest is a problem," said Williams, a fishery scientist by training. "That�s a tool we need. We need to be able to harvest trees out there, either commercially or noncommercially." Babbitt noted he had pledged last summer while working on a similar proposal for Steens Mountain that there would be no surprises in terms of new monuments. "I said to the people of Oregon that I am not going to make recommendations to the president under the Antiquities Act unless they have been preceded by the most intense interactive attempt to meet with, work with, interact with everyone until we have the closest thing we have to understanding what the issues are and what the consensus is," he said. The debate over the future of Steens Mountain, which included both public and Congressional input, resulted in the creation of the 500,000-acre Steens Mountain Cooperative Management Area last fall. That took two years, Babbitt noted. The moratorium will basically be a "time out" to allow a consensus to be reached by Oregonians, he said. "My feeling is that two years of vigorous debate that I hope will take place will demonstrate for Oregonians the importance of this area and will yield a consensus that this area is unique in this world," he said. The area could then be protected by a long-term withdrawal or permanent congressional legislation, he said. "The next administration could, at any time, cancel this temporary withdrawal," he said. "But I believe this is a withdrawal that has a lot of logic to it." It merely holds the status quo for two years while everyone gets a opportunity to have their voice heard, he said. "My plea to the citizens of Oregon is to tell the next administration that you think this is a reasonable course of action," he said, then added, "But I acknowledge that I cannot rule from my political grave." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.