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Prevost, clean water advocate, dies at 46 By Peter Wong of the Mail Tribune Cleaner water for the Rogue Valley and clearer protection for Soda Mountain will be the living legacies of Marc Prevost of Medford, his friends said Saturday. Prevost Prevost, water resources manager for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments and a longtime board member and former chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, died Friday at Medford Rehabilitation Center. He was 46. He had battled cancer for nearly a year. He is survived by his wife, Teryl, and two sons. Arrangements will be announced by Litwiller-Simonsen Funeral Home of Ashland. Prevost was an assistant planner at the Rogue Valley Council of Governments when he succeeded Eric Dittmer as its water resources coordinator in August 1992. Dittmer said Saturday that by working with state and federal agencies, obtaining grants and developing a staff, Prevost was able to build on wide public support for cleaning up Bear Creek, long identified as one of Oregon's dirtiest streams. "He took our grass-roots effort of a decade ago and took it to a higher level," said Dittmer, who now teaches geology and environmental studies at Southern Oregon University. Dittmer said much of what Prevost did in the region to enlist landowner cooperation with government foreshadowed Oregon's plan to restore salmon habitat and ease federal endangered-species restrictions imposed in 1997 on south coast runs of coho salmon. In a 1998 interview, Prevost said he was optimistic about Bear Creek attaining state water quality standards within a couple of years. "What we are talking about is the last increment of pollution," he said. "But in environmental economics, each additional increment becomes more expensive to clean up -- and the amount cleaned up is less than before." Before Prevost went to the council of governments, he was southwest Oregon field representative for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, an environmental group. Its staunch opposition to Elk Creek Dam raised questions among some local interests when Prevost was named water resources coordinator. Jackson County Commissioner Sue Kupillas, a rancher in Eagle Point and an advocate of the dam, said she shared those concerns even though she supported the choice. "He learned that by working with a wide variety of people, he could create a neutral forum for discussion of water issues," Kupillas said. "I believe he did it successfully. He maintained his own interest in particular environmental issues, but it did not enter into his work. He was able to bring together coalitions that no one else could." Dittmer said he was aware of those concerns at the time. "But we agreed that Marc would be the best candidate if he could play the mediating role -- and he did," he said. A native of St. Johnsbury, Vt., Prevost attended colleges in New York and Vermont before he moved in 1978 to Portland, where he was an electrical designer for sawmill equipment. He came to Medford in 1982, and while he attended Southern Oregon University, he was a fire management volunteer for the Rogue River National Forest. He earned bachelor's degrees in geography and environmental science from SOU in 1984. From 1985 until his death, he was on the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council and chaired it from 1987 to 1994. Dave Willis, of the Greensprings, current chairman of the Soda Mountain council and longtime advocate, said he told Prevost about last fall's visit by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who is considering several options for the ecological emphasis area that straddles the Cascades and Siskiyous. "He grew up in the Northeast; he saw what had been happening to the forests of the Northwest," Willis said. "He knew what we had in Oregon and valued it. "He had spent a lot of time on Soda Mountain and fell in love with the area. He recognized the ecological uniqueness of the area -- and we hope that a wilderness designation for Soda Mountain will be part of Marc's living legacy." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA