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More monuments? Maybe Mail Tribune / Paul Fattig Dominick DellaSala, a forest ecologist with the World Wildlife Fund, and Barbara Ullian, right, check out a portion of the proposed Wild Rivers National Monument near Pearsoll Peak in the Siskiyou National Forest this past summer. They hope to create a national monument covering more than a million acres. Those pushing for the president to protect more areas in Southern Oregon are running out of time By PAUL FATTIG of the Mail Tribune The 11th hour approaches for environmental activists seeking an Oval Office decision creating two national monuments in Southern Oregon. With the monument-friendly Clinton administration on its way out and the potential for what many believe will be a monument-unfriendly George W. Bush administration in the White House, monument backers acknowledge they have precious little time left. Moreover, they know that presidents have tended to use the 1906 Antiquities Act to create monuments through executive action at the end of their terms, not the beginning. "The clock is ticking," said Dave Willis, a member of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council. "We think the chances are a little more than even." Willis led the successful fight to get the 52,000-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in the Soda Mountain area southeast of Ashland established early last summer. "We�re getting down to the last couple of weeks to a point when it will be impossible to make this happen," concurred Dominick DellaSala of Ashland, director of the World Wildlife Fund�s Klamath-Siskiyou Regional Program. Both have been lobbying hard for creation of the proposed million-acre-plus Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument in southwest Oregon�s Siskiyou Mountains. The other proposal, by Umpqua Watersheds Inc., a Roseburg-based environmental group, calls for a 206,600-acre monument to be known as the Medicine Mountain National Monument in the area around Diamond Lake. "The monuments are equally important," said Francis Eatherington, spokeswoman for the Roseburg group. "Both should be considered." Oregon lags behind California and Washington when it comes to national parks and monuments, she said. Seven percent of California�s land is protected by national parks and monuments while 3.8 percent of Washington is protected under those designations, she said. Only 0.5 percent of Oregon�s land receives the same protection, she noted. "We�re way behind the other states on the West Coast," she said. "Both of these areas need to be protected." The looming deadline has only increased the resolve of the monument backers, observed Barbara Ullian, a free-lance photographer and conservation director of the Illinois Valley-based Siskiyou Regional Education Project. The environmental group has been a leading proponent of the Wild Rivers proposal, citing the area�s unique scientific, historic and scenic values. Like Eatherington, Ullian believes both proposals should be adopted. But Ullian, whose family moved to Josephine County in the late 1940s, admits she is particularly partial to the Wild Rivers proposal. "We�ve long known the Siskiyous are an outstanding natural feature with wild rivers and wild salmon and steelhead," she said. "There are features here found nowhere else in the world. It�s time to protect them formally and permanently." The proposed monument would blanket 1.047 million acres, including 863,000 acres of the Siskiyou National Forest and 184,000 adjacent acres of the Bureau of Land Management�s Medford District. In an unrelated development, National Park Service officials at the Oregon Caves National Monument, covering 488 acres, are proposing expanding that monument by some 3,400 acres. That expansion, which was proposed a couple of years ago, would be onto adjacent Siskiyou forest land. But the backers of the proposed national monuments on BLM and Forest Service land are quick to observe that monument restrictions on those agency lands are not as strict as those established by the National Park Service. Under the Wild Rivers proposal, no commercial logging would be allowed within the monument. It would also limit mining to existing valid claims and motorized vehicle use to existing essential roads. Neither recreational activity, such as hunting, fishing, hiking and boating, nor adjoining private property would be affected, proponents said. The monument, which includes federal lands in Josephine and Curry counties, would includes portions of five nationally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers: 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 Klamath-Siskiyou area, DellaSala said. All told, there are 281 plant species that are found only in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, including Port Orford cedar and Brewer spruce. Of those, more than 100 plants are rare, according to monument supporters. "You also have the highest concentration of roadless areas anywhere on the West Coast here," DellaSala said. "There are still opportunities for large-scale conservation here." Willis believes the Wild Rivers area may be more important than the Soda Mountain area. "The loading dock is nice, but you also want to protect the Ark," he said, citing the important biodiversity of the Wild Rivers region. Eatherington also cites unique biodiversity when it comes to creating the Medicine Mountain monument. Mount Bailey, a prominent peak overlooking Diamond Lake, was known as Medicine Mountain by the local Indians. "The prime objective is to protect scenic beauty, sensitive plants and wildlife," she said. "We hope it will make people aware that the Diamond Lake area is truly the jewel of the Cascades." Most of that monument would be in the Diamond Lake Ranger District of the Umpqua National Forest, although it would include some 10,000 acres on the adjoining northern tip of the Rogue River National Forest. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.