eco Newswire Updates On Critical Environmental And Access Issues from the ACA Conservation and Public Policy Department. Gear Tax Scheme Still A Threat As with Monty Python's armless and legless knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the 5 percent excise tax on outdoor equipment proposed by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (IAFWA) is "not quite dead yet." IAFWA, determined to gain a new funding source for state fish and game departments, has hired three Washington, D.C., lobbyists to get the Teaming With Wildlife legislation introduced. The move has prompted a counter response by the outdoor industry and other bill opponents, including the formation of a new coalition called Teaming Against Taxes. Myrna Johnson, Director of Government Affairs for the Boulder, Colo.-based Outdoor Recreation Coalition of America (ORCA), emphasizes the threat posed by IAFWA's new offensive: "The IAFWA has hired some of the most expensive and effective lobbyists in Washington," she says. "With this kind of lobbying power, you have to take the effort seriously." Instead of focusing on the plan's pocketbook issues, opponents contend the tax would fund nature centers and viewing platforms instead of addressing such needs as the acquisition of more wild lands. They also feel the plan will give too much power to state agencies that have a poor record of supporting non-game wildlife and recreation. --dj Saving Rivers With Music Fans of the guitar-picking Indigo Girls saw the folk-rock group play last fall in two North Carolina benefit concerts dedicated to saving the Pigeon River: one in the town of Boone and the other on a Cherokee Indian Reservation. The concerts, part of the Honor the Earth Tour (a project of the Indigenous Women's Network), appear to have worked. In December, an accordance was reached between the Champion International paper mill operating along the banks of the Pigeon and a group of river advocates calling for a new discharge variance permit with dramatic pollution reductions. In other concert conservation news, paddlers in Helena and Missoula, Mont., recently had the chance to attend a concert to help protect their state's waterways. In December, singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt, also a regular performer on the Honor the Earth Tour, gave a benefit concert for the Montana Environmental Information Center, with proceeds going to various organizations to protect such rivers as the Clark's Fork and Rock Creek from mining threats. --edb AW Acquires Access on Watauga Paddlers on Tennessee's Class III-V Watauga River can now be assured of river access. Silver Spring, Md.'s American Whitewater (AW) recently purchased 1.13 acres of land along the banks of the Watauga as part of its efforts to resolve river-access issues with respect to private land. With the Watauga cutting through a steep gorge, the limited land available for take-outs is all privately owned. The organization stepped up to the plate by purchasing a tract of land next to an historic take-out on Watson Island (at Stansbury Road). The non-profit river conservation organization also has secured access sites on the Arkansas River in Colorado, the Blackwater and Dry Fork rivers and Big Sandy Creek in West Virginia, and the Black River in New York. "We're still far away from being land barons," says AW Executive Director Rich Bowers. "But it's a step in the right direction." For more information, contact AW at (301) 589-9453. --edb American Rivers Announces 1998's Most Endangered Rivers In April, Washington, D.C.-based conservation organization American Rivers released its 13th annual report announcing the nation's 20 most endangered rivers. The organization cites waste produced by factory hog and chicken farms as the fastest-growing and most devastating threat to U.S. rivers, with other threats including urban sprawl, dams, population growth and toxic waste from mining operations. "We continue to abuse our rivers--by damming, draining, straightening and polluting them--all of which weakens their ability to sustain fish and wildlife," says American Rivers President Rebecca Wodder. "Protecting our freshwater resources must be a national priority." The Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington--the last free-flowing, undeveloped stretch of the Columbia in the U.S.--was named this year's most endangered river, facing threats from agricultural development, public land transfer and nuclear waste contamination. The other 19 rivers comprising the list include (in order): the Missouri River (Montana); the Pocomoke River (Maryland); the Kern River (California); the Blackfoot River (Montana); the Colorado River Delta (California/Mexico); the Chattahoochee River (Georgia); the Lower Snake River (Washington); the Apple River (Wisconsin/Illinois); Pinto Creek (Arizona); the Wolf River (Wisconsin); the Potomac River (West Virginia); the Rogue/Illinois River System (Oregon); the Taku River (Alaska); Crooked Creek (Arkansas); the Passaic River (New Jersey); the Mattaponi River (Virginia); the Walla Walla River (Oregon/Washington); the Uinta River (Utah); and the Kansas River (Kansas). For more information about the threats to these and other rivers, contact American Rivers at (202) 347-7550 or visit www.amrivers.org. --ahb A Victory on Florida's Fenholloway A diverse group of environmentalists and commercial fisherman recently scored a significant victory when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected a pollution permit for the Buckeye Florida pulp mill on the Fenholloway River. The permit would have allowed the mill to meet new water quality standards by shifting river flow into an 18-mile pipeline and pumping its toxic wastewater to the Gulf of Mexico. River advocates, including the American Canoe Association (ACA), filed a legal appeal of the proposed permit and lobbied EPA to reject it. The pipeline scheme, supported by the state of Florida and Gov. Lawton Chiles, would have set a dangerous precedent: "If you don't want to reduce your pollution in a river, put the river in a pipe." Despite this victory, the work is not over. River advocates must now work with EPA to ensure the mill reduces its pollution enough to fully protect the river, its estuary and the Gulf of Mexico. --dj River Network Awarded Conservation Alliance Grant To help protect the Alberton Gorge on Western Montana's Clark Fork River, the Conservation Alliance, a group of companies dedicated to preserving U.S. waterways, has awarded a $35,000 grant to the Portland, Ore.-based River Network. "The grant money will be instrumental in helping us purchase an option on the land, essentially buying us much-needed time to generate the financial resources for prime property situated in the heart of the gorge," says Susan Doroff, Northwest director for Riverlands Conservancy for the River Network. The Alberton Gorge is one of the most heavily used whitewater resources in the inland Northwest. By purchasing riverfront property, River Network will be able to stop the threat of development in the Gorge. "By sponsoring their grant proposal, we were able to strengthen our commitment to River Network's overall mission which encompasses more than just helping people organize to protect and restore rivers and watersheds," says Veronica Griner, communications director for Perception, a charter member of the Conservation Alliance. --ahb Schizophrenic Creek? Paddlers consulting maps to float Washington's Latah Creek may have a hard time finding it. According to the Washington State Board of Geographic Names, Hangman Creek, which many refer to as Latah Creek, is now officially Hangman again. According to the Northwest Whitewater Association (NWA), the creek, which flows from the Idaho foothills into Spokane, was called Latah until 1858. After several Native Americans were hung near the stream, people started referring to it as Hangman Creek. Last spring, county commissioners passed a resolution to re-name it on all county documents as Latah, a Nez Perce word for "Jumping Fish." Now, however, after a two-hour televised meeting by the Board of Geographic Names, it's back to Hangman. "The word 'Latah' is a nice- sounding name," board member Grant Smith told the NWA News, "but it doesn't pass the test of local usage...or local history." --edb Mine Threatens Tributary to Oregon's Illinois River Rough and Ready Creek, a major tributary to southwestern Oregon's Wild and Scenic Illinois River (responsible for two highly publicized paddling fatalities in March) is threatened by a proposed nickel-laterite strip mine. The mining operation, dubbed NICORE, would strip soil from 35 acres and require building eight to 10 miles of road in the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area and the adjacent Rough and Ready Botanical Area. The creek, which was determined eligible for inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, flows through an area known as the "Redrock Rainforest" and is characterized by a broad channel filled with large boulders. The watershed is host to a rare community of plants that have adapted to life in an area with thin soil containing toxic minerals. Under the proposal, mining trucks would drive across the stream hundreds of times daily, threatening the creek with sedimentation and hazardous material spills. NICORE's claim to an additional 4,000 acres of public land represents one of the largest attempts to privatize public lands under the 1872 Mining Act. The Siskiyou National Forest is in the process of conducting an Environmental Impact Study on the proposal. It is uncertain what effects the mine may have on the Illinois River. The Forest Service's Draft Environmental Impact Statement can be found at www.magick.net/~siskiyou or by calling (541) 592-2166. --Scott Harding

Upper Ocoee Water Woes

In March, the American Canoe Association (ACA) initiated a meeting with Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) to discuss legislative means of resolving this issue and securing releases. The ACA along with American Whitewater (AW), has proposed legislation that would mandate releases on both the Upper and Lower Ocoee in perpetuity, in exchange for Congress forgiving TVA's debt on the Ocoee power stations. Such legislation would eliminate the precedent of the public having to pay TVA to put water back into the river. Paddlers interested in seeing the Upper Ocoee flow again should urge their Congressman and Senators to secure weekend water releases from May through September.

--dj

Boater Quotas Proposed for Salmon

Contending that the Middle Fork and Main Salmon rivers are getting too congested during high-use seasons, the U.S. Forest Service has proposed a plan to reduce the number of floaters allowed on the two Idaho waterways. The proposal--which has angered everyone from outfitters to private users--would reduce the number of people allowed on the Middle Fork by 50 percent and on the Main by 30 percent. On the Middle Fork, the maximum size for private parties would drop from 24 to 10, and for outfitters it would drop from 30 to 15. Trips would also be limited to six days. On the Main, the maximum size for private and commercial trips would drop from 30 to 15, and time allowed on the river would fall from 10 to five days. For outfitters, this spells lost revenues; for private boaters, it spells a permit lottery system that could be worse than the existing system on the Selway River.

One opponent of the proposed restrictions is Bethine Church, widow of the late Sen. Frank Church, who lobbied to create the 2.7-million-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area in 1964. "I care deeply about the wilderness, and don't want it to become as crowded as the Colorado River," she told the Idaho Statesman. "But to take a worst-case scenario and use it to guide management is wrong. If they go forward, only the Bill Gates of the world will be able to hire a trip on the Middle Fork."

Outfitters are as enraged as Church's widow. This spring, more than 200 protesters, many of them outfitters, went so far as to rally on the Capitol steps in Boise. "These guys are on a mission from God to keep people out of the wilderness," maintains David Mills, co-owner of Boise's Rocky Mountain River Tours, which has run trips on the Middle Fork for 21 years. "Everybody who uses the Frank Church Wilderness Area will get screwed."

The proposal was based on three things: a camp survey, social impact studies and statistical use figures. All three determinants, says Mills, were flawed. The main concern is that the Forest Service based its proposal on unreliable use figures. While the Forest Service maintains the rivers have seen an annual growth of 2.5 percent, the actual figure over the past 20 years, maintains Mills, is closer to 0.09 percent. "The whole idea is based on dramatic growth which simply isn't true," he says. "All we're asking for--for all users--is a little common sense. Right now it's the shining example of how a wilderness area should be managed, and most folks feel it should stay that way--with maybe a few minor tweaks. But what they proposed are far more than tweaks. They ignored input from people actually administering the river." Indeed, whether they felt it was the Forest Service ignoring their input or just time to move on, long-time river rangers Ray Cullinane on the Middle Fork and Troy Cooper on the Main retired in February, just months after the proposal was released.

That's not to say, adds Mills, that there isn't room for improvement in the existing management system. Mills feels the lottery system could be more equitable, the cancellation policy could be revamped and campsites could be assigned according to party size. "But these are little management things," he says. "They don't need to revamp the whole system."

Mills does admit to seeing a crack in the door. This spring, the Forest Service extended its public comment period until December 1998. And if a new plan does go into effect, it probably won't be until after the 1999 season. "We're looking forward to being able to help craft an alternative that will work for everyone," says Marti Pridges, water policy director for Boise's Idaho Rivers United. "Whatever goes into effect won't be what's currently on the table. It's a very politically hot topic, and it's a starting point for public discussion. It's just unfortunate the outfitting and private boating community didn't get consulted beforehand."

The Forest Service, meanwhile, is sticking to its assessment. Management polices are meant to be updated, says Ken Wotring, wilderness coordinator for Frank Church wilderness area and co-author of the area's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). "We were seeing some things wilderness-wise that needed to be addressed," he says, citing everything from increased use of the rivers' tributaries to rampant growth of noxious weeds. "There's no question that use has been growing. It just raises the question of what is the peak use to allow?

"The thing to remember," he adds, "is that this is a draft EIS and that this is exactly the time to point things out to re-evaluate. There is a reason it's called a draft. People are looking at this as a decision point rather than a draft to comment on. Was it a smart thing to do? Obviously not, because we're getting walloped by responses. The amount of concern and effort to challenge the plan definitely exceeded our expectations. But that's what a draft is all about: getting feedback and dialogue going, and then moving forward to make decisions."

--The deadline for public comment on the proposal has been extended to December 1998. To comment, write: Attn.: Wilderness Coordinator, Salmon- Challis National Forest, RR 2, Box 600, Salmon, ID 83467. For more information, call (208) 756-5100.

--edb

Students living on waterways between Brevard, N.C., and New Orleans, received a hands-on lesson in environmental awareness last summer when seven Brevard College students and two faculty members paddled 1,800 miles from the headwaters of North Carolina's French Broad River to the Gulf of Mexico. Starting in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, the expedition, dubbed "Voice of the Rivers," linked more than 50 communities along the French Broad, Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi rivers in an educational and environmental outreach program. The goal of the three-and-a-half-month journey was to tell anyone who would listen about the plight of America's rivers. "The program succeeded beyond everyone's expectations," says team leader Dr. Windy Gordon, a 14-year river guide and instructor for Nantahala Outdoor Center. "We brought our environmental awareness program to civic and school groups throughout the Southeast."

The idea for the expedition was hatched when David Watkins, a friend of Brevard College, suggested the school send a team down waterways linking the small mountain town with the Gulf. After rounding up sponsorship support from Wilderness Systems (which donated Sealution sea kayaks), Werner (for paddles) and Lotus Designs (for lifejackets), the seven students shoved off and completed a full semester's coursework on the nine-state, 104-day journey. Presentations revolved around what impacts rivers and what people can do to protect them. "Little did we know," says Gordon, "that the environmental lessons we taught would come from our days on the river rather than from the college."

Although they paddled every mile of the way, that is not their greatest source of pride. Instead, their satisfaction comes from the fact that along the way they conducted 33 educational programs and spoke to more than 6,000 people about river protection. Programs--given to everyone from professionals at Chattanooga's Tennessee Aquarium to 200 kindergarten children in Osceola, Ark.,--explained first-hand environmental lessons from their journey, from rapids' cleaning effect on rivers like the French Broad to the slow death of dammed rivers like the Tennessee. Sometimes, adds Gordon, the children in the audience surprised them. "After one program at a Mississippi middle school a young boy asked if anyone disliked us for what we were doing," he says. "It is amazing that a sixth grader understands the tension between environmentalists and those who would use the world as a disposable resource. I think it is very telling that we could honestly say, 'No, so far everyone has liked us and liked what we say.'"

Did paddling 1,800 miles to conduct these programs transform Southeastern thinking about our rivers? "Of course not," says Gordon. "No single trip could accomplish so grand a goal. But we did we create some ripples in our region's awareness."

--The Voice of the Rivers expedition would like to thank its sponsors, including Wilderness Systems, Werner Paddles, Lotus Designs, the Nantahala Outdoor Center and Brevard College.

--edb