|
|
Thanks largely to the Sierra Club, two rivers much-loved by recreationists -- the
Klamath in Oregon and the American in California -- will remain free-flowing for the
foreseeable future. Along with rejoicing, however, comes a salient reminder of the axiom
that while destruction can be forever, protection is all too often temporary.
The Club's Oregon Chapter and other local conservationists won a key legal victory in
May, when the city of Klamath Falls lost its federal-court appeal of the Upper Klamath's
"wild and scenic" designation. The victory capped 13 years of activism to block
the city's planned Salt Caves dam, which jeopardized what the Oregon Chapter's Liz Frenkel
called "an exceptional whitewater reach of river," replete with sensitive and
threatened species like the peregrine falcon and bald eagle and sacred Native American
sites. "A classic Sierra Club saga of persistence," is how Frenkel described the
Oregon success story. The dam's backers, she noted, spent more than $17 million, and
retained lobbyists in both Washington, D.C., and Salem, the state capital. By contrast,
she said, "We had volunteers -- rafters, kayakers, fishermen, Native Americans,
biologists and lawyers who generously gave their time and money to keep the Upper Klamath
dam-free."
The Auburn Dam saga, meanwhile, galvanized activists all across the country, who
responded in numbers that surprised not only members of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure panel -- which killed the billion- dollar boondoggle in committee -- but
even Club leaders working to defeat the dam in Northern California.
"I'm just now finding out how much everyone was doing," said Kathy Crist,
coordinator for the Mother Lode Chapter. "All over the country, at every level of the
organization, everyone embraced the issue as the kind of thing the Club was founded
on."
Crist especially credited the Club's recent on-line communications advances, which
enabled volunteers to follow the twists and turns in legislation to bottle up two forks of
the American River, a popular destination for rafters and other recreationists. The most
expensive dam ever proposed in the United States, Auburn was stopped on the House floor in
1992. This time, the Club -- working in coalition with Taxpayers for Common Sense, Friends
of the River, the National Wildlife Federation and others -- didn't let it get even that
far. "The Club's an amazing machine," marveled Crist.
But Auburn Dam isn't dead yet. As long as the 104th Congress is in business, backers of
the dam -- who have tried to sell it as a floodcontrol project -- retain a glimmer of
hope. Its most dogged sponsor, Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), had anticipated some $935
million in construction funds under the 1996 Water Resources Development Act. The Clinton
administration, however, proposed just $57 million to cover noncontroversial flood-control
improvements for the Sacramento area, and that version of the WRDA is now making its way
through Congress.
The danger: Because the House and Senate versions are not identical, the omnibus water
bill is likely to be taken up by a conference committee in September, when Auburn's
backers in Congress could try to sneak it back in. "That means we need to get the
message out one more time to our members of Congress," Crist said. "No Auburn
Dam!"
To take action: Urge your representative and senators to work to
defeat any amendment to the Water Resources Development Act to build Auburn Dam, and to
vote against the WRDA should the conference committee restore funding for the project.
Up to Top
|
