Sacramento Bee
Published March 6, 2004

River enthusiasts lobby for wilderness plan

By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau

The Californians are making face-to-face pitches in D.C. for Boxer's legislation

WASHINGTON - It's a long way from California whitewater to Capitol Hill's Class V political rapids.

But for wild-river enthusiasts like Angels Camp resident John Yost, it's a trip worth making. For Yost and his allies, it's Congress that now holds the key to protecting hundreds of miles of California rivers and millions of acres of the state's wilderness.

"I come from a part of the world where there's four people per square mile," said Michael Charlton, an abundantly bearded river guide from Humboldt County and one of Yost's lobbying companions this week. "I'm a fish out of water here."

Nonetheless, Charlton and Yost are braving the big city to champion controversial wilderness legislation written by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. As originally introduced in May 2002, the bill would designate 440 miles of California rivers as wild and scenic and designate 2.5 million acres as wilderness.

Skeptics abound. Supervisors in rural counties like Calaveras, Tulare and El Dorado have gone on record opposing Boxer's big bill, and GOP committee leaders are not big fans.

"For the whole bill, there's little chance of it ever being enacted," Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee, said Thursday. "A lot of what's in her bill would not qualify as wilderness ... and the recreation folks in the area have concerns about it."

History, as well, gives pause. Previous wilderness bills have taken years to move through Congress; a California desert parks-and-wilderness bill introduced in 1986, for instance, didn't become law until 1994.

At the same time, Pombo said, "there are parts" of the overall Boxer wilderness legislation that could likely navigate Congress on their own. On Thursday, for instance, Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., announced they had come to an agreement with Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, on a measure to protect nearly 300,000 acres of wilderness along California's northern coast.

The agreement marks Feinstein's most emphatic embrace of the wilderness proposal since Boxer introduced her comprehensive bill 22 months ago. Covering portions of the Kings Range, Trinity Alps and Middle Eel River, the compromise North Coast wilderness provision amounts to only a fraction - 12 percent - of Boxer's original statewide proposal. It reflects, though, the piecemeal approach that has started to prevail.

"Things have evolved a bit," Yost said. "The strategy has changed a bit from the big bill that steps on a lot of toes."

California environmentalists are trying different lobbying routes, as well. One is the face-to-face pitch, like this week's effort that brought to the nation's capital Yost, Charlton, Twain Harte river guides Bob and Jane Ferguson, and Emily Templin of the Fresno office of Friends of the River, along with others. Breaking into two teams, the grassroots lobbyists have been meeting with staff members in numerous congressional offices. With some Republicans, they hope not so much to win outright support as to soften opposition.

The environmentalists have also sweetened the campaign over the past year, as when Yost took one of Feinstein's California staffers and several Calaveras County supervisors on raft trips down the Mokelumne River. Boxer's comprehensive California bill would give wild and scenic designation to 17 miles of the North Fork of the Mokelumne River, along with portions of the Kings River, Dinkey Creek in eastern Fresno County, the Clavey River in Tuolumne County and others.

"I don't want to scare them too much," Yost said. "I take them down the easy one."

A veteran of some world's most famous and outrageous river runs, Yost founded the enterprise now known as Mountain Travel Sobek; it bills itself as the world's largest international rafting company. The Fergusons, too, traffic in superlatives. Their company, Zephyr Whitewater, calls itself the largest whitewater rafting outfitter on the Tuolumne and Merced rivers. In Washington, part of the river guides' pitch is to point out how wild and scenic rivers contribute to local tourism.

"Yes, there is resistance," said river guide William McGinnis, who leads rafters down the Kings River and others, "but there is also movement."

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