[White-water] Comment period on Metolius River wood project ends Tuesday!

[Melissa Bearns]

Hi everyone,
The public comment period for the Metolius River Wood restoration project
ends tomorrow (Oct 2) at 5 p.m.

If you comment to the Forest Service now, in any way, shape or form, you can
have a voice in the future process. All you have to do is send a short email
to the following email address: 
comments-pacific-northwest-deschutes-sisters at fs.fed.us 
The phone number for the Sisters Ranger District is: 541/549-7700. 

It might be as simple as writing something like, "I am a
kayaker/canoer/rafter etc and I am concerned about the proposed project to
introduce logs into the Metolius River. I am concerned that it may affect
boating safety and would like additional time to research the issue and
comment."

U.S. Senator Walden is willing to work with kayakers as is Senator Wyden.
Ore. Sen. Ben Westlund is also interested in this issue. By commenting now,
you could really make a difference in how this project gets planned, but we
need a strong voice from the kayaking community. 

The environmental assessment is about 140 pages long, but I'll summarize it
as succinctly as I can.

The objective of all of the plans is to restore natural habitat for fish.

They plan to use the following methods to introduce the wood into the river:
hand crews, an excavator on the river bank, an excavator in the river bed
and helicopter.  "Anchoring wood will rely on natural placement that will be
secured by digging a slot into the river bank and placing the log and
covering it with soil (keyed into the stream bank), retaining the root wads
on the logs and placing entire whole trees along the river edge."

There are 3 proposed plans.

1. No action

2. add large wood to near historic levles at 206 sites over 11 miles of
river from Riverside Campground to Jefferson Creek.

This proposal includes adding 930 logs at 206 different sites into the
river, 582 of which are proposed for the area below Wizard Falls, which is
the put in for the run. This proposal also includes "an occasional full
spanning log that will block boat passage". And they anticipate that "some
wood will be cut illegally by boaters."

IN addition, some of the work in option 2 is slated for the section that is
designated Wild and Scenic.

3. Add large wood at 173 sites above Bridge 99 and let floods distribute it
below the bridge.

Bridge 99 is the bridge at Wizard Falls where people put in to run the
section near Camp Sherman. So when they're talking about putting wood below
this bridge, they're talking about putting it on the most commonly run
section of the river.

For those of you who haven't run this section of the Metolius, it's narrow,
cold and fast with very few eddies. A riverwide log could be extremely
dangerous if it wasn't able to be seen from upstream because of the
difficulty in eddying out in some parts of the run.

It's one of the most beautiful runs in Oregon too. Commenting is easy. Just
don't be silent because if river users have a strong voice, we can shape
this project so that it's good for fish but also safe for boaters.

Syotr,
Melissa