Gravel glut cuts off ramp river access.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

HARRISBURG - When the floodwaters receded here this month, the Willamette River had left behind an unwelcome surprise: a 40-foot-wide, quarter-mile-long gravel bar blocking the city's boat ramp.

The city has closed the ramp to motorized boats, and says it is unlikely to reopen before late summer - if then.

The closure will be inconvenient for fishermen and other boating enthusiasts who account for the roughly 1,400 annual boat launches at the ramp, City Administrator Bruce Cleeton said. But officials are most concerned that it could keep the Harrisburg Fire Department and Linn and Lane county sheriff's deputies from getting into the river at Harrisburg for water rescues.

The situation is apparently a first for this growing city of 3,275, Cleeton said.

"Neighbors who have lived by the boat ramp for 45 years say they have never seen that happen before," he said.

The rearrangement of rock may scuttle planned major improvements at the boat landing this summer, Cleeton added.

The Oregon State Marine Board had approved a grant of $188,000 to replace and improve the boat ramp and boarding floats at Harrisburg this summer, said Ray Lanham, senior facilities engineer at the agency. Now it's unclear whether the project can go forward as scheduled.

"It's probably going to depend on what we find out from the permitting agencies," he said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Division of State Lands require permits for any removal of material below the river's ordinary high water mark, he said. Among considerations are the impacts on habitat for endangered fish. Other regulations require that any work below that level be performed between June 1 and Sept. 30.

Timing isn't the only challenge, however. There's also the matter of cost. High-velocity river flows during nearly a month of flooding in January moved a "very significant" volume of rock to the shore near the ramp, said Wayne Shuyler, the marine board's facilities program manager.

"We haven't even evaluated how much gravel would have to come out," he said. "We'll have to go out and survey."

"But it won't be cheap," Lanham promised.

Paul Vitus, a Lane County deputy sheriff who handles most of his agency's water rescues, said gravel deposits also have been an occasional problem at the Clearwater Park boat ramp near Jasper Road in Springfield. But the rock that accumulates there is nowhere near the volume at Harrisburg, he said.

"We have issues with gravel, trees and debris piling up at the Clearwater Park ramp due to changes because of high water," he said. "And we helped Willamalane (Parks and Recreation District) get a permit to get the gravel bar dealt with there. But we went out and looked at the landing up in Harrisburg, and you would have to do extensive work to get all that gravel out of there."

Harrisburg Fire Chief Scott Mitchell said his department responds to as many as six or seven water rescue calls a year, most in the summer months. The fact that recreational boaters will be unable to launch at the ramp won't eliminate the potential for such emergencies this year, he added.

"Usually, its the people on rubber rafts and inner tubes who get into trouble," he said.

If his department is unable to launch its rescue boat from the ramp, the next closest put-in spots are Cartney Park about three miles north of town and Hayes Landing, about eight river miles south, off River Road between Junction City and Eugene.

CAPTION(S):

The large gravel bar blocking the Harrisburg boat ramp attracts a steady stream of onlookers. Harrisburg will need permits before any gravel removal can occur. City officials are concerned that the ramp closure will hamper rescuers responding to emergencies on the water.