MCKEON OPPOSES U.S. RIVERS PROGRAM.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

The portion of the Santa Clara River that runs through Los Angeles County might not be included in the federal American Heritage Rivers Initiative because of a request made by Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon.

President Clinton will select 10 waterways for participation in the American Heritage Rivers program, which is designed to help communities work through often confusing government guidelines. The Santa Clara is one of 20 waterways that has been nominated for the honor.

The program will not provide municipalities with money but instead will assign them a federal staff person who will act as a guide to obtain government resources. Communities may use such funding to protect environmentally sensitive areas and monitor water quality.

But in a June 3 letter to the federal Council on Environmental Quality, McKeon wrote that he would like the Los Angeles County stretch of river excluded from the program because no federal funding was allocated to run it.

``An initiative that is as broad, crosses federal jurisdictional boundaries, and will affect communities, businesses, and state governments as this deserves a thorough examination by the Congress and a clear funding mechanism,'' McKeon said in his letter to Kathleen McGinty, chairwoman of the council.

McKeon also wrote that he would have preferred a longer public hearing on the program.

Finally, he argued that programs to improve waterways and environmentally sensitive areas should be created locally.

But area environmentalists, who drafted an application so that the Santa Clara could be considered and spoke at a local hearing to support its selection, said the community has fully endorsed the American Heritage Rivers program.

Governments that support the program and the Santa Clara River's participation include the cities of Santa Clarita and Santa Paula, the Piru Neighborhood Council, Ventura County, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state Coastal Conservancy and the University of California at Berkeley, which has an agricultural extension program in Ventura County.

``We're very disappointed that a Congress member who represents the district would withdraw support like that,'' said Ron Bottorff, chairman of the Friends of the Santa Clara River, who provided the first-draft application to Ventura County officials.

``All this does is it heightens the river's profile with the federal government. We'll have an inside track with federal approvals. We'll have a higher profile for money to preserve habitats,'' Bottorff said. ``It would be very helpful. It would be nothing but positive for the whole river.''