RIVER OFF LIST OF U.S. FLOWS; MCKEON LETTER SWAYS PANEL.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

U.S. Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon's request to exclude Santa Clarita's largest waterway from the final list of American Heritage River candidates convinced an advisory committee to cut the entire Santa Clara River from consideration.

A committee member said Friday that McKeon's letter opposing the portion of the Santa Clara in his district affected the committee's vote.

McKeon opposed the program because it would allow for federal intrusion and lead to development restrictions along the river.

``The American Heritage River Initiative is simply not a good idea,'' McKeon said in a statement. ``It offers nothing of substance in terms of environmental protection, and poses an enormous risk to local control.''

At the same time, however, McKeon said the program lacked any real influence.

``The American Heritage River Initiative is, in the spirit of Jerry Seinfeld, a program about nothing,'' McKeon said. ``At best, it offered symbolic federal government recognition of a river's importance.''

Committee member Jerry Galloway, a dean of faculty at the Defense University in Washington, D.C., said McKeon's letter helped him decide to vote for excluding the Santa Clara, and likely affected his colleagues' decisions.

First, the portion of the river in McKeon's district was eliminated from the application after the committee received the congressman's June 3 letter, leaving just the Ventura County portion, Galloway said.

``We wanted the least potential limiting challenges,'' Galloway said. ``We were looking at leaving one part of the basin in and taking one part out vs. entire support for the length of a river.''

President Clinton amended the program after receiving complaints, and stipulated that Congress members could request that their districts be excluded. The Santa Clara application joined the list of about 14 others in which Congress members removed all or part of the waterways from consideration, Galloway said.

For example, the James River, a waterway with a history that includes stories about Pocahontas, was eliminated from the list after a congressman excluded his district from the program. The committee was left with an application that included the beginning of the James and the end of it, but not the middle, Galloway said.

The committee also had concern about overall support from the community, and McKeon's dissent letter showed a lack of unity, Galloway said.

``There was certainly a lot of attention paid to the Santa Clara River. It had all of the components,'' Galloway said. ``The problem is, there were 126 applications, and we kept narrowing it down. As you got closer to a decision point, you had to ask, how much community support is there? There were others that were much cleaner in terms of community support. You could see that the plan would be implemented.''

The Connecticut River, for example, crosses through Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and every governor, Congress member and local politician in the four states supported the program, Galloway said.

The committee on June 16 selected the Connecticut, the Detroit River in Michigan, the Hanalei River in Hawaii, the Hudson River in New York, the New River in the Southeast, the Rio Grande River in Texas, the Potomac River in the mid-Atlantic states, St. Johns River in Florida, the Upper Mississippi River from Minnesota to Missouri and the Willamette River in Oregon.

And while McKeon argued that the program would be harmful to communities and landowners, others say it is an honorable recognition, such as the Tree City, U.S.A., title held by the city of Santa Clarita.

The difference, though, is that area communities would receive a federal guide who would help locate grant money and speed application processes.

The initiative does not involve land-use restrictions, said Elliot Diringer, spokesman for the Council on Environmental Quality, which is overseeing the program.

Any community can choose to remove its river from the program at any time, he said.

``There's no regulatory component at all. There is absolutely no authority asserted in the initiative,'' Diringer said. ``This is a way of rewarding and recognizing local efforts.''

Galloway said he doubts an appeal by Santa Clarita will lead the president to include all of the Santa Clara River in the program because of McKeon's letter.

``It was, in effect, a veto,'' Galloway said. ``The president said if you don't want to be included, write a letter and you won't be included.''