River advocates diverge on dredging.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

HARRISBURG - On the surface, the two groups look as if they might be allies in preserving the Willamette Valley's defining feature.

But the Willamette River Channel Maintenance Group and the Willamette Riverkeeper organization have radically different visions for the river's future. And riverside communities are caught in the crosscurrent.

The channel group has asked the Harrisburg City Council to sign an agreement with other cities and counties along the river's mid-valley stretch. In it, they propose "a comprehensive channel maintenance program" for the river.

In plain English, they want to dredge the river, creating a channel deep enough so most power boats can navigate, year-round, as far south as Harrisburg. The agreement, already signed by Linn, Polk and Yamhill counties as well as the city of Independence and the Linn Soil and Water Conservation District, claims that dredging will "benefit fish life by lower water temperatures" and "enhance watershed habitat" as well as "expand commercial and recreational uses" and "allow access to valuable (gravel) materials."

But Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, an 11-year-old river protection watchdog group, disputes the environmental claims.

"Dredging a naturally shallow and dynamic river such as the Upper Willamette destroys essential habitat for salmon and other wildlife," he said.

Gravel dropped at back door

Ultimately, any dredging plan would have to go before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of State Lands, both of which regulate riverbeds up to the ordinary high-water mark.

Winning approval to conduct such major dredging can be difficult and costly, in part because the Willamette River is home to imperiled fish species that are protected under federal law.

Generally in recent years, the agencies have opposed dredging and have favored plans that increase the river's freedom to meander over a broad and shallow floodplain.

The clash between the two river organizations is the latest in decades of battling over management of a river that, before the construction of dams and artificial embankments, meandered and flooded freely through the valley.

Harrisburg officials are well aware of the Willamette's changeable ways. During the winter floods of 2005-06, the river dumped an estimated 3,800 cubic yards of gravel directly in front of the city's boat ramp. The curving bar of rock has blocked boaters' access ever since - but also created a shallow, sheltered swimming area popular with children.

The city last week received final permits from state and federal regulators to begin removing enough of the rock to reopen the boat ramp, which it hopes to do this summer.

The channel group and Riverkeeper both cited what's been dubbed "the Harrisburg beach" in their presentations to the council.

"All the different boat ramps along the river - like Peoria, Albany, Corvallis, Salem and Keizer - need help," said dredging advocate Liz Van Leeuwen, a former Republican state representative who lives in Peoria. "The river is supposed to be navigable for more than a canoe ... but there are a group of people who don't agree."

In her April presentation to the Harrisburg council, she read from an 1873 article in The Willamette Farmer newspaper that listed fares for a passenger ship making 18 stops - including Harrisburg - along the river. Van Leeuwen, a member of the Linn Soil and Water Conservation District, said she is also concerned about increased erosion along some high riverbanks "because we no longer remove gravel bars."

The channel group favors selective dredging to shave large gravel deposits that contribute to such erosion, she said. That would save taxpayers money by avoiding the need for such projects as rebuilding a riverside road near her Irish Bend home after it was undermined by erosion in 2005-06, she said.

She noted Harrisburg officials are concerned that shifting gravel deposits are causing riverbank erosion along 100 acres of land the city recently purchased for a park.

Van Leeuwen called the Riverkeeper group elitist. She said she wants the river dredged enough to make it navigable all year long for some powerboats. "We want to make the river a resource for all, not just for physically able-bodied people," she said.

Marvin Pittman is a political consultant who's been working with the channel group on behalf of state Rep. Brian Boquist, a Dallas Republican who represents portions of five counties along the river.

"This boils down to the Willamette being an alluvial river - it creates gravel," Pittman said. "Either it piles up and changes the course of the river, or it gets taken out and it doesn't."

The group is not advocating anything drastic, he said. "They're not talking about making a shipping canal out of it," he said. They advocate "careful, intermittent dredging" to keep a channel at least 3 1/2 feet deep - room enough for most recreational boaters to operate safely, he said.

He contends that dredging would help endangered fish species and that existing shallow channels are barriers to fish migration, creating warmer water that is inhospitable to some fish, and making fish "easy prey for osprey and eagles."

"Back to the 1940s"

But Williams, who spoke at the Harrisburg council's meeting last week, scoffed at these notions.

"Everything that's been done in the last 10 to 15 years to improve the Willamette has focused on a return to natural flows and channel complexity, which proves important to fish," he said.

"At a time when every effort by state and federal natural resource agencies, not to mention multiple private organizations, seeks to improve the ecological condition of the Willamette River, the Channel Maintenance Group appears to want to go back to the 1940s" to restrict the river to set channels, he said.

Williams noted that the channel group has failed to win the support of state or federal fisheries or wildlife agencies, and that its bill in the state Legislature to obtain $3 million in government funding for a test dredging project died before getting a vote on the floor.

"Yet they keep forging on," he said. "They seem to have no ability to understand the habitat and water quality issues facing the river today."

He called Van Leeuwen's reference to 1870s passengers boats "revisionist history."

"Yes, Harrisburg used to be pretty much the terminus for historic river travel, but that was seasonal, based on river flow and the ability to float the boat," he said. "Those people were always at the mercy of the river and its changes.

"Are we in a position to modify natural resources in a way to meet everyone's whim?" he asked. "It doesn't make economical or environmental sense."

The river is naturally deeper in the northern part of the Willamette Valley, he added. Its "Newberg Pool," which stretches from the Yamhill River to Oregon Falls, for instance, has an average depth of 15 to 20 feet.

"Anyone who knows the river between Corvallis and Eugene knows it's a little more dynamic in terms of gravel and movements of the river," he said. "But that doesn't mean people are not using it because of gravel bars. There's people who navigate stretches there every day with jet boats for things like fishing."

He added that Harrisburg's gravel bar shows that effective remedies are already available.

"Harrisburg is working with the Corps of Engineers to dredge and create a new and better boat ramp," he said. "Existing regulations allow cities and others to gain access to the river."

Stan Gregory, a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon State University, agreed with Williams that a more natural river benefits fish. He has studied the Willamette River from Eugene to Portland for 15 years, including conducting an historical analysis of changes in the river channel based on more than 150 years of federal surveys.

The Willamette's southern stretch is a shallow, multiple-channel river that "poses problems for navigation," he said. Human efforts to channelize the river by dredging and by reinforcing banks with boulders and levees have caused the river to cut deeper into its bed, eroding more sediment and increasing water power within the active channel, he said.

"It's getting isolated from its floodplain, which ecologically is not a good thing," Gregory said.

Big issue looms

Backers of dredging say that practice isn't always harmful.

Rich Shepard, a Troutdale-based river consultant, said dredging can be used to remove silt and clay to free up rocky spawning areas, as well as to create new, off-channel habitats. Gravelly river bottoms are beneficial to fish, such as salmon, that go from salt water to fresh water to spawn.

But advocates of dredging mainly focus on the river's effects on people.

Polk County Commissioner Mike Propes said dredging could help prevent the river from snaking onto farmland.

"We're losing an estimated 200 acres a year of good farmland," he said, adding, "We are also concerned about boaters and safety - our county patrols the section of river that runs between Marion and Polk counties, so we see the problems the gravel bars create for recreational boating."

He said the board of commissioners was swayed by testimony about increasing damage to boats and injuries to passengers when boaters strike submerged gravel bars. He's also concerned that gravel deposits are damaging supports to one of two bridges connecting Polk County residents with Salem. And gravel bar build-up has left most of the county's seven boat ramps unusable, he said.

Harrisburg motion dies

The Keizer City Council voted this spring to have its city attorney draft a resolution allowing it to join the channel group. The Albany City Council is awaiting a staff analysis.

After hearing Van Leeuwen's presentation in April, one Harrisburg council member, Roger Raven, expressed immediate interest in signing the pact. But others, having read Willamette Riverkeeper material on the subject, said they wanted to hear from Williams.

He spoke to them last week, urging the city not to join the group, saying its aims ran counter to the river's long-term health.

Raven was not swayed and moved that the city enter into the agreement. His motion died for lack of a second. The council tabled the matter until July 11.

The channel group wants member governments to contribute money and also wants grants from other sources.

City Administrator Bruce Cleeton said he's not yet prepared to make a recommendation whether to join. "It is a challenging issue with reasons to get very excited about both sides," he said.