A cleaner Rogue corridor

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Tony Kerwin, left, an environmental planner with the Bureau of Land Management’s Medford District, and Jeanne Klein, BLM’s River Programs Manager, walk beside an old road near the Rogue River that has been filled in with logs and branches to prevent off-road vehicles from using it.Jim Craven

April 08, 2009

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

HELLGATE — Logs and large branches crisscross the old road like so many giant pickup sticks.

A few feet farther down the road, dirt berms that would cause a military tank driver to sweat bullets jut up every 100 feet or so as the road meanders through the forest down toward the Rogue River.

"This is stopping the majority of those who are doing this," said Jeanne Klein, Rogue River program manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Medford District.

"Some of them are still getting around it but it is definitely slowing them down, particularly with the tank traps up there," she added.

Although the Hellgate recreation section of the Rogue River within a quarter-mile of the river on both sides has been closed to motorized vehicles since 1972, the agency has had problems keeping off-road vehicles off unauthorized roads and trails in the corridor.

As part of the Rogue River Corridor Restoration Project, the BLM plans to decommission up to 20 miles of roads and about the same distance of trails this year from White Horse Park, where the Applegate River empties into the Rogue, downstream some 20 river miles to the mouth of Grave Creek.

The popular recreation area is in the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River Corridor. The corridor draws thousands visitors each summer to float, swim, hike and picnic. A hiking trail meanders along the corridor for several miles, passing a bald eagle's nest at one point.

"There will still be plenty of legal access along the river — we're not cutting that off," stressed project leader Tony Kerwin, an environmental planner with the district. The unauthorized roads and trails create a spider web of erosion problems in the area, officials said.

Authorized access points can be found less than a mile apart along that stretch of the river, he said.

The purpose, he stressed, is to protect the narrow corridor as a recreational, environmental and cultural resource. The roads being decommissioned are those that weren't necessary for public access, he added.

"These are old roads that were used as access way back who knows when," he said. "They are no longer used for administrative use or public access to the river."

Farther upriver, a motorcycle trail cuts up a steep serpentine rock formation where buttercups cling to life along the edge of the trail.

"It takes an area like this a long, long time to recover," Kerwin said.

Near Matson Park, operated by Josephine County, an old road on the adjacent BLM land has been rutted by off-road vehicles, creating a mud hole guaranteed to suck off your shoes if you step in.

"We realize there need to be places for OHV users to go," Klein said. "But we also realize the river corridor is not one of those places."

The agency is working on a management plan for a proposed OHV use area in the Quartz Creek drainage near Merlin, Klein said.

"We are working on that now," she said. "It will have signed trails and roads for OHV use."

Back on the Rogue, an environmental assessment of the project is expected to be completed early this summer, followed by a final decision. Work is expected to begin in late summer or in the fall, and some of the unauthorized roads will be converted to hiking trails.

While most OHV users avoid the restricted corridor, those few who continue to ride in the area cause problems, officials said.

"We have put up signs indicating it is closed, but some (OHV) people still use it," Klein said. "As part of this project, we are looking at blocking off these trails and rehabilitating them."

The agency also plans to replant some areas with native species to restore the native population.

"We also want to control noxious weeds," Kerwin said. "Vehicles bring the seeds in here, where they spread."

That includes yellow star thistle, a noxious weed that seems to be running wild in southwest Oregon, he said.

In addition to the decommissioning work, the project would include improvements at recreation sites such as Ennis Riffle and Rocky Riffle and restoration of riparian areas in some sections, he said.

"We will still have hiking on these trails," Klein reiterated. "It's just motorized access on unauthorized roads and trails we're concerned about."

The Rogue was one of the eight rivers originally protected in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. The designation includes 84 miles of the river, beginning seven miles west of Grants Pass and continuing downstream to the mouth of Lobster Creek some 11 miles east of Gold Beach.

For additional information on the project, visit the Web site at: http://tiny.cc/vUiE0

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

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