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“Few completely roadless, large watersheds exist inthe Pacific Northwest, but those that remain relativelyundisturbed play critical roles in sustaining sensitivenative species and important ecosystem processes.”—Dr. Chris Frissell,
 A New Strategy for Watershed  Restoration and Recovery of Pacific Salmon in the Pa-cific Northwest 
, 1993.
 T
he 179,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness and itsadjacent roadless areas in southwest Oregon’sSiskiyou Mountains hold the largest remaining block of wild country on the Lower 48 States’ Pacific Coast. Thereare three National Wild and Scenic Rivers—the Chetco,Illinois, and N. Fork Smith—running through the Kalmiopsis.Unlike typical high elevation Wilderness Areas, theKalmiopsis contains many miles of high quality spawningand rearing habitat for wild salmon, steelhead, and anadro-mous cutthroat trout. Southwest Oregon’s steelhead troutand coho salmon, which inhabit the Kalmiopsis’ rivers, havebeen proposed for listing under the federal EndangeredSpecies Act.Despite their remoteness and solitude, the KalmiopsisWilderness and adjacent roadless lands are now embroiledin controversy over old bulldozed mining roads and theimpacts of their use on ancient cedar, endangered salmon,and wilderness values in general. Two roads in particularstrike to the core of the debate—and, as it so happens,threaten to pierce the heart of the Kalmiopsis itself.The Kalmiopsis was designated a Wild Area in 1946 bythe U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and gained Congressionalprotection with the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act.Although there is no record of authorization for its construc-tion, the first bulldozed mining road, from Onion Camp tothe Little Chetco River, appeared in the 1940s. The originalowners of mining claims on the Little Chetco were grantedmotorized ingress and egress in 1963 and made two or threetrips per year. The second road emerged in 1961, when theclaimant of 2,100 acres of placer mines on the Chetco Rivertook two bulldozers, a grader, a dump truck, and assorted 4-wheel drive vehicles to blaze fifteen miles of road acrosssome of the most rugged country on the West Coast. Heneither gave notice to nor received authorization from theForest Service. Despite the Wild Area designation, theagency’s only action was to ask the miner, after the illegalconstruction, to sign a Special Use Permit which requiredhim to maintain the Wilderness road.
I T heR oad-RPorter
Bimonthly Newsletter of the Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads. March/April 1997. Volume 2 # 2
 see “Kalmiopsis” on page 3
After the 1964 Wilderness Act, the Kalmiopsis roadswere given trail numbers and made to serve wildernesshikers as the primary access to the Chetco River from theeast side of the Wilderness. But despite the area’s Wilder-ness designation, the mining threat in the Kalmiopsisremained and the roads were often maintained by bulldozersand driven by miners and anyone else who could get a key.Others vandalized or drove around the agency-placedWilderness gates.There is a long history of vandalism and destruction of the two gates on these roads. Often they would remain openfor weeks on end. Mining claim owners have also abusedtheir privileged access and passed their gate keys around toothers. In one case, two Forest Service employees observeda large party of individuals in 4-wheel drive vehicles openthe Onion Camp gate with a key and drive into the Wilder-ness. The Forest Service has never prosecuted knownviolators of the Wilderness’ motorized vehicle prohibition.For one of the claims accessed by the second road, theForest Service has received plans for a large placer mine andprocessing plant on the banks of the Chetco River. The plancalls for two cemented crossings of the Wild Chetco Riverand reconstruction of the fifteen-mile route through theKalmiopsis. Now the public is faced with either spendingmillions of dollars to purchase the mining claims or risk large-scale mining deep in the Wilderness.The owner of sixty acres of mining claims patented in1988 and 100 acres of unpatented claims on the LittleChetco River, after years of being allowed by the ForestService to access the patented land without the requiredspecial use permit or an approved plan of operation, is now
by Barbara Ullian
Kalmiopsis Wild LandThreatened by Roads
 Road crossing the Chetco River. Barbara Ullian photo.
 
 The Road-RIPorter March/April 1997
2
 From the Wildlands CPR Office...
Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads is a national coalition of  grassroots groups and individualsworking to reverse the severeecological impacts of wildland roads.We seek to protect native ecosystems and biodiversity by recreating aninterconnected network of roadless public wildlands.
P.O. Box 7516Missoula, MT 59807(406) 543-9551wildlandsCPR@wildrockies.orgwww.wildrockies.org/ROADRIP
 Director
Bethanie Walder
Office Assistant
Aaron Jones
 Interns & Volunteers
Chuck CottrellScott Bagley
 Newsletter
Dave Havlick, Jim Coefield
Steering Committee
Katie AlvordKraig KlungnessSidney Maddock Rod MondtCara NelsonMary O'BrienTom Skeele
 Advisory Committee
Jasper CarltonLibby EllisDave ForemanKeith HammerTimothy HermachMarion HourdequinLorin LindnerAndy MahlerRobert McConnellStephanie MillsReed NossMichael SouléDan StotterSteve Trombulak Louisa WillcoxBill WillersHowie Wolke
President Clinton cuts funding for forest road construction...The Grand Canyon proposes banning all private autos by the year 2000...Yosemite National Park closesbecause of flooding and road failures...Yellowstone bison are threatened by groomed snowmobile trails...Congress targets road construction in a campaign to cut corporatewelfare.
These are just a few of the ways roads made it into the national news in the pastfew months, and we look at them all in further detail in this issue of the
 Road- RIPorter 
. We’ve combined the legal and bibliography notes in this issue by compil-ing a detailed report on the bison in Yellowstone. We know the issue is quitespecific, but also think that this highlights the incredible scope of impacts motorizedrecreation can cause. Bibliography notes in the next issue will be more general,with a focus on the spread of non-native species via roads.
 Muchas Gracias
Thanks to both the Turner Foundationand the Konsgaard-Goldman Foundationfor generously supporting our work for thenext year. And thanks too, to all of youwho have sent in donations in the past fewmonths—they are much appreciated. Weare also grateful to authors of articles andessays for this newsletter. Your words andwork are worth their weight in road-ripping machinery!
Welkommen
Wildlands CPR welcomes John Dillonand Scott Bagley for two special projects.John will be presenting a slide show tour inApril in the Southern Rockies, Utah andWyoming. Check the outreach section onpage 10 for more information.Scott is working on our new
 Road-Ripper’s Guide to Road Removal and Restora-tion
, due out in December 1997. We know lots of you are trying to gain a betterunderstanding of effective and ineffective methods of road removal and this guidewill help you do just that. It will include information on prioritizing roads, assessingroad removal/decommissioning proposals, understanding different techniques, andimplementing road removal in different ecological regions, including tundra, desert,mountain and wetland. If you have any information you want to pass on to Scott,please give us a call or send it to the office.
 Beaux Arts
Thanks to office assistant and le bon artiste Aaron Jones for his drawing in thisissue of the Road-RIPorter. Thanks, too, to Elizabeth O’Leary and John Jonik fortheir line drawings. We are looking for additional drawings and graphics to use inour newsletter. Please contact us if you would like to share your artistic talents.
Say It Ain’t So!
We made two mistakes in the last issue of the
 RIPorter 
. The quote by AldoLeopold on the back cover and in the essay “Driven Wild” should read, “recreationaldevelopment is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of buildingreceptivity into the still unlovely human mind.”We also neglected one citation from Bibliography Notes:Burkey, T.V. 1993. Edge effect in seed and egg predation at two neotropical rainforestsites.
 Ecological Conservation
, 66:139-143.
 Wildlands Wildlands Wildlands Wildlands Wildlands CCCCCenter for PPPPPreventing  R R R R Roads
 In this Issue
 Kalmiopsis Threatened, p. 1
 Barbara Ullian
Odes to Roads, p. 4
Kraig Klungness
 Legislative Update, p. 5 Legal/Bibliography Notes,p. 6 
 James Barnes
 Regional Reports, pp. 8-9Outreach & Workshops, p. 10Video Review, p. 11
 
 The Road-RIPorter March/April 1997
3
 Kalmiopsis, cont.
demanding motorized access on a twelve-mile long miningroad known as trails 1124 and 1129. Ostensibly the access isfor a planned wilderness resort and for hauling logs from thepatented claims.The owner of the patented Little Chetco claims petitionedthe Curry County Commissioners to declare Wilderness trails1124 and 1129 public rights-of-way under RS 2477 (
 RIPorter 
vol.1, no. 1). After the dust settled, the Commissionerswithdrew the original resolution and replaced it with onestating that the road “has not been abandoned or terminatedby Curry County” and it “is a necessary-right-of-way acquiredand protected under federal and Oregon laws” and that theowners of the patented and unpatented claims “have the rightof motorized access over the road to carry out their activities.”The final resolution does not reference RS 2477, but it isunclear what implications the new language will have onmotorized use of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness trails.Ultimately, the claimant’s efforts may prove to be a landspeculation ploy reminiscent of other mining law scams inColorado’s West Elk Wilderness, or the highly-publicized on-going New World Mine buyout near Yellowstone National Park.In 1994, the owner of the patented claims wrote the ForestService offering to sell the claims back to the public for$850,000. He paid $150 for the claims in 1988.
P
lanted firmly in the midst of the Kalmiopsis controversyis a water-loving conifer endemic to southwest Oregonand northern California called the Port Orford cedar.Port Orford cedar grows principally in riparian areas andwetlands where it shades streams, stabilizes streambanks andfloodplains, and provides significant habitat for aquatic,terrestrial, and avian species. In 1995, researchers confirmedthat a virulent non-native root disease,
Phytophthora lateralis
,had been introduced to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness (
 RIPorter 
vol. I, no. 4).For approximately eight miles of the Little Chetco, the PortOrford cedar is the dominant vegetation. Cedars here, and onthe mainstem Chetco below, are infected with root disease.Loss of streamside cedar from the disease is expected toincrease water temperatures and accelerate erosion.Once introduced into a watershed, there is no effectivemeans to eradicate the root disease, which is spread primarilyby the transport of its spores trapped in the mud on thebottom of vehicles and equipment. The disease can spreadrapidly downstream and kill entire stands of Port Orford cedar.According to the Siskiyou National Forest, the introduction of this non-native pathogen into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness wasnot likely the result of roads or vehicles, is not “significant,” atthe most only 1,000 acres of the Wilderness will be affected,and the presence of the root disease in the Wilderness is not of concern because it surfaced in a remote area. In fact, the rootdisease is found all along the Little Chetco River and the areaof the mining claims. Not coincidentally, these are accessed bya road—a road that has been subject to increasing and unau-thorized 4-wheel drive motorized travel, and heavy equipmentoperation; a road which can facilitate mining, resort develop-ment, and logging.As irreparable as the loss of ancient riparian cedar andthe introduction of this root disease into the Wilderness is, itwould be even more tragic if continued motorized trafficspread the disease into the upper watershed of the Kalmiopsis.Mention road closures in southwest Oregon and northernCalifornia and the foul stench of fear and loathing chokes anyrational debate. While road-induced threats to Port Orfordcedar and the wild land, rivers and species of the Kalmiopsiswould dictate that the USFS deny motorized access in theWilderness and adjacent roadless areas, and permanentlyclose eroding mining roads, the agency instead points to theterms of the 1872 Mining Law and promotes 4-wheel driverecreational opportunities in the press and on the Internet.The roads in the Kalmiopsis wild lands were and are theconstruct of those who claim the 1872 Mining Law gives themrank and privilege over the rest of the public and the nation’slaws including the Wilderness, Clean Water, and EndangeredSpecies Acts. These miners and land speculators have takenand done what they want to these precious public lands andrivers, often on only their own authority. These supposedicons of rugged individualism and western independence,further demand that the public subsidize their pursuit of monetary wealth, whether it be for gold or real estate specula-tion on prime riverfront National Forest Wilderness lands.
 Barbara Ullian is the Conservation Director for the Siskiyou Regional Educational Project, (541) 474-2265.
What You Can Do
The Kalmiopsis needs your help. The Siskiyou NationalForest is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS)for the Alleman Special Use Permit (Little Chetco miningclaims). The Draft EIS is due for release in late April, 1997.Contact Mary Zuschlag, Illinois Valley RD, 26568 RedwoodHighway, Cave Junction, OR 97523; (541)-592-2166; andrequest a copy of the DEIS. Insist on full protection of the PortOrford cedar, Chetco and Little Chetco Rivers, and strictly-enforced closures for all motorized use on trails # 1102, 1124,1129, and road #087.
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