Kitzhaber asks for monument consensus

SALEM (AP) - Governor John Kitzhaber said Monday that the parties who disagree over the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument should slow down and try to reach a consensus.

Kitzhaber said the federal government should release a draft management plan that addresses grazing, recreation, public access and other activity within the monument that President Clinton designated last year.

The governor also is proposing a discussion among landowners and state and federal officials.

"If the Department of Interior creates the opportunity for that kind of dialogue, I would welcome it. And I would be anxious to participate," the governor said.

The federal Bureau of Land Management planned to release a Cascade-Siskiyou management plan for public comment this spring when Interior Secretary Gale Norton ordered it held because the Bush administration wanted more time to become familiar with the issues.

Norton also asked state and local officials for suggestions about the monument. In response, the Jackson County Commission sent a letter two weeks ago asking that the Cascade-Siskiyou monument be cut from 52,947 acres to 16,580 acres to protect property rights concerns, mainly involving ranching and existing businesses.

"I think private landowners have raised some potentially legitimate questions about how the monument should be managed," Kitzhaber said. "But that's not an argument for whacking the monument down."

Situated southeast of Ashland, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument includes Soda Mountain and what scientists consider to be an ecologically important land bridge connecting the Cascades to the east with the Siskiyou Mountains to the west and comprising one of the most biologically distinctive and diverse places on the Earth.

Proponents say any reduction in the monument's size would compromise the ecological values that brought the monument designation in the first place.

The monument is a patchwork of federally owned lands interspersed with thousands of acres of private property. Monument protection applies only to the federal lands, but nearby landowners are concerned that the monument could affect grazing and, in the worse cases, leave them with limited access to their property.

"I don't care what anybody says, I've lived long enough to know that if it's within the boundary of a monument, it's got to affect your operation," said Martin Lugus, vice president of U.S. Timberlands, which owns 5,000 acres within the monument boundaries. "It just has to. It will."