VOLUME II 

AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS

INITIATIVE ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

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Tuesday, May 12, 1998 

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White House Conference Center

Truman Room

726 Jackson Place, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

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Dayton Dunkan, Chairperson

PARTICIPANTS:

WILLIAM GRAF

DR. GERALD GALLOWAY, JR.

P. KAY WHITLOCK

DONALD SAMPSON

DAVID OLSEN

MARIA TERAN

MICHAEL HOOG

ANTHONY GRASSI

DANIEL KEMMIS

CHARLES JORDAN

DOUG WILSON

JERRY DELLIPRISCOLL

Facilitator

STAFF:

CHIP SMITH

ROGER STEPHENSON

FRAN EANGEL

JANET PAWLUKIEWICZ

KAREN HOBBS

I N D E X

PAGE

Deliberations (continued)................220

P R O C E E D I N G S (9:30 a.m.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Welcome back everyone.

I want to start today by saying on behalf of the Committee our deep thanks to all the people who have been working on putting this meeting together. Leslie Warren and Ray Clark, and Karen Hobbs, Roger Stephenson, Chip Smith, and all the people that he has put together. We greatly appreciate all the work that they have done and the logistical complications of getting 12 people from around the country together and ushering us around and making sure that we can get from our hotel to here, and all the minor and major details that make -- make it easier for us to do what we do.

And in case there are some people here this morning that were not here yesterday, I want to repeat something that really has emerged from the feelings of this Committee over the course of the first day and I think has even strengthened as we start our second day of deliberations, and that is how overwhelming the response has been to this American Heritage Rivers Initiative, of how many different local groups have done incredible jobs mobilizing themselves, joining forces with other local communities, other local organizations, to reclaim the rivers and the heritages around the rivers along which they live, and have come to -- responded to this initiative from the grass roots up; and it is a great difficulty for us to have to winnow some of those down, and it is our very firm belief -- and I think we will discuss this -- hopefully, our Committee can discuss this later today a little bit -- that when we eventually do make our recommendations to the President that we include, besides the list of the ones that we consider are the ones he should pick, some way to communicate to those other rivers that -- that we encourage them to continue their efforts, that we encourage federal government not to focus only on the ten ultimate designated American Heritage Rivers.

Many of these proposals have in them plans of action that include ways of trying to avail themselves of serves of the federal government that they see that they need; and, while a navigator would certainly be helpful and the designation would certainly be something that gives highlight to it, the federal government is still there and, under normal rules of operation, that is their job to do the things that they are supposed to do anyway.

So, we would hope that -- that many of the proposals, many of the nominees, would continue that work; and it is -- it is -- it is really incredibly heartwarming and overwhelming sometimes to look at the depth of all these proposals and realize that we have the, on one hand, welcome task of going through them, and the unwelcome task of somehow running some of them through.

We are going to start back right in the midst this morning, but Doug has one thing he wanted to raise before we go.

MR. WILSON: Yes. CEQ and myself has received a letter from Congressman...District in Illinois, and he has chosen to opt the 20th District out of the Chicago-Illinois proposal; and, so, I do not see this as a major blow. I think it is fine if that is what his decision is. It is a very small portion of the total package and I guess I would like to respect that and, then, hopefully the rest of the panel would not take that as a negative to the total package.

I think the Chicago-Illinois, the majority of it is still there and I think it still is very worthy.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Thank you, Doug.

Kay.

MS. WHITLOCK: Doug, could you tell us where the 20th District is?

MR. WILSON: It is an area --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Maybe somebody on the map could just point it out.

A VOICE: The 20th District, basically, runs along from the Springfield area down towards the southern end towards St. Louis. So, the actual area that -- there is only six counties in the District . They are actually within the Illinois River.

MS. WHITLOCK: Are they the lowest ones on the river, the downstream end?

MR. WILSON: Yes, close to, although that is not -- it does not go all the way to St. Louis. So, it would probably be just slightly above that would be the area that would buffer along there.

So, like I said, it is only a six-county area and that is an area that I think, when you look at the scope of the entire river, you know, there is a lot of -- most proposals are above that point, so --

A VOICE: (Inaudible/unintelligible.)

MR. WILSON: There is 102 counties in the State of Illinois. It is not like out here where you have a quarter of the state is one county.

(Simultaneous voices.)

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I just also want to recognize that with us this morning is Congresswoman Coren Brown from Florida, and we appreciate your presence here and your understanding that we are not accepting public testimony now. But we appreciate your support of the initiative and your presence here this morning.

Doug.

MR. GRASSI: Yes, I -- Doug, you know, around this table we were enthusiastic yesterday about the Chicago-Illinois proposal and I think we still are; but I also want to say that I do take it as a negative that we do have some Congressional opposition on two counts.

First of all, through respect to the Congressional office, obviously; and, when a person in that position expresses an opinion, I am willing to listen to it.

It is also the case that I think one of the standards that we are using as a Committee in terms of trying to sift through this list of proposals that Dayton has correctly characterized as pretty impression, it really does get to the point where one of the decision-making criteria the President has asked us to consider is the breadth and depth of the local support. And I would be very reluctant to see another competing group of river supporters who were opted out of the process because the Chicago-Illinois proposal looked a little bit better than theirs.

They had all their support together in one basket and then we pick this river and let ourselves off the hook by saying, well, it is just a minor number of counties.

I guess what I am trying to do is I am trying to have my cake and eat it, too. I am trying to say I like the Chicago-Illinois proposal and I am enthusiastic about it, but I am not as enthusiastic today as I was yesterday.

MR. WILSON: I understand that and from that point of view I am disappointed, too. However, knowing that area of the state I understand the pressure the Congressman was under and some of the situations that are there.

I guess I would also state from that point of view some of the negatives that I have seen in the letters I have reviewed in opposition. Not all of those are oppositions flat and clear. They have some conditions of which they wanted us to prove to them that we were not coming in to take over.

They talked about initiative should be funded from exiting programs, which they are. It should have all aspects of interest included, including agricultural, which I believe they can have. It should be voluntary non-regulatory. It is. It should be consensus based. It will be.

So, I really do not look at these so much as opposition letters as just wanting more assurances and perhaps information this one organization could have been clothed better.

And I am still real positive about it and I think even with the Congressional opposition in this area, if you look at the total package, there is still considerable support and widespread.

So, I understand it can be considered negative. Don't -- don't tie a big weight around its ankles.

A VOICE: Sure.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay. I just would say I agree with both of you.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Except I have become concerned that the farm bureau apparently is in broader scale than just the counties of the Congressman and throughout the river the farm bureau seems to be in opposition; and it is unfortunate that local sponsors could not convince the farm bureau, as a group or as county organizations, to -- to get behind this, because some of them are, just as you say, are conditioned if we don't oppose -- if these things would occur, but others are just general opposition...

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. WILSON: And on that point, when our organization had Leslie Warren and other representatives of Heritage Rivers come to Illinois and speak to us about it, the only farm bureau that did not send any representative even though they were invited.

A VOICE: That is unfortunate.

MR. WILSON: So, I -- if you take that accordingly, too.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: This morning we are going to talk a little bit about the Mississippi.

Our sub-committee looked at the different proposals according to the questions we raised yesterday. We have looked over the request from a member to -- of the Committee to talk about the Potomac.

It is my thought and I hope you all agree that after that, if we -- for those who have not yet had a chance to go and look at the board you might go look at that. That may prompt us to -- to want to talk about some rivers that we have not discussed or, if they are even not on the board, again, I want to always encourage us to from time to time to step back and talk about some of these other proposals.

And, then, Jerry, you thought is we need to then look at the map that is the result of the exercise that we did yesterday and then what?

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: And then I thought we could take, as we go to lunch, since the group will probably be using ten this time. You go to lunch and we feed that back to you. Then we do some reflection on that. Long day. Right?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Reflections and then describe how we describe our two days and where we go.

And, one quick thing, the material that was done overnight as background material is the chart here as now put together, the red ones, the red dots, are what came up in that first round that you did before you came.

The blue dots are what happened yesterday. Some have both blue and red for the obvious reasons that they were hits twice.

And this is a little summary for those who want to do and put it in front of them essentially of the 19 that had two or more both times around.

So, that is roughly it; and this is just background because we are going to do it again...

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: So, let's proceed to the mighty Mississippi.

I just want to say -- I want to say a word to Puyallup.

A VOICE: Puyallup.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: It is in Missouri, though.

(Laughter.)

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes, let him do it.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: We did generate a lot of material on the Mississippi yesterday and then we did home work last night.

Quickly what we did was we started off an we talked about whether -- how these were, well, pieced together, the three -- one encompasses the three down to the mouth of the Missouri, then there were the other -- other two, then the lower Miss to Baton Rouge to New Orleans, and there is one around Memphis.

We talked about whether or not we would take four and call it a Mississippi proposal; but, then, we cautioned ourselves about being careful not to take the whole body, just take the pieces that come with it and all of these perception problems back and forth. Look at chunks of those which fell out.

But then we said, well, maybe we are really talking about a letter at the end of the actual wording here to get the perceptual part of this right, cause people are going to call it Mississippi regardless of whether it is a piece.

Then we talked about how do the four proposals on the Mississippi -- Kay raised -- how -- we need more information about these and so we asked Kay to do home work and then she was joined with a few others on this to go into some depth.

We asked again does Number 77 subsume the other three into it. And then we came up with the notion that essential we have a string of pearls and that has some consequences to it because the pearls are strung together but there's things in between that may not, and that raises the issues of the agriculture and the urban and other things that we need to look at.

So that leaves stuff out in between and that was our team, which was Kay and Jerry and William. And how do they talk about flood control in the Mississippi with... That's it.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Who wants to --

MS. WHITLOCK: Let me just start with the concern of orient, on the Mississippi there are six different dots here and to give one -- let me just start at the top. The -- this Minneapolis, St. Paul dot is Number 21, and it is basically 72 miles. It is a pretty long reach of reach in the twin cities area, Minneapolis and St. Paul. And it is basically an urban kind of proposal.

Then coming on downstream to Dubuque, this is under Tab -- this is Number 63 under Tab 3, and it is also an urban proposal in the Dubuque area, an 18-mile stretch of river.

Then further downstream from there is the quad cities proposal. This is Number 59 under Tab 2. I did not get a length written down on that one. And that is the quad cities' proposal. It is called Upper Mississippi in -- in the book.

And then this dot, actually, I believe, represents the whole stretch; but, actually, this is the downstream reach of that stretch, which is described as Project Number 77, which comes from upstream of the Minneapolis proposal up to the Midgee, all the way down there. It is actually, when you think about how somebody did this it is kind of a remarkable accomplishment because 56 mayors of the towns between the Midgee and St. Louis signed on to this proposal, and that is a remarkable accomplishment.

Being familiar with that area, I would like to hazard a guess that there are not very many towns between the Midgee, Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri that are not covered. I did not have a decent map to see if I could find if any were left out. But some of those towns are tiny, tiny towns along the Mississippi.

So, we looked through there to see there were two questions we thought we ought to look at.

One of them was does this set up some kind of a conflict between those rural reaches, between those little towns along the Mississippi.

And my personal conclusion was that I did not find the basis of a conflict. I think of it now as any urban proposal. It is just an urban proposal coordinated among those 56 urban areas in that reach. So, I would not see it differently than, say, the Detroit River reach and Detroit, which is an urban proposal; but it is like 56 urban proposals where they all have some common goals and some unique goals to their region. There may be some kind of historical features that are more -- more appropriate to be on one community's list than another.

So, it really helped me get a better sense of that proposal to look at it that way.

What appears to be is the Dubuque, the quad cities and the Minneapolis proposal are their own proposal and then subsumed into the Number 77. So, they are not inconsistent, they are not in conflict.

We could look at a Minneapolis, St. Paul proposal or quad cities' proposal, or we could look at the whole 77 and we -- you know, I think the fact that there is not a focus on what to do in those agricultural regions in between, to me, does not -- does not minimize it as an urban proposal. It is not a proposal for every mile of the whole Mississippi.

And, then, the Memphis proposal and the Louisiana Baton Rouge proposal, the Memphis one is Number 68 and that is behind Tab 2 in the book, and then the Louisiana proposal is Number 118, which is behind Tab 1 in the reference book. And those are similar proposals, in my view, just urban kinds of proposals.

But in the lower Mississippi, this is the...River, this is where the 27 lots in...Mississippi is the part that we call the upper Mississippi.

So, I did not find in my scanning through the documents a conflict between the rural and the urban, except that set up, anytime you have an urban proposal and you do not have an agricultural, I do not think this one uniquely does that.

And I did not find reference to the big picture sort of flood damage dilemma that Donald was looking for. Gerald Galloway has some experience from the knowledge about the '93 floods and he may be able to answer your questions about some of the damages that actually took place in '93. I was no longer in the mid-west.

A VOICE: Good timing.

(Laughter.)

MS. WHITLOCK: Well, in California that said that is the reason it flooded.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Jerry, did you want to --

DR. GALLOWAY: No, no. I would just support what Kay has said. I think that the...as we have talked about them, those 56 communities, it is important to note that the mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis, for example, signed on to the larger project.

Now, I am sure, given their choice, they would rather have their own than be part of the other, but they were perfectly willing to be considered part of that totality.

They also noted that there is a natural resource component and in some of them there is a flood control, flood management component. The quad cities, for examples, has some efforts in there to deal with some of the problems they encountered in the '93 flood.

There are also natural heritage trails that, essentially, move down that entire river; and it is a remarkable accumulation of individual projects with common threads of heritage, love of the river, and protection of the natural resources, and building on the economy of, my goodness, we have this wonderful river, and let's parlay it into a tourist attraction for economic development. And so it seems to be well linked.

I would comment on the other two, the lower two, the Memphis and the Baton Rouge to Louisiana, that they seem to stand on their own. So, whereas, we might look at incorporating the upper into one, the lower two would not fit together and would not fit as part of anything else.

MR. JORDAN: The challenge we have would pose multi-jurisdictional rivers. I appreciate their uniqueness but we need to make sure that their uniqueness is confined to the banks, not to the water, because the uniqueness can conflict if they are going to have a different treatment of the waters, one wanted high the other wanted low. So, we need to insure that those conflicts are not there.

I think that was the issue raised yesterday.

DR. GALLOWAY: On the Mississippi that is a totally controlled river north of Alton, Illinois, so there is not much of a problem there. I mean, they are all part of a -- they are all undergoing a five-year multi-million-dollar study of the upper Mississippi, its navigation and its environment.

So, I think that they are fairly well tied together. And this has -- the support this project has is broad-based, both environmental and, I guess, economic, business.

MS. WHITLOCK: In response to conflict around the expansion of Lock and Dam 26, which is the dam at Alton, in the seventies we did extensive transportation and environmental navigation studies collectively in the upper mid-west; and, so, those communities are living with a river where the decision are made regionally about those balancing acts.

So, I did not find anything but I really did not expect to.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: William, you were part of that committee?

MR. GRAF: Yes. First of all, you and Jerry need to call me Will. The only person that calls me William is my mother.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: She called me last night.

(Laughter.)

MR. GRAF: That means she is angry with me.

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. GRAF: I did work with Kay and Jerry on this to review it. And you remember my concern yesterday was that we were going to have this string of pearls and I was worried about what was happening between them. It was a little bit like what Charles is getting at.

And after reading the -- all of the proposals and reflecting on my recent experience in Minnesota, where I was -- that is why I got here on Sunday, Mom -- I do not have that concern at this point.

I think that what we are seeing is the nation's largest river in terms of its geographic extent and because of that immense amount of just plain, ordinary space, we cannot quite approach it the way we do some of the other rivers, and that is why we got this string of urban areas along the stream that seem to cooperate with each other in a way that I think is quite unique; and we do not have this kind of proposal from any other system.

And if you notice the extent of this proposal, it does go from essential the head waters region down to Alton, Illinois, not quite up to the last lake in Minnesota but it is close enough, and I think this might serve us well as a unique sort of experiment to see whether or not this kind of arrangement with various, particularly business along the river and urban groups can, in fact, coordinate their development efforts.

And the water quality issue is one that I think we need to be cognizant of; but if you think about the history of these cities working together, I think you will find that they are aware of this issue and have a long history of working well together to protect each other's water quality. They have no choice, of course. I mean, they have to do that, but they have been successful at that.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Tony.

MR. GRASSI: My presumption in reading this, I am troubled by the strings in between still; but if this is -- if our extract is accurate, there were -- there appear to be no letters of opposition from the agricultural areas that exist in the string as opposed to the beads.

MR. GRAF: There is -- there are --

MR. GRASSI: Is this accurate or not?

MR. GRAF: No.

MS. WHITLOCK: No.

MR. GRAF: Illinois, in particular, stands out in my mind as having rural opposition; and it is difficult to read because the letters you read yesterday in this rump session that we had were from groups that were protesting the Illinois-Chicago nomination and, then, almost as an afterthought, the Mississippi seemed to have been mentioned in some of these letters. So, it was almost as though we were facing a shotgun approach and there were not specific statements that, well, this portion of the river we want to opt out for...

MR. GRASSI: How about the other side of the river? How about Missouri, Minnesota?

MR. GRAF: No, we are not dealing with that.

MS. WHITLOCK: You know, I could look again. I --

MR. GRASSI: I mean, just in terms of -- that is where I presume the aggregate mileage of string is.

MR. GRAF: Yes.

MS. WHITLOCK: Mm-huh, mm-huh.

MR. GRASSI: And we have -- we have nothing from them at all.

There is a curious thing that has just gone on for the last three years they have been struggling with how to handle this whole business and they just concluded in March, March or late February, a summit of all the federal and non-federal state agencies somewhere in the upper Mississippi to decide how they were going to go as a whole. It is a pretty difficult problem to get those five upper states to come to a common agreement and they have now concluded this summit with a federal-state partnership to deal with the flood control, the navigation, and the environment.

And I think that the sponsors of this particular program realized that that was in too hard box to add not only the 56 communities but all of the agricultural area in between, given that we had just gone through a three-year debate over what you should do with that. And I think they have reconciled into some sort of common approach.

Maybe the next time around they would add some of the land in between, but I do not see that as a fatal flaw. It would have been nice to have it in there; but, again, that is five states of a massive extent of territory would be very difficult to put together. So, I think it is remarkable to do what they did.

MR. GRAF: Tony, to answer your question about the opposition letters, I just checked them to make so I can give you the right answer. I went through the package that we got yesterday of the most recent receipts. There are no negative letters there from Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: From the earlier ones there are some from Iowa farm bureaus.

MS. WHITLOCK: I was going to say, I thought I saw Iowa.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: But they are all farm bureau ones in which we would take into consideration at the same time what Doug has told us is that, unfortunately, they did not avail themselves, at least in Illinois, a meeting with the people to explain it.

But there are some. For the record, there are a number of -- looked to me like four or five -- letters from -- all from farm bureaus in different counties.

MR. WILSON: If I could say just a little bit more on that part. The Illinois Farm Bureau had their policy meeting in early December. We did not have our informational meeting until in March, I believe. I'm not sure of that. The dates all ran together for me. Too many meetings this winter.

Policy was taken at that point by a group of counties that carried their delegate body to have disposition. In some ways that tied the unit together; and, so, they do not have the flexibility to do something. And, I don't know, as far as directly associated counties that are on the Mississippi, how many of those or how many were an afterthought add-on. And a lot of them were saying, we do not want any part of any river and they may not even be in an area where there was a river considered.

MS. WHITLOCK: I wanted to make an observation about Proposal 77, which I had not really thought about so clearly until yesterday, and that was that the difference between how a community plans for and responds to a river when it is a small water shed and their region and they have the ability to impact it and the fact that, you know, if you think of a town along the Mississippi that may have 500 or 600 people and a river that is draining the magnitude that it is, I mean, it is further across the river than it is across town in many of those towns.

And so it is -- I think this proposal represents those, particularly on the part of those smaller urban areas, their proposal for the things around that river that they have some control over. So, it is a proposal sort of coming out of the size of the water shed than the size of the river.

MR. WILSON: One other comments, too. Lt. Governor Custer in Illinois had an Illinois River, if I may use the word, task force, but that was not actually what it was, group that looked at the situation of the Illinois River prior to the Chicago-Illinois proposal.

Within that there were, I believe, 36 recommendations. There were two that the only farm bureau who was there present at Ron Warfield was a member of that task force had objection to that pertained in particular to property rights. And you all know how farms are with property rights. And I qualify myself in that area, too. If I felt there was a problem here, you would be hearing.

But, at any rate, I think what has happened to some extent is that the ability for them to separate the two actions was not well transmitted; and I think the Illinois River task force and the problems there, even though they were not part of the Chicago-Illinois, that was not necessarily clear to a lot of the members of the farm bureau that there was that separation to where it was not the same.

And, so, that is another factor that I think probably illustrates why there is maybe some -- so much reference to private property rights and such that they have not separated those.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Maria, you want to --

MS. TERAN: Yes. How do we want to consider the proposal, which way? I mean, obviously, from what I have heard, there is a need -- there are some good proposals. Are we going to nominate a proposal or consider it as the entire river for heritage purposes and then four proposals? Is that what we are saying? As the leaders.

MS. WHITLOCK: I guess I personally was not proposing anything. I was just trying to --

(Simultaneous voices.)

MS. TERAN: You know, it sounds like you might agree.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Maria, before we even -- that is, I think, a question we need to -- to consider. What you are saying is one of the proposals subsumes three of the others.

MS. TERAN: Right.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And then there's two others and you -- you have mentioned earlier that maybe we just want to consider the proposals on the Mississippi.

MS. TERAN: And share the responsibilities of the navigator.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right. But, I would like to -- I think we need to hear from our sub-committee a little bit more in detail about the other, the two lower river ones, of just any impressions that you have on the one at Memphis and the one at the final reach.

MR. GRAF: Well, I will start with the Memphis proposal. I think it is a solid proposal and we were impressed with it. However, I think that we felt that it was more strongly oriented towards economic development dimension of the process and perhaps less to some of the other objectives of the initiative.

I did not feel that it was as effective as those in the upper river simply because the ones in the upper river I think I can see how they are sutured together and they effect a long component of the system; whereas, naturally, the Memphis one is focused on a particular urban area.

I think we feel that this urban area is worthy of assistance and we recognize that it is in a difficult circumstance at the present time economically. For that reason the proposal was appealing.

I think it is less competitive, though, when we put it into context with the some of the other things we have talked about where we are looking at some city designations; and, frankly, the upper river seems to be unique and would contribute to an overall series that we might propose to the President better.

Jerry, I think deals more with New Orleans.

DR. GALLOWAY: Number 118, Baton Route, New Orleans, as you all may know the combination of Baton Route and New Orleans is one of the greatest ports in our country, if not the greatest, in terms of tonnage.

It is also an area that has been highly polluted as a source of a lot of the chemical petroleum works along there.

Also the home of 125 historic location, southern historic landmarks. And this proposal is focused on heritage and taking advantage along the way from New Orleans north to Baton Rouge of the opportunity to enhance what they do have left in the area of heritage communities that have a history, older buildings, and to try and bring some preservation and link to the river itself.

There is not a lot of environmental or natural resource work in there.

I was taken that there was not support by the levee boards who control -- there was no opposition but there was not support from the levee boards who actually control the activities along the river itself.

The Mayor of New Orleans is strong in his support and, obviously, New Orleans is an area that would like to see continued growth with the river as one of the sparkplugs; and, so, from that standpoint, just like the Memphis one, it is a certainly a project worthy of consideration.

It is not as broad-based, I would suggest, as some of the others we have seen. On the other hand, it is -- the first leevies in our country were built in the 1700's in New Orleans and development in the Mississippi started north from New Orleans towards Baton Rouge. So, there is history, there is heritage; but I think we have to weigh this against all the other urban communities.

It is kind of different because it is a very unique part of the Mississippi, that is, there is deep water part that has this relationship with industry and not a previous history of doing a lot for the natural environment.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: My own sense, getting now referring about those other two, is that the issue of us recommending to the President you have got all of these along the same river, in essence you can look at it as six or, essentially, three proposals, cause once you -- once you designate the St. Louis north region you have designated the three individual proposals as well.

I think the principal concern of doing that would be to what extent once -- if they were designated, to what extent have you weakened the implementation of -- of the action plan in the sense that the river navigator -- you are spreading out whatever the resources and attention, the administrative attention is over more projects.

I do not know the answer to that question but I think that is a consideration for us if we consider that a large thing; and, of course, there -- people might -- some members might say, well, the one that really stands out.

I would like us also to be thinking about if we did not have that option, would you nominate two Mississippi rivers? Do you have strong enough about it?

One? None? But I do not want us to quite yet come to a conclusion that we may not be -- we maybe asking an administrative thing that -- that does not work.

I mean, conceivably you could say, well, we consider all of the northeast rivers great ones and name them all and one river navigator get to handle everything.

It is not the same, obviously.

MS. WHITLOCK: I guess I would say that --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I just do not know if -- if -- if it -- if it creates certain other problems that weakens the action plan.

MS. WHITLOCK: I would think that if you were interested in the upper Mississippi River with the 56 mayors, then, I would not think it would be useful to have named, for example, Dubuque and the upper Mississippi River because it is subsumed in it.

But, for me, and the individual members thinking about what they want to support, I would say that Dubuque or Minneapolis or -- is a stand-alone proposal also and you might -- you might want to endorse one of those rather than 77 if you specifically liked that proposal better than the group.

MR. GRAF: Yes, I think Kay is correct. It is one way or the other and I think you have to think about the nature of the proposals and decide how you view the best chance for success here.

MS. WHITLOCK: But I would not propose that we tell the group what we recommend because I think that now that -- I mean, I just needed to understand how it all fitted together.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Unless people have other substantive questions, my suggestion is that we move on from the Mississippi, and we do our next exercise in which everyone is going to be marking their top ten.

What I think we will want to ask you to do is be very specific about if you are dealing with -- if one of your ten or two of your ten or any of your ten are the Mississippi, be very specific.

If you feel strongly that you want all of the Mississippi proposals, then -- then you should mark that. If you want just the 77 -- we will go over it before we vote so that -- so that we are operating -- because there is some confusion of terms about the upper Mississippi.

MS. WHITLOCK: Yes. I think we need to put the proposal number on the next round.

A VOICE: That is a good idea.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And just so we know there is a point of information, is that on Number 77, that ranges from east St. Louis to the Midgee at the very bottom of that, the St. Louis portion, Congressman Jim Tallent opposes that.

MS. WHITLOCK: Oh, okay.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: That portion of it.

MS. WHITLOCK: congressman from which state?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Missouri, the city.

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: There are several, I guess.

A VOICE: He has got part of it.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: He has got part of it.

MS. WHITLOCK: Thanks for that.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I do not know if that --

A VOICE: It is not the downtown part. It is out in the suburbs.

MS. WHITLOCK: North of downtown.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: So, part of the St. Louis would be in and part of it would be out.

A VOICE: Around the airport.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Whatever his Congressional district is.

DR. GALLOWAY: He may not even be in the City of St. Louis. I think that would be interesting.

A VOICE: The suburbs. I think the airport is in his district.

MR. STEPHENSON: It is the very end of that teach.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: While he is looking at that, let's move to the -- unless somebody has got another Mississippi question, let's move our discussion to the Potomac, which is in Tab 1.

MS. WHITLOCK: Number 90.

DR. GALLOWAY: One of you raised the question why did we lave the Potomac out.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: That is what prompted it. Tony yesterday at the very end said he was surprised that no one had...

DR. GALLOWAY: And I guess after I read it I was surprised myself. When you look at that, recognizing the very strong support from the local communities, 27 -- I think 37 of the 38 counties in the Potomac River water shed supporting it, the communities here in and around Washington, D.C., a water shed that runs from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and upper Maryland to the Chesapeake Bay, and a plan of action that meets water quality, restoration of living resources, fisheries, reduction in mine drainage, reduction in nutrient run-off, more effective flood protection, working for improvement and appreciation of heritage resources, and improvement in public participation, there is not a goal of the program that the Potomac did not attempt to address in a broad partnership that includes the support of the Senators, with one exception from Virginia, and it is not opposition but Senator Byrd from West virginia, two from Maryland, two from Virginia, the appropriate representatives, mayors, state legislators, the D.C. City Council, effected landowners.

It is a -- from a history standpoint, I would be preaching to the choir, but George Washington called the Potomac River the center of the Union.

I think we were taken, if I were to answer the question why didn't we consider it, because we each found a favorite somewhere else and that just got left out.

But when you look at the package as a whole, as looked at by the screening committee and then as I looked at it yesterday, it is a rather ambitious, sound, well-partnered, well-organized proposal.

The only question is they have got so much on the plate are they going to get it all done. They are blessed by the fact that they do have interstate commission on the Potomac River basin, which is a non-regulatory commission made up of the representatives of all of the communities in this region that is and has been working to do many of the things that provide a framework to link their present activities with those they propose for the future.

So, I think the call yesterday by Tony why didn't we pick the Potomac, I'm sorry I did not look at it when I drove across it and I should have. It should have been on here.

MR. GRASSI: I did the same thing. I read the whole proposal again and I guess the one thing that struck me as compared to all the other proposals I read is the very clear delineation of the segments of the river and rather just sort of dealing with the river.

It breaks out the Blue Ridge province, the Piedmont province, the coastal plains providence, and it really is a very throughout and concise approach to every -- all these different aspects of different issues effecting the river in different places, and that was -- I was impressed when I read this last night.

MR. JORDAN: I think we all were impressed with the proposal as well written, but there were a number of others that were written just as well. I mean, we have some outstanding proposals written here.

I think the thing with the Potomac that I feel as strongly as I do about the Mississippi. I mean, theirs was a good proposal. So, when you talk about heritage, I mean, how are you going to leave off the Mississippi and Potomac? I mean, they just go together, they are -- so that is the only part of it that really does cause me to want to take a hard look at it.

But, in terms of the proposal itself, I have got some other ones here that I would like to talk about. I am not sure the proposal is better than some of the others I have seen. It is just that the heritage part of it bothers me.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, I think it is -- I mean, essentially, the difficulty that we keep butting up against is exemplified there of so many great proposals just in the substance against which we are also measuring the heritage against which we also will have to, when we finally get to a final mix, the call for diversity of types of plans, the diversity of types of rivers, geography, and all that.

But you could certainly -- just by listing the number of rivers that have been nominated. you could trace the -- as someone who is passionate about American history, you could trace our history just be listing the rivers that have been nominated from the Potomac to the Hudson to the Ohio to the Mississippi and the Missouri and the Rio Grande, the South Fork of the American, the Chicago and Illinois. It is a great thing about this initiative and a hard thing for us.

MR. GRAF: One important thing that I do not want to see us lose sight of with respect to the Potomac is that I think this proposal was very effective in representing the fact that rivers and water sheds are connected to each other and it would have been tempting in this proposal simply to have dealt with that portion of the river that is highly visible to the American public which is the portion here in the D.C. area.

That is not what happened with this proposal. This proposal effectively took into account almost 15,000 square miles of drainage area, not only physically but in terms of its administration and politically as well, and drew support throughout that entire water shed.

I think that is a key to success here, because such things a water quality and flood control and all those other things that we worry about in terms of stability of the system are dependent not on what is happening right here in Washington, they are dependant on what is happening upstream, and this proposal did a good job of taking care of that.

MS. WHITLOCK: Well, and it referenced this Potomac Water Shed Vision Project, which they conducted in '93 and '94. So, I am sure that is why you see so much of that in the proposal because they have been visioning on the water shed for those years.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: They are accessed together here.

MR. OLSEN: I would suggest that would be one of the filters that we use to try to winnow out the proposals, the ones that do include consideration of the water shed; because if we do not have the health of the river as a primary factor, then we are not going to achieve any of the other objectives and so I would agree strongly with that.

Another filter that I have been struggling with among so many excellent proposals is -- is really where -- how to find out where designation as an American heritage river would have the greatest impact, and it is very difficult for me to have any sense of that from the materials, even the full applications. But, given two equally excellent proposals, I would tend to want to designate the river in which the help and support would have the greatest impact. How can we know that?

MS. WHITLOCK: That was one of the comments from the Board, too.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Does anybody have an answer to that question?

MR. JORDAN: Without local knowledge, it is rather difficult to tell from the proposals. I do look for certain things where -- I was looking at the Black Stone of Rhode Island. 2,000 young people, close to 2,000 young people have written letters. At least they are engaging those who are going to have the responsibility to carry on the challenge, and I like that.

I like the New River in Carolina. I look for things that is going to contribute to community building. Now, that is what it is really all about. It is not just about isolating a river, trying to save that river, but you have to look at -- you have to have a holistic view and does it help build that community; does it help to unify that community; and so maybe I read between the lines and maybe it just isn't there, but that is the only way I can tell if I don't have the local knowledge because the words just do not bring it out, and that -- that is a difficult one. But I agree with you a hundred percent, you need to look for those where it is really going to make a difference.

MR. OLSEN: So, for example, in the case of the Potomac, is there enough underway and is there enough visibility already because of its location that these many excellent initiatives in this plan will continue even if it is not designated a heritage river.

MS. TERAN: Is there a need? Is there a need for federal aid at the time? There certainly is merit in naming it as a heritage river but is there a need/

MR. JORDAN: Also is there a structure that will carry on? Now, you have got some champions there now but eventually they are going to burn out or they are going to get kicked out. Is there a structure that will bring in some new players who are also as committed as those who put this together or is this just a fleeting fancy that once they go then the dream also dies?

And proposals are limited in terms of convincing us that all those things are in place, so we have to try to, again, read between the lines to see if we feel secure enough that this is going to be a long-term commitment.

DR. GALLOWAY: But I would be troubled if somebody had their act well together and we decided that that might be a penalty; because if they are, in fact, doing well and have organized and continue to do that, we would like to have some of these have success and immediate success.

And I think, yes, we do have to look for the person that is really struggling, but we -- or the group that is really struggling, but I think we also ought to be cognizant and reward those that have put their act together.

MR. JORDAN: I agree, Jerry. I do not think there is going to be any immediate success in some of these challenges we have, but we have got to look at those who will come after us and that is who we are doing it for and not just for you and I. But if they have no appreciate of the value of what we are doing then they are not going to protect it. And if they are not going to protect it, they are going to lose it.

DR. GALLOWAY: Well, I think in the Potomac --

MS. TERAN: Well, in naming them and looking at basing it on need and also picking the first rivers as models for others later on, would we see more dramatic change and more dramatic results, positive results from more needy areas? Or would we see it in areas that are already developed and well on their way in correcting their own problems? And then there is this fine line of did the initiative help more or would the progress have been realized anyway?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Donald, I'm sorry...

MR. SAMPSON: I guess looking at the institutional opportunities here in the Potomac, I note some of the comments that are the segments and the goals within the application which talks for the curriculum models and the lower Potomac basin school... I think that is an important one. That you begin looking at the future generation. Support for ongoing education, outreach, and a demonstration project.

I know that they mention about the work they have done in the Shennandoah River which they say in the 40's were biologically dead and now they have fisheries returning to those types of streams.

They also talk about a Pure Water 2000 Forum in the Shennandoah and investing in conservation education for local leaders, professionals, and citizenship of the fish and wildlife service facility, $138 million facility that provides training for local leadership. I think that is something that, I guess, in the long term might help benefit the continuation of this effort.

But one other point, coming from the west, you always hear people say, well, the federal government in D.C. always establishes great plans for everybody outside of D.C. but let's see them do it in their own back yard. And I think this would be a good opportunity to see what this nation's capital can do and the President can do in his own back yard.

If they can clean up their river, then maybe they can provide some initiative and incentive and be a model for other communities throughout the country. So, that's all.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Tony, did you have --

MR. GRASSI: Well, I am sensitive to this issue of where can we use the designation most effectively, and there is other -- I presume that later in the day we are going to sort of come back to the broad criteria; but one of the things that I am struck by is we have very specific and detailed instructions of the criteria we are to use, and that is not one of them. Nowhere does it say that in our guide.

So, I think that we have to be careful that while of us -- each of our judgments may be effected by second order priority issues, that we have to set our criteria based on the four that are outlined in our charge.

And the Executive Order says that and it does not say that we are supposed to be influenced by where this is effective.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, we have in our -- those four criteria as part of our direction of looking at plans in the sort of diversity. It includes, you know, not just diversity in terms of geographical diversity but --and steam size diversity and water quality of the beginning river, but also serves the stage of the plan.

And I guess one way of reading that would be of saying that -- that the hope is that the diversity would include perhaps a designation of a river or two that -- that the initiative helped begin and assist in the early stages as well as the ones that are already mature plans hat are well underway.

MR. GRASSI: I don't find that language. That is what I was looking for.

DR. GALLOWAY: It is on Page 3 of the Executive Order.

On our charge it says, will seek to recommend selection of rivers as a group that includes community efforts in early stages and those that are well established.

MR. GRASSI: Where do you find this?

DR. GALLOWAY: On -- the Executive Order on the Advisory Committee.

MR. GRASSI: Under recommendation process?

DR. GALLOWAY: Let's see --

MR. GRASSI: I am just looking at selection criteria.

DR. GALLOWAY: It is on Tab 6, Tony, the green Tab 6 on Page 3.

MR. GRASSI: You are reading a different Executive Order than I.

MS. TERAN: Mine is Tab 7.

DR. GALLOWAY: Next tab.

MR. GRASSI: What is the difference between the Executive Order in 7 and Executive Order in 8?

MR. CLARK: There is one Executive Order that sets up the federal advisory committee and there is one that sets up the American Heritage Rivers Initiative.

MR. GRASSi; All right. You are reading the one that sets up the initiative, which does not mention any of those things.

MR. CLARK: Right, the Federal Advisory Committee Act which gives instructions to the Federal Advisory Committee is the one that you should be taking your que from about what criteria and what your charge is.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, I think in the larger -- in the larger sense of this anyway is I think what we -- as we continue to discuss individual rivers and the things at large is that all of us individually bring into it different considerations and I think it is good that we talk about those with everybody because it is good for -- it is good for all of us as we make our individual judgments and we try to eventually reach a conclusion as a group of all these different considerations. Some may be balancing higher, some may be balancing more heritage than environment, some may be doing economic development more than others, just as the plans do. And for some what might have trapped an individual member and other members of the Committee is that this is a small, well-focused proposal for which the designation might really be a major thing and for others it might -- it might be that this is without this river how can you have an American Heritage Rivers program.

Doug.

MR. WILSON: Two comments. One on the Potomac, based on what I see as a merit proposal that is well balanced, I look at all aspects of it. I think that they are taking on an awful lot; but, at the same point, I give them credit that it looks like they have tried to cover all the basis.

The background I read as far as agricultural proposals and what they are working on there, they have got a good start there, that is a good direction.

The other areas where they are looking at child education and other things like that are very good.

My question would be can they accomplish all that? The merit of the program is pretty good.

On the bigger picture of what will finally end up as the designated rivers, I mentioned yesterday about maintaining our balance, and I think my point being there was that I want to see kind of what you were saying: I want to see a pristine river; I want to see bio-diversification; I want to see a come-back kid; I want to see economic development. I want to see a mixture. I do not want ten environmental; I do not want ten economic. I want a mixture that gives opportunities for all segments.

And I think all of these proposals do have stronger and weaker areas even if they meet the criteria and I think we need to keep that in balance, too. And that is the balance that I was talking about, that we need to deal with all three of those and make sure that we make the recommendations that will make this, if you want to say, three-legged stool stand.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Before you finish the Potomac and take a break, two observations.

One, we have copied the Potomac and Mississippi down. As we have shifted as a group to criteria and how we are going to choose from a whole as different from individuals, we have been moving around the table the last 20 minutes and looking at the whole criteria, the whole package, I have been capturing the criteria as it filters up here next to all the other criteria stuff. That is what I have been doing or trying to do in that debate, because we are going to come back to it later.

The sense that I am getting, though, of course, is that we are eager to look at the package again at some point.

My suggestion would be, if we don't have anymore on the Potomac, finish that up, take a break, go to the wall or any other source and look at other rivers. If you can handle that for another hour, do that, then come back to another sense of reading because we are getting close to wanting to do that, that is one of the criteria.

(Laughter.)

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: And then -- but, I would say, if there is nothing more on the Potomac, we should take a break and then honor some of the stuff on the wall if we can and others and spend an hour or so on that and then go back to take a reading from the group...

MR. WILSON: I just wanted to make one comment about things on the wall and that is yesterday on the Chattahoochee we had a very specific discussion about...overflow and some problems in the Chattahoochee, and a member of the audience has explained that to us, so those of you who had those questions, it is --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I think it answered the question that Tony had raised as well about why didn't they get it done during the Olympics.

MS. WHITLOCK: That right, yes. That part of the question that that very specifically addresses.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: The answer is they tried but -- the short answer is they were trying to and it got balled up in litigation which is now coming to fruition.

Fifteen minutes.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was had.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Our hope is to spend about an hour talking about other rivers that members want to -- want to raise.

I do want to point out that we have had no river metaphors yet today.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: We are starting afresh today, despite my commanding lead yesterday.

We are going to talk about a number of rivers that Committee members would like to throw open for discussion. We will see if we can do that in an hour and then Jerry wants us to do another exercise in which we will have ten to select at that moment your top ten.

Jerry Galloway wanted to start with a river.

DR. GALLOWAY: I am concerned as I look at rivers in our geographic diversity that we have somewhat, other than the Chattahoochee, not spent a lot of time on the southeast and we did not get a chance yesterday to discuss the St. John.

Now, the St. John is shown on our chart as a mix of -- with opposition and strong support, and it is difficult for me, as I read through this stack that you each got last night of letters concerning the St. John what the nature of the opposition is.

The Mayor of Jacksonville, who is perhaps the proponent for the project, its strong supporter, notes that some of the Congressional opposition deals with only a very small segment. He points out that a 20-mile segment of 310 miles of the river.

And, so, I think it is something we probably need to learn a little bit more about and see if we can map what that really means to that river.

It is, again, a very valuable resource in Florida, in the southeast United States, flowing from near Cape Canaveral northward, pointed out to be one of the few rivers that flows north -- water does flow uphill now -- that flows north into the Atlantic near Jacksonville, but it has the qualities of being both in the typical Florida atmosphere that we would see and, yet, running through the major urban area of Jacksonville and the county, and they have a joint cooperative government there.

So, it benefits not only the people who live in a large metropolitan area but the people that run all the way south from there to the coastline.

It is a project that has been really supported well, including the Mayor of the State of Florida, many of the conservation groups in the area.

MR. JORDAN: He is quite a mayor.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: The Governor of the State.

DR. GALLOWAY: The Governor of the State, right. Excuse me. I was looking at ten mayors. You never can tell.

(Laughter.)

DR. GALLOWAY: After I read all these letters, it will give me a clue.

But certainly the mayors have come up with a great deal of support that includes the Governor.

The only sure thing in this project, which was rated quite highly by our screening committees, was the fact that there was, in fact, this opposition, and how do you play this opposition in building this -- the public's response to this. How, in that particular part of the world, do you gather the consensus that is necessary to have the support?

There are a number of groups involved and there are commitments for partnerships, and I think the only thing we have to weigh is what is the effect of the opposition of the members of Congress and now a considerable body of Florida legislators, but I don't even know where their districts are, so I think we need to examine that.

But I would ask that we keep the St. Johns on our screen until we can resolve whether or not there is really opposition or if it is limited opposition.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay. One thing that I said that I have learned is in terms of the Congressional opposition, which is always tricky for us to understand the dynamics, is that, I think as you mentioned, Congressional opposition to that district is 30 miles, and the district that has a very avid support by Congresswoman Brown covers 300 miles or 200.

DR. GALLOWAY: Yes.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: In essence, the rest of the river.

And that, also, in their deliberations that the Governor and his cabinet undertook in terms of this initiative, it was the St. Johns that -- that they decided to support. They do not oppose any of the other Florida nominations but they decided that they would give their support to just one project and it was the St. Johns. And I think that is similar with Senator Grant who has indicated his support with that and is not in opposition to any of the others but decided that were the Senator to pick the one that he thought was the worthiest it would be the St. Johns.

Maybe we could have somebody on the staff level try to wrestle with the things on the -- of the other parts of the opposition in terms of the state legislators, whether it is significant or not.

DR. GALLOWAY: I gather that the Administration has not made a commitment to necessarily respond totally to state legislatures. It is to certainly look to the sense of the governor and then also the members of Congress.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Is it the sense of the Committee that you would like a little bit more information on -- is it every state legislator along the St. John or is it legislators that are peripherally involved or is it just something you want more information.

A VOICE: More information is always better.

MS. WHITLOCK: I think there may be some members in the audience who may have some information that would be useful to us also about that. You may want to put those on yellow stickies if you think you have an understanding.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Any other things about the St John?

No.

Dan?

MR. KEMMIS: Well, speaking of the yellow stickies, I just wanted to say how helpful they have been. I know that I spent most of the break, and it really does add a whole different dimension here. So I wanted to thank the people who are taking the trouble of doing that. It was very educational.

And following up on a couple of those I just want to put the Rivers of Steel on the table here.

Again, when we talk about American heritage, thinking of Port Decane, and the way in which the head waters of the Ohio were the opening to the west, the substantial role that was played there.

And I think what is interesting about those rivers, particularly focusing on Pittsburgh, is the way in which they stand for a kind of transformation and economic base that is going on throughout so much of the country where de-industrialization is --tends to be followed by a refocus on natural amenities as a much more important part of an economic base, and Pittsburgh really stand for that, I think, in a very substantial way.

So, I would like us to at least take another look at that. I think the proposal itself is very strong. The communities around Pittsburgh have really learned to act regionally and in this case they are doing it on a water shed basis that is very sound.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I will open it to anyone else that -- you have some, Will?

MR. GRAF: Yes, I had a couple that I do not want us to overlook and I want us to seriously consider.

If we look at our map, you will notice in the northern portion of the midwestern United States we have got the Ohio outlined there, we have got the Mississippi outlined, and then there is discussion of the Chicago-Illinois business, but those are the prominent ones. You will notice there are an awful lot of red lines on that map, fine red lines, meaning they are streams that have been nominated but that we have not voted for, we have not talked about in any great detail, and I think there are a couple that are worthy of consideration.

Particularly in the State of Wisconsin. I am thinking specifically of the Milwaukee River and the Fox River.

The Milwaukee River is located, as you may expect, in the southeastern part of the United -- or the state, and it does drain through Milwaukee, which is a port and has a long history of activity in the Great Lakes shipping trade. It is also a city that has a great history of immigrants and it has a very strong ethnic identity.

But the Milwaukee is not only an urban one. It extends about 900 square miles or something like that, I believe, further into the state and it includes many areas that are in a transition zone between heavy industry at the lower end and very nearly pristine natural at the upper end.

There are wet lands, for example, in this basin that are critical wildlife habitat, I believe, and that would be of interest in terms of seeing how a local group can integrate this very nearly natural kind of habitat with an industrialized situation in the lower portions of the stream.

And I think the region, in part, is making this transition that we talked about earlier from one kind of industrial emphasis to a more broadly based economy and is worthwhile considering from that standpoint.

I think the State of Wisconsin has a good track record in terms of dealing with its natural resources and coupling those resources to economic development in a supportive way, and that is kind of what led me to look more seriously at Fox.

Those of you who know about industrial history, know that the Fox River in the northern part of the state drains into Green Bay, it is not for from Lambo Field, as a matter of fact, at one point, for those of you who are into football. But it is also very close to dozens of paper mills and the history of northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan is bound up in the paper industry and now the environmental conditions that we find in the river system are bound up with that industry and what potential things we might do to build on that history and to capitalize not on the basic products now but to capitalize on the heritage and the attractions through tourism and other sorts of recreational uses.

The Fox, by the way, is also interesting because of its canal history. We do not think of Wisconsin as being a great center of canal development but the Fox does have a hand-operated canal system that is still, I think, of great historical significance.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Hand-operated?

MR. GRAF: Hand-operated. I think it is presently inoperative but it is in place. In other words, with assistance, perhaps from an initiative such as this, we can see its preservation and redevelopment.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Others from the group here?

MR. JORDAN: Well, there are a couple of others that I will be taking home to read and they are full of text.

As I mentioned before the break, the Blackstone and the New River, and I think the last two days we have been talking about some of the parts of these proposals that they are not a part of the criteria and I understand that and I know that in the final analysis we will go back to the criteria and we will use that only, but for the sake of discussion in my consideration I do feel very strongly about those that will have the support of the people who not only play there but the people who live there, those who live on the land, and I think I found that in the Blackstone as well as the New River.

And the Blackstone, of the 26 communities along that river, 24 of them already have their comprehensive community plans, and I am sure that all of you have seen what those look like. That is where the communities come together and they decide what they want their community to look like, and they develop their comprehensive plan of which only the cities, the state, all try to support the implementation of those plans.

24 of the 26 here have developed their plans and they always include that portion of the river that runs through their community and this way they turn back to the river and also they develop a very strong sense of ownership.

So, I like those features, but I need to know a lot more about the rivers and I would like to read the proposal in its full text so that when we do talk again, and we will be talking again, I would like to maybe raise some other parts of their proposal to the group.

The other, of course, is the New River; and, of course, you know, reading that one, it is, as I read on one of those yellow stickers up there, a unique rural laboratory, and I think it is one worthy of you taking another look at because it has tremendous potential as a different model.

So, what I plan to do and to deal with these, because I will take them back and I will read them in their full text so that I will be more knowledgeable the next time we talk, but those are two.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: My recollection on the New River that that is -- the proposal is the first phase of a longer-term --

MR. JORDAN: Right.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- plan that they are going to start with the head waters, the more rural sections of it, and hope to build from a success on that to move downstream which is an interesting, I find interesting, concept, because whatever you do at the mouth of a river, if things are terrible at the -- you know, the farther upstream you go, that is -- that is where you logically begin your -- your work at making sure that everything --

MS. WHITLOCK: Yes, that direction really pleases me in this proposal.

MR. JORDAN: I was interested in Blackstone, which is -- how do you pronounce that? -- like Puyallup?

(Laughter.)

MR. GRAF: I would point out that it is spelled two different ways in our -- who has got the correct one. Tony?

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. JORDAN: But the Blackstone has things going for it right now, and now it is bringing in a new partner. So it is a strange marriage, so it is going to be interesting to see how that works. That now they are moving along and now they are bringing in a river that is not moving; and, so, it is going to be a nice marriage. I am interested to see how they plan to make this marriage work.

MR. GRAF: I would like to second Charles' interest in the Blackstone and its much larger area. Those of you who know it, know that it drains southward from Massachusetts down through Rhode Island and that it empties into the ocean.

A VOICE: Yes, we all knew that.

MR. GRAF: Okay, well, now we are reiterating.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: We just couldn't pronounce the other river.

MR. GRAF: Well, the deal is this, the Blackstone has the largest concentration of dams of any stream in the United States. Most of them is small. The point is that there have been a considerable number of studies underway to determine which ones might be removed to enhance the river habitat, to enhance its utility for other uses. This is another one of those laboratories.

It is a place where perhaps under the aegis of the American Heritage Rivers Initiative we can see some investigations of the long-term effects of re-thinking the structures of this type.

The issue is, of course, you remove all the dams and all the sediment behind them goes downstream from Massachusetts to Rhode Island on to the oyster beds which makes other folks unhappy.

And, so, I think that this water shed base approach that you described for the Blackstone and its tributaries is pretty important.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Something that Roger gave me, that I will just make available to everybody, during lunch, is just looking at proposals that are also national heritage, already been designated national heritage corridors, and the Blackstone is one of those; and also once affiliated with the national park system and so forth, again, not that that is a determining factor, but just as additional information to address and look over.

MR. JORDAN: Are those Congressional designations or --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Can you -- is Roger here? You want to just talk about what that means, without getting into individuals ones, just tell us --

MR. STEPHENSON: Congress does designate these corridors, and some of them, but not all of them, are affiliated areas of the national park system. So there is support for appropriated funds to these heritage corridors and they have their local governing bodies, if you will.

MR. JORDAN: So they are already receiving federal funds? There are dollars tied to those?

MR. STEPHENSON: Some but not all.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Cris, do you have anything else to add to that? Cris Brown is...and works for the National Heritage.

MR. BROWN: There are now 17 Congressionally designated national heritage areas and they do have -- all of them have some kind of small appropriation attached to them.

The National Heritage Area program is similar in many respects to the American Heritage River Program, but --in terms of being community lead and bottoms up and so on, but it does differ in that these are specific pieces of legislation that designate them.

Four of them have been around for a while, 8, 10, 12 years, so we have got some record on them. Most of them are still getting their feet on the ground, so we do not have a lot of record on those.

But I think about a dozen of them have some overlap with proposals that are on the table here for American Heritage River areas; and I think some of them there might be a major overlap and others would be a very minor overlap.

But the one other significant difference I would note is that -- that the National Heritage Areas are administered by the National Park Service with a local commissioner. They do not have the kind of multi-agency support that is envisioned for the American Heritage Rivers program.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Thank you.

Other rivers that people want to raise and talk about.

Maria?

MS. TERAN: Further discussion on the Ohio. I was wondering if any of the other members did read a little bit further into that project and if we could hear their...

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I am looking for it right now. There are essentially two. The longer one of the Ohio and the one at Ripley.

MS. TERAN: Ohio River, right.

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Both of them have some Congressional --

MS. TERAN: There is a specific need shared by 24 communities along this river; and I think that in itself --

MS. WHITLOCK: Number 82.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Number 82. The thing that truck me, I mean, obviously, again, in the whole discussion, if you just name the main rivers that mean things to the larger national history, the Ohio certainly...

One thing that did strike me that is not necessarily to their benefit, I am sorry to say, is they have got 26 mayors, which is great, but there was only one Congressperson, at least on mine, that was supporting it, Congressman Hanna from Ohio, and just what it raised to me is the question is why not any others? And I do not know the answer to that -- to that -- to that question, but -- and I know that the other one at Ripley was the one that had the opposition.

What was not clear to me is that with that one where there is opposition, that is Number 25 in Tab 3, I am assuming that if you take the Number 82, the Ohio River, that is basically the length of the Ohio, it is unclear to me if --

MS. TERAN: Can I --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- Congressperson who is opposed to the one at Ripley doesn't care about the larger one --

MS. TERAN: But it is just like the support that we have of 20 mayors along the Rio Grande. They are close to it.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right.

MS. TERAN: But the problems are in their back yard. Sometimes Congress' -- what is the right word? -- is persuaded to deal with other issues that are more popular in areas of that state and will not deal with the problems that are -- that exist on the boarder of that.

It is the same thing with Mexican government. Right now the local government along the boarder are more powerful and are more independent of national government because their needs are specifically and very unique from what the rest of that country needs.

We cannot dismiss the support of 26 mayors who--

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right.

MS. TERAN: -- actually live there, as we cannot dismiss 20 mayors along the Rio Grande who are actually on the Rio Grande who know the need, who know that the problems exist and the need exists.

I just would like for you to consider it one more time.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay. Others anyone? Tony, you said you had --

MR. GRASSI: I have got a couple.

The Edisto I mentioned yesterday. Again, I am concerned there are a bunch of rivers, any one of which might accomplish my purposes here, but I am concerned about this -- this area of the country where we are not talking about major political powers, we are not talking about people that are in this room and, therefore, influencing this group.

I think we need to be very careful that we consider rivers -- and awful lot of what we have on our list are rivers that have major population centers and, therefore, have more political stick and, therefore, are maybe a little higher on our screen; and I think it is very important that we not lose track of the rural rivers and the rivers that -- that, in a different way, represent the heritage of this country, which is its biological diversity; and that is a different kind of heritage than George Washington and the Potomac, but it is older and more important.

Somebody pointed out the Neuse is the only river in the continent that is older than the Atlantic Ocean or something to that effect.

You know there is a different sort of heritage here that I think is important and I have got -- I have got a couple of rivers that sort of fall in that category.

The Edisto I talked about yesterday a little bit. It is in South Carolina. I thought the proposal was excellent in that it, again, I think is a very good description of the -- sort of the opportunity for a -- for a whole river basin initiative. This isn't just -- is not just the river itself. It deals with the river and its tributaries and the larger basin. It is basically an all agricultural community, if you will, and a large portion of it is forest and is reasonably protected and reasonably pristine, the water shed, the mouth of it comes down into the Ace Basin with two other rivers I can never remember their names, beginning with A and C, that form the Ace Basin and which is one of nature conservancy's last great places and is a very -- is important in terms of water fowl and there are some important natural communities there...and so forth.

So, you know, again, I think it is very easy for us to sort of gravitate to the places where there are a lot of people and a lot of politics and I am inclined to look the other way.

The second I would sort of like to get on your screen that has not been on anybody's screen is the -- is the Cumberland River in Tennessee, which is the same idea.

The Cumberland River, again, I am dramatically influenced by this book that the conservancy has just published which -- which one of the things they say here is they ranked fresh water regions in the United States by at-risk fish and muscle species and the Cumberland River basin is the first in the list with 104 species, the next closest is the Mobile area which has 65, so there is a rather dramatic drop till you get to another area, and I sort of then went into the books to sort of find the Cumberland River proposal and try to ferret it out and it is interesting.

It has -- again, it has many of the characteristics of the other proposals we are looking at and just because nobody's sort of here from Tennessee it is not on our screen and that is really very troublesome to me.

But there is -- it has got lots of restoration work; it has got, you know, sort of a strong local support, mayors and the like; but, again, it is a different sort of a region, it is a different -- so you are not going to find 26 towns and -- and -- and, you know, four governors and eight local legislators.

MS. WHITLOCK: There aren't 26 towns there.

MR. GRASSI: Exactly. This is a different game and I think it is really important that we not lose sight of that and I really would like to draw your attention to that.

As I look at it, you have got a series of these river proposals. The St. Johns is one, the Edisto is one.

I am interested in the coastal plain rivers. The Rappahannock we talked about, the Lower Roanoke. There are a whole series of these, any one of which I think might in some way fulfill some of my objectives, and I have a hard time distinguishing between them because I am not from that part of the country; and, as somebody pointed out on the board, there isn't anybody here from that part of the country, and that is a major flaw in the construction of this Committee, in my view. Somebody who sort of...back woods of the southeast, which is where -- where all the bio-diversity I referred to yesterday is in this country, it is all in those rivers in the southeast.

I think it is sort of important that we hone in. There is the New, there is the lower Neuse. I mean, there are a whole series of them that -- that somehow get to that same issue; and one of my worries is that because there are no major sort of industrial pieces when we come up with our lists, I will put the New and you will put the lower Neuse, and somebody else will put the Edisto, and they will all look like they are sort of low priority and they will all have one --

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. GRASSI: And maybe we are all trying to acomplish the same thing but we are not -- but there is one thing in one that appeals to me and there is one thing in another that appeals to somebody else; and I don't know how in your -- your calculating counts you deal with that. You know, there are -- there is only one -- I mean, there are five or six Mississippi proposals and I think we sort of honed it down so now there are three and we have got to go through the round again and we probably solved that problem with respect to the Mississippi. We have not solved it with respect to this.

MS. WHITLOCK: That is a real good point.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I think -- I think it is a great point that we circle around certain types and maybe this afternoon, if we all think it is possible and Jerry gives us the green light on it, we might try to figure out some way that if there is one particular type of river that we all think is -- at least so in our minds. Not to put them and then say, okay, which one of these do you want, but at least to put them all together so that in our minds we can sort of lump them; because, at the end of two days, you raising about the Rappahannock reminded me of it, just mentioning it. And by the end of two days we are starting to forget points that may have been made earlier.

MS. WHITLOCK: The other thing that would be helpful to me is if -- if there is a category of river in that part of the country that is real important from a bio-diversity point of view. I am not expert in that arena so that I can read the proposals and not recognize the same signals that someone who has that kind of background could have or would recognize and so it would be helpful to Committee members with bad expertise could help the rest of us figure out because when you said that I realized that the reference to the agricultural connection on the lower Neuse was the reason that I kept leaning in that direction and if the value there is bio-diversity, I may need to treat more seriously one or two of the other proposals in that region.

MR. GRASSI: Yes, it is -- I found the -- it is just hard to sort these out.

MS. WHITLOCK: Right.

MR. GRASSI: And I think in the lower Neuse proposal there are a -- I think that was the one where there were some specific species mentioned.

MS. WHITLOCK: Right.

MR. GRASSI: And, you know, I read the Cumberland thing and there are 300.

MS. WHITLOCK: 300 endangered species.

MR. GRASSI: Endangered and threatened species in the portion of river they are talking about protecting. So, it is really -- I thought, gees, maybe we are really missing something.

MR. WILSON: Well, since the Rappahannock has been mentioned, I had some questions about dam removal and things like that and since then I found out that there is no -- there has been work done but that is not an issue, that is actually positive for the area; and I am getting like you, the more I read this book the more I see good, the more familiar I become with it, and with my knowledge growth by feeding off of all of you, hopefully a little bit back the other way --

(Laughter.)

MR. WILSON: -- that it raises more and more. But, I agree; I think we are looking at a lot of similarities in a lot of the proposals and we need to try to define how we are going to take six similar proposals and decide how we are going to come up with it.

MS. WHITLOCK: So, if we said we had different categories and we said we want a bio-diversity, the best example we can find of one, that you may have all the qualities but there may be that bio-diversity really emphasized, and zero down on what can we collectively think are the best two or three of those or -- I mean, I think we are moving towards some categories in other ways, too.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes. I would -- I think -- my own instincts tell me that you do not want to say there are these ten categories and let's -- let's list them and then vote on the top five bio-diversity; because a part of this whole thing is the collection of issues around an individual proposal, not just a single part, but the collection of it.

And Tony has a very well articulated view of the things that he is bringing to this table that are important to him.

I think an equal argument can be made for large city groupings as well.

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: So, I am saying individual members have those and part of -- while we do not have someone from the southeast, still we have a diversity of opinions. I think it is great for us to keep raising these things with why certain things are important to jog our minds and to educate other people about some aspects of -- of -- of river issues that we frankly, you know, are not that conversant with.

But, I think if we start doing it, of stringing down from individual characteristics that we are moving in the wrong direction.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: When you bring up this point about the categories and,a gain, one would say if we could look at the whole picture and out of that picture we know we can see what is there, what is not there, and throw out some of the bio-diversity, pristine, coastal, or whatever those categories are, the part of the issue is can we get a picture to work on; and, then, if we get a picture, can we go back and apply some of the categories.

I mean, we are stuck again with just looking at individuals, getting the mosaic. Is the mosaic right; is it missing; let's fill in the pieces it is missing.

And, so, what I hear is, look, we have really been working this over and getting more familiar with all of this and learning; and, again, I think we are close to saying let's try to paint another mosaic and then let's go back and see what pieces aren't there given this criteria. I mean, what have we painted on this mosaic and then pick it out.

So, I would suggest, you know, whatever talking we do and then get a real quick read, but then paint a mosaic and say, look, what does this say.

I do not know another way of doing that because conceptually two...

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. WILSON: I just want to reaffirm what the Chair has said. I do not want to put a category across the top. I think in our own minds we can all maintain that and I think we can look at it and we can, hopefully, then, based on what Jerry was saying, that we can then start to balance things out and say, yes, this meets my needs.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes. At the same time, what I do not want to do is discourage this discussion, which I find very helpful, which is -- and maybe what we should do is postpone a little bit that kind of discussion until we have gone through this next ground in which someone might say, well, look, what we -- no one else besides, you know -- there is only a couple of rivers here in which bio-diversity is important, it is important for us to consider and this river is one of them and maybe there are some others, or whatever the different categories to use that as a discussion of where -- where the whole picture might be headed.

But I would like now, just in order to get to that point, if you don't mind, to keep on, if there are other rivers that people, individual Committee members, want to raise for discussion.

Jerry.

DR. GALLOWAY: I would just like to comment on the James River. I think the James River certainly falls in the category of one that has great historic significance from the early settlement of Jamestown and the length of its run from the Appalachians all the way down to the coast, the major ports, Newport News, Hampton Roads.

The problem that I see with this river in a very fine plan right now is that the middle third is exercised out by the veto of the member of Congress in that central area; and, so, I raise it to say that it is certainly something we should -- we should consider, but I think that the problem with the application is it comes in really three sections and with that it may not be as competitive.

It offers everything we would like were it a whole but without that center piece it does not seem to have the same strength. And I would just say if we put things together and look at historic rivers, it certainly is one but it does suffer from that flaw.

MR. GRASSI: Well, you know, one river that does not suffer from that problem is the Raritan in New Jersey. The nominated segment, I think, is about 30 or 40 miles long and, yet, it is all in one piece and it has got Congressional support across the board in a sense of two Senators and three representatives, and you have got state legislators writing to support it and you have got, I think, a fairly well-defined plan for primarily economic revitalization, although there is some environmental ones and cultural components involved.

So, I would just like to offer it as maybe a counter point to the other rivers that are chopped up and we have support issues to deal with.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Other -- Kay, you have one?

MS. WHITLOCK: Yes, I would just like to share some observations relative to geographic mix.

Clearly, we got a lot more proposals from the eastern third of the geographic United States than we did from the west. So, I have tried to take a look at those western streams, and one of the things -- so, I am the person who keeps putting in a chip for Santa Rosa Creek, not because it is a -- I mean, it is a neat, little community that has really tied themselves together around this stream and are doing a lot of good work, but I have been leaning towards that as a candidate western stream that is not in the northwest where there is a lot more water because that was my understanding, there was some Congressional opposition on the Santa Clara.

So, that was one of my assignments last night, was to research what was going on with the Santa Clara and what I believe is the case is that there -- the staff had originally mistook a Congressional letter of opposition from someone from the very northern corner of California as affecting the Santa Clara and it appears to me that both Santa Rosa and Santa Clara are valid proposals without any concern about Congressional opposition.

It appears from looking at them that the Santa Clara may, in fact, be looking at more of the water shed --

A VOICE: Looked at the entire water shed.

MS. WHITLOCK: Yes. And, so, since I have a leaning toward wanting to look at entire water sheds because that is the origin of the problem so much of the time, that sort of making it clearer for me and I actually may think that in that regard that Santa Clara proposal may be a -- they are very different kinds of proposals. The Santa Clara may -- I was not paying enough attention to it, I felt, because of that Congressional opposition that I thought was there.

MR. OLSEN: I would like to speak to the Santa Clara as well.

MS. WHITLOCK: Okay.

MR. OLSEN: I think it is a unique proposal in the sense that the agricultural support is very strong because it really gets to the issue of agricultural preservation.

This river is the -- is about the only one that I know of in the entire southern part of California that is not extensively channelized and a lot of the development proposals right now are to build in the flood plain of the river several hundred thousand units of housing in the fairly near future.

The State of California just released a growth projection for the next 20 years and it shows that the population of Los Angeles will increase about 80 percent over that time, the great majority of that increase will be in the water shed of the Santa Clara River.

So, it really is -- it is an area that is growing very, very rapidly right now; and in order to protect one relatively free-flowing river, I think this kind of designation could do a lot.

The proposal actually is very well put together. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that this river is close to where I work and my company has funded efforts to protect this river for over ten years. So, I am familiar with some of the efforts to protect the river going back a ways.

But the challenges to the river now are unprecedented. There are -- there are permits issued to eleven gravel companies to take out 300 million tons of gravel over the next 50 years from the river flood plain.

So, there is a lot of challenges right now; and as a representative of a river in a very arid part of the country that has huge variation of flow -- this winter we had a lot of flooding and we had 100,000 cubic feet per second flows, and in the summertime it will be down to close to zero. So, it is a very different kind of river. But I think there is -- I know there is a lot of local support to -- behind this proposal.

MS. TERAN: I would like to add that it was one of my initial interests. I really liked the project and --

MR. WILSON: The Santa Clara?

MS. TERAN: Yes, the Santa Clara. But, you are right, when there is not a distinction between a letter of doubt or reservation, you know, as opposed to a letter of opposition...

(Simultaneous voices.)

MS. TERAN: Right. I is unclear, but I -- I always thought that it was a very good project.

MS. WHITLOCK: And the letter does not relate to that part of California at all, the letter that I found.

MS. TERAN: I mean, it is a worthy project.

MS. WHITLOCK: And, interestingly, just from the development point of view of southern California, this -- the reason the county is named Orange is because of the citrus orchard and the agricultural land use in the Santa Clara basin is predominantly orchards kind of use.

So, I just -- I do not know how many of you have had that asterisks get in your mind as I have.

MS. TERAN: Yes.

MR. OLSEN: That is a mistake. The asterisk is a mistake, so it should be removed.

MR. GRASSI: How much of this river is a river and how much of it is a gravel pit?

MR. OLSEN: Oh, it is a river; it's --

MR. GRASSI: But, I mean, those are huge numbers you are talking about.

MS. WHITLOCK: What, the gravel?

MR. GRASSI: Yes, yes. What is that doing to the --

MR. OLSEN: Well, if it is allowed. I mean, if the gravel is, in fact, removed. But there are constant challenge to that. So, the gravel has not been removed yet. I mean, there are quarries, but they are nothing on the scale that is talked about in the proposal. So, it is a continuing fight to protect the river and keep it from becoming a quarry sort of head waters.

MS. TERAN: I am very confused

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. OLSEN: It all ties around agricultural preservation. See, because the flood plain is very rich. That is where all the orchards and field crops are and it would be the urban development, the housing, that would displace the orchards; and, once you get all the agricultural land shut down, why, you sort of take the gravel off. So, it is a two-pronged effort to protect the river.

MS. WHITLOCK: I would say it is the typical California challenge kind of situation where, you know, those -- those factors are there and I think it is a learning opportunity. And I was pleased when I looked -- I looked at the entire proposal last night, starting with what was the status of the Congressional opposition, and I was impressed by this. But I am driven by wanting as many of them as can be to look at the whole water shed. That is an important consideration to me. So, that may be why I lean that way.

MR. GRAF: This river does represent a dry land setting, which I think you have mentioned. It really is representative of that southwestern corner of the country and the sunbelt cities that are developing there. They all face this and gravel mining issue and preservation often of orchard or irrigated type agriculture.

MS. WHITLOCK: It is the kind of challenge that my water district area confronted before the computers were invented. We do not confront it anymore, we are finished with it. We do not have any orchards left.

MR. GRAF: No more orchards.

MS. WHITLOCK: We are just raising chips now.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Any other members have other rivers they want to make sure that we have heard at least a little about before we do the next exercise?

MR. GRAF: I will throw a couple in, just because they are two rivers that I am somewhat familiar with, not intimately familiar with but somewhat familiar with, and I just -- they had not been mentioned and so I think they are at least worth looking at.

One is the Merrimack River in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It, I think, like some of the other very outstanding New England proposals, is probably our -- many peoples' attention was grabbed by the Connecticut simply because it goes through, as I think Jerry pointed out yesterday, four states and that sort of grabbed everyone's attention, with the four governors and other support.

But the Merrimack, too, goes through two states. It goes from New Hampshire into Massachusetts. And particularly interesting to me is -- in terms, as you know, one of my interests is the history and the heritage, and the old mill towns that it flows through. It certainly in New Hampshire -- it has two communities, Manchester in New Hampshire and in Lowell, Massachusetts, who really played incredible roles in the industrial revolution not only in New England but in the United States and the communities were essentially built around the fact of the river typography, there entire communities were built and flourished and, then, with the finding of land that did not have rocks in it farther out in the mid-west, the people followed the Ohio and the others.

That and then years later the collapse of the shoe industry in the east, those made those cities -- really became waste lands but in the last years have made incredible efforts to -- with economic revitalization and often times built around the fact that they have this river flowing through them and they have these old buildings that, you know, were emptied out and they are making wonderful use of it, and Lowell is certainly one of those, and it also caught my eye.

But, unexpectedly at least, Lowell has the largest Asian-American population in the United States after Long Beach, California.

A VOICE: I assume that is by percentage.

MR. GRAF: I am just reading this and I don't know.

A VOICE: It should be by percentage.

MR. GRAF: I don't know, but maybe it is.

The only reason I raise that is the most significant thing about that is that this is an example they have a community association that from their culture in which rivers are some important that they - - that they have started their own river festival. I mean, the fact whether it is second by percentage is less important to me than the fact here is, as one aspect of that, is this notion that from another land, another culture, people came to this community that had been built on a river and over time had lost and was now reconnection; but, to them, it is a perfect little grass roots organization that I just found interesting and wanted to throw it out there for your consideration.

And the other is the -- because, as someone who has followed the footsteps or the paddle wakes -- that makes me tied now with Dan -- of Lewis and Clark for parts of my life, the Missouri River is something that I have spent quite a bit of time on.

I was disappointed that in Montana the Yellowstone and stretches of the Missouri were excluded from our consideration because of the -- of the Congressional opposition.

But there is one proposal still that has not been excluded. It is a very distinct part of the Missouri that flows from north of -- it starts from north of Omaha and for about 70 miles or so to the mouth of the Platte River; and while that, in one sense, is a little disappointing, it is just a minor stretch to turn that to a strength, is that it is very focused and it does go through a stretch of river that is very interesting, both in terms of their plans for wildlife, their plans of trying to connect with the remarkable history of -- connected with that. That is the starting point for many of the overland trails and other places.

And the Missouri River is, like the Mississippi, one of the ones that if I had started with the notion of how can you name a heritage river without the Mississippi, the Missouri is pretty high up there in my own personal life; but, as I say, I was disappointed that there was not a more comprehensive one that survived Congressional veto.

But this one that is essential the Omaha area is -- has an opposition by one of the Senators of Nebraska. It has the full support of Senator Kerry, and it has, I think, other Congressional support as well. So, it has the one asterisk but not the two asterisks.

And, by all appearances, it seems to me they have already done quite a bit of work and have been working hard to turn their communities to focusing on the whole range of historical water quality and economic issues.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Does anyone else have any other things -- or before we -- Jerry, we are now being given cards to -- before we do that, I just want to make sure if there's any other points people want to make.

MR. SAMPSON: I guess I would encourage that we need to take a look at the...River. It is, as identified, we are looking at some in the south where there is international connection between boarders, Mexico and Texas, and into Detroit. It is U.S. and Canada. It is one of the -- the Detroit and Windsors is one of the largest combined metropolitan areas on any international boarder in the world, as it states.

I am looking at the application in more detail and they have a very -- probably one of the more professionally put together applications that I have seen, and there is a number of them, but -- and the Detroit River, although it is only talking about a 32-mile section of that, I guess it is similar in comparison to the South Platte in Denver in that they are looking at a smaller section, but they do identify an environmental action plan which is very well detailed, an economic development plan, including NAFTA marketing, and cultural and historical action plan that is pretty well organized.

They have got a lot of support from the two Senators, their representatives. They have actually put together, which I thought was interesting, an American Heritage Rivers application team and participants. The list is very long. They actually have a steering committee that organized that.

But I think it is important to look at how much they are committing. They are committing a lot of money, over 1.6 billion from the public sector, and 1.2 billion from the private, and they have anticipated another 2 billion from the public sector and another 2.7 billion from the private sector. So there is a lot of commitment in that small segment of the river and in this community, and I think it is something that we should take a look at.

I think they have got a balance of environmental restoration work, habitat conservation, water quality, and sediment plans for that small section of a river in such a large metropolitan area.

The environmental emphasis is as important as economic emphasis.

So, I just wanted to, I guess, point your attention to that river and perhaps if you have a chance to look at it in more detail I think it is very well organized.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Can someone correct me? I think -- I think it is not a section of the river, and I think that is the river.

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Because it is connecting the --

(Laughter.)

(Simultaneous voices.)

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: There is one other point I would just like to raise in talking about the length of rivers and we talked about with the New River that they were starting up at the top, with the river we talked about yesterday, which is the Susquehanna, which is -- it is up -- it's -- it's -- in most of the rivers that we have been dealing with or the water sheds, you start at a somewhat pristine or very pristine head waters and as it gets towards it mouth it is more and more bad things happening to it.

I looked through the Susquehanna proposal last night and what it is -- it is the -- it is up high in the water system that eventually feeds into the Chesapeake Bay and it is, as well discussed yesterday, the whole reason for that proposal is it has suffered from the coal mining industry and the incredible pollution and other things that have happened to it.

And it is at this moment, according to their proposal, information that they gave, it is the largest source of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay, even though it is at the -- you know, at the highest -- the highest level.

And what struck me about that is the notion that the efforts that they have underway there to dramatically clean that up would have obviously a dramatic impact down at the mouth. And it is the observe of what we have with many of the other rivers, which is to start out clean and you get to dirty on the end.

Is there any other comments people want before Jerry gives us our instructions?

Did you want to go over anything?

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Very quickly, yes.

What we have been doing is capturing the rivers. We will have this up, the ones that have been repeats. We are stacking them together so that you can go river by river, if you want to.

And, also, we typed this up to give it back to you and you will have it in the form that you used.

Before we go to lunch, we will get a sense of the...come back from lunch and my suggestion would be reflect on what comes out of this, using the map, using the -- or continuing this conversation about holes, about concepts, about fillers, about criteria, what is missing and so forth, after we get the mosaic.

I would want to do things with this one. First, we will take Tony's counsel and try ten and then I really would like you to be careful about putting the number as well as the name on this time. And also keep in mind what we have done with Mississippi so we know -- we know how to treat it. So, let's have the code number of the river plus the name.

And just there's ten cards and just put, you know, the names of one of each of ten rivers on the cards.

And then go to lunch.

But I would make another suggestion, too. A whole bunch of new stuff -- I have been watching -- has emerged on the wall --

(Laughter.)

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: I don't know whether it is sort of genetically encoding itself somehow but it is emerging...so, you know, it may be worth it to take the cards over there on the way to lunch; and as you go down to lunch, just give them to Roger again.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Before we do that, maybe somebody can help us so that we are -- there is still confusion over, I think, even the numbers and the names on the Mississippi. That reminded me that we would go over that.

MS. WHITLOCK: Oh.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay? So --

MS. WHITLOCK: I was going to make a new map.

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I think we all understand the proposal, we just don't understand if we are all talking about the same one either by number or by name. So, the proposal, the string of pearls --

MS. WHITLOCK: Right.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- proposal of the 56, 57 --

A VOICE: Which is Number 77.

MS. WHITLOCK: Number 77.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: It goes from East St. Louis to the Midgee.

MS. WHITLOCK: Right.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: It is Number 77. Right?

MS. WHITLOCK: Uh-huh.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Everyone got that?

The Minneapolis, St. Paul --

MS. WHITLOCK: Is 21.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And, again, I think if you refer to one as Mississippi string of pearls, 77, just reiterating so we know if you got the number wrong we also know what you meant.

Minneapolis, St. Paul would --

MS. WHITLOCK: Number 21.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: 21. Dubuque.

MS. WHITLOCK: Dubuque is Number 63.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: The quad cities.

MS. WHITLOCK: Number 59.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: For lack of a better term, the Memphis stretch.

MS. WHITLOCK: Is 68.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: 68. And the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, New Orleans.

MS. WHITLOCK: Is 118.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay. And, as we discussed before, if, in your consideration at this point, give us what you think. If you think it is two of those and you want those two, put those two. If you want to amalgamate different ones, this is your chance to do that.

MR. SAMPSON: I just want to add one more comment as kind of a bookend for looking at rivers that have been either highly developed or degraded versus those that are in more of a less degraded or pristine, more pristine, category.

Unfortunately, again, none from Alaska came in. A large portion of the property up there is under federal ownership but that does not mean that they manage those...

But the Hanalei River in Hawaii, in my mind, in looking at all of the rivers that have been discussed, is probably the most scenic and, as stated in here, biologically unique and culturally significant region in the country. It collects green water from the highest points on the island and is close to the native forest where...plants, forest birds, and unique assemblages of native...are still found.

And it is one of the outstanding rivers in Hawaii. So, I just want to mention that as you consider the condition of rivers and the development of rivers that, at least in one instance, this one is probably the least developed and most pristine within the number of rivers that we are looking at.

And the last point would be that they are initiating a planning process in this river that will set forth in the future how they will balance the economic impacts of tourism on such a pristine river and the development of their communities. So, I just want to make that point.

MS. WHITLOCK: I feel a awful heavy load about all these battles. I realize I am just thinking maybe we can influence some. Maybe not.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: And, again, you know, if people feel a need to look at some of this new material or whatever. And just hand them in and go to lunch.

Where is lunch?

A VOICE: Lunch for the Committee is at Jackson Place, same place as yesterday.

(Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the meeting was adjourned, to reconvene at 2:15 p.m., of the same date.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(2:15 p.m.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I want to welcome everybody back here this afternoon.

I want to note that one of our members, Don Sampson, has had to leave and will not be here for the rest of this day in order to get back across the continent.

And I want to state that, not solely for that reason, partly for that, partly for that reason, but for many other reasons, in talking with the members of our Committee, a number of them have -- I think there is a sense of our Committee, and I will double check it here, but a sense of the Committee that these two days have been very productive in helping us focus on the task before us, but that if we -- we would all love to have more time before we would make our final decision.

And I also think in fairness to one of our members that it would be best if we were going to do that when he could be involved as well; and, so, it is my sense that what we would like to do is to keep working today with the understanding that we are going to adjourn today, not conclude today, and that we will set, with the help of the Administration and the other agencies, a time fully -- with full notice in the Federal Register at another time for us to meet, but we will -- we will use that time to make sure that we complete our duties to make our recommendation to the President, and it will be put in the Federal Register.

Because of what we would hope that it would not be -- I am hoping everyone is as busy as I am, that we could probably do this in a one-day meeting and maybe even in a location that is more convenient to everybody rather than in one corner of the continent, and we could do it in the way that we come in knowing that we are coming in to make our final decisions.

That would also allow us, for those who wish, more time to look through the full applications, if they feel necessary; and, also, after having this intense two days, a little bit of time to, you know, think and read and consider before we come back and do the final phase.

And my understanding of the requirements of the Federal Register is that that would mean the earliest we could do this is, roughly, in about three weeks; and, so, I think we want to do it in about three weeks or maybe a little bit after that; but, again, we will have to find out everyone's schedule and coordinate that.

But we are not going to feel that we are under obligation in the next three hours to reach any final decisions.

Is that -- does that pretty much state what a number of you are feeling?

MS. WHITLOCK: Yes.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And before we go to the results of our last exercise, I just wanted to -- we have been getting a lot of sort of last-minute communications, both from political leaders and then from communities in response to the statements and letters we have been getting from political leaders; and one of them that has been somewhat confusing is in regards to the Rio Grande and Senator Hutchinson's opposition to it.

And we received today a response to that from the City Manager of Brownsville and the hair of KOREO which is the amalgamation of different communities along the Rio Grande that said that they had only been informed today that Senator Hutchinson had expressed concerns regarding the American Heritage Rivers Initiative and writing us a letter intending to address the one which prompted her to, quote, urge you to postpone designation of a river in Texas as an American Heritage River until the concerns of all affected parties have been elicited, heard and addressed.

It goes on to list all the different processes that went through up and down the Rio Grande to elicit concerns of all affected parties and we can make copies of that available to you; but just as we had been operating under certain assumptions with an asterisk next to the Santa Clara River, I think this is the kind of information that we will probably need to also be considering in regards to the Rio Grande that it seems to blunt some of the concerns that people had; but, that, too, we will have made available to you when you go today as part of all these things that we will be considering.

I would like us now I think just to further contemplate the results of our last, as we would say in the in the rodeo the last go around -- that puts me one down in the metaphor category --

A VOICE: Does that mean we subtract from your total?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: We'll talk about that. But, also, today I would like us to reflect on that. Jerry is going to lead some discussion around that. Also as we have talked about the different sort of criteria levels that we are all thinking about, so that before w disburse and go our separate ways in preparation to returning again and doing our final job, that we all do have an understanding of the different types of criteria that people think are important to consider.

And I also want to use this opportunity before we end today to talk a little bit about some ideas that people have had about additional things that they think that this committee should do beyond simply saying here is a list of rivers to the President.

So, Jerry, I will --

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Well, the suggestion is there seems two things to do and I need feedback from the group if they are not the right ones.

Some quick reactions to this paper -- there will be more I am sure in the airplanes -- that you may want to share with the rest of the groups, prizes or whatever may come to mind; and, then, I thought it would be good to revisit this issue of criteria. Remember, we have got a kind of mosaic in here, so let's look at what is out here and what holes or criteria that maybe we could take with us when we consider this over time.

And, of course, we put out a bunch of them and these are also in your packet which, as I understand it, is essentially criteria two -- whatever that number is -- it is Number Two, which was diversity, innovation.

But, I -- the first focus, I would say, is what do we think about -- we need reactions to this.

Go ahead.

MS. TERAN: A few big surprises. Is the Mississippi, the Upper Mississippi and the...(inaudible).

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Anything else around the table...

MR. GRAF: We are worried about this long pause. It is the whole picture. And if you take a look at the first ten or the first 12 or the first 20, really, numbers are not so important, we get a balance, picture, geographically.

MS. TERAN: And looking at the board you can see that there is -- now we are seeing green, right?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Green is the latest one. Some of them are repeats and triple repeats, some new ones. My count was essentially 31 to 32.

(Simultaneous voices.)

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: A whole bunch of those. As you see, they were one --

DR. GALLOWAY: I think we lost -- may have, I don't know, the bootstrapping industrial town pulling its way back from the depths of environmental pollution.

Well, none of you talked about this, the Mahoning, a couple of others in Ohio, the Cuyahoga, the others, where there had been a heavy industrial base and they have not done a lot and they are able now to move forward.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: So this -- what I am hearing is some balance, some give us a balance, but there are again holes.

A VOICE: Possibly, perhaps.

MR. GRAF: Jerry and I are talking about two different dimensions. I think he is referring to this industrialization dimension and I am referring to the geographic component.

DR. GALLOWAY: So, we are not in conflict at all.

MR. GRASSI: I will have to give my bio-diversity pitch again. There aren't any rivers on here in the top group that answer to that question and there aren't any when you get to -- if pristine is an issue, you got pretty far down the list until you get to a pristine river.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: If the members of the Committee do not mind, this is up on the board, I am going to read the names of the rivers that popped up on this. And to let you know, I am not passing out ballot sheets to the observers, but a number of these, you know, have, as we have talked throughout these two days, some of them have what we call multiple hits and some of them have single, but -- and some of the multiples are higher than others, but the rivers are: The Upper -- what we call the Upper Missouri, which is Number -- Upper Mississippi - sorry. Was that Freudian or what?

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: The Upper Mississippi, which is the -- the number was 77. It was the -- we have referred to it so far as the string of pearls proposal. It is the one that stretches from east St. Louis to the head waters of the Mississippi at Midgee, Minnesota.

Wait a minute. Puyallup.

(Laughter and applause.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Santa Clara, the Willamette, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Chicago-Illinois, the Lower Neuse, the Chattahoochee, the Potomac, and there appears to be one that was the Potomac/Anacostia combined, the Rio Grande, the Detroit, the Bronx, the St. Johns, the Blackstone/Woonasquatucket, the Hanalei, the Upper Susquehanna-Lackawanna, the Santa Rosa, the Rappahannock, the South Platte, the Mississippi at Memphis, which was Number 68 in the numerical proposal, the Lower Mississippi, the Baton Route/New Orleans stretch of the Mississippi.

MS. TERAN: I think that is a mistake. I think when we brought number into it, because this portion is the KOREO Coalition that we have been talking about all this time and this is -- I think it was just a mistake in the number.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, I am showing the next one, the Rio Grande at Brownsville.

MS. TERAN: We never even discussed that one and that was never -- I think it was just a mistake in putting numbers down.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, is there anyone that says there was a mistake in their voting, or it might have been that they had not discussed it but want it?

Well, we will look into that.

But the Rio Grande at Brownsville, which is Number 47, but the pin actually -- the pin ought to be down at the other end.

MS. TERAN: Yes. That was in El Paso and that was confusing; and, really, the coalition is Brownsville, Lorado, and El Paso, which that dot represents in the middle.

A VOICE: So it should be there?

MS. TERAN: Well, no, that --

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And I always mispronounce this one and I don't know why. Edisto, the Anacostia, the Cumberland, the Everglades, the Muskingum, the New, the Ohio, the Rivers of Steel proposal, which is the Allegheny, the...at Pittsburgh, and the Upper Mississippi quad cities proposal, which is Number 59.

I am reading it slowly to give everybody a chance to think about what it means.

One thing I notice is that as a result of our discussions there have been some proposals that have joined the list. There are a few that have come on, gone off, come back; and there are some that have kept reappearing. And the colors of the pins help describe that.

MS. WHITLOCK: To layer those colors like that, I don't know how long you can keep doing it.

A VOICE: Probably reached the limit of the...(Simultaneous voices.)

A VOICE: Well, we have got yellow here yet.

A VOICE: The color isn't it, it is the pinhead.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Are you referring to that or to the Committee?

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Any other general thoughts?

Jerry?

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: Well, I mean, when I look at it and look back through the three times we went through this, so there are a number that keep re-emerging in one form or another with multi hits that are obvious here.

There are some new ones. And the interesting thing, of course, is the new ones emerging as we discussed them. So, it would probably be worth looking at the new ones that comes in and discuss them and think a little bit about those. Last time we had a few new ones as a result of discussion.

And, I mean, there is a certain amount of diversity among the two, but we should probably talk and remind you about the criteria you brought up earlier.

We had a discussion and you started talking about specific rivers that began to flow into criteria before lunch.

To remind you of that, some of it was -- one criteria was what would have the greatest impact but then there were some discussions that said that we have got to be careful not to penalize those, you know, who have their act together and we need success. In other words, just because we think they are going to have success without us is no reason to penalize them.

So, this whole issue of whether or not and how we look at impact is the health of the river, the water shed is all connected and that may be a criteria to look at here...

We have in the mosaic things that contribute to community building. How do we gauge the need and is there a need is another criteria -- needs, plural.

Is there a structure to carry on came up and came up several times as a criteria. It was brought up if we go back to the first day.

Remembering to use the Executive Order and we had to straighten out which one we were keying off of.

We looked to the sense of the governors and the Congress but then countering -- not countering, but in addition to that mayoral support is very important was raised in the community...

And when we started to say things about conceptual ideas yesterday, coastal plains, pristine rivers, which just came up again, and bio-diversity which just came up, could possibly be missing; come-back kid, I guess that came up, too, to some degree, as a category.

Appalachia, engaging urban small towns, small western rivers, ethnic...rivers that do not end up in the ocean.

So, in addition to which the mosaic criteria that was laid out...so these are all the kinds of concepts and criteria for when one looks or the Committee looks at the whole package, what would you look for as keys to holes or completeness.

MR. GRASSI: I might add that I can think of two things. One would be free-flowing rivers as a concept and the other is the variety of threat. You know, we do not want to have all agriculturally threatened rivers. We want a mix of different kinds of threats that are being dealt with so that the ten that are selected serve as examples to a broad range of others.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And I would throw in because I do not think it is up here but it was something that we discussed yesterday and that I know that Don mentioned again this morning in terms of his own look at that, and that is not that everyone has to be that but he is particularly drawn and wants to make sure that we have some rivers that are the whole water shed, that encompass, you know, the whole hydraulics of a system and not just one stretch of it.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: These I would interpret this, and you may have some different reactions, these are notions and ideas about criteria in looking at the mosaic. We have been given some here and this is -- these are the kind of filters, we step back and say have we really...

Any other ideas on the criteria or responses to what we have in front of us?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: What I would like to suggest is that this -- you know, we are still sort of looking at these -- is that we are not filling the rest. We have got this same thing at the moment that we, you know, consider those kinds of criteria, look at our list, if you want to look at one of these proposals while we are here.

The main thing being that I think we -- to make best use of our time this afternoon is that before we disburse that if someone comes across something that they think is an important criteria that we haven't -- at least put it on to the -- on to the table for us, or if they think that there is, as we look through this, if we say there is an important criteria and we seem to be missing any rivers in that that it would be good for us to have heard that directly from one another before we disburse. So, let's just take some time right now to, you know, look at that or confer with somebody or whatever you wish.

A VOICE: Could we take 15 or 20 minutes or so to get comfortable with what is in here?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes, let's take 20 minutes. Is that all right with everybody?

MS. TERAN: Could we also ask people in the audience also to leave us notes? I know they have already done a very good job of that.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes.

MS. TERAN: But to see if they think there is balance here or if we have missed something.

MR. GRASSI: Is there a way you can --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I'm sorry.

MR. GRASSI: You are going to give us -- the one thing out of all of these pieces of paper -- I don't know that I need the summary of comments on every river, but I do think between now and next meeting it would be useful to have a regurgitation of the filters criteria thing against which to study.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: You know, let me ask the group what you think would be helpful? I was cutting and pasting to try to group them, you know, so that it would then be easy to type them. I mean, it is not a big deal to type them and put them back. Edit in the sense that they can be read when you look at it...criteria discussion which is a little more disaggregated to, you know, to sort of fix that up, listing the criteria and so forth. That you should be able to have within a few days. I mean, that is not a...

MR. GRASSI: I would find that helpful.

MR. DELLIPRISCOLLI: I mean, you know, that is not a crushing job and that is just normal, so we will get that out to you.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: So, let's take 20 minutes.

MR. JORDAN: What are we going to do during this 20 minutes?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Whatever you wish.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: No. What I just -- it would seem to me that we -- what I would like before we disband from our duties here, and we are going to have a talk about issues separate from the selection of rivers, of what we think are -- what we think our job might be, but I want people to have a time -- you have just gotten this, you know, result, and I would like us to feel that we have had -- because I personally don't feel I have had enough time yet to even absorb it and to think about these other criteria, just to say that while we are still all here together, that someone has the opportunity to say, you know, there is another criteria we haven't thought of; you might want to look at -- look through, if you can decipher Jerry's writings about the other rivers, just a little bit of time before we decide that we are going to disband look at that in case you want to --

MR. JORDAN: After we spend this 20 minutes thinking about that, then we are going to disband in 30 minutes?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: No. Then we are going to -- the other thing that I have, at least that I want to talk about today, deals with some ideas that several members have expressed to me about what our duties are, what they think we ought to do besides just presenting the President with a list of rivers, and I would like us to discuss that a little bit before we disband, too.

Some of that has nothing to do with the decisions on the rivers.

MR. JORDAN: But, at the risk of being difficult, why don't we just forget the 20 minutes and go right into that? I really don't have a need to talk to my members, friends, here anymore. I mean, I think we are at a point I really don't know how to spend 20 minutes. Maybe we could just -- how do they feel? Who needs -- does someone need 20 minutes?

DR. GALLOWAY: I would like to look at the stickies, post-its.

MS. TERAN: I would, too; and I would like to give everybody an opportunity to put anything, any other comments up there.

MR. JORDAN: I yield to my bureaucrats.

(Laughter.)

MS. TERAN: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Let's take 20 minutes.

(Whereupon, at 2:45 p.m., the meeting recessed, and resumed at 3:05 p.m.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: As it does turn out, the two members who had indicated support of the Rio Grand, Brownsville had written down the wrong number and were supporting the Rio Grande from El Paso to Brownsville. So, take a pin off of the map. Thank you, Vanna; our Vanna White.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Are you smiling, Karen?

We know that Charles has nothing to say after the 20-minutes break.

(Laughter.)

MR. JORDAN: Let's vote.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Does anyone -- after our break, from looking at the post-its, looking things over, is there anything that you want to help enter into our discussion before we move to talking about what we do besides nominate rivers?

(Simultaneous voices.)

MS. TERAN: I was wondering if we addressed the symbol criteria in picking a river, selecting a river? And I guess I want to reintroduce the -- and I do not know how to pronounce it, is it the Cuyahoga?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Cuyahoga.

MS. TERAN: Cuyahoga. And, like I said before, it is a good symbol, and it was poster child for clean water 1970.

It might be just one of those rivers that we saw as a symbol effort and determination to clean up.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: But, in other words, what I think -- Maria, what you are saying is we had a -- we discussed that yesterday.

MS. TERAN: Discussed it, yes.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: That a number of people had responded initially to the notion that part of mix in their thoughts and part of the mix perhaps as a final outcome as something that has certain symbolic reverberation.

MS. TERAN: And maybe we forgot that in today's go round. Maybe it is not a priority. I think it is a good concept.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Kay?

MS. WHITLOCK: I was just going to say that because of my interest in the water shed concept I had gone back to the list and where I could tried to just see how many there addressed some kind of water shed planning and I found ten so far that I was pretty clear -- you cannot always tell from the summary. So, in the total list I found about ten that look like they are not just the river itself but the water shed.

So, that will be one of the things I will be wanting to do between now and the next meeting, is look for that.

And, then, I want to reiterate a point that Tony made before about the bio-diversity in this. I mean, I think that is an omission that I feel uncomfortable with is if we don't have streams in our list that are good scientific examples of ones with a high level of bio-diversity.

So, I do not know what to do about it.

DR. GALLOWAY: In that regard it might be useful to have the staff look into the claims or the comments that are made about these different rivers and just what is their level of bio-diversity; because, while I read, for example, the Lower Neuse has -- is an estuary and ecosystem, it also is a very rich free-flowing river, how does that compare? How does the Hanalei? And maybe there is some generalized level of comment they could make about the bio-diversity.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I think that is a good point in the sense that in one of the river proposals mentioned it is the longest free-flowing river in the east and another said it is the last free-flowing river in the east.

So, if the staff could give us some sort of guidance on a level that we certainly are not capable of ascertaining.

MR. GRASSI: Two questions, one on bio-diversity, one on free-flowing, are you suggesting...

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: No, the free-flowing one is an example of things that are stated and then reiterated in the abstracts, I think, if I heard Jerry right, he is saying let's double check some of that and get a sense from the staff on that.

Dan, you have something?

MR. KEMMIS: Just a point about geographic diversity, which I actually do not think that that phrase appears in the Executive Order but it does make reference to that it is supposed to be from all over the country; and that while we do now have a number of west coast rivers, we still are very lacking in the interior west. And the interior west in a lot of different ways is a distinct region from Pacific coast west.

I just urge members to keep in mind that even though we have west coast rivers, they would not be considered Rocky Mountain West rivers.

MR. HOOG: Yes. Even though it is listed in the printed criteria there, I think an area that we have not ignored but has gotten less attention as we look at some of these others, the innovativeness of some of the management plans and the actual action plans of the various communities to take advance of this.

So, I just am getting it on the print-outs that we will receive, my sense is people will be looking at that when they go through these.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Charles.

MR. JORDAN: Yes. I was not going to ask but I think Mike might have opened the door for me. I am not quite sure this is not a criteria but, you know, some of these proposals are big-ticketed items. Some of these cities have been able to amass a nice war chest to pull it off.

There are a lot of cities who do not have a war chest like this; and somehow, in the models we have, maybe there will be one that use a lot of sweat equity, a lot of volunteers, and did it without all of the dollars. You know, they need to have some hope and I think I -- I know I have seen a couple of those in here.

So, maybe, if it is not too difficult, that as we look at the models where there is a lot of sweat equity we should give some consideration there because that would be our model for a lot of other cities to replicate. And that is one of the things I think we have to be sensitive to. That if no one else can afford to do it the way we do it some other place, then what good is the model.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And I think that leads to something I was going to raise which we discussed yesterday and it may be up there and we would get it, but just a reminder, that a number of people yesterday talked about both the fact that this initiative is an experiment but it also -- the number of people responded to individual ones, not just as a sweat equity model but as a category of model that others can follow, and it is -- people have used that word a number of times -- it is a great model for an urban river, it is a great model for the other things.

So, the notion that because the very nature of this is that out of 126 very good proposals eventually ten will emerge. For those who were not designated to look at that and say, well, what can I learn from their experience, as well is something that we should probably keep in mind.

Tony?

MR. GRASSI: One thing that would be useful to me is there has been sort of this flood of mail over the last two weeks, some of which I have gotten, some of which I have not; and it would be useful, and sort of as the staff is thinking about stuff to send us, if somehow we could get a precise description of what segments of rivers have been eliminated here by -- and I have got three of them here.

All of a sudden I see a resolution from the Florida House of Representative and, you know. Sort of understanding what has come in that we ought to take into consideration.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay. So, what we would like is anything that is different from what we had in the materials that were sent to us before this meeting that effect in the Administration's -- by the Administration's criteria elimination, we need that spelled out.

MR. GRASSI: Not only before this meeting is before the materials they provided us which had asterisks.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right.

MR. GRASSI: Now, we have got some that asterisks have come off and some more have been added on.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Okay.

MS. WHITLOCK: That is state by state listed in the back?

MR. GRASSI: Not just up to today.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Right, right. To revise that to take into consideration because there were some that turned out they should not have had the asterisks.

MR. GRAF: This will be important in some individual cases. For example, I am sorry to report to Dan the last remaining interior western site is caput.

MR. KEMMIS: I see that. The South Platte is out of the running.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: When did that happen?

MS. TERAN: Just now, when you handed those letters out.

(Simultaneous voices.)

A VOICE: That is not clear to me.

(Simultaneous voices.)

A VOICE: No, Campbell is already on record.

MR. GRAF: Oh, so it is the second senator? That is what I could not tell by reading it.

A VOICE: Yes.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: And that is why we need some help in sort of...

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: The way this is going, who knows if that will be the case in a week.

MS. TERAN: Didn't we establish -- wasn't there a deadline established on --

A VOICE: I am a little bit worried about --

MS. TERAN: This worries me tremendously.

(Simultaneous voices.)

MS. TERAN: That somebody can be playing politics on what we are trying to decide here and all of the work that went in and all the need that obviously is out there could be missed just because of politics. It worries me that we do not have deadlines for voicing opposition. I mean, they have opposed this -- these politicians opposed this a long time ago. Why do it now? You know? Let's give them a deadline.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, I think --

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: What I would suggest is that we --

MS. TERAN: Not accept anything past today.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- you know, an advisory committee to the President operating under rules that -- and procedures that they set up; and what we would urge you to do -- and maybe you could communicate that -- is some way that -- particularly before we have our final meeting, let us know if there is -- if it is an open clock or here are the ones that aren't -- but, also, I think we have a desire to know whether -- how -- if there is an open-ended clock ticking on Congressional vetoes, then, one Congressional opposition or one Senatorial opposition suddenly becomes -- if there is no word from the other, in the absence of support, that leaves it in an -- in essence, puts it into limbo, that we would need to know about if, in fact, it is in a limbo. If, in fact, there is a deadline, say, as far as the Administration is concerned, that is hard and fast, and that would be nice to know as well.

Dan?

MR. KEMMIS: Well, I think we can be guaranteed that not only from Congressional delegations but from supporters of these rivers that the pressure is now going to be stepped up on all us and I wonder if we ought to talk at all about, you know, how we respond to...

MS. WHITLOCK: That is a good idea.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: We know Mike's going to be on a house boat, so he doesn't have to worry about it.

MR. KEMMIS: That's right.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I guess, what are your -- I look to you all, in the build-up to this meeting I received letters and some phone calls and I tried to make clear in that that I was happy to listen to information and if I got a letter I read it, but also I tried to cut it short from what I would -- whatever I would define myself as this line between calling to say that they wanted to just make sure that they knew that they supported that and that they are available for any information in what I would call lobbying. And that is how I did it.

But I think you are right, is that -- is that whatever that was before today will be increased between now and the time we meet.

MR. JORDAN: We do not have a responsibility to respond, do we?

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: No.

MR. JORDAN: So that has been my approach. I really do not have the time to respond.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, I guess what I would do is I would leave it up to the individual members.

MR. JORDAN: Refer them to the Chairman of this Committee.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I will put you on my call-forwarding.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Speaking for myself, why I said I have answered them, answered my phone, and opened my mail, my own belief is that, speaking for myself, is that what I intend to do when we leave here is not pay attention to those things, and other people can draw their own conclusions as to where that would become counter productive when the annoyance becomes part of your consideration.

But my intention is to weigh the stuff that we have gone over, to look at -- you know, look at the individual proposals in greater detail as I sift through to prepare myself and to come back and, as a member of the Committee, vote in and participate in in coming to the final conclusion.

I think my sense of everybody here is you are sort of in the same boat, which I hope everyone read between the lines of what I just said are out there.

Is there any other general things before we take up this next part.

A number of members have, over the last day or two, talked to me of different ideas that had of what we do as a committee besides recommend to the President a list of rivers; and I would like a couple of them to talk about that here with everybody.

But part of it generates from, I think I can speak for everybody, a real feeling that what we do not want to have happen is that this initiative and the incredible amount of work that other communities have done, the lack of designation would bring those things to a halt; that somehow in our communication to the President that we get that across.

But different ones of you have had different ideas; and if anyone has got something they -- I would be happy, as the Chairman, in the time between now -- because this has nothing to do with the selection of the rivers. This would be anything we would do as a communication attached to the list. I would be happy to volunteer to draft a report, letter, whatever, that we would share and try to get in communication with all of you before our final meeting so that we can -- when we do meet that we can take those things and agree on a final thing.

But, at this point right now, are there things that you think would be part of that?

DR. GALLOWAY: I think it would be nice if the President would recognize the participation in the program by all of those who submitted nominations by presentation of some sort of American Heritage Rivers Initiative certificate that acknowledges the work that went into it, something that they could display that would acknowledge that, in fact, they did do somethig wonderful for the community.

MS. WHITLOCK: And I have had the sense of sort of a desire for us to reach out to all of the 126 communities, but I think I guess the think that has held me back on that is that I think it is much more meaningful for them to hear from the President than from us; and, so, you know, I feel this inclination to respond to that hard work and to honor the work that every community did. I am really amazed by it.

So, the real way for them to be honored is if we can encourage the President to do something to respond back. So, I really think that would be wonderful if we could come to some recmomendation that would work for the President.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Any other thoughts?

Charles, you had mentioned perhaps including a recommendation of something a year from now.

MR. JORDAN: Yes. That is because I am not sure where this process is going to go, as I indicated, wehther or not there is going to be a second or third round; and I thought that those cities that may be successful in getting the designation, after a year, there would be lessons to be learned from them, and I suggest that we -- that not us, but someone would organize a conference to ionvite the otehr applicants to this conference to hear from the ten that were selected about lessons learned and challenges we faced. And I would like for it to be an organization that has credibility with river issues.

And not because Terry is here but I do, you know, someone like American Rivers, someone who has been there for us, someone that, you know, a lot of us call from time to time to get information about the rivers. And just invite those peple to come and so they don't give up hope, because there may be another round at some point; but if nothing happens a year from now, they are probably goig to forget about it.

So, if that is possible, I would strongly recommend that. We have got to keep hope alive some way.

MS. TERAN: On the other hand, too, if we do have positive results after a period of time, then this would answer all of the skepticism there is about it, the fears that there are about it, and would open this opportunity for so many other communities to resubmit or avoid the mixing from their Congressional representatives.

MR. GRAF: Certainly this point has been articulated by several of us over the past couple of days and that is that I think we would like to send a message to the President that, as one of my colleagues said, there are more than ten heritage rivers in this country, and I think that the strength that we have seen in really a substantial number of these proposals leads us to believe that this should not be the one and only round.

And, you know, I would personally strongly urge consideration, if after six months to a year the sky hasn't fallen, that we do more of this; and whether it is us or someone else is not a relevant issue. I mean, the point is I think the number of dots that are going to end up on that map is not going to be enough for the American people in the long run.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Anybody else with thoughts of what that should contain?

Let me ask if it would be -- one thing that I think might be worthwhile as well is I think at least to express in the letter the frustration that I -- that I sense from a number of members about the Congressional vetoes, not so much that the Administration policy on that because it is meant in a way to honor the fact that an elected representative has obvious standing within their district, but to --but to at least highlight the fact that it was a sense of frustration of our Committee that the -- the fact of the exercise of many of those vetoes in ways that we felt did not fully undestand the purposes of the initiative; that seemed to, at least in our minds, raise fears that we believe were unfounded in the first place, but it eliminated from our consideration --

MS. TERAN: Some of those...

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- some rivers that, you know, quite likely could have been in strong contention --

MS. TERAN: And when you...

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: -- for designation simply because of that and that it is just -- for whatever, it is just -- and maybe list, you know -- as I said earlier, someone who has followed the trail of those who faught, it was heartbreaking for me just because I know the river.

I am not saying I would have ended up voting for them but there were good proposals for the Yellowstone River, for the Missouri River in Montana, for the Clearwater River in Idaho, for parts of the Columbia River; and we weren't even able to get to the point of actually discussing them.

And I think in the one sense that it -- the policy recognized the needs of making sure that aspects of political and community support are there.

On the other hand, on behalf of those people who took a lot of time to make really good proposals, I think it behooves us to speak for them in saying, you know, we are disappointed that their elected representatives let them down, in our mind.

MS. TERAN: I would like to just add one thing to that. You know, the Initiative talks a lot about community effort; and when you compare 20 in one case, 24 in another case, 23 mayors within an area, within a community, again one or two other Congressional representatives, what is more indicative of community effort, the two or the 20 or 24 who actually are in that area?

That is something that is outrageous to me and there were several cases that wre thrown out because --

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: So do you want me to write it real strong and then you will temper it?

(Laughter.)

MS. TERAN: I want it strong.

MS. WHITLOCK: I guess my observation about that is not to be angry about it but more disappointed that the communication -- I think that the communication must have not been clear. I mean --

(Simultaneous voices.)

MS. TERAN: It is though; it is very clear but do they pay attention to it.

MS. WHITLOCK: No, I mean the communication of what was the intent of the program and the comfort with the program. There are some aspects that are not understood by some people and that is what ahs generated, I think, the Congressional oppositon and, so it seems like the decent --

MS. TERAN: Personally, I think it is arrogant to oppose a community effort that is so widely supported by the community and I think that it speaks of arrogance; and I am sorry I said that but --

MR. GRAF: I have a resolution to this, if I might offer it. I think, actually, Dayton, there are two dimensions to these Congressional oppositon statements, and I think in some cases it is misinformation. I mean, I don't doubt that, especially if a Congressional representative is responding to requests from his or her constituents, who, unfortunately, I think may be misinformed, for whatever reason.

So, there is a misinformation problem, in the first instance; but there is also this political issue, and I think some of the opponents do undrstand the initiative.

MS. TERAN: They do.

MR. GRAF: And they choose to oppose it anyway for other reasons.

MS. TERAN: Yes.

MR. GRAF: And I am not smart enough to figure out what the implications of all that are but I do think that in your communication with the President it is important that you point out that there are two avenues to this destination of disappointment and one of them is an honorable avenue, the other one this Committee questions.

MS. TERAN: Definitely.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: As if our tasks aren't hard enough, I will try to...

(Laughter.)

MR. KEMMIS: I continue to believe that along those lines that we should take the opportunity to underscore for the President what we see as the real value of this initative in framing a new approach to the relationship between the federal government and localities.

MS. TERAN: And communities.

MR. KEMMIS: Right. That this is -- part of the heritage that may be we are recalling here is that heritage of local self-determination that we have seen so strongly in this process, that this is an opportunity for the federal government to demonstrate a new realtionship, a more humble attitude would be one way to think about it than it has often come across with and that that -- following through on that commitment is one way to overcome the misconceptions about the program.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Doug?

MR. WILSON: I guess I will make some comments a little bit the other way. You are getting awful close to wallowing. We have got lots of initiatives to look at. If a Congressman has responded I think for the most part it has been due to constituency and I think that we need to honor that.

I don't think that we need to go to the extent -- we can share our frustrations, I have my own frustrations with the way some things have played out. However, we have not to do the political job. We are here to determine what is available, not what is.

Now, the timing on some of this has not been the best laid out; but, for the overall picture, we have plenty on our plate to work with. And I hope that we don't get sucked down into that. I would like to stay up above and I guess I would say the positive things that Dan said of pushing fowrard, showing the success, casting more information out. I think that is the most positive thing we can do, rather than saying, oh, we are so disappointed; oh, we are so upset; and, oh, this is so awful. Don't do that. It doesn't help us.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Yes, I don't think the intention was for that to be the major portion of it. Just some communication in the larger sphere that how overwhelmed we were by, pleasantly overwhelmed by the number of nominations and the quality of them; and that, unfortunately, for some of htose people who did that much hard work, to do that good a job, we, as a committee, were unable to even consider them because --

MR. WILSON: And the bottom line is that people in those areas affected are the ones that need to scream the loudest and they are the ones that actually have control because they are the ones going broke.

MS. WHITLOCK: Right, it is their hard work to do now to get the Congressional support.

MR. WILSON: And so they should feel more insulted than we do.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Any other ideas on that?

MR. GRASSI: Only as you are suggesting coming back and doing it again, six months to a year sounds way too short to me. I'm not sure you want to put a time limit on it, beause there is an enormous amount of work that goes into one of these things.

If you went back to the ones that did not get approved in six months and said do another proposal, it is going to fall flat on its face. And there isn't enough time to have learned the lessons.

So, my own instinct is if it is going to be done again it be 18 months, two years, you know, a lnog enough time. You start it in 18 months and then there really will be some lessons learned and some examples; and if this program really works, then people will be glad to compete for the next ten slots, if you will. If, in fact, it has not worked in 18 months, then there is a big lesson to be learned, too.

MS. TERAN: A time frame might not be necessary because as progress develops it might even be shorter, we might see some immediately results, and we awnt to hear about those. I would rather leave it open to hearing about it as it occurs, as the progress occurs.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: But certainly I think the thing is the -- our suggestion would be that we all agree that some sort of conference event that allows the communities and the proposals that eventually get selected to mingle with those who made proposals to say, here is what we have done, here is what we haven't done. In the time period...

(Simultaneous voices.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: I think Charles' concern is you don't awnt to -- you want it to also be soon enough that it is not a whole new thing for them. Okay.

Anything else?

Well, I think we are about ready to adjourn. I just want to say what a great job I think everybody has done. We arrived as 12 people who, virtually in every instance, had never met before, and I think by the end of these two days --

MR. JORDAN: Wouldn't want to meet again.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, we have to meet at least once more. But -- thank you, Charles. Let's focus in on the days that Charles can't meet.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: No. I just want to say, as the Chairman, how much I think that we have dug into the material before us, how hard the members have worked in staying late to research things, of taking some of the applications back, of trying to work together and actually working together and forming a group and you will be getting the report from -- of all the different materials that have been up on the sides.

Karen says that anybody who does not want to carry stuff back tonight to their homes, they will be happy to ship those things if you have got -- if your pile has increased.

But, I really hope that we can keep this spirit alive that we have established here as a group as we get into what is admittedly an even higher part of it, which is to finally come to, hopefully, a conclusion that we all feel good about. But, I certainly leave today feeling good about where we are at this moment.

MR. JORDAN: You know, I see some faces out there that I have seen for the last two days; and for us to have gotten off to the start we got off to here the first five minutes of this meeting, this group has been very, very restrained.

(Laughter.)

MR. JORDAN: And I want to commend them because it really has been appreciated because this has not been easy for any of us up here, either, but I really do appreciate your support and your listening and not really responding in a manner that I know you may feel like you want to respond but you withheld your feelings and your emotions. So, I commend you and thank you very much for that.

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Here, here.

(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN DUNCAN: Well, with that; if people ahve not, members haven't yet got a chance to look at this chart that Karen is trying to do to figure out when we will meet again, please focus on that.

Have a safe travel back to your home, and we will see you sometime.

(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned sine die.)

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