Help protect the John Day

just got this from American Rivers, thought I'd pass it along:

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http://www.americanrivers.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=16221.0&dlv_id=25981

As the second longest undammed river in the continental United States, the John Day River in northeastern Oregon provides some of the best remaining habitat for salmon and steelhead. The North Fork of the John Day River and its tributaries alone support the largest runs of steelhead in the entire Columbia River system. Outdoor enthusiasts from Oregon and beyond visit the John Day River Basin to fish, raft, hike, hunt, horseback ride, and take in the breathtaking scenic vistas of high-desert sagebrush steppes and ponderosa woodlands. Your help is needed to protect this important and unique river basin.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just released a draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) covering a half million acres within the John Day River Basin and is inviting public comments to determine the future management of the area’s public lands and rivers for at least the next 15 years. With your input, we can steer the BLM in a management direction that ensures the basin’s wildest rivers and most important habitats remain wild and breathtaking.

Without overwhelming public response on these issues, we cannot ensure that the Resource Management Plan will protect or conserve the John Day Basin’s rivers and fish runs. Please send a message to the BLM today and help us ensure these rivers and surrounding lands are protected. The public comment period ends on January 29, 2009.

Kavita Heyn
Associate Director, Oregon Conservation Programs