GROUP DECLARES RUSSIAN RIVER AT RISKAMERICAN RIVERS: 'IT'S A REAL CRIME'

The Russian River has been listed as one of the most threatened rivers in

the country by a national environmental group.

''The Russian River is a case where we have utterly decimated a river in

our own lifetime,'' American Rivers spokesman Scott Faber said. ''It's a real

crime.''

The American Rivers annual list included the 10 most endangered rivers and

the 20 most threatened, from Alaska to Maine. The Russian River made the most

threatened list because of a litany of past abuse, the organization said.

The Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River tops the list as the group's most

endangered river in the country. Bordering Yellowstone National Park in

Wyoming, the pristine wilderness river provides a critical habitat for trout

and other wildlife.

The Russian River has been dammed, diverted, dredged, polluted, mined,

logged and misused for more than a century. Once considered among the world's

finest steelhead trout streams, the Russian River was home to an estimated

65,000 steelhead in 1970. Today, the native trout population has plummeted to

a few hundred.

''It's absorbed every possible insult a river could conceivably absorb,''

Faber said.

More recently, real estate development in the floodplain and logging in the

watershed created catastrophic floods this year and in 1986.

The group believes those floods may signal the Russian River's salvation.

As much as $48 million in federal disaster assistance programs can be used

to relocate residents away from the floodplain as was done after the 1993

Midwest flooding along the Mississippi and its tributaries, says the report.

David Bolling, spokesman for Friends of the Russian River, said that would

provide only part of the solution. ''You can't keep on buying out houses. That

may be a necessary stop-gap solution, but not the long-term one.''

Suburban sprawl, the growth of wineries and logging have all ravaged the

river's watershed areas, he said. ''Efforts have to be made to restore the

watershed to help slow down the flow of the river.''

Sonoma County Supervisor Tim Smith said he could not respond directly to

the group's contentions regarding the river because there were no specific

details supporting its position. But Smith agreed conditions in the Russian

River could be better.

''I don't think there is any question that things can be improved,'' said

Smith, who is the board's lead representative on Russian River issues. ''But a

lot of effort and money has gone into making things better, including limiting

the amount of effluent that goes into the river. I think the most glaring

problem on the river are the fisheries and we're trying to improve that

too.''

Smith noted the supervisors have recently voted to hire two biologists to

study the county's management of the Russian River.

American Rivers officials said they relied on information from conservation

groups, federal Environmental Protection Agency documents on water quality and

county and state research to make its decision. A team of scientists reviewed

the final picks.

Staff writer Tom Chorneau and States News Service contributed to this

report.