‘Heritage River’ Plan Launched by Clinton

WASHINGTON â€”  It is one of the oldest ideas of urban civilization: Babylon was born alongside the Euphrates, Rome rose on the banks of the Tiber. So why should not Appleton blossom once again on the Fox?

The question is taking hold not only in that small Wisconsin city on the Fox River but in communities across the nation, from Middletown, Conn., to Los Angeles. On Thursday, in what was originally a little-noticed program to designate 10 waterways as “American Heritage Rivers,� the White House embarked on a campaign that President Clinton says will “help communities . . . revitalize their waterfronts and clean up pollution in the rivers.�

The program could lead to an urban renaissance, cleaning up rivers once fouled with waste, succeeding where other efforts--such as creating pedestrian malls, building downtown stadiums or erecting convention and arts centers--have failed.

Yet not everyone is singing its praises. Reflecting deep suspicions of the federal government, the plan is under attack as a bureaucracy-building assault on private property rights--a federal land-grab of “Orwellian� dimensions, as one critic wrote in a letter to Free American, a conservative magazine.

In the mix of praise and complaints addressed to the White House Council on Environmental Quality was this blunt message from a woman in Oroville: “Just keep your rotten, picking fingers off all rivers, especially northern California’s Feather River.�

This is not the reception Clinton environmental aides envisaged when he introduced the plan in his State of the Union address last February.

“I am constantly baffled and confused by any opposition to the program,� said Kathleen McGinty, who chairs the White House environmental council.

The program is built around the idea that rivers, which once played a vital role in the economic development of communities that depended upon them for commercial and personal transportation and for pleasure, can give life to cities yet again.

“Rivers have always been the lifeblood of our nation. They nourish our cities, they feed our soils, they allow us to expand our territory,� the president said Thursday in a ceremony in the White House East Room, where he signed an executive order establishing the program--and where--Vice President Al Gore pointed out--Thomas Jefferson and Merriweather Lewis sat on the floor to map out a transcontinental river route nearly two centuries ago.

Now what the communities on the river banks need, the Clinton administration argues, is a low-cost program to focus attention on the rivers’ historic role in community development, thus stirring local pride, and to provide a federal official--to be known as a “river navigator�--to help localities locate necessary aid among the tangle of programs offered by more than a dozen federal agencies.

The plan has attracted the attention of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, among others. He sees in it the potential for obtaining assistance in developing recreation facilities, including the extension of a bike trail, along segments of the Los Angeles River--most of which is a concrete culvert, often carrying only a trickle of water.

Elsewhere, there is history to be recognized and economic potential to be tapped.

In Appleton a century ago, the churning, roiling flow of the Fox River lit an American home with hydroelectric power for the first time. Along its banks from Menasha to Green Bay grew one of the greatest concentrations of paper mills in the United States. Their emission of pollutants much reduced, the factories now share the banks with bald eagle nests. And in the city, apartment dwellers now live in converted textile mills on the river.

The river, says Mayor Timothy Hanna, is “our most valuable resource.�

Hanna hopes that the program will help Appleton, a city of 70,000, and other communities--ranging from Portage, 72 miles to the southwest, to Green Bay, 26 miles to the northeast--create a plan for additional commercial development. He envisions restaurants, parks, hiking and jogging trails, and reconstruction of an aged, now-unused canal network known as the Fox Locks system.

Similar development plans are being drawn up in cities along the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania, New England’s 410-mile-long Connecticut River and in other aging river communities, particularly in the East and Midwest.

All told, the White House has received what one official said were dozens of inquiries about the plan from interested communities. Decisions on which 10 rivers to give the American Heritage River designation are not expected to be made until early next year.

The wave of angry opposition that greeted news of the program last spring forced the White House to extend the public comment period on it. To calm fears that the program would infringe on property rights, Clinton adopted language from an executive order signed by former President Reagan that specifically protects property owners.

Administration officials said that the program would cost no more than several thousand dollars to run--the money would be used to print brochures and create an Internet Web site advertising it--and that government employees already on the federal payroll would be given additional duties as “river navigators.�

The program does not need congressional approval. But 18 House members have introduced legislation, now pending in the Resources Committee, prohibiting the government from spending any money to support it.

Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), sponsor of the measure, offered multiple objections to the program in an interview. They boil down to concern that inviting the federal government to help solve a local problem is akin to inviting kudzu to a riverbank picnic: Nonsensical and, once the party is over, who can get it to leave?

“We don’t trust the federal government to give us a helping hand and then back out,� she said. “Local government has to say ‘no, thank you,’ to the federal government. It’s like a briar patch. When the government steps in, it means utter control.�

McGinty, the president’s senior advisor on environmental issues, has traveled the country to build support for the plan. She lets a look of exasperation cross her face when addressing complaints about the program.

“It is 100% voluntary. It is 100% driven by local concerns. It is 100% non-regulatory. It is about cutting red tape and bureaucracy. Local citizens are in the driver’s seat. They make the decisions,� she said.