Congress is steering a bill through the final rapids that would add 315 miles of Idaho rivers to the Wild and Scenic Rivers system that Idaho Sen. Frank Church helped create 40 years ago this month.

A massive lands bill, which includes Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo's Owyhee Canyonlands bill, would protect portions of the Owyhee and Bruneau rivers, Big Jacks Creek and their tributaries. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the lands bill in November, after the election.

If passed, it would add 852.8 miles of rivers in Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming and Massachusetts to the system Church created out of his effort to protect the Salmon River. The 1968 law already has protected 574 miles of six of the rivers that run through Idaho by keeping development under control, keeping the waterways free of dams, and ensuring the rivers are clean.

Unlike the more restrictive Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic River Act does not prohibit motorized use. That's why jet boats motor through the raging rapids of the Salmon River and the Snake River through Hells Canyon, two of the state's wild rivers.

That has prompted some environmentalists to suggest the law is not tough enough. But Bill Sedivy, executive director of Idaho Rivers United, said the law protects outstanding natural and cultural values that make the rivers national treasures.

"What the act is really good at is protecting the status quo," Sedivy said.

RIVERS LAW EVOLVES FROM DAM FIGHTS

Church began his river conservation efforts in the 1950s after he saw thousands of salmon die when Idaho Power erected its Hells Canyon dams. He introduced the Salmon River Preservation Act in 1959, only two years after pushing for a high dam on the Snake River downstream.

"We have sufficient dam sites available on our other major rivers to provide all of the water storage, the power, the flood control and the navigational benefits that the growing needs of the Northwest may require," Church said on the floor of the Senate in 1960.

Over the next eight years, Church's ideas evolved, said his widow, Bethine. Instead of simply protecting the Salmon, Church expanded his vision to protecting rivers nationwide. But the Salmon was always on his mind.

He faced stiff opposition from some Western congressmen, who kept the bill from final passage. But he continued despite the political costs. Bethine Church compared his struggles to a trip they took down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River with their two sons, Forrest and Chase, during the time when the bill's fate was up in the air.

The Church family had an especially rough trip, and the guide apologized for getting them into a dangerous situation.

"Frank replied, 'It's like the river of no return: You can't look back.' "

He worked out compromises, especially with irrigation interests worried about limits on future development and state control of water. Finally, on Oct. 2, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act into law.

"What Church created was this consensus community idea of environmental legislation," said Sara Dant, an environmental historian at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. "You look at the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act - with its different levels of protection - it allows a whole lot more people to get on board."

The law has three levels of protection: wild, the toughest; scenic, which is less restrictive; and recreation, the least restrictive.

The Middle Fork of the Salmon River and the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River, which includes the Lochsa and the Selway rivers, were among the first eight rivers designated nationwide. Church had to wait until he passed the Central Idaho Wilderness Act in 1980 to protect 125 miles of the Salmon.

That was the last time wild and scenic rivers were designated in Idaho.

WATER TALKS ARE KEY TO FUTURE

The major hurdle since then has been water rights.

The water rights language in the 1968 legislation was confusing regarding whether the federal government reserved water rights when it designated wild rivers.

In 2001, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that wild and scenic designations reserved federal water rights, a direct challenge to the sovereignty of the state over water management.

It forced federal attorneys, environmentalists and Idaho water users to sit down and negotiate an agreement that quantified how much water in the existing wild and scenic rivers came under federal rights to protect the rivers. They also agreed to subordinate some of those rights to the state to allow some level of future water development upstream.

It was that agreement that opened the way to adding the Owyhee, Bruneau and Jacks Creek watersheds to the system. Crapo organized similar negotiations that will allow some future development upstream of those rivers and protect existing uses.

"I see the water rights provisions as a major flaw," Sedivy said. "Out of the 166 rivers designated, the vast majority have never been sorted out."

Working out how much water is necessary to protect the wild, scenic and recreational uses of the river should be done up front, he said. It's necessary if Crapo can reach his goal of adding more of the state's rivers to the system.

Idaho water users oppose wild and scenic designations because national environmental groups insist the federal reserved rights are included, said Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association. But when the water issues are worked out ahead of time, as is proposed in the Owyhees legislation, his group won't fight it.

"If it's something that can protect state sovereignty and current and future water supplies, we'll talk," Semanko said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484