Curry County Commissioner Court Boice hopes to get his colleagues on board with the proposed expansion of the Smith River National Recreation Area.

Boice will ask his colleagues on Wednesday to approve a letter of support to Oregon’s U.S. senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, who introduced legislation last year to expand the Smith River NRA by 58,000 acres, extending it into Curry County.

If Curry County Commissioners approve the letter of support, it will also be sent to U.S. Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin III, the committee’s ranking Republican member, Sen. John Barrasso as well as the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, Boice told the Wild Rivers Outpost.

“There’s not a lot of private land, not a lot of marketable timber, but it’s a really important watershed,” Boice said. “So, for me, it’s very easy to support and lobby and encourage for. It’s just a good proper movement forward.”

Expanding the Smith River National Recreation Area would protect the North Fork Smith River watershed and withdraw the land from new mining claims. Protected streams include Baldface Creek and Chrome Creek.

The Kalmiopsis Wilderness is also located in that area, according to Boice.

Merkley and Wyden’s legislation would also task the U.S. Forest Service with updating the recreation plan to reflect the new additions as well as produce a study of the streams, fens, wetlands and “potentially unstable and vulnerable aquatic habitats,” according to a May 2021 news release.

In his staff report for Wednesday’s meeting, Boice said both he and Oregon State Rep. David Brock Smith wrote letters of support to Sen. Merkley in support of the proposed Smith River National Recreation Area expansion in 2019 and in November 2021.

Boice said the proposed expansion of the National Recreation Area is also related to a letter of support Curry County Commissioners sent to Wyden, Merkley and Oregon Congressman, Peter DeFazio, in December supporting the Southwestern Oregon and Salmon Protection Act.

In that letter, Commissioners noted that the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act would protect the Illinois River, a tributary of the Rogue, North Fork Smith River and Hunter Creek and Pistol River, “two locally beloved salmon streams.”

If the Smith River National Recreation Area is expanded, Boice said people will still be able to have access to sight see, “rock hound,” and even hunt.

“We’re not going to be closing down a bunch of roads, but it is going to be protected,” he told the Outpost.

Curry County Commissioners will meet at 9 a.m. in the Commissioners’ Hearing Room in the Courthouse Annex, 94235 Moore Street in Gold Beach. Meetings are streamed live on You Tube and agendas are available at www.co.curry.or.us.

Documents:

• Staff Report — Smith River NRA Expansion

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