Thumbnail image shows map of the proposed 58,000-acre expansion of the Smith River National Recreation Area. | Image courtesy of Sen. Jeff Merkley's office. More than eight years after the Obama Administration issued a 20-year mining ban for the North Fork Smith River in Oregon, the Crescent City Council reaffirmed its support for legislation that would make that prohibition permanent. Four councilors on Monday agreed to draft a letter to U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkely and Ron Wyden, who represent Oregon, reminding them that the Smith River is where Del Norte County’s drinking water comes from and that they’ve advocated for protecting its headwaters for more than a decade. Councilor Daran Dooley was absent. But though Grant Werschkull, executive director of the Smith River Alliance, said such legislation is necessary for the January 2017 mineral withdrawal order to be permanent, he’s not sure if it will be approved this year. “Deals get made; people are working on things well beyond my knowledge,” he said. “I do know that Sens. Wyden and Merkley consider this very important. It was extremely well supported that 20-year mineral withdrawal, lots and lots of very positive comments, certainly from our community but all around Southern Oregon. Very few comments were in opposition. So we just want to continue to let them know how important it is to our community.” Werschkull also pointed out that the Trump Administration is seeking to reassess those withdrawals “because there is a great interest in restoring America’s mineral dominance.” The City Council’s letter of support comes after Merkley and Wyden introduced Senate Bill 945, the Smith River National Recreation Area Expansion Act, in March. Supported by Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, of California, the bill’s language is identical to a similar bill the City Council supported in 2022, according to a staff report from City Manager Eric Wier and City Attorney Martha Rice. The legislation aims to expand the Smith River National Recreation Area by 58,000 acres, extending its boundary into Oregon. According to a March 11, 2025 press release from Merkley’s office, the expansion would encompass Baldface Creek, Chrome Creek and other streams, permanently making them off-limits to new mining claims. The Smith River NRA Expansion Act would also require the U.S. Forest Service to prepare an updated recreation plan as well as produce a special study on the area’s streams, wetlands, fens and “potentially unstable and vulnerable aquatic habitat areas.” Crescent City and Del Norte County elected officials and community members have opposed mining on the Smith River for more than a decade. The 2017 mineral withdrawal came after the Red Flat Nickel Corporation proposed to mine an area within the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the Baldface Creek drainage, “a key tributary to the North Fork Smith,” according to Smith River Alliance’s website. On Monday, Werschkull said Red Flat Nickel Corporation’s proposal to do the drilling needed to provide documentation that could lead to a validated mining claim that sounded the alarm for the local community. He pointed out that it was a state process in Oregon back then. Currently, Homeland Nickel, a new entity, has control over those unvalidated mining claims on the North Fork Smith River in an area called the Cleopatra claim site, Werschkull said. He shared a press release with the City Council that stated the Canadian-based mineral exploration company stated that the Cleopatra claim site is one of the largest untapped nickel resources in the Continental United States. “During the 20-year period we’re in right now, no new claims can be filed, but it does not erase the unvalidated claims,” Werschkull told the City Council. “And if there’s legislation, that also does not erase the unvalidated claims. They still have to prove their work, but it makes it harder.” There are also additional protections that Oregon established, Werschkull said. Though he went along with the rest of his colleagues in approving the new letter of support for the Smith River National Recreation Area expansion, Councilor Jason Greenough said he was worried about wildfire danger, pointing out that they occur in areas that don’t appear to be well taken care of by the U.S. Forest Service or by the State of California. “Will this affect fire suppression in this area when it comes to the types of equipment that can be used? The types of drops from airplanes to suppress fires?” Greenough asked. “It’s a big deal. We could have lost Gasquet recently from our last fire, and that’s something I feel as a Council we need to weigh with this.” Werschkull told Greenough that he chairs the Smith River Collaborative, a coalition that includes representatives from two tribes, the county, the Del Norte Fire Safe Council, the timber industry and four environmental groups. The collaborative helped find funding needed to do the fuels reduction work that saved Gasquet during the 2023 Smith River Complex wildfires, he said. “If mineral withdrawal is made permanent, what that means is there is not the opportunity for new mining claims,” he said. “We need to have a proper response to wildfire.” Greenough’s colleague Candace Tinkler, former chief of interpretation for Redwood National and State Parks, pointed out that often there’s a large cost to the U.S. taxpayer for the cleanup after the mines shut down. She noted that millions of dollars are being used locally to restore habitat following the decline of the timber industry. “I care a great deal about long-term impacts to the environment and on our water, but what I want to point out to people is that we should also be looking at [it] financially,” she said. “If mines go in, it almost always, to my knowledge, ends up being U.S. citizens left to pick up the tab for cleanup. And it’s a very very large tab.”