The Chetco River is one of Oregon’s most glorious and pristine rivers. It’s also one of its least known — or at least it was little known until a national conservation group last week named the Chetco one of the country’s 10 most endangered rivers.

American Rivers put the Chetco in the No. 7 slot in its annual listing, even though its clear blue waters and prolific salmon and steelhead runs have few rivals anywhere in the West.

The listing was prompted by a Seattle developer’s plan to mine for gold on more than half of the 44.5-mile National Wild and Scenic segment of the river, including six miles within the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. The proposal calls for mining the gold with suction dredges, which suck up the stream bottom and the rocks and gravel that provide stable habitat critical to the survival of spawning salmon and steelhead.

The legal justification for this looming environmental outrage is a familiar nemesis: the 1872 General Mining Act, which gives miners carte blanche access to public lands, including rivers with federal wild and scenic protection such as the Chetco.

Last year, Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Rep. Peter DeFazio and Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden asked the Obama administration to take the exceptional step of formally withdrawing the Chetco and the entire Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area from new mining development. That would give Oregon’s congressional delegation time to craft longer-term legislative protections, including a blanket prohibition on mining activities in rivers that have federal wild and scenic status.

The ultimate solution, of course, is for Congress to reform the 1872 mining law and give federal agencies the right to balance mining against other uses of public lands, including watershed and fish and wildlife habitat protection.

So far the administration has responded with vague reassurances that the government will act to protect the Chetco and the Siskiyou Wild Rivers area if, in the words of Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, “it is determined that the current federal and state laws and regulations are not adequate for the protection of areas such as the South Kalmiopsis or Chetco River.”

That’s not good enough. The federal government shouldn’t wait to order a mining withdrawal until the Chetco, South Kalmiopsis or any part of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area has been damaged by suction dredging.

The mining season opens later this month. There is still time for the administration to protect the Chetco.