SALEM – The plane banked high above Central Oregon’s Metolius River, giving state Sen. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, a sweeping view of the winding blue ribbon below and the green patchwork of forest stretching to the Cascades.

On that April flight were Walker and her dog, Toby, and state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who owns the plane and had offered the airlift to the chairwoman of the Senate Education and General Government Committee.

At the time, Walker’s committee was considering Senate Bill 30, which would stymie destination resort development near the scenic river based on concerns that new wells could draw down springs at the base of Black Butte that feed the world-renowned waterway.

The legislation passed out of that committee April 26 and cleared the Oregon Senate on May 22.

It is now pending in the state House.

Johnson has taken more than a passing interest in Senate Bill 30, even though she is not a sponsor.

The bill itself is the handiwork of Sen. Ben Westlund, D-Tumalo.

Johnson’s advocacy should come as little surprise: Her family’s legacy intertwines with the river, and she now owns a 160-acre retreat, including a 5,000-square-foot home, surrounding the headwaters where she spent her childhood summers.

But increasingly, questions are swirling about her – and her family’s – level of involvement in that legislation.

The bill would potentially increase her property value by limiting other development near Camp Sherman.

In addition, if the legislation passes, it would make unnecessary a land use appeal she filed in January, which challenges the December decision by Jefferson County to map a zone to allow destination resorts in the area.

Johnson said she didn’t realize until this month that the appeal in her name was hers, and not her mother’s.

And in addition to supplying an airborne tour to an influential committee chairwoman, the Johnson family also has assigned its own lobbyist – officially hired by Johnson’s sister – who is trying to drum up support at the Capitol.

The senator has declared a potential conflict at every step of the bill, and nothing she’s done violates any ethics laws, officials say.

But the situation is still raising eyebrows.

”For God’s sake, she’s an appellant,” said Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day. ”People are getting more and more uncomfortable.”

Ferrioli’s district includes Jefferson County, and he blasts SB 30, saying it steamrolls the decision-making authority of the county.

The plane trip didn’t run afoul of any rules because legislators can provide transportation to each other for official business, according to the Government Standards and Practices Commission.

David Buchanan, the chairman of government watchdog group Common Cause Oregon, said Johnson has been upfront about her potential conflicts on the Metolius legislation, and fellow lawmakers will keep that in mind as they decide the fate of the bill.

However, it pushes the envelope of credibility to say that a person with a vested private interest in legislation can fly a committee chairperson on a ”fact-finding trip,” he said. Such a flight, if financed by a member of the public instead of a legislator, would draw immediate scrutiny, he said.

The revelations come as lawmakers are considering strengthening ethics laws, and as Johnson has suddenly found herself embroiled in a scandal in which she failed to declare a $119,000 profit from a land deal near the Scappoose airport.

That property value was potentially increased by legislation she introduced.

Those ripples are moving beyond the Capitol, and could hurt her future political ambitions. She has been mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate in 2010.

Johnson sits on the Senate Rules Committee, which has already passed legislation that would tighten lobbying rules. Among the provisions, the bill would limit to $50 annually the value of gifts supplied by the public or lobbyists to legislators.

In addition, lawmakers would not be able to receive free trips from lobbyists – although amendments in the Joint Ways and Means Committee could specifically allow lawmakers to provide rides to each other.

A family history

The Johnsons have owned the property surrounding the Metolius headwaters since 1904. Betsy Johnson got engaged there. The family donated the springs themselves to the public.

The ashes of her mother, longtime Redmond resident Becky Johnson, who died in January, will be buried on the property in August.

In an interview last week, Betsy Johnson said she is trying to protect a ”transcendent place,” and she is prepared to pay for as many legal appeals as necessary. She said she will not profit in any way from saving the Metolius River, except to see a national treasure preserved. Her property is not for sale.

And she freely admits that she has an emotional stake in what happens to a river that she loves, and her parents loved.

”This has never been in the interest of money,” she said. ”I simply love that place to death. We’re all citizen legislators, and we bring to the process those things we know about and care about.”

Her father, Samuel Johnson, was a timberman, state legislator and Redmond mayor who died in 1984. Her mother was an educator and longtime member of the Oregon State Board of Education.

Before Becky died in January, she fought Jefferson County’s proposal to map two destination resorts near the community of Camp Sherman.

That decision was filed in December, but is in limbo until appeals are sorted out.

The family fights development

The community of Camp Sherman, home to about 350 people, lies between the two parcels. Both are now zoned for commercial forestry.

One property is almost 640 acres, the other is roughly 30,000 acres – with 10,000 of that eligible for resorts. A development that size would be three times as big as Sunriver Resort.

Developers have told committees that they plan an eco-resort with a lodge, houses and nature trails on the smaller property. The larger one would be home to a resort with two golf courses and at least 2,500 houses.

The Metolius is a world-renowned trout fishery, and designated as a Wild and Scenic River from the edge of the Johnson’s property – where the river runs through a rusty fence – to its terminus at Lake Billy Chinook.

Campgrounds and cabins dot the shoreline as the river winds through ponderosa pine forests on the eastern flank of the Cascades.

The lobbying efforts of Betsy Johnson and her sister have ample precedent.

When the U.S. Forest Service discussed developing the rustic Riverside Campground in the mid-1980s, on the river and near the Johnson estate, into a paved facility with room for RVs, Becky Johnson hired a Washington, D.C., lobbyist to help kill the plan.

It remains a walk-in campground, Betsy Johnson said.

The family defeated a proposal to string power lines over the river, she said, and lobbied to relocate a road away from the river as part of the deal that dedicated the headwaters to the public.

The family’s Salem lobbyist was initially hired in the 1990s by Becky Johnson specifically to keep an eye out for Metolius-related bills, said that lobbyist, Jim Marquis, in an interview on Thursday.

”People don’t understand how much the river means to the Johnson family,” said Marquis, who was a Capitol staffer in 1973 and developed a working friendship with Samuel Johnson. ”It’s a legacy for them.”

Marquis said he assumed his contract would lapse with the passing of Becky Johnson, but Betsy’s sister, Patty, decided to renew because of her desire to protect the river.

This session, he is advocating for SB 30 for the Johnsons and, despite being Patty Johnson’s lobbyist, he frequently confers with Betsy Johnson.

In previous years, he spoke against a navigability plan that would have allowed open public access to the banks of the Metolius River – an issue that alarmed the Johnsons’ mother, Betsy, he said.

Providing transport

Johnson has provided air transportation this session to several fellow lawmakers.

The aircraft business she owns with her husband, Transwestern Aviation Inc., has ferried legislators on official business, including to committee meetings – and the state’s Government Standards and Practices Commission signed off on the practice in an April 9 memo.

Getting a ride from Johnson in her plane may be a more expensive way to travel, but it is treated the same as if lawmakers car pool to a meeting, said Ronald A. Bersin, executive director of the ethics commission.

Walker said Thursday that she was doing research on the Metolius River bill, so she planned to drive to Central Oregon. Johnson was on her way so offered a ride on the plane, Walker said.

”We get rides with other legislators all the time,” she said.

Westlund picked her up at the Redmond Airport, she said.

She does not need to report the flight nor Westlund’s ride as a contribution, said Walker, who checked into the propriety of the trip.

Walker’s committee passed out the Metolius legislation on April 26, but in a form that would have actually allowed the resorts to proceed. The bill was amended again in the Senate Rules Committee to again ban the resorts – but the total area that would be off-limits is smaller.

Johnson said she was not initially aware that it was her name – and not her mother’s – on the appeal of the Jefferson County decision to the Land Use Board of Appeals. She does not know how much money she might save if that appeal is settled, but said that was never a concern for a family who’s worth tens of millions.

She said her family is hardly alone in its love for the Metolius.

Groundskeepers from the Johnson estate, when cutting the grass and brush around the springs, routinely find containers with the ashes of dead people, she said.

On those days, they – as the deceased person assuredly had hoped – open the containers and let the river wash them into eternity.

”The river is sacred,” she said.