February 27, 2007
Dear friends of
Wilderness in the West—
There are just a few
items of interest this month, so we'll get right to them. But first I want to
thank you for the efforts you make to support the protection of our wild lands
and also for helping to make CalUWild an effective organization. Working
together we will continue making progress on the many issues that face us.
Thanks,
Mike
IN UTAH
1. Cosponsors Needed for
America's Redrock
Wilderness Act
(ACTION
ITEM)
2. BLM Withdraws Oil
& Gas Leases
IN CALIFORNIA
3. Wilderness Bills
Re-Introduced
More Expected
4. Wilderness Conference at
San Francisco State University
April 5-7
IN ARIZONA & NEVADA
5. Cameras and Helicopter
Training in Wilderness Areas
(2
ACTION ITEMS)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
IN UTAH
1. Cosponsors Needed for
America's
Redrock Wilderness Act
(ACTION
ITEM)
America's Redrock
Wilderness Act is set to be re-introduced in March in both the House and
Senate. With the political shift in Washington after the last election, we are
hoping to dramatically increase the profile of the Utah wilderness bill (and
others as well). There's a chance that it will pass the House in this Congress,
which would then make its passage in the Senate more likely (although not
guaranteed).
One important way of
generating enthusiasm for the legislation is to have as many cosponsors on the
bill as possible when it is introduced. California has traditionally been a state
with many cosponsors. In the last Congress we had 29 cosponsors in the House,
over half of the state's delegation.
Xavier Becerra
Howard L. Berman
Lois Capps
Susan A. Davis
Anna G. Eshoo
Bob Filner
Sam Farr
Jane Harman
Michael M. Honda
Tom Lantos
Barbara Lee
Zoe Lofgren
Doris Okada Matsui
Juanita Millender-McDonald
George Miller
Grace F. Napolitano
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Linda T. Sanchez
Loretta Sanchez
Adam B. Schiff
Brad Sherman
Hilda L. Solis
Fortney Pete Stark
Ellen O. Tauscher
Mike Thompson
Maxine Waters
Diane E. Watson
Henry A. Waxman
Lynn C. Woolsey
Sen. Barbara Boxer
With the departure of
Rep. Richard Pombo and the more favorable climate in Washington we could pick
up a few more this time around.
So please call your
representatives in the next few weeks. If their names are on the list above,
thank them for their past support for Utah. If their names are not on the list, now is the time for them to become
cosponsors. In either event, tell them why Utah is important to you and ask
them to become an original cosponsor (meaning that they are listed at the time
the bill is introduced).
Utah Wilderness
enthusiasts will be visiting Capitol Hill offices in March, but is it critical
that representatives hear from their own constituents as well.
If you don't know who
your representative is, you can look up names at www.congress.org. Complete contact
information is on that website. (CalUWild's is still being updated.) You can
also call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to
your representative's office.
2. BLM Withdraws Oil & Gas
Leases
Decisions about leasing
on BLM lands are made by the state BLM offices and local field offices.
However, in Washington, DC, the Interior Department has Board of Land Appeals
(IBLA), set up to review decisions made at those levels.
Last month, the IBLA
ruled against the BLM for leasing areas near Nine Mile Canyon, near Price,
Utah. Nine Mile Canyon contains a rich collection of rock art. The Board said
that BLM had not adequately consulted with Native American tribes before
offering the leases. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had protested the
leases to the Utah BLM before they were offered, but the protest was denied.
This ruling is the latest
in a series of setbacks to the Utah BLM office on leasing for oil & gas.
The IBLA has ruled against it on other leases issued since 2003 and the federal
district court in Salt Lake City overturned other leases last year as well.
One of the arguments
frequently used by the extractive industries is that environmentalists' appeals
are holding back energy production. The fact of the matter is that only a very
small percentage of leases are appealed. In addition there are many leases that
have been issued but are sitting undeveloped. It seems that the rush to lease
has been a purposeful effort by the administration to permanently remove lands
from consideration for protection.
IN CALIFORNIA
3. Wilderness Bills Re-Introduced
More Expected
Earlier this month, Sen.
Barbara Boxer and Rep. Hilda Solis (D-32) reintroduced their California Wild
Heritage Act, the comprehensive statewide bill designating wilderness in may
areas of the Golden State. The legislation covers more than 2.4 million acres
of federal land. If passed, it would also give several rivers "Wild &
Scenic" status, protecting them from development.
Sen. Boxer has indicated
that she will work with other California representatives to craft regional wilderness
bills, similar to last year's North Coast bill that passed. Strong
possibilities are another bill by Rep. Buck McKeon's (R-25) district in the
Eastern Sierra and a bill by Rep. Mary Bono (R-45) around Palm Springs.
We'll keep you posted on
the bills' progress.
4. Wilderness Conference at San
Francisco State University
April 5-7
A reminder: CalUWild is
helping organize a conference on wilderness at San Francisco State University,
April 5-7. The purpose is to get people together from varied backgrounds and
with different perspectives, in order to see how the wilderness movement might
include a broader spectrum of the population. We hope you'll be able to attend
for one or more days.
Registration and other
information can be found on the conference
website.
5. Cameras and Helicopter
Training in Wilderness Areas
(2
ACTION ITEMS)
Some of our federal land
management agencies and personnel seem to lack a basic understanding of what
wilderness designation means and how the Wilderness Act is written and to be
interpreted as law. One of the most effective things to steer them in the right
direction is for citizens to write when necessary to defend the wilderness
values and character defined by the 1964 Wilderness Act and that offending
behavior be stopped. The other resort is litigation.
There are two examples
currently. The first is in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. The
Fish & Wildlife Service recently proudly announced
that it will soon be installing streaming live video cameras in the refuge to
view wildlife. What the announcement doesn't mention is that the sites proposed
are in designated wilderness. As fun and interesting as it might be to view
wildlife over the Internet, technology of that sort has no place in wilderness.
Section 4(c) of the
Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1133 (c)) states that except as "required in
emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area[], there
shall be ... no structure or installation within any such area." That is
extremely plain language, and one would be hard pressed to find that video
cameras set up to view wildlife fall within the exception.
Setting up video cameras
may have practical effects on wildlife as well. The Refuge is open to hunters,
and by having streaming video of animals, it will announce to anyone interested
the presence of bighorn sheep or mule deer at the photo spot, giving them or
their hunting companions an unfair advantage over the animals, beyond what
might be considered fair chase. Cameras also increase the possibility of
poaching during the off-season for the same reasons.
Please send a letter to
the Refuge objecting to the plans to install cameras in designated wilderness.
Address it to:
J. Paul Cornes, Manager
356
W. 1st Street
Yuma,
Arizona 85364
Phone:
928-783-7861
Fax:
928-783-8611
The second example is the
plan by the Las Vegas Office of the BLM to allow helicopter emergency training
in wilderness areas around that city.
The comment deadline has
just passed, but the issue is serious enough that we encourage you to submit
comments to the BLM anyway. The agency is still required to take comments
received past the deadline into consideration if it can; it is just not legally
required to respond to the
concerns you raise.
The following alert comes
from the Sierra Club's CA/NV Desert and Wilderness Committees.
The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) in Las Vegas is proposing to allow extensive Search and Rescue
crew training using helicopters in the Rainbow Mountain and La Madre Mountain
Wilderness areas just west of Las Vegas This daytime training would take place
on 10 Saturdays every year from January to September, with a maximum of 60
helicopter landings each session-or 600 each year! In addition, pilot training would call for another 72
helicopter landings.
The Wilderness Act does
not allow use of motorized vehicles in Wilderness. It has specific exceptions for landing of aircraft "in
emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area." It also has an exception for agency use
"the minimum necessary for the administration of the area AS
wilderness." Training
activities are not included in any exceptions. We believe that this proposal by the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police Dept. (MPD) is totally out of line with the letter and intent of the
Wilderness Act and should be prohibited.
Please contact the BLM
immediately (comment deadline is FEB. 26) and ask them to:
¥ Prohibit search and
rescue crew training in Wilderness areas
¥ Consider alternate
sites in the area for crew trainings to take place outside of Wilderness. (There are some alternative sites with
similar (though of course not identical) cliffs to those in the Rainbow
Mountain and La Madre Mountain Wildernesses.
¥ Carefully document all
actual rescues of the last few years to ascertain which could have been
conducted with helicopter assist.
(MPD says there are 15 to 20 rescues per year, and that ALL have had the
use of helicopters. It seems
reasonable to assume that helicopters were called in often just because they
were readily available, and that many rescues, especially non-life threatening
ones, could be achieved with ground crews only.
¥ Conduct more vigorous
public education about wilderness for visitors to the Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area. Visitors need to
know that Wilderness is a place apart from the trappings of modern
civilization, including medical life support. They should go to the Wilderness
portion of Red Rocks only if they understand this fundamental wilderness
characteristic and are willing to assume some personal risk. (Note: when I visited Red Rocks last
year, volunteers running the Visitor Center did not even know that part of the
NCA is now wilderness!)
Send comment to:
Mr.
Juan Palma - BLM Manager
4701 N. Torrey
Pines Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89130-2301
Or by email to:
Extra talking points
(pick one or two if you wish, but PLEASE put such thoughts IN YOUR OWN WORDS):
*** The Wilderness Act of 1964 and later acts for
many more wilderness areas made a strong statement about our national social
and environmental values. We count
on BLM, the responsible agency, to maintain our wilderness values and assure
that any activity proposals like this one from Las Vegas MPD must be modified
or prohibited to be in compliance with the law.
*** BLM should make sure that trails are signed so
people know when they are entering the wilderness.
*** Urge BLM to follow their responsibilities in
maintaining "opportunities for solitude" (a principal characteristic
of wilderness) in these areas that are already severely impacted by excessive
tourism helicopter flight noises.
More helicopter noises should be strenuously avoided.
*** The fact that these wildernesses are so near
to a major metropolitan area (which is rapidly growing on its west side, near
Red Rocks) means that many more residents as well as visitors will be impacted
by the excessive helicopter noise such trainings would bring. Noise from helicopters
operating in the canyons is amplified by echoing off the walls and is
especially disturbing, to both humans and wildlife.
*** You can mention any relevant personal thought
about what wilderness means to YOU.
Thanks for writing the
BLM in defense of Wilderness! They
need to hear many voices tell them, very simply, that wilderness is important
and they need to follow the law.