July 21, 2006
Dear CalUWild friends
–
There's good news and bad
news on the Western wilderness front this month, so please read on and write
letters or make phone calls as needed. Please note:
A couple of the items are URGENT. We try hard not to include last
minute pleas, but sometimes they are unavoidable.
Item 2 discusses the
passage of the North Coast Wilderness Bill by the House Resources Committee
this week. At the same hearing, the committee also passed two other bills. One
would designate some 77,000 acres of wilderness in the Mt. Hood National Forest
in Oregon.
The second bill is more
controversial: the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act
(CIEDRA), sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson (R) of Idaho. CIEDRA would designate
315,000 acres of wilderness in the Boulder-White Cloud Mountains. However, it
also transfers lands to local counties and cities to be sold off for
development. In other words, land belonging to all of us is being given to
finance purely local projects. The bill has caused a split within the
conservation community, with The Wilderness Society and Idaho Conservation
League supporting the legislation, while the Sierra Club, Wilderness Watch, and
the Idaho Wildlife Federation oppose it.
Although the bill was
reportedly crafted by a locally-driven consensus process, the result is one
that sets a bad precedent for future wilderness bills. CalUWild is very
concerned with the accelerating trend toward privatization of publicly-owned
resources, as well as weak or even harmful management language for newly
designated wilderness areas. Both of these are serious concerns with CIEDRA,
and for those reasons we have decided to oppose this legislation in its current
form. We'll keep you posted as the bill makes its way through Congress.
It's a shaping up to be a
hot summer here in California, so I hope you are able to get away to the
mountains or the coast for some cooler weather and enjoy the outdoors.
Thanks for writing your
letters in support of wilderness!
Mike
IN UTAH
1. Flawed Public Lands Bill
Introduced for
Washington County
Contact Sen.
Feinstein
(ACTION
ITEM—URGENT)
IN CALIFORNIA
2. North Coast Wilderness
Bill Passes Resources Committee
(ACTION
ITEM)
3. Eagle Lake BLM
Planning
DEADLINE:
JULY 27
(ACTION ITEM)
4. Court Rules
Against Dams in Emigrant Wilderness
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
IN UTAH
1. Flawed Public Lands Bill
Introduced for
Washington County
Contact Sen.
Feinstein
(ACTION
ITEM—URGENT)
Capping off the last few
months of speculation, Sen. Bob Bennett (R) of Utah last week introduced the
Washington County Growth and Conservation Act (S.3606). Despite public
misgivings and outcry over the original proposal, Sen. Bennett made few changes
in the legislation between the time it was unveiled and its introduction. The
House version (H.R.5769) was introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson (D).
The bill would:
¥ Sell off or exchange at least
24,300 acres of public land.
¥ Use the revenue from the sale of
federal public lands to pay out millions (perhaps much more) to local
governmental entities for activities like road building and water developments
rather than using the funds to buy inholdings or restore habitat.
¥ Deny protection for the most
at-risk wild lands in the Zion-Mojave proposed wilderness. Over 200,000 acres
of Zion-Mojave wilderness quality lands—proposed as wilderness in
America's Red Rock Wilderness Act (H.R. 1774/S. 882)—are left
unprotected.
¥ Strip protection from over 15
square miles of congressionally protected wilderness study areas.
¥ Fragment public lands with a
network of corridors and routes for pipelines, roads, and utilities.
¥ Authorize the creation of an
off-road vehicle trail system across the county at the expense of other
recreational interests.
¥ Undermine important environmental
laws that ensure public participation and environmental review.
The bill is being
referred to the Senate Environment & Natural Resources Committee, of which
California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein is a member. There
may be a hearing on the bill as early as next week. It is important that Sen. Feinstein have the
backing of her constituents if she is to stand up for the protection of public
lands. Therefore, she needs to hear from Californians regarding their concerns
about the bill. Sen. Feinstein was the champion of the California Desert
Protection Act in 1994. Unfortunately, Sen. Bennett's bill does not afford the
same protections to Utah's corner of the Mojave Desert that Sen. Feinstein's
did to California. She should work to rectify that in the Committee.
At this point, it is probably best to fax
Sen. Feinstein at her Washington, DC office:
202-228-3954
You can also write to one of her California offices:
One Post St., Suite
2450
San Francisco,
CA 94104
or
11111 Santa Monica
Boulevard, Suite 915
Los Angeles,
CA 90025
Finally, you can phone her at:
202-224-3841
415-393-0707
or
310-914-7300
Thank you for helping to protect Wild Utah!
IN CALIFORNIA
2. North Coast Wilderness
Bill Passes Resources Committee
(ACTION
ITEM)
On Tuesday of this week, the
House Resources Committee approved Rep. Mike Thompson's (D-1) Northern
California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act (H.R.233). It now goes to the
full House for a vote. The bill already passed the Senate (S.128) last year.
The committee changed a
few of the wilderness boundaries due to some local concerns, but overall the
bill enjoys support from a broad spectrum of the public and government
officials, both local and state.
Now is the time to
contact your congressional representative and tell him or her that the bill
will be coming up for a House vote and urge a vote in favor of it. A full
listing of contact information for California congressional offices may be
found on CalUWild's website.
URGENT NOTE:
Just as this Update was being sent out, word came in that the bill will probably be
voted on in the House on Tuesday, along with the other bills mentioned above.
Please call your representative first thing Monday morning.
3. Eagle Lake BLM Planning
DEADLINE:
JULY 27
(ACTION ITEM)
All across the West, the Bureau
of Land Management is updating its "Resource Management Plans" (RMPs) These
plans are critically important because they will guide the agency's
decision-making for the next 15 -20 years. It is therefore important that the
public be involved in the development of the plans.
Among the least visited
areas of California is its northeast corner, which still contains many wild and
remote areas. The three BLM field offices in the area are updating their RMPs,
providing an excellent opportunity for citizens to provide input. Sorry for the
short deadline—unfortunately information has been slow in reaching us, so
we are able to share comment suggestions regarding only one of them: Eagle
Lake.
We are hoping to have
more information for the Surprise and Alturas Field Offices in the immediate
future, so if you are interested in commenting on those, please send an e-mail
to info@caluwild.org, and we'll send it
to you right away!
The following information
comes from the California Wilderness Coalition and Vicky Hoover at the Sierra
Club.
Please help protect
northeastern California's and northwestern Nevada's remote high desert region!
The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) has released a Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) for three
field offices in Northeast California and northwest Nevada. This alert deals
only with one of these, the Eagle Lake Field Office.
The Eagle Lake Field
Office in northeastern California's Lassen, Sierra and Plumas Counties and
northwestern Nevada's Washoe County. The BLM has stewardship responsibility
over 1,022,767 acres (1,598 square-miles) of grasslands, sagebrush flats, deep
canyons, steep mountains, innumerable caves, and spires of volcanic rock in
this region. Herds of pronghorn antelope, Rocky Mountain elk, and mule deer
graze this rugged landscape, while golden eagles ply the winds above and sage
grouse flit quietly from shrub to shrub. When the Draft RMP is finalized, it
will serve as the BLM's blueprint for managing the region over the next decade
or more.
Sadly, over the years
this region has been slowly filled with roads for mining, to support livestock
grazing, for utility development, and for recreation. Despite this, the lands
comprising the Eagle Lake Field Office still contain tens of thousands of acres
of wilderness-quality lands from the rugged Skedaddle Mountains to the
petroglyph-etched rocks of Tunnison Mountain. It is essential that the BLM
begin managing the area as one of our nation's most unique natural treasures
and not as a region fit only for mines, livestock, powerlines, and roads.
What you can do
Your comments on the
Eagle Lake Draft RMP can help influence the development of the final plan for
the area. To help with this effort, please mail, fax, or e-mail a letter by
July 27, 2006 to:
Eagle
Lake RMP Comments
Attention:
Planning Coordinator
Bureau
of Land Management
Eagle
Lake Field Office
2950
Riverside Drive
Susanville,
CA 96130
Fax: 530-257-4831
E-mail: necarmp@ca.blm.gov
If you have visited BLM lands in Northeast California or Northwest
Nevada, such as the "Buffalo /Smoke" Hills or the Skedaddle Mts., let
BLM know of your personal experience.
In your letter, please thank the BLM for proposing to:
¥ Close roads in several
wilderness study areas.
¥ Allow fires to play an
important role in maintaining the high desert's ecological health.
¥ Confine vehicles to
designated routes.
¥ Manage most of the areas
between open vehicle routes for non-motorized or primitive recreation.
¥ Designate seven areas of
critical environmental concern.
¥ Acquire public rights of
way along abandoned railroad grades so they can become non-motorized trails.
¥ Build new non-motorized
trails.
¥ Manage Smoke Creek as a
wild and scenic river.
These actions deserve our appreciative support! BLM may get criticisms on these proposals from people intent
on maximizing motorized recreation.
Areas of Critical
Environmental Concern (ACECs)
BLM proposes
establishing seven new Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) for the
Eagle Lake field office area. Thank the BLM for proposing these special
protective areas.
Specific ACEC issues
to comment on:
1) Rights of way (for travel
routes):
Thank BLM especially for excluding the proposed Pine Dunes, Susan River, Eagle
Lake, North Dry Valley and Buffalo Creek ACECs from establishment of rights of
way (for travel routes). Urge that the Willow Creek ACEC be excluded from any
rights of way for water diversions or dam construction. The Lower Smoke Creek
ACEC would be excluded from rights of way UNLESS WSA status were removed. Urge
that BLM eliminate consideration of removing WSA status for this area. Also ask
that the Aspen Way proposed ACEC also be closed to development of
rights-of-way.
2) Recreational management (ROS
Spectrum):
One proposed ACEC, Buffalo Creek, would be partly in a "primitive"
and partly in a "backcountry" designation under the prescriptions for
managing recreation (in agency jargon known as the Recreation Opportunity
Spectrum, or ROS). "Backcountry" designation allows for motorized
vehicle use, whereas "primitive" does not. So ask for the proposed
Buffalo Creek ACEC to be managed entirely under the ROS category of
"primitive".
3) Visual Resources (Viewsheds):
The Susan River area is currently managed in the Visual Resource (VRM) category
#II, (#I is the most strictly regulated to guard views from human development),
and the RMP proposes to lower it to VRM II/III, which is undesirable. Urge BLM not to lower the VRM category
in any WSA or proposed ACEC.
4) Grazing:
Pine Dunes and Susan River are closed to grazing; Eagle Lake Basin is open to
limited grazing. Urge closure of Eagle Lake Basin to grazing, to protect
sensitive vegetation and to put its management on the same course as Pine Dunes
and Susan River.
5) OHV Management:
The Eagle Lake office proposes that all its ACECS be closed to Off-road vehicle
use, or at the least that such use be kept to routes that are presently
designated. This is a good plan; thank them for this foresight in managing
ORV/OHV use.
Wild & Scenic
Rivers
The Draft plan finds portions of
the Susan River, Willow Creek, upper Smoke Creek, and lower Smoke Creek to be
eligible for W&SR status, but recommends designation only for upper Smoke Creek. Ask them to
recommend eligible portions of Susan River, Willow Creek, and lower Smoke Creek
as well.
Sage Grouse Protection
The document includes some
helpful conditions and restrictions on activity in order to protect sensitive sage grouse, but provisions are not sufficient to
protect the populations in the area. The Preferred Alternative prescribes
"no surface occupancy" (NSO) stipulations for oil and gas activities
within .25 to .6 miles of sage grouse "leks" (courtship areas).
Alternative 2, the Ecosystem Restoration Alternative, contains conflicting and
unclear restrictions for oil and gas management. Please ask BLM to strengthen
and clarify the protection for sage grouse.
Finally, please ask
the BLM to choose Alternative 2 as its Proposed Management Plan, in the final
version of the RMP rather than the present Preferred Alternative, because
Alternative 2 is significantly better for the environment. However, they should
modify Alternative 2 in two ways to strengthen protection for key roadless
areas:
¥ Manage all wilderness study areas
as primitive zones.
¥ Manage the core portions of the
Observation Peak, Shaffer Mountain, Shinn Mountain, Skedaddle Flats, Skedaddle
West and Snowstorm Mountain Roadless Areas as primitive zones.
If you would like more
information, please contact Gordon Johnson of the California Wilderness Legacy
Project at (530) 242-1912 or at gjohnson@ridgeline.net
4. Court Rules Against
Dams in Emigrant Wilderness
Last month, the Federal District
Court in Fresno, California ruled that the Forest Service must allow small dams
in the Emigrant Wilderness to deteriorate naturally.
These dams were the
subject of an Action
Item in a previous CalUWild Update in which we asked our members to urge the Stanislaus National Forest
to do just that. Unfortunately, they decided to maintain 11 of the 18 dams, and
allow six to deteriorate naturally. The dams were built in the 1920s and 30s to
augment stream flows for fishery enhancement.
Wilderness Watch and the
High Sierra Hikers Association filed suit, and although HSHA was removed on
debatable grounds and the case moved to Fresno, the judge upheld contention
that the Forest Service's decision went against the 1964 Wilderness Act. The
Forest Service has not announced whether it will appeal the decision.
Wilderness Watch made
available some excerpts from the court's opinion, which are worth sharing:
On the Forest Service
argument that the Wilderness Act is ambiguous and allows agencies discretion to
interpret what Congress meant by "no structures" in Wilderness:
... the text of the
Wilderness Act provides no indication that Congress intended to exempt existing
dams in wilderness areas from the general prohibition against "structures" or
"installations." The court must conclude the plain and unambiguous
text of the Wilderness Act speaks directly to the activity at issue in this
case—repairing, maintaining and operating dam
"structures"—and prohibits that activity... .Based on the
foregoing, the court concludes the proposed actions in this case—the
repair, maintenance and operation of the dam structures—are clearly and
unambiguously contrary to the provisions of the Wilderness Act.
On the Forest Service
claim that it struck a balance—and that fishery enhancement legitimizes
the project:
While Forest Service
casts the changes brought about by the dams as achieving a balance of sorts
between amphibians and fish; the fact remains that the balance is being struck
between the historically established amphibious species, whose habitat is
diminished in the balance, and the historically absent fish species, whose
presence is the result of relatively recent human endeavor.
On the Forest Service
argument that the dams meet the "recreational" purpose of Wilderness:
While fishing is an
activity that is common among visitors to wilderness areas, neither fishing nor
any other particular activity is endorsed by the Wilderness Act, nor is the
enhancement of any particular recreational potential a necessary duty of
wilderness area management ... .
The wilderness that
the Act seeks to preserve is not defined by reference to any particular
recreational opportunity or potential utility, but rather by reference to the
land's status or condition as being "Federal land retaining its primeval character
and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation [. . .
.]" ¤ 1131(c).
Because it is not
possible to infer from this language that establishment (much less enhancement)
of opportunities for a particular form of human recreation is the purpose of
the Wilderness Act, it is not possible to conclude that enhancement of
fisheries is an activity that is "necessary to meet minimum requirements
for the administration of the area for the purpose of this chapter."
On the Forest Service argument
that the dams meet the "historical" purpose of Wilderness:
Absent a declaration
by Congress of the need to restore and preserve the dam structures in
recognition of their historical significance, there is nothing the court can
point to that would authorize such an action where the maintenance of the dams
would otherwise come into conflict with the Wilderness Act.
The area manifested
its wilderness characteristics before the dams were in place and would lose
nothing in the way of wilderness values were the dams not present. What would
be lost is some enhancement of a particular use of the area (fishing), but that
use, while perhaps popular, is not an integral part of the wilderness nature of
that area.
On the Forest Service
argument that the dams are allowed because they are substantially unnoticeable
in the Wilderness:
Defendants draw a
distinction between the settlement structures in Mainella, and the dams in the
instant case which, Defendants contend, are small, low, and visually integrated
into the natural surroundings... . Distinctions such as unobtrusive and
harmonious with the natural environment involve subjective judgments that may
vary depending on the interests of the observer. The Wilderness Act's
prohibition against structures is categorical so far as the court can
determine, allowing only those exceptions that are specifically set forth in
the Act or in Congress's designation of a particular wilderness area, neither
of which apply here.
Finally, on Intervenor's
(California Trout) claim that the Wilderness Act isn't a "purist
manifesto":
Interveners' first
contention is summarized completely by the heading given to the argument -
"The Wilderness Act Is Not A Purist Manifesto." [S]ubjective
characterizations aside, the Wilderness Act is as close to an outcome-oriented
piece of environmental legislation as exists. Unlike NEPA, or the Clean Air or
Clean Water Acts, the Wilderness Act emphasizes outcome (wilderness
preservation) over procedure. As such, it is as close to a "purist manifesto"
as may be found in the area of environmental law.