December 18, 2006
Dear CalUWild supporters—
There is a lot to report on this month. The 109th Congress has finished its work, with generally favorable results. (See Item 6 for a quick wrap-up.) I was out of the country for most of November, so there was no Update last month. Of course, by now everyone knows the outcome of the election, and there’s no need to repeat it all now. But the news that Rep. Richard Pombo (R-11) lost his re-election bid, and consequently his chairmanship of the House Resources Committee, came as especially welcome news to many. San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi will be sworn in as Speaker on January 4. She’s never been a cosponsor of much of the legislation we’ve championed, but she has been supportive of our concerns. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), another supporter, will assume the chairmanship of the “Natural Resources” Committee, its name reverting to the time before the Republican majority.
Rep. Pelosi’s speakership and the changeover in committee assignments, at the very least, will increase the likelihood that the voices of the conservation community are heard on Capitol Hill.
A word about dues: Membership in CalUWild is free; our only membership requirement is that each member write one letter a month on some wilderness or public lands issue. However, we do rely on our members for financial support. Even though we run CalUWild on a very tight budget where every penny counts, funding from outside sources has never been abundant or sufficient.
We’re making some changes in the way dues are being handled. Rather than try to keep track of what month members joined, from now on we’re going to send out reminders in November each year for the following year. In an effort to save funds, we’re only sending out written reminders and cards to people who have contributed in the past. CalUWild does not send out any direct mail solicitations, nor do we sell our members’ names addresses to other organizations for any reason.
General dues paid to CalUWild may be used to support lobbying activities and are therefore not tax-deductible. If you wish to make a tax-deductible contribution, it needs to be made payable to Resource Renewal Institute. Please see Item 7 for a more detailed discussion.
Many thanks to those who have already so generously responded to our appeal. If you haven’t sent in a contribution, please consider doing so soon. We appreciate all the support we receive.
All the best to you and your families for the holiday season and in 2007!
Mike
IN UTAH
1. Washington County Bill Goes Nowhere
2. Wilderness Week in Washington, DC
March 17-21, 2007
Volunteers Needed
(ACTION ITEM)
3. Announcing Utah Backcountry Volunteers:
Service Projects on Your Public Lands
IN CALIFORNIA
4. Truckee City Council Votes Down
Contract with Utah Coal-Fired Plant
Thank You Letters/Faxes Needed
(ACTION ITEM)
5. Medicine Lake Victory
IN GENERAL
6. Congressional Roundup
a. California
b. Nevada
c. New Mexico
d. Montana
e. Idaho
ADMINISTRATIVE
7. CalUWild Annual Membership Appeal
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
IN UTAH
1. Washington County Bill Goes Nowhere
Much of CalUWild’s legislative energy in 2007 went into opposing the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act, a bill that would have encouraged growth and the sale of public lands in the southwest corner of Utah. The bill was introduced by Sen. Bob Bennett (R) and Rep. Jim Matheson, both of Utah. The conservation community unanimously opposed the proposal in both the Senate and House.
In November, a subcommittee of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee held a hearing on the bill, but they did not vote to send it to the full committee. Sen. Bennett did not attach it to any other pending legislation, as had been feared. Thus the bill died.
Sen. Bennett has said he will re-introduce the bill in the 110th Congress. If he does, we will again oppose it unless he makes major modifications to it. Whether he will remains to be seen.
2. Wilderness Week in Washington, DC
March 17-21, 2007
Volunteers Needed
(ACTION ITEM)
Every year the Utah Wilderness Coalition brings citizens to Washington, DC to meet with senators and congressional representatives (or their staffs) to educate them about the deep love that people have for the wildlands of Utah and the need to protect it permanently through legislation, specifically America’s Redrock Wilderness Act. It’s also a wonderful opportunity for volunteers to see government up close.
No special knowledge or experience is necessary, except for a willingness to share your enthusiasm. A full training session will be held on Sunday, March 18 to bring participants up to date on issues and meeting strategies. UWC will cover airfare, but participants are expected to cover their own lodging. (Information on lower cost accommodations will be provided—or stay with a friend.)
Since our congressional delegation is the largest, Californians always make up a large group at Wilderness Week. And since it’s a brand new Congress, we’ll be visiting every office. So if you’re interested in being a part of this fun event, or for more information, please send e-mail to info@caluwild.org or give me a call at 415-752-3911.
We look forward to hearing from you!
3. Announcing Utah Backcountry Volunteers:
Service Projects on Your Public Lands
CalUWild put most of its effort into helping people effectively exercise their responsibilities as citizens in the political and administrative arenas. But there are other efforts just as worthy of your support. When we become aware of them, we also inform our members of opportunities to work on the ground to protect and restore our public lands.
This Summer a couple of longtime Utah wilderness enthusiasts founded a new organization to work with federal land management agencies setting up volunteer service trips in the state. Last week Utah Backcountry Volunteers sent out the schedule for 2007. Below is their announcement.
CalUWild is happy to work with and support UBV in any way it can, and we encourage you to sign up for a trip!
Utah Backcountry Volunteers – Our Program
Utah Backcountry Volunteers is Utah’s newest nonprofit service organization. Our mission is to partner with public land management agencies in Utah by leading volunteers on work service trips. We partner with agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, and National Park Service to identify on-the-ground projects and needs, then actively recruit, organize, and lead volunteers on service trips that restore, repair and maintain our public lands.
We are very excited to announce the 2007 service trip schedule for our inaugural season in the field. Reserve your place on a trip today to plan a week next year out enjoying Utah’s spectacular public lands, and contribute some muscle to keep it that way!
We limit trip size to 12: our director Dave Pacheco, an agency staffer, and 10 participants (you). Work is with hand tools provided by agencies and is generally active and at times strenuous. Being in good physical condition is important. All trips begin at 8:00am Sunday morning with an orientation by our agency partner, then travel to and make camp. We’ll work 8 hour days Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday with Wednesday as a free day, breaking down camp Saturday morning and heading home. The participant fee for each trip is $175, which includes food for the week. Travel to and from the worksite is your responsibility. Participants must be at least 18 years old and have health insurance.
2007 Service Trip Schedule
April 15-21, Price BLM, San Rafael Swell, Sid’s Mountain, Trail work
On our very first service trip, you’ll conduct a trail maintenance project on the “Boy Scout trail” up the eastern side of Sid’s Mountain, with one day of work on the loop trail between Crack and Chute canyons. Work consists of remarking trail signs and maintenance from the trailhead to the top. We’ll car and tent camp at the trailhead in a remote location. Area hike options: Sid’s Mountain, San Rafael River, San Rafael Reef, canyons of the San Rafael Swell.
April 29-May 5, Glen Canyon NRA, Lower Escalante River, Russian olive removal work
You’ll join backcountry ranger Bill Wolverton, removing non-native Russian olive trees from the Escalante River. This trip begins and ends as a strenuous 7 mile backpack across mostly slickrock to and from the river to a camp near the mouth of Twenty-Five Mile Wash. After cutting, the herbicide Garlon4 will be applied to the tree stump. You will need goggles, work boots and leather gloves. This is a remote tent camping opportunity in one of southern Utah’s most spectacular redrock canyons. Area hike options: Escalante River, Twenty-Five Mile Wash, Baker Canyon.
May 13-19, Grand Staircase-Escalante NM, Upper Escalante River, Russian olive and tamarisk removal work
In partnership with federal public land agencies, state, and private landowners, you’ll remove non-native Russian olive trees from the Escalante River, and Russian olive and tamarisk from North Creek. After cutting trees, the herbicide Garlon4 will be applied to the stump. All personal protective equipment is provided by GSENM, except work boots. Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, located 1.5 miles from the town of Escalante, is providing car and tent camping sites complete with vault toilets and showers. Area hike options are numerous: The Box Death Hollow, Calf Creek, and the Escalante River.
June 10-16, Manti-LaSal NF, Ferron, 12 Mile Canyon Twin Lakes, ORV damage control work
You’ll conduct ORV damage control in the 12 Mile Canyon area around Twin Lakes in the Manti-LaSal NF, Ferron Ranger District. Access to the worksite is from the Sanpete county town of Mayfield, on the west side of the Manti Mountains. The project addresses ORV damage by erecting log & block and other fencing, as well as rehabilitation and reclamation. Area hike options: Mary’s Nipple, many forest & stream hikes.
June 24-30, Manti-LaSal NF, Moab/Monticello, Trail work and campsite inventory
You’ll trail maintenance and campsite inventory in the Dark Canyon Wilderness. The project will clear down trees blocking the trail, install water bars, and marking where appropriate. The campsite inventory will provide baseline data to rangers to help manage the Wilderness more effectively. Area hike options: Dark Canyon Wilderness, Beef Basin, Abajo Mountains.
September 9-15, Grand Staircase-Escalante NM, Paria River ORV damage control work
You’ll conduct ORV damage control in the upper Paria River tributaries. The worksite is south of the town of Cannonville where you’ll rehabilitate intrusions, place natural barricades and bollards, and install signage. We’ll backpack into the worksite a short distance and set up camp nearby. Area hike options are numerous: Paria River, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Bull Valley Gorge.
September 23-29, Monticello BLM, Beef Basin, Archaeological site protection work
You’ll join BLM archaeologists & rangers from the Kane Gulch Ranger Station in their continuing efforts to protect the invaluable resources of the Cedar Mesa/Grand Gulch complex in southeastern Utah. Work consists of erecting fencing to protect middens, defining foot paths around ruins, and general trail work. We’ll car camp in a remote location, just south of Canyonlands NP and hike to worksites daily. Area hike options: Beef Basin, Dark Canyon Wilderness and Primitive Areas, Abajo Mountains.
October 14-20, Capitol Reef NP, Trail and non-native vegetation removal work
You’ll conduct a variety of work projects around the park backcountry ranging from maintenance and marking of foot trails to removal of non-native plants, shrubs & trees mostly along waterways. Car and tent camp at a group camp site with running water and toilets in the central zone of the park with daily ventures to our worksites in the north and south. Capitol Reef is loaded with area hike options, mostly along the slickrock domes and sinuous canyons of its namesake.
Make Your Reservation Today
Because we’re not sophisticated enough yet to receive credit card payment, reservations will be held upon payment of participant fee with check or money order to Utah Backcountry Volunteers, PO Box 526197, Salt Lake City, UT 84152. You will receive immediate confirmation by email, and by letter confirming your reservation, with more details. Portions of your trip and fee are tax deductible. For more information about trips or reservations call (435) 785-8955 or email dave@utahbackcountry.org.
Membership
Can’t make a trip this year, but still want to help out? Utah Backcountry Volunteers is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Membership is $30 for one year, please be as generous as you can. Member benefits include a discounted participant fee of $145 for any trip. Membership donations are tax deductible, should be mailed to the above and below noted PO Box, and are greatly appreciated.
Email List
Please forward this message to your friends who you think would be interested in our mission. Service trips are a great chance to get friends together for some quality away time. The organization is still an infant and we encourage you to spread this message far and wide. If you receive this message and wish to join our list, inform dave@utahbackcountry.org.
Thanks!
Dave Pacheco
Utah Backcountry Volunteers
PO Box 526197
Salt Lake City, UT 84152-6197
(435) 785-8955 voice
(435) 785-8956 fax
dave@utahbackcountry.org
IN CALIFORNIA
4. Truckee City Council Votes Down
Contract with Utah Coal-Fired Plant
Thank You Letters/Faxes Needed
(ACTION ITEM)
As we all know, actions taken in one state can affect another. Last week, the Board of the Truckee, CA Public Utilities District voted down a proposal Truckee, CA to buy coal-fired power from a plant in Delta Utah. Letters saying “thank you” are needed.
One of the least known areas of Utah is its West Desert, not redrock canyons but Great Basin topography. It’s an area just as wild however, and no less beautiful and important. Much of it is included in America’s Redrock Wilderness Act, the comprehensive wilderness bill for Utah.
If you have traveled through Delta on U.S. 50 & 6, you no doubt have noticed a brown layer in the air coming from the smokestacks of the power plant north of town. Plans have been proposed to expand it, and Truckee was one of the cities looked to help secure funding. The following information comes from the Sierra Club’s office in Salt Lake City.
The Truckee, CA Public Utility District Board was being asked to approve a 50-yr contract with Intermountain Power (IPP) in Delta, UT to purchase electricity from its proposed 900-megawatt dirty coal-fired power plant. This action would have further enabled IPP to secure the financing needed to build this $2.1 billion dollar west desert dinosaur and would also send hundreds of thousands of tons of more nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and mercury into Utah’s air for another 50+ years, not to mention nearly 8 million tons of CO2 annually. When added to IPP’s current CO2 emissions, this would make it the nation’s 2nd largest CO2 emitting coal plant in the nation. In essence, Truckee would get the power and Utahns would get even more crud.
A few more details:
— The plant would continue to spew hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants into Utah’s skies, and directly downwind towards approximately 1.5 million people along the Wasatch Front. The Front already suffers from terrible wintertime inversions and very dirty air. It needs help in cleaning it up, not making it dirtier.
— Global warming is a major issue. Truckee should be looking at ways to decrease its carbon footprint, NOT INCREASE IT. At 15 million tons of CO2 annually, IPP is already the nation’s 24th largest CO2 emitting coal plant in the nation. If a third unit is built, that will increase to 22 million tons, making it the nation’s second largest emitter.
— Other California cities are trying to respect the spirit of California’s new greenhouse gas restriction laws by not buying into new contracts with IPP. Truckee should follow suit.
Write, call, or fax a letter to:
Truckee Donner P.U.D.
P.O. Box 309
Truckee, CA 96160
530-587-3896 (phone)
530-587-5056 (fax)
5. Medicine Lake Victory
Over the years we’ve reported on efforts to preserve Medicine Lake, a spot sacred to Native American tribes near Mt. Shasta, from energy development.
In November, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that federal agencies did not adequately consider the environmental consequences of their decision to extend the leases of Calpine, an alternative energy company that had sought for many years to build a geothermal plant at Medicine Lake. The Pit River Tribe filed suit in 2002, and Calpine filed for bankruptcy in 2006.
IN GENERAL
6. Congressional Roundup
Despite the generally unfavorable conditions existing in Congress and Washington, DC, wilderness issues did not fare too poorly in the last Congress. There has been quite a bit of controversy over the types of bills that wilderness designations have been included in. Few bills have only dealt with wilderness designations, and many bills have contained provisions that some conservationists have objected to. It’s been impossible to reach consensus on just about any of them. Politics is never easy!
a. California
The big news was the passage and signing into law in October of the North Coast Wild Heritage Act. Congress adjourned without considering the two other bills for California that had been introduced: Rep. Buck McKeon’s (R-25) Eastern Sierra wilderness bill (H.R. 5149) and Rep. Mary Bono’s (R-45) H.R. 6270, which would designate areas in the southern desert.
b. Nevada
In the closing hours of the 109th Congress, the White Pine Conservation, Recreation, and Development Act of 2006 passed the Senate and House and was signed by the president. At the last minute, some additional acreage was included, mainly for Mt. Grafton and the South Egan Range. Thus more than the original 545,000 acres was designated, in 13 new Wilderness areas. Other objectionable provisions, including funding for a sewage pipe into Lake Mead, were removed. Some conservation groups are unhappy with language regarding the sale of public lands for development.
c. New Mexico
Last week the president signed the Valle Vidal Protection Act, protecting one of the most important wildlife habitats in New Mexico by making it off limits to energy exploration. In the end, the bill was supported by the entire New Mexico delegation, although Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R) support only came when it was clear that the bill’s passage was pretty much inevitable. Valle Vidal is home to the largest elk herd in the state and is adjacent to the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, visited by numerous scouts every year. Valle Vidal was donated to the Forest Service by Pennzoil to be protected for its outstanding natural values.
d. Montana
The final tax package signed by the president also included provisions removing the Rocky Mountain Front from energy exploration. The Front is a 100-mile stretch where the mountains meet the Great Plains and is home to an amazing variety of wildlife. Gloria Flora, the former Forest Supervisor had closed the area previously, but the Bush administration reversed her decision. The legislation overturns that decision.
e. Idaho
Neither the Boulder-White Clouds bill (CIEDRA—Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act) nor the Owyhee Initiative bill made it through Congress this time around. Both bills contain extremely controversial language that numerous conservation groups (including CalUWild) oppose. CIEDRA would give away lands in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to local towns for development as well as allow objectionable activities in designated wilderness areas. The Owyhee bill provides for oversight of public lands by an unaccountable committee, among other things. Both bills set bad precedents for future legislation. We hope that many of these provisions will be improved before they are reintroduced.
ADMINISTRATIVE
7. CalUWild Annual Membership Appeal
I was fortunate enough to spend much of November traveling in Southeast Asia with friends, visiting Hong Kong, Thailand, and Cambodia. Although there are many wonderful things to see there, it struck me how little undeveloped land exists any more in those countries. How fortunate we in Western United States are to still have vast expanses of landscape where a person can go and not see another soul for days! Another major difference is that in the U.S. it is possible for an ordinary citizen to have an impact on government, despite the widespread cynicism of many in this country.
That’s why Californians for Western Wilderness is still going strong after nine years. We have found a niche in which we can both be effective advocates for wildlands and educate our members and the public about citizenship. We’ve become an effective and respected voice in the conservation community.
In 2006 we continued to expand the scope of our activities. We joined three other organizations as plaintiffs in our first lawsuit, against the Forest Service over its lack of proper planning for horsepacking operations in the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses in the Sierra. We continued to upgrade our technology with the purchase of a digital projector for slideshows. We are working with San Francisco State University to develop an internship program. Finally, we are helping to plan a wilderness conference at SFSU next Spring.
As ever, the Monthly Update continues to provide current news and action items for our members and the public, going out to over 715 people.
Unfortunately, fundraising continues to be difficult. Two grants we counted on did not come through this year, and consequently we’ve had to cut back on our slideshow scheduling. We continue to explore new avenues for funding, but they have not begun to pay off. However, we’re not giving up; CalUWild’s work is too important, and we’re looking forward to 2007.
To support our efforts, please print and fill out the coupon below and mail it with your contribution to:
CalUWild
P.O. Box 210474
San Francisco, CA 94121-0474
Again: We will not share any member information with anyone for any reason.
Thanks!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mr./Ms.:
First Name:
Last Name:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Congressional Representative:
PLEASE NOTE:
Dues payable to CalUWild support lobbying efforts and are not tax deductible.
To make a tax-deductible contribution, make check payable to Resource Renewal Institute.
__ $15 Student
__ $25 Regular
__ $50 Supporting
__ $100 Outstanding
__ Other ________
Mail to: CalUWild – P.O. Box 210474 – San Francisco, CA 94121-0474