Pictographs, San Rafael Reef, Utah                                                                                                            (Mike Painter)

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Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) have reintroduced America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act (ARRWA) in the 113th Congress. There were 60 original cosponsors in the House and 11 and Senate, and the numbers have continued to grow since: there are now 84 in the House and 16 in the Senate, where the bill numbers are H.R.1630 and S.769, respectively.

Many thanks to the cosponsors and to everyone who has contacted Congress asking for sign-ons.

The legislation would designate about 9.1 million acres of land as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, created by the Wilderness Act of 1964. ARRWA was first introduced in Congress by Utah Rep. Wayne Owens in 1989, and has been re-introduced in every Congress since, enlarging as the results of further citizen inventories in Utah were completed and incorporated into it.

California’s delegation has a long history of strong support for the Red Rocks bill. In years past, Republican representatives were cosponsors, but in recent years GOP support for protection of federal public land has virtually evaporated. So unfortunately, a previously non-partisan issue has degenerated into a highly partisan one.

Current cosponsors from California are:

Representatives

Senator

A list of cosponsors from around the country may be found here.

It’s a good idea for cosponsors to receive messages of thanks. Sen. Durbin and Rep. Holt would probably appreciate hearing from people across the country, too. If your representative is missing, they should get a message asking for cosponsorship. You can make a phone call, send an email, or use a comment form on their websites. Complete contact information for House members can be found on their sites at http://www.house.gov/. Information for Sen. Boxer is here. Other senators may be found at http://www.senate.gov.

The campaign to protect the area around Canyonlands National Park continues to gather steam and move forward. One means of communication that is proving effective is a postcard campaign to the White House, urging the President to use his executive authority to protect the area.

We don’t have a cost-effective way of getting the campaign’s pre-printed postcards out to our members, but if you’d like to send a postcard to the White House, feel free to download the picture from our May Update and print it on a card (not larger than 4-1/4″ x 6″ for the standard postcard rate of $0.33).

You can use or adapt the text on the back of the pre-printed cards:

Then sign it with your name and address and mail it to:

Or, if you prefer, call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111.

Thanks for helping out!

We wrote last year (click here and here) about the conflict between Utah and Nevada over water pumping in Snake Valley, a Great Basin valley straddling the Utah/Nevada border. It lies just east of Great Basin National Park. For several years Nevada has sought to send groundwater south via pipes to Las Vegas in an attempt to help quench that city’s ever-growing thirst. Utah is concerned that pumping will lower the water table in the valley, making it more difficult to get the water that ranchers and others need, and conservationists are afraid that a lower water table will dry up springs that are important for wildlife and also contribute to vegetation loss.

The proposal has been the source of intense controversy between the two states and negotiations have been ongoing. In April, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert announced he would reject an agreement that had been proposed between the two states. In May, Utah’s Water Development Commission voted to send Gov. Herbert a letter asking him to reconsider his decision.

We’ll keep you posted as the story continues to unfold.

The US Forest Service has just revised its rules and procedures for planning for national forests. The intent of the new rules, as announced by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, is to shift the major emphasis from timber extraction to restoration and watershed protection. Secty. Vilsack also mandated that opportunities for public participation be improved and increased.

Inyo, Sierra, and Sequoia national forests are among the first to undertake revisions of their management plans, the guiding documents for the forests for 10 – 15 years following their adoption. These forests make up much of the southern end of the Sierra and are the heart of what John Muir called “The Range of Light.” Large areas of the three forests are designated wilderness.

In the hope of engaging the public earlier in the planning process, these forests are creating “Living Assessments” before the formal initial Scoping processes begin. These documents will describe the current conditions in the forests. To do that, they are hoping that interested members of the public, as well as researchers and others, who have visited the forests will contribute from their own knowledge and experience, and thereby improve the starting point for planning.

To accomplish this, the Forest Service has set up a series of “wiki” pages, which allow the interested public to actually write and edit online documents. (Wikipedia is probably the most famous example of this type of system.) There are 15 chapters covering various topics, and you’re not obligated to contribute to every one. Full details and further links can be found here.

A full bioregional assessment for the entire Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range in California was just published online here.

The three forests have different deadlines for comments on the Living Assessments:

Please contribute whatever knowledge you might have in order to help make the process a success. Thanks! We’ll keep you posted as further opportunities for public involvement arise.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-2) has reintroduced a bill to incorporate the Stornetta Public Lands at Pt. Arena on the Mendocino Coast into the California Coastal National Monument. Prior to re-districting, this area was in Rep. Mike Thompson’s (D-5) district, and he had authored similar legislation that did not move. Rep. Thompson is a co-sponsor of the legislation. Sen. Boxer (D) has introduced in companion bill in the Senate, and Sen. Feinstein (D) has signed onto it, as well. The House Natural Resources Committee approved the bill last week, so now it moves to the floor of the House.

The California Coastal NM is part of the National Landscape Lands, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to protect large significant landscapes for their ecological and scenic values. The Coastal Monument stretches from Mexico to Oregon and protects the offshore rocks and sea stacks along the coast. The Stornetta addition would be the first on-shore lands in the monument.

The BLM website for the Stornetta Lands is here.

Please contact Rep. Huffman’s and Sen. Boxer’s offices and let them know your appreciation.

Contact info for Rep. Huffman:

Contact info for Sen. Boxer:

Longtime wilderness friend Rep. Sam Farr (D-20) and first-term Rep. David Valadao (R-21) have jointly introduced a bill to create the Clear Creek National Recreation Area on lands managed by the BLM in San Benito and Fresno counties. The bill, H.R. 1776, would also create the Joaquin Rocks Wilderness, an area long proposed for wilderness designation, encompassing 21,000 acres. The bill would also designate portions of five creeks and rivers in the NRA and in Monterey County as Wild & Scenic.

The bill directs BLM to re-open the Clear Creek Management Area, which had been used by off-road vehicles and others until 2008, when it was closed because of concerns by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about naturally-occurring asbestos. The legislation directs BLM to take steps to minimize the risk from that asbestos and to reduce the impacts on the environment from off-road vehicle use. We’ll have to see what kind of a plan the BLM is able to come up with.

Please thank Reps. Farr and Valadao for including the Joaquin Rocks in their bill.

Rep. Farr: 202-225-2861 (DC)
          Webform

Rep. Valadao: 202-225-4695 (DC)
          661-864-7736 (Bakersfield)
           (No Webform found on website)

As mentioned in the Introduction, above, Wilderness Volunteers has planned a service trip for a citizen-proposed wilderness in the San Gabriel Mountains. There are still spots open for the project, a cooperative effort among Angeles National Forest, Wilderness Volunteers, and The Wilderness Society. The area is in the backyard of Los Angeles and the trip should help people can recognize its wilderness value.

Full information about the service trip may be found here.

A full listing of Wilderness Volunteers service trips may be found here.

There are a couple of proposals for new wilderness in Colorado.

Sen. Mark Udall (D) recently announced his intention to introduce legislation to create Browns Canyon National Monument and Wilderness Area, between Buena Vista and Salida, along the Arkansas River in central Colorado. The monument would be 22,000 acres in size and include 10,500 acres of designated wilderness. The BLM, US Forest Service, and Colorado Parks & Wildlife would jointly manage the monument. The Arkansas River is very popular for whitewater rafting, and the area has opportunities for fishing and hunting. Ranching would be allowed to continue in the monument.

For a map of the proposal, click here.

Rep. Jared Polis (D) has introduced a wilderness bill, the Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act, which would designate areas in the White River National Forest, also in central Colorado. The bill would create almost 82,000 acres of new wilderness and additions to existing areas. Another 84,000 acres of land would receive other types of protection. The bill is the result of the longstanding Hidden Gems proposal by the Wilderness Workshop and other citizens groups.

More information about the bill, including maps, can be found on Rep. Polis’s website.

Earlier this week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also approved the San Juan Wilderness Act, which has been introduced in the last two Congresses.

Last month, Nevada’s Sen. Harry Reid (D), the Senate Majority Leader, introduced a bill to establish the Gold Butte National Conservation Area. Gold Butte is a wild natural area northeast of Las Vegas, between Lake Mead and the Arizona border. Protection for the area, which is rich in archaeology, interesting geology, and opportunities for quiet recreation, has long been a goal of conservationists in Nevada and around the West. It has been the subject of legislation since at least 2008, but so far, the bills have made little progress.

You can send Sen. Reid an online message thanking him for introducing the bill though his website, though he may not respond if you’re not from Nevada. If you’ve been to the area, make sure to mention it.

A bill including the NCA among its other provisions was introduced in the House this month by Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford (D), H.R.2276.

Other current Nevada bills include the Pine Forest Range Wilderness bill (S.342/H.R.433) to designate areas in Humboldt County, recently passed out of committee in the Senate. The Lyon County Economic Development & Conservation Act (S.159/H.R.696) contains designation of the Wovoka Wilderness but also turns over 12,500 acres of BLM land to the town of Yerington to develop a copper mine.

As part of next year’s celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, the national Wilderness50 Committee, of which CalUWild is a part, is organizing a photography contest under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and Nature’s Best Photography. The judges will select between 40 and 50 winners, with separate amateur, student, and professional winners in 4 different categories: Scenic Landscape; Wildlife; People in Wilderness; and Most Inspirational Moment.

Winning images will be displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, beginning next Spring. Possibilities for a traveling exhibition are also being explored.

Full contest details can be found here.

This is a great opportunity to contribute to the celebration!

Separate photo exhibitions are being planned for venues around the country. If you would like to organize one or have photographs you’d like to contribute for a local exhibition, please send me an email.

In a less formal vein, there’s a Western Wilderness Flickr Group. Please join!

If it weren’t for the fact that this Update is long enough already, we might have included more in-depth items on the first two of these issues, which we’ve covered in the past. Instead, we’ll just provide links to articles bringing you up to date.

If you find an inactive link or are unable to access an article for some reason, please send me an email.

Tim DeChristopher Finishes his Sentence for Disrupting Oil Lease Sale

Article in the Salt Lake Tribune

Point Reyes Oyster Farm in the news

A hearing was held in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month on whether there should be an injunction allowing the oyster farm to remain open while its lawsuit proceeds against the Department of the Interior. A ruling is anticipated shortly.

PBS’s NewsHour ran a segment examining the links between the company and Cause of Action, the conservative property rights advocacy organization.

The oyster company decided to sever its connection with Cause of Action. The San Jose Mercury News reported on that development.

New York Times articles

Wolves at Isle Royale, a designated wilderness

Lahontan Cutthroat Trout recovery

Los Angeles Times article on the Dept. of Defense and wildlife habitat

Ken Burns in USA Today on the national parks

As always, if you ever have questions, suggestions, critiques, or wish to unsubscribe, all you have to do is send an email.