| Boxer's wilderness bill would
ban logging and development on another 77,000 acres
May 31, 2002 By Shayla Ashmore, Managing Editor webmaster@edimultimedia.com LassenNewsOnline www.lassennews.com Another 77,000 acres of public land in Lassen County would receive federal wilderness protection if U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's new wilderness bill becomes law. The California Wild Heritage Wilderness Act of 2002, which Boxer recently introduced in the Senate, would ban logging, construction and motorized vehicles in 77 areas of the state, ranging from the North Coast to the Eastern Sierra and the Southern California desert. "It is crucial that we protect these precious places before it is too late," Boxer said recently. "As of this year protected wilderness areas account for only 13 percent of the State of California." Passage would mark the most significant increase in state wilderness lands since the California Desert Protection Act closed about 7 million acres of land in Southern California in 1994.. The bill would settle many of the conservation battles now brewing in the state in the favor of environmentalists, according to the Los Angeles Times. A press release from Boxer's office said the legislation leaves the public land open for horseback riding, fishing, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, cross country skiing and canoeing. "However, the wilderness designation would no longer allow logging, construction or motorized vehicles. While mining and drilling would be allowed to continue in areas where they are already occurring, new mining and new drilling would be prohibited." On the Lassen National Forest, it designates the 43,000-acre Ishi Potential Wilderness Additions, 12,000 acres as the Heart Lake Wilderness, 4,760 acres as the Wild Cattle Mountain Wilderness, 6,400 acres as Caribou Wilderness Area Additions and 26,366 acres as Lassen National Park Wilderness Area Additions. O On the Plumas National Forest it designates 9,000 acres as the Feather Falls Wilderness Area. The bill also designates the 6,600-acre Pit River potential wilderness area, located on BLM land nine miles southeast of McArthur in Lassen County. Jeff Fontana of the BLM said the Pit River area has been managed as a wilderness study areas since wilderness surveys began in 1979. Only the BLM adopted study areas after Congress defined wilderness in 1964 as an area of federal land at least 5,000 acres in size "primarily affected by the forces of nature with the imprint of man's works substantially unnoticeable." Only Congress can declare a wilderness. "We've been required to manage those areas in a way that would not impair their wilderness qualities while Congress decides whether to include them in the national wilderness preservation system," Fontana said. He said the land was managed so that wilderness characteristics were not damaged, allowing neither development nor construction. The House is also considering Congressman John Doolittle's HR 4589 Wilderness Study Area Release Act, co-sponsored by Congressman Wally Herger and five other Republicans. It releases all lands designated as wilderness study areas more than 15 years ago and makes them available for use in accordance with the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, allowing logging, mining and off-road vehicle touring. Wilderness Coalition "There is only one way to guarantee that a Congress or White House of the future will not return us to the bad old days of over-development in our parks," according to the California Wilderness Coalition's analysis of the wilderness proposed at Lassen Park, "protecting most of them as wilderness." The bill allows use of mechanized and motorized equipment for fuel treatment to reduce the fire danger and provide public safety or fire protection. Those allowances are a significant difference in the administration of wilderness in Boxer's bill compared to the 1964 Wilderness Act or the California Wilderness Act of 1984, according to Elizabeth Norton, assistant forest supervisor on the Lassen. "There is also language in the bill that recommends that the secretary delegate the authority to do those kinds of treatments within those wildernesses to the forest supervisor or the park superintendent or BLM manager. So, there is a possibility that those kind of activities could occur under the draft language," Norton told the Lassen County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, May 21. The only conflict with the Quincy Library Group Pilot Project defensible fuel profiles zone occurs on the east side of the Caribou wilderness. Norton said some additions in the Silver Lake area and the east side of the Caribou infringe on the proposed width of the zones designed as fuel breaks where vegetation is thinned to slow fires and give firefighters places to stand and fight advancing flames. Supervisor Lloyd Keefer said congressional staffers have said money for community assistance grants in the National Fire Plan may be cut after this year. He said he was concerned that if the National Fire Plan money dries up, it may be difficult to do fuel treatments. He said money for protecting private property should be included in Boxer's bill. The bill allows grazing to continue in areas permitted before wilderness designation. It also allows low-level military overflights, commercial outfitters and non-motorized game carriers. However, some groups which support motorized outdoor recreation were skeptical. "Considering the lands areas involved and the activist agenda of the California Wilderness Coalition, motorized recreation will be eliminated on a majority of the public lands within the State of California," according to John Stewart, editor of OutdoorWire Access for All. "Where logging and agriculture was once the mainstay of rural counties, those counties have been working to attract tourists. Many counties feature hundreds of miles of unpaved roads with primitive camping opportunities that are enjoyed by mountain bike and motorized recreationists. Wilderness designation will eliminate mountain bike and motorized recreation and reduce the recreationist dollars that support the rural communities," Stewart wrote. "Generally wilderness design means no mechanical use, no motorcycles no jeeps no mountain bicycles, because they're mechanical," said Matt Mathes of the Forest Service regional office. |