ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND USE GROK

Massive Wilderness Bill Inches Forward—13 Years Later

By David Frey, 10-11-07

A vast wilderness plan stretching across the mountains in five states is inching forward in Congress, after languishing for more than a decade. The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act spans 23 million acres in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It’s been controversial since its inception, and, writes the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, its hearing before a House subcommittee next week, is the farthest it’s gotten in 13 years.

But those were years of Republican domination in the House. Now that the Democrats are in control, supporters are hopeful it will stand a better shot.

“NREPA’s time has come,” says Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, who along with Christopher Shays, R-Conn., are sponsoring the bill.

Among the highlights of NREPA a 3 million acres of wilderness protection in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton national parks, plus a “wildland recovery project” that would do away with 6,000 miles of road.

The problem, though, is that the bills sponsors tend to come from the other side, not of the aisle, but of the country. That’s enough to get Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to oppose it.

“Max doesn’t favor the top-down approach to resource management, let alone someone from New York telling Montana how to manage public lands,” spokesman Barrett Kaiser tells the Chronicle.

It’s scheduled to hit the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 18.

Colorado had a strong year in protecting private lands from development last year, reports the Aspen Times, but a report by the Colorado Conservation Trust shows land trust and governments are still falling short of the group’s conservation goal.

With some 167,500 acres preserved last year, Colorado ranked third in the nation in land preservation, the group found, and was one of only two Western states where more land is protected than is lost to development. Still, the group found, Colorado’s development rate is one of hte highest in the nation. As much as 90,000 acres of rural and natural lands may be disappearing each year.

“Despite our substantial accomplishments, Colorado’s conservation community is falling behind in protecting our most special places,” writes Will Shafroth, executive director of Colorado Conservation Trust. “We need to pick up the pace if we are to meet our 2 million-acre goal by 2015.”

Among the threats facing conservation in Colorado is a boom in natural gas drilling. Don’t expect it to let up any time soon.

Jim Caswell, the new director of the Bureau of Land Management, told the Associated Press that despite growing public opposition, the press for oil and gas in the West is on.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that the interest in oil and gas is going to continue. I mean, it is where it is,” Caswell says.

Voter backlash is “to some degree overblown,” he told the AP. Still, some environmental concerns are on his platter, including protections for sage grouse and other wildlife across the West.

“The key, though, to me is how do we develop that resource in the most environmentally sensitive way?” Caswell says. “I mean, how can we be as compatible as possible long-term? This is not some short-term thing; this is long-term. I mean, we’re talking 20, 30 years.”

Plans for a nuclear waste storage facility at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain were unpopular enough. Now, writes the Las Vegas Review-Journal, critics may have twice the worries. The Department of energy is roughly doubling the projected size in new studies for the facility, with up to 135,000 metric tons of radioactive material slated for the site. And officials are looking at the possibility that it could be expanded further.

“Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger,” says Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. “This is not a bad dream; it’s a nightmare.”

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