The Times-Standard
Published Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Wilderness bill will go to key U.S. Senate committee

By John Driscoll

A bill that would mark 300,000 acres of public land in Northern California as wilderness will get a hearing before a Senate committee this month.

Wilderness advocates say they're enthusiastic about the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing July 21. They say the bill enjoys broad support, and that the legislation will protect vital and beautiful areas from logging, mining and off-road vehicle use.

But there is dissent, not surprisingly, from four wheelers and some mountain bikers. They claim the bill would close some key recreational roads, despite staunch insistence otherwise from proponents.

The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act in most case adds acreage to existing wilderness areas. There is some language to provide money to acquire inholdings on federal land.

One of several wilderness bills slogging through the Legislature, this one deals with areas in Rep. Mike Thompson's 1st Congressional District.
They include additions to the Siskiyou, Trinity and Yolla Bolly wildernesses, an area called Mad River Buttes south of Titlow Hill, and a 42,000-acre area in the King Range National Conservation Area.

Josh Buswell-Charkow of the California Wilderness Coalition said some of the areas face threats from illegal off-road vehicle use and logging.

Buswell-Charkow said his group went to great lengths to make sure no legal roads are closed through a wilderness designation. Motorized vehicles and mountain bikes are not allowed in wilderness areas. Hikers and horseback riders are.

Don Amador of the Blue Ribbon Coalition in Idaho hotly disputes that. He said that part of the Smith-Etter Road in the King Range would be closed, and that some spur roads used by hunters in Six Rivers National Forest would also be shut off.

He also said some of the areas don't fit the "untrammeled by man" description lined out in the 1964 Wilderness Act. Amador showed photos of radio towers, old asphalt roads and logging in the proposed wildernesses.

"They're trying to create a wilderness for the 20th century that in no way resembles the provision of the 1964 act," Amador said.

Thompson emphatically said that no legal roads will be closed in his bill.

"These are exceptional properties and they deserve the enhanced status of wilderness," the St. Helena Democrat said.

The bill also allows the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to use any means necessary to fight fires in the areas.

The bill contains appropriations of $1.25 million for three years for restoration and $23 million a year for law enforcement, acquiring inholdings, fire fighting and tourism development.

For some, there is inner conflict over the bill. Justin Brown, co-owner of Revolution Bicycle Repair in Arcata said he is generally concerned about losing areas to ride. He said that the closer one gets to the San Francisco Bay area, the fewer options exist for backcountry riding.

But, Brown said, he's not opposed to wilderness designation if it stops commercial uses of the areas.

"I love to mountain bike and I would love access to that land to ride on," Brown said. "But I don't want to see that area logged over."

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