Daily Wilderness News Clips

The House is expected to vote on seven public lands bills today, including a measure to expand a wilderness area in Washington state.

H.R. 1769 from Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) would add 22,100 acres to western Washington's Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It also would designate 27.4 miles of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and the entire Pratt River as wild and scenic rivers.

PIERRE, S.D. - There's growing support in South Dakota for more wilderness designations in the West River region, the large part of the state lying to the west of the Missouri River. The support is shown in a study by Moore Information, which found solid favor across party lines, and among all age groups. When asked specifically about a proposal to designate parts of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in southwestern South Dakota as wilderness, nearly six in ten voters supported the idea.

There's growing support in South Dakota for more wilderness designations in the West River region, the large part of the state lying to the west of the Missouri River. The support is shown in a study by Moore Information, which found solid favor across party lines, and among all age groups. When asked specifically about a proposal to designate parts of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in southwestern South Dakota as wilderness, nearly six in ten voters supported the idea.

Chris Hesla, executive director of the South Dakota Wildlife Federation, says that area deserves protection.

Joe Mirasole and Jeff Holmes said they were in their element.

The Spokane County sportsmen had shoved off in a drift boat into a roadless stretch of the Grande Ronde River for a winter day of steelheading with jig-and-bobber rigs.

But they said they'd reel themselves indoors and help staff a booth at the Big Horn Outdoor Adventure Show Thursday-Sunday to promote an organization that stands for a wild outdoor experience.

Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) this week will push legislation that would allow an Alaska Native corporation to acquire land in the Tongass National Forest, but his project faces opposition from the Obama administration.

The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act allowed native corporations to select lands for development to provide economic benefits for their shareholders. The native corporation Sealaska is still entitled to claim additional acreage, but the corporation says the remaining lands offered are of inadequate quality for economic development.

A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee will meet Wednesday to review several bills that would pave the way for new additions or enhancements to the National Park System.

Among the bills is S. 2951, which would authorize the Interior Department to spend $80 million in the next five fiscal years to buy land surrounding the Blue Ridge Parkway.

This is the sixth in a weekly series profiling the areas proposed by the Hidden Gems campaign for federal wilderness designation. The campaign, led by Carbondale's Wilderness Workshop, calls for approximately 380,000 acres to be protected as wilderness. Most of the land is in the White River and Gunnison national forests, and includes areas in Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit counties. An act of the U.S. Congress is required to designate new wilderness.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein's push to build support for her plan to preserve more than a million acres of San Bernardino County land has yielded an important ally: the White House.

During a budget hearing this week, high-ranking Obama administration officials spoke favorably about Feinstein's legislation to create a pair of national monuments totaling 1,075,000 acres in the Mojave Desert, one northwest of Palm Springs and another in the eastern reaches of the county.

DENVER - It's been 11 years, but Denver democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette says she's pleased that her once-highly-touted wilderness bill has finally gotten a Congressional hearing. The bill was first introduced in 1999.

DeGette's bill targets more than two dozen areas across the state as possible federally protected wilderness areas, including prized plots of wild lands north of Interstate 70 in Eagle County. If passed the total land mass of all the proposals would hover near a million acres. Most of them are at mid-range altitudes.

In a change of position for the Obama administration, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last week that Sen. Jon Tester's (D-Mont.) "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act," which seeks to combine new wilderness protections with logging mandates in Montana's national forests, could be acceptable as long as changes are made to the bill.

"We're going to continue to work with Sen. Tester to accomplish what the bill is supposed to do," Vilsack said. "There's a tremendous opportunity here."