Daily Wilderness News Clips

Tennessee has a shot at its first new wilderness in nearly a quarter-century, thanks to legislation introduced last week by Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker.

A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee Wednesday will meet to review a bill that would block hardrock mining in parts of Nevada and a pair of wilderness bills concerning lands in Idaho and South Dakota.

S. 3313 from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would block new mineral development on 640 acres of Clark County, Nev. The bill would block the proposed Sloan Hills rock quarry near Las Vegas that has been the subject of local controversy.

Three citizen-crafted proposals to expand Colorado's wilderness acreage could increase the state's wildest lands by more than 1 million acres, marking one of the most sweeping pushes to protect Colorado's wilderness.

After a decade of planning, environmental groups are pressing for the highest level of protection on several dozen parcels across the state, as population growth and encroaching development threaten wild lands.

After nearly a decade of labor and compromise, sweeping legislation that protects hundreds of thousands of acres as wilderness in Idaho's Boulder-White Cloud mountains is headed for a Senate hearing this week.

The Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act goes back to Congress on Wednesday, but this time with what some say is a significantly greater chance than in years past. For the first time, the bill's champion, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has the support of Idaho's entire congressional delegation.

Utah public lands being considered for possible wilderness designation concern Coloradans, judging from the number of Colorado license plates in the area every spring, said Terri Martin, of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

"A lot of people in Grand Junction consider the red rock desert to be their backyard and visit those lands, and want them protected for their future and their children," Martin said.

While clean drinking water became a priority this week for Oakley and Lindon residents as they boiled water contaminated by floods, it's always on the mind of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

Matheson, along with Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and a U.S. Forest Service official, addressed the House Natural Resources Committee on Thursday. The trio spoke on legislation expanding watershed protection in the Wasatch Front canyons, saying it is a shared priority.

U.S. Senators Lamar Alexandar and Bob Corker, both Tennessee Republicans, introduced Wednesday a bill to designate an additional 20,000 acres in six areas of the Cherokee National Forest as protected wilderness.

Two of the expansions, totaling 1,314 acres in Polk County, are the Big Frog Wilderness (348 acres) and the Little Frog Wilderness (966 acres) areas. 

Tennessee Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker on Wednesday introduced legislation that would add almost 20,000 acres of wilderness to the Cherokee National Forest across six East Tennessee counties.

The Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2010 would expand the amount of federally designated wilderness in the national forest to about 86,000 acres. The forest currently contains about 66,000 acres of wilderness, designated by Congress a quarter-century ago.

Concerns about border security in southern New Mexico have prompted members of the state's congressional delegation to revamp a proposal to set aside more than 560 square miles as wilderness and a national conservation area.

Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, both D-N.M., introduced the legislation last year, seeking to protect the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces and the Potrillo Mountains, located just north of the Mexican border in southwestern Dona Ana County.

Their measure would create a 259,000-acre wilderness area and 100,000-acre conservation area.

If anyone needed evidence of the passion locals have for public lands, Thursday's meeting about the proposed Hidden Gems wilderness-expansion plan provided plenty.

More than 600 people, mostly locals, turned out for a meeting about the plan hosted by Rep. Jared Polis, who has been asked to sponsor a bill to create new wilderness in Eagle and Summit counties. A similar meeting earlier this week in Boulder, Colorado, drew about 200 people.