In Making Policy, Involve Local Talent Respect The Locals Area Residents Deserve Voice In Management.

Who would be the best steward of the Hanford Reach in Eastern Washington? A federal bureaucracy based in the nation’s capital? Or a federally created commission that consists of Northwest residents and representatives of local, state and federal agencies?

Either way, the land would be set aside as a natural treasure and the full panoply of state and federal environmental laws would apply.

The question is whether the people who actually know the land, who will be most directly affected by the way it is managed, can be trusted to have an effective voice as management questions are raised over the coming years.

The answer most likely will be: No. Big Brother knows best. If the serfs desire some input, well, Big Bro will think about it. After all, the locals are greedy and tend to want a few facilities - a museum here, a visitors’ boat dock there, an irrigation canal over yonder.

Before Big Bro gets too high and mighty, let us all remember that it was the federal government that contaminated the Hanford Reach with nuclear waste and now is bungling its legal obligation to clean up the radioactive mess. Let us also take notice of the wildfire in Los Alamos and the political paralysis that passes for natural resource management in our national forests.

This week, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt paraded in for a one-day look at the Reach. He pronounced it beautiful. He is expected to recommend President Clinton declare it a national monument and place Babbitt’s agency in charge of its future. Babbitt granted a brief, chilly audience to the area’s county commissioners, who urged him to support management by a commission of Northwest residents and officials.

That approach has been the subject of detailed planning and negotiations. Unfortunately, a settlement to those negotiations may not coincide with Clinton’s political timetable. Clinton has only a few more months to rehabilitate his image. He wants to designate several more federal preserves. This, he hopes, will be a legacy. He’s right. It appears to be a legacy of arrogance toward Americans who live outside the nation’s capital.

Still, there is a better path to a better legacy. Babbitt could create a new model for federal land stewardship, one that gives local people an effective voice so that management policies can be enlightened by the knowledge, the ingenuity and yes, the love for natural beauty, of the Americans who are closest to the land.