Wilderness designation the last hope

Inland Northwest land conservation groups are putting their best hiking boots forward this summer to promote roadless areas and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Washington State Wilderness Act.

Much more surprising, however, is the pioneering step that Fifth District Congressman George Nethercutt says he’s taking into the realm of wilderness advocacy.

Wilderness is the nation’s ultimate land preservation insurance policy. No roads can be built in official wilderness areas and no motorized or mechanized equipment are allowed, including chainsaws and bicycles.

Hikers, horse packers, rafters and tourism agencies are among the millions who have recognized the value of wilderness, a value that continues to grow as the nation’s population expands and elbow room becomes scarce.

Even though you’ve probably never seen a statewide Washington or Idaho travel brochure that didn’t feature a photo of wilderness, the values are not just scenic.

Roadless areas contain some of the nation’s best wildlife areas. Just as important, roadless areas often protect the upper watersheds that assure the water quality for great fishing streams that run down through lowlands, both public and private.

“We say ‘To it and not through it,’ about traveling to such productive lands,” said Scott Stouder of Trout Unlimited’s office in Boise. “We have to save whatever’s left. It’s pretty simple.”

Many sportsmen and conservationists would rather preserve roadless lands without designating them as wilderness. A roadless designation would maintain most of the protections while preserving the options to access by aircraft and bicycles and to maintain trails more efficiently with chainsaws.

President Bill Clinton, with the enlightened perspective of former Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck (an avid angler), recognized these advantages by designating a “roadless” category designed to protect millions of acres of unroaded areas on national forests across the country.

The Bush administration barely unpacked its boxes in the White House before setting out to disarm the Clinton roadless rules.

That’s why conservationists say they must campaign for wilderness, a category of protection that’s much less susceptible to the shifting sands of politics.

The stakes are high. A Trout Unlimited study, for example, found that 74 percent of Idaho’s current chinook salmon habitat is in roadless acreage, along with 58 percent of the habitat for westslope cutthroat trout.

Washington’s first wilderness areas — Glacier Peak, Goat Rocks and Mount Adams — were included in the Wilderness Preservation System created when Congress passed the original Wilderness Act in 1964.

The 530,000-acre Pasayten Wilderness was given official protection in 1968 and by the end of 1976 the Alpine Lakes, San Juan, Washington Islands and Wenaha-Tucannon wilderness areas had been protected, bringing the state’s total to 1.73 million acres.

The 1984 Washington Wilderness Act, not perfect by any conservationists standards, emphasized important but somewhat less glamorous areas that had been identified but put on the shelf during the original rounds of wilderness debate.

The act, with the strong support of Rep. Tom Foley, D-Wash., was passed by Congress to secure another million acres of wilderness.

Incidentally, the Washington Parks Wilderness Act was passed four years later to designate wilderness within North Cascades, Olympic and Mount Rainier national parks, although these areas had essentially been protected by park status afforded decades earlier.

Eastern Washington got a little more attention in the 1984 legislation, which established the 33,000-acre Salmo-Priest Wilderness in the northeast corner of the state and a sliver of Idaho and the 7,140-acre Juniper Dunes Wilderness near Pasco.

Conservationists say considerably more area should be protected as wilderness to fend off development into remaining areas where nature is better off being left intact for the long-term health of forests, watersheds and wildlife.

Washington’s 30 wilderness areas cover 4.3 million acres — less than 10 percent of the state’s land area. Only 16 percent of the state’s wilderness acreage is in Eastern Washington.

Since Foley was ousted, we haven’t had the political backbone to even look into permanent protections for portions of the Kettle Range or Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness additions.

Nethercutt, since being elected in 1994, has been even weaker on land preservation than he’s been on his original campaign plank of supporting term limits. But he’s become a born-again wilderness advocate now that he’s in a campaign that requires some of those greenie Western Washington votes.

Joel Connelly, environmental writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, acknowledged Nethercutt’s new interest in May.

“Nethercutt has taken an apartment in Bellevue for the campaign, and is learning a Western Washington issue – conservation,” Connelly wrote, noting that Nethercutt used a West Side visit to declare his support for a Wild Sky Wilderness Bill.

Sen. Patty Murray and West Side Democratic Congressman Rick Larsen introduced the Wild Sky Wilderness Act, which would establish 106,000 acres of new Washington Wilderness in the headwaters of the Skykomish River, a fabled whitewater run and steelhead stream.

But Nethercutt, who was a non-candidate two years ago, did not give support to Washington’s first national forest wilderness proposal in nearly two decades.

Similarly, Nethercutt’s new sympathy for wilderness does not go so far as to support the current bill that’s already unanimously passed the Senate even though Rep. Jennifer Dunn, Washington’s top Republican in Congress, was an original sponsor and former Republican Gov. Dan Evans is a staunch supporter.

“The Wild Sky Wilderness Bill is perfectly crafted with lots of local, state, and national support,” said Chase Davis, Sierra Club spokesman in Spokane. “With Nethercutt’s leadership, it could still pass this year. If he’s serious about serving all the people of Washington State, he should co-sponsor the current bill.”

Meanwhile, anyone who simply wants to see what all this talk is about can join area conservationists, who are leading several wilderness appreciation outings and advocacy efforts starting next week and running through September.

For schedules and details, contact the Kettle Range Conservation Group, 747-1663, or the Sierra Club, 456-8802.