By Debbie Murphy
Register Correspondent

6-26-2008

If the success of a compromise is defined in terms of the degree of disagreement on both sides of the issue, the Boxer/McKeon legislation to expand designated wilderness in California is successful. Both sides, Wilderness expansion and access advocates, expressed their views Tuesday afternoon in Independence at a public input session organized by the Inyo County Board of Supervisors.
Those who supported the Wild Heritage Act wanted more area included in the designation – specifically territory in the Inyo/White mountain ranges in Inyo County. Those who opposed it distrusted provisions that would allow for continued access. In a crowd close to 100, the nays held the majority.
Jennifer Roeser spoke from eight years of experience dealing with a series of environmental lawsuits that has reduced her commercial pack stock operation’s allocation by 58 percent. “Until we have clarification of the language (of the Wilderness Act of 1964), not one more square inch of Wilderness,” she said, noting that the lawsuits have a bearing on Wilderness management. Roeser cited the intent of the 1964 act to preserve recreational, cultural and historical conditions and uses. “We were told by the judge (in the Federal Court of Appeals in San Francisco) that our activities were not necessary.” The ruling establishes precedence in future suits.

Sally Miller of the Wilderness Society made her public comments at the Bishop meeting Wednesday. She found the work of the Boxer and McKeon staffs commendable. “They’ve threaded the needle,” she told The Inyo Register Tuesday in terms of coming up with a bill that can pass both Houses. “I’m not perfectly happy but no bill is perfect. We need to look at what we’ve gained instead of what we’ve lost.”
Bob Haueter, Rep. Buck McKeon’s deputy chief of staff, laid out the series of negotiations that went into the bipartisan bills introduced into the House and Senate earlier this month. He also explained the sense of urgency.  “This bill is not on a fast track, but we do have a deadline,” he said. “We only have seven weeks available to get this bill passed before the end of this two-year session” by the end of September. The political reality, he explained, is that the Republicans are not in control of either House and he anticipates that more GOP seats will be lost during the 2008 election. In other words, if McKeon’s Inyo County constituency isn’t particularly pleased with this Wilderness legislation, the bill is the best they can hope for in the face of possible Democratic control of Congress and the White House after January 2009. 

In terms of compromise, Haueter stressed the fact Senator Barbara Boxer originally wanted more than 800,000 acres designated as new Wilderness in the Eastern Sierra but ended up with 430,000 acres and an additional 48,000 acres in Southern California. McKeon advocated for an acre for acre match of new Wilderness to Wilderness Study Area (WSA) releases. The final bill releases 50,000 acres from WSA status, which are managed as Wilderness without the formal designation.
To assuage concerns about existing uses within the new designations, Haueter said “all authorized roads will stay open” and the bill will not legislate away existing water rights. Those “authorized” roads will be cherry stemmed into the proposed Wilderness with 75 feet on either side of designated trails included for the purpose of maintenance; maintained roads will be flanked by 150 feet and developed roads, 300 feet. He noted that equipment could be brought in to maintain access, specifically for ranchers to protect water flow to their property. “The environmentalists were disingenuous with regards to roads,” Haueter said. They assumed that if the roads washed out they would disappear. But, Haueter felt the negotiations guaranteed maintenance of existing roads.
Access groups had to deal with road reductions during the Forest Service’s Route Designation Rule process last fall. The proposed rule would eliminate approximately a quarter of the nearly 4,000 miles of existing roads and trails throughout the Inyo National Forest. Marty Hornick, Inyo project leader, guessed that the cherry stemmed roads through the proposed Wilderness area mirrored his project’s designated roads. “We haven’t finished assessing it yet, but it looks like they drew their lines from our proposal.” He stressed that the Forest Service was not involved in the Boxer/McKeon bill and learned the details when “everybody else did.”
However, John Stewart, natural resource consultant for the California 4-Wheel Drive Committee, said there was considerable loss of roads with the new Wilderness Bill.
While Miller wanted to concentrate on the compromises gained in the Boxer/McKeon bill, Mike Prather felt it was just a good start. “There is too much not included,” he said, including Table Mountain, more protection around the Amagorsa River and a greater extension of the John Muir Wilderness Area. Other speakers disagreed with the fact that proposed Wilderness in the White Mountains stopped at the Inyo County line. Haueter explained that move was part of the series of compromises.
Ed Waldheim of the California Trail Users Coalition felt the wide road cherry stems addressed the need to maintain access. “Wilderness is here,” he said. “If this bill doesn’t pass now, next year we’ll have no input, no say in what we’ll get. This is a pretty good bill and we should support it.”
A Sierra Club member from Pasadena, Karen Mulberger viewed the bill from a different perspective, one with an understanding of the loss of open land to development. “I want to see an agreement reached,” she said. “I see this as protection not as restriction.”
Those opposed to the legislation had two main themes: discrepancy between the concept of the Wilderness Act of 1964’s intent to protect “pristine, untrammeled” land and the fear that boundaries and road access of the proposed legislation would change radically – a fear based on the Desert Protection Act of 1994.
Mike Hoodman pointed out that if the proposed additions to the Wilderness designation were “untrammeled” there wouldn’t be a need to cherry stem in existing roads. “Much of this land doesn’t qualify as Wilderness,” he said. Another speaker feared that the bill opened the door to designating land as Wilderness that doesn’t qualify. “This is a bad idea and not the intent of the Wilderness Act.”
Joe Andrews anticipated access restrictions as a result of both Mother Nature and the rules and regulations developed to put the Wild Heritage Act into effect. Rancher Scott Kemp called for improving the rules of Wilderness to provide for fire protection strategies. “If we don’t,” he said, citing the recent Mather Fire, “we’ll just be giving our children a pile of ashes.”
In terms of the compromises realized in the new bill, Roeser pointed out that “when you get into federal court with the more extreme groups, there is no compromise. They want us gone and the people we bring in gone.” Her concern on the boundaries of the Boxer/McKeon bill stemmed from the fact Eastern Sierra packers have developed activities in non-Wilderness areas in order to stay in business.
Haueter, in a statement made after the meeting, felt that Roeser and the packer community would be satisfied with additional changes to the bill.
The Inyo County debate over the Wild Heritage Act continued Wednesday at the Charles Brown Auditorium in Bishop.