Oregon Public Broadcasting

The U.S. Senate Thursday gave overwhelming approval to new wilderness set-asides in Oregon and Idaho, including the Mt Hood Wilderness. 

Some of the wilderness protections had been hung up for years by partisan wrangling.  But now they’re on the fast track.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

Lots of land in Oregon and Idaho may soon be permanently off-limits to logging, development, and motorized recreation. 

The biggest chunk lies in the Owyhee and Bruneau canyon lands of Southwest Idaho, followed by forested flanks of Oregon’s Mount Hood.  Also included: two parcels of high dessert in central Oregon and two pieces of Siskiyou backcountry in southwest Oregon. 

The Senate voted 73 to 21 with all Northwest Senators voting aye.  The bill now goes to the U.S. House, where Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer predicts “full steam ahead.”

Earl Blumenauer: “There’s been things hung up in the Senate but now it looks like the roadblock is lifted and we’re all set for a very strong bi-partisan vote in both chambers.”

In fact, Blumenauer says the package is moving so quickly, it could be one of the first bills signed into law by incoming President Obama.

The public lands package also creates the long-discussed Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail.  It stretches from western Montana to the mouth of the Columbia River. 

The National Park Service would stitch together existing roads and local parks with new interpretive sites as funding allows.  

Key locations where the landscape tells the story of a cataclysmic prehistoric flood include Dry Falls State Park and the Wallula Gap and the Columbia River Gorge.

Online:

Public Lands Bill, S. 22

Proposed new Northwest wilderness areas

Mt. Hood Wilderness:  Over 130,00 acres of new wilderness and 80 miles of new Wild and Scenic River designations on the flanks of Oregon’s Mt. Hood.

Owhyee Initiative: Settles decades-long land management disputes by designating separate tracts for wilderness areas, grazing, and off-road vehicle use in the southwest corner of Idaho.  The over half a million acres of protected wilderness center on the remote canyon lands of the Owyhee and Bruneau rivers.

Oregon Badlands Wilderness: 30,000 acres of lava flows and ancient junipers in the high desert about 15 miles east of Bend.

Spring Basin Wilderness: 8,600 acres of rolling hills with a profusion of spring wildflowers above the John Day River in north-central Oregon.

Copper Salmon Wilderness: Over 13,000 acres of old growth and cedar forests in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.  Protects the headwaters of the salmon-bearing Elk River in southwest Oregon.

Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument:  Designates as wilderness over 23,000 acres of high meadows and forest inside this relatively new national monument east of Ashland, Oregon.  Includes voluntary buyouts of grazing leases near the Pacific Crest Trail.