Norton seeks to halt Western wilderness reviews

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Norton seeks to halt Western wilderness reviews

LANDS: In addition, 3 million acres would lose protected status.

 

The Associated Press

(Published: April 13, 2003)

 

WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department wants to limit Bureau of Land

Management lands eligible for wilderness protection to 23 million acres

nationwide, a figure environmental groups say leaves millions of pristine

acres vulnerable to development.

 

The department told Congress on Friday that it intends to halt all reviews of

its Western land holdings for new wilderness protection and to withdraw that

protected status from 3 million acres in Utah.

 

Suspending wilderness reviews would limit the amount of land held by its

Bureau of Land Management eligible for wilderness protection at 22.8 million

acres nationwide. Congress could order additional areas protected.

 

" What they're saying is these wilderness-quality lands throughout the West

will continue to be degraded and continue to lose their eligibility for

wilderness, " said Jim Angell of EarthJustice. " It's just appalling. "

 

In Alaska, said Interior Secretary Gale Norton, BLM no longer will perform

wilderness reviews of public lands without broad support of the state.

 

" I instruct BLM to consider specific wilderness study proposals in Alaska, as

part of any new or revised resource management planning effort, if the

proposals have broad support among the state and federal elected officials

representing Alaska, " Norton said. " Absent this broad support, wilderness

should not be considered in these resource management plans. "

 

That brought quick praise from state Senate President Gene Therriault,

R-North Pole, and House Speaker Pete Kott, R-Eagle River. Therriault said the

decision puts back in place the " No More Clause, " a promise not to conduct

further wilderness study after passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands

Conservation Act of 1980.

 

ANILCA preserved more than 150 million acres in protected conservation units

and more than a third, 57 million acres, were designated as wilderness,

Republican lawmakers said.

 

Norton said her department remains committed to wilderness protection.

 

" The Department stands firmly committed to the idea that we can and should

manage our public lands to provide for multiple use, including protection of

those areas that have wilderness characteristics, " she said in a letter sent

late Friday to members of Congress.

 

Norton said Congress gave the Interior Department 15 years in 1976 to

inventory wilderness areas, and only those areas identified by 1991 as having

wilderness characteristics qualified for protection.

 

The policy changes come as part of a settlement filed in federal court in

Salt Lake City. Utah had sued the Interior Department in 1996 over a

re-inventory of 3 million acres conducted by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

 

Most of the lawsuit was dismissed, and it sat dormant until the state amended

its complaint last month.

 

Norton's announcement means the department will disregard the results of

Babbitt's 1996 inventory. That inventory identified 5.9 million acres of Utah

land that qualified for wilderness protection, 3 million acres more than

found in the original inventory during the Reagan administration.

 

Sizable portions of the additional 3 million protected acres are red rock

canyons and rock formations in the southeastern part of Utah.

http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/2938336p-2973070c.html