Wild Sky Wilderness passed the Senate

[Tony_Bentley]

I didn;t see this here yet. Pretty sweet.

 

Now if only Heybrook Ridge could be tacked onto the boundary. It's right there!

 

HERE

 

 

Edited April 10, 2008 by Tony_Bentley

[Tony_Bentley]

The wilderness area in Snohomish County has long been a political football.

 

By Jim Haley, Herald Writer

 

A bill that would create a 106,000-acre wilderness area in eastern Snohomish County is expected to finally come before the U.S. Senate this week, possibly as early as today.

 

Senate passage would create the Wild Sky Wilderness, which has had ups and downs in both houses of Congress since it was introduced in 2002. Three times, the measure passed in the Senate but languished in the House.

 

Led by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., the Democratic-controlled House approved Wild Sky a year ago, but about 62 federal land-use measures were stymied in a Senate bill in 2008. The House vote is good until the current session of Congress ends late this year.

 

That logjam is about to end, aides to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Wednesday. Murray is the prime Wild Sky sponsor in the Senate. Aides said the public lands bill has been scheduled for a vote, which could come today.

 

This would be the first wilderness created in Washington state in more than two decades.

 

Wild Sky would include both backcountry ridges and peaks as well as low-elevation, old-growth forests surrounding salmon and steelhead spawning grounds. House opposition earlier was fueled by concerns that about 13,000 acres of the site might not meet wilderness standards.

 

The wilderness would be north of U.S. 2 and the towns of Index and Skykomish. The area straddles the Beckler River and the north fork of the Skykomish River within the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

 

Part of the new wilderness would be adjacent to the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness, which was established in 1984 and was named after the late senator from Everett. A wilderness designation gives the land strong federal protection, although some compromises are built into this bill.

 

Those include allowing some areas to be used by large Scout groups, letting float planes continue using a large, high-mountain lake, and creating a paved recreation trail that would accommodate people in wheelchairs.

 

While environmentalists have pushed hard for passage, the Wild Sky creation has run into strong opposition from farmers and ranchers, and from some sport enthusiasts such as snowmobilers, who would be unable to ride within wilderness boundaries. Most recently, a vote on the bill had been held up by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who was protesting proposed spending in a collection of public lands legislation.

 

The wilderness designation bans use of motorized vehicles, but allows a whole array of outdoor activities, including hiking, hunting, fishing and rafting.

 

[Drederek]

Would this close motorized access to the top of the upper town wall? Probably too much to hope for

[AlpineK]

A friend and I were talking to one of the owners of the Index Town Store today. She was pretty happy about the Wild Sky bill passing. In the end stuff like this will help out small towns like Index a lot.

[mattp]

Recreational users are certainly a significant part of their market and the owners of the store have stocked goods of interest to a variety of shoppers including climbers, fisherman, or the sodom and gomorrah campground that used to be up there. I'm not sure whether formal Wilderness status will increase or decrease their bottom line, but certainly bringing attention to the area might help and long-term preservation is something that most of us here will appreciate. I wonder what the locals would say if you took a survey?

[AlpineK]

Climbing, fishing, mountain biking, kayaking, bird watching, hiking, backpacking, and coming up to rent a cabin in the woods are some of the activities that will benefit the locals by bringing money to the area. Money ends up creating jobs and thus paychecks for locals.

 

I'm sure a lot of long time locals view logging as the only money maker, but if you look around the west you can find a lot of towns that benefit financially from having parks or wilderness nearby. Estes Park CO comes to mind as does Mazama and Winthrop WA.

[archenemy]

Most of the locals in Index don't work in Index, so the idea that this designation will help them doesn't really hold much water. In general, most full timers in Index don't really give a shit (this is not a formal poll, only what I hear folks talking about at the local watering hole).

 

All of second-home owners I've spoken to (and there are quite a few) are happy to see it come through. It is a beautiful area worthy of protection.

[Tony_Bentley]

In general, most full timers in Index don't really give a shit (this is not a formal poll, only what I hear folks talking about at the local watering hole).

 

If you want the formal poll, I have it on paper. And yes they do care. You can get the meeting minutes from Louise Lindgren if you need to clarify your statement.

[archenemy]

Believe it or not, I make it to quite a few of the meetings related to business with the community (as it does affect my own home). And I'll bet you'll agree that folks who show up to these type of meetings and like taking polls on this type of topic are probably going to be for this designation. It ain't exactly a random sample, is it?