Time to make sure that Boxer doesn't get re-elected!

Jon
www.Crowley-Offroad.com
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Plan would protect vast areas in Kern

By KERRY CAVANAUGH, Californian staff writer
e-mail: kcavanaugh@bakersfield.com

Thursday March 14, 2002, 11:12:01 PM


California Sen. Barbara Boxer is looking to ban vehicles, road building and radio towers in three swaths of Sequoia National Forest land.

The Democrat will likely include 120,000 acres of Kern and Tulare public lands in legislation she'll introduce to designate the forest land as wilderness, her deputy state director Tom Bohigian said Thursday.

Boxer could introduce the bill in as soon as 30 days, he said.

The senator is also considering a "wild-and-scenic" designation for the lower Kern River, below Isabella Lake, which would prevent new dams or river diversions from being built.

Under a federal law passed in 1968, Rivers that are designated "wild and scenic" have unique fish and wildlife, geologic, scenic or historical features. Public uses of wild and scenic river areas are not as restricted as they are in places that are designated wilderness areas.

Boxer's staff is now meeting with valley political leaders to float the proposals. The wilderness bill could include as much as 2.7 million acres statewide, Bohigian said.

Joe Fontaine, a member of a local Sierra Club chapter, said his group's highest priority areas in the Piute Mountains and the Kern Plateau appear to be on Boxer's list.

Fontaine said he and fellow environmentalists have been pushing for the wilderness designations to guard against encroaching development, new roads and dams.

A wilderness area is supposed to be an untouched, primitive piece of forest that does not allow permanent roads, motor vehicles and motorized equipment, according to the 1964 Wilderness Act.

If successful, the wilderness bill will "keep things the way they are now so they can be enjoyed in the future," Fontaine said.

Except the bill would remove snowmobiles and motorcycles from areas now open to their motorized equipment.

Jack Patterson with the Kern Off-Highway Vehicle Association said there are several popular trails in the proposed wilderness areas, yet off-highway vehicle riders have had little input on the wilderness evaluations.

"This amount of wilderness is not necessary to protect anything but is the next step in making everything wilderness," he said.

The wilderness bill will not please everyone, Bohigian said. But the senator's staff has made concessions.

The proposal on the table now is half of the 4.5 million acres originally proposed by environmentalists.

It includes provisions maintaining cattle grazing, horse packing and allows mechanical equipment to fight wildfires.

Bohigian has also been meeting with local leaders, including the staffs of U.S. Reps. Cal Dooley, D-Hanford; and Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield; and Kern County Supervisor Jon McQuiston, whose district includes a proposed wilderness area in the Piute Mountains.

The supervisor generally opposes more wilderness designations, saying, "Philosophically, what's the need?"

But he is reluctant to push any county resolutions or stances until he sees what's in the bill.

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/sto...p-843503c.html

 

Sierras: Tahoe Residents Voice Concerns over
Sen. Boxer's Wilderness Plan
By Sierra Times
Published 03. 18. 2002 at 19:45 PST

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CA -- Over 200 outdoor recreationists and property owners crowded into a local restaurant in the Lake Tahoe area last Thursday to learn about how Senator Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) proposed Wilderness plan for California would impact recreation access and resource management.
For the last 2-3 years, the CWC, the Sierra Club, and other green groups have been aggressively marketing their Wilderness agenda to ban multiple-use recreation and resource management on 7 million acres in California. Their targets have been local preservationist oriented user groups, the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA), county government, federal land agencies, and other members of Congress.

Concerned snowmobile owners, 4 wheel drive enthusiasts, mountain bikers, off-highway vehicle users, and local residents listened to an overview of a new Wilderness plan being forwarded by the California Wilderness Coalition and other green groups. The presentation was given by the BlueRibbon Coalition's, Don Amador, who had been invited to speak by the Lake Tahoe Snowmobile Association.

Amador had given a similar presentation on March 13, 2002 to members of the North Tahoe Snow Travelers and Mt. Rose Snowmobile Alliance.

Amador said, "It appears by the number of folks in attendance [Thursday] that there is a lot of concern about how Boxer's proposed Wilderness bill will close existing trail use to snowmobile owners and mountain bikers in the Tahoe area."

The passage of the California Desert Protection Act had as one of its "access foundations" the cherry-stemmed route to get buy-off from access groups and multiple-use legislators. Yet, when the final version of the bill was released or went into conference committee, most of those routes were erased from the legislation. Even the Glamis Sand Dunes in Imperial County was a "cherry-stemmed" recreation area that the OHV community was promised as a bone, yet today the very groups that pushed the original Act have targeted that area for closure as well.

A U.S. Forest Service resource specialist has state that another reason the cherry-stemmed route does not work long-term is because it causes "management problems" for the agency. Again this dilemma for the agency
derives from the fact that cherry-stemmed OHV and MTB use is only an allowed activity that does not mesh well with the very strict management or non-management directives for federally designated wilderness.

"Besides affecting access, any federal designation of new Wilderness will also prevent the USDA Forest Service from active management of local timberlands for fire prevention and forest health. Another point brought up by a spokesperson for a local utility district is that Boxer's plan would prevent the maintenance of underground water and sewer lines in any of the new designated Wilderness areas," Amador continued.

"Local residents were urged to contact their elected county officials and let them know that continued access for multiple-use recreation and resource management of the Sierra Nevada is an important issue. The Wilderness issue is best decided at the local forest planning level rather than having a bureaucrat set-aside land without a legitimate public debate," Amador concluded.


© 2002 SierraTimes.com

http://www.sierratimes.com/02/03/19/arca031902.htm