On Friday, 4/20/2007, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, H.R. 1975 was introduced in the 110th Congress. It will designate all of the inventoried roadless areas in the Northern Rockies as wilderness, giving them the government’s strongest protection. This is a total of 23 million acres of roadless area that would be protected forever under that designation. See this story in The Missoulian.
A week or so ago I discovered a great website, The Roadless Area Database which provides information about and maps of the roadless areas on U.S. Forest Service lands. It’s a fascinating and informative site for those who wish to see the proposed areas to be included. The information I found there about one of the areas I am very familiar with was very accurate. Earlier I made two posts referring to this area, Why, and The Coeur d’Alene Mountains: haven’t they suffered enough?.
You can find the Press Release and a 147 page PDF file containing the text of H.R. 1975 on this site: Wild Rockies Alliance.
I will reserve my comments for later on why I think Representative Denny Rehberg from Montana and Representative Barbara Cubin from Wyoming immediately came out in opposition.
Montana Outdoors 
hm, it sounds good. why do you think they oppose it? lobbyists? are their constituents really clamoring against this bill? it makes me think about that line in the other article “it’s not the Montana way…” it seems as if conserving its natural beauty would be the Montana way….
haven’t checked out the roadless database. I’ll try another day….
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Comment by skouba — April 23, 2007 @ 10:03 pm
skouba,
Without trying to sound too cynical, energy company money goes a long way in a election campaign. My personal opinion is that both of these representatives have sold out to the big money people. The next election may well be a different story.
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Comment by montucky — April 23, 2007 @ 10:20 pm
[…] Wilderness bill […]
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Pingback by themississippistate.info » Blog Archive » Tuesday 24th April 2007 07:39:03 AM — April 24, 2007 @ 5:39 am
Unfortunately, various interests (energy companies, loggers, developers, tourism companies, etc.) often fight against this kind of designation. Naturally, that’s short sighted, for if everyone does what they want in the wilderness, pretty soon it’s not wilderness.
I hope the bill will pass.
Malcolm
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Comment by knightofswords — April 24, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
There will most certainly be a lot of money spent to fight this bill. There have been similar bills in the past that went nowhere, but this one seems to have pretty good support going in and it may be also the timing for it is good now. With all the press about global warming the country is, at the moment, in an environmental mood.
Terry
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Comment by montucky — April 24, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
I also think it was smart for the bills designer to call it the “Northern Rockies Ecosystem etc”.. All of America is in love with the Rocky Mountains and with good reason there isn’t anything else like it in our country! My personal rep is probably going to fight it – she’s a republican and she tends to only vote for those things that include a large pay for young men to encourage them into service into the current war. As for anything good (Alaska’s protection, global warming, or taking care of injured vets she tends to oppose.. she’s got her hand pretty deep in Bush’s pocket.) I’ll nag her tho – if nothing else to get an idea where she’s coming from. I’ll also post a link to your page – maybe anyone else who trips across my page will contact their reps.
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Comment by aullori — April 24, 2007 @ 7:05 pm
there is no global warming dear! Listen to all evidence (there is none for global warming; there is polution and the overuse of plastics. I am for protecting the Northern Rockies, but not as an over the top eco-nut! Vilifying your Rep only says you are a radical – incapable of any logical reasonable thought. Your like-minded friends are your only backers!
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Comment by earthdowser — March 23, 2009 @ 11:37 am
aullori,
Thanks for your support. If we all at least do something it will help. I don’t know who your Rep is, but three of the reps from Washington supported the bill.
I live very close to a few of the areas that are included and am writing a post now with a few photos of those areas. If you have some photos taken in the areas near you, maybe you could post them as well.
Terry
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Comment by montucky — April 24, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
[…] Wilderness Bill https://montucky.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/wilderness-bill/ […]
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Pingback by Wilderness Bill « Random Musings — April 24, 2007 @ 8:18 pm
[…] 26th, 2007 by montucky Edit | When the new Wilderness Bill was announced, Montana’s only member of the House of Representatives, Denny Rehberg, immediately […]
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Pingback by More on the Wilderness Bill H.R. 1975: opposition « Montana Outdoors — April 26, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
So what about the beetle kill trees, if we would have been able to log out the little amount of beetle kill when we had the chance we would have such a major infestation right now, we have probably lost thousands of square miles of forest and it is destroying the beauty of Montana and now we need to clear cut it all or a fire will take all of our forest, we are spending thousands of dollars and losing young peoples lives in the fighting of intense fires due to the dry beetle kill.
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Comment by Stephen Butkay — November 18, 2009 @ 9:47 am
i ment that we wouldn’t have such a big investation
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Comment by Stephen Butkay — November 18, 2009 @ 9:48 am
It just isn’t possible to treat our forests as though they were small wooded areas. Most of the roadless areas are in such rough country that it would be terribly expensive to build roads in there to do much logging: if they weren’t, they would have been logged by now anyway. Even if we could get there, clear cutting would not be the answer because it actually does more damage to the environment than natural fires do and those areas recover much more slowly, if they ever do.
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Comment by montucky — November 21, 2009 @ 10:01 am