Death Valley (above), Joshua Tree, and the Mojave National Preserve stand to grow a bit under legislation passed by the U.S. Senate/NPS
Strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate has reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund, protected Yellowstone and North Cascades national parks from mining on their doorsteps, designated some 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and called for a study into potential units of the National Park System, though the House of Representatives still needs to take up the measure.
“Today marks an overdue but critical victory for America’s most important conservation funding program and for protecting our wild lands," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society following the Senate's vote on the measure Tuesday. "It’s encouraging to see the new Congress immediately moving bipartisan legislation that conserves our land and water for now and for future generations."
The nearly 700-page bill, called the Natural Resources Management Act, was passed on a 92-8 vote.
"We are one step closer to adding over 2 million acres of parks, wilderness, and conservation lands into protected status," said Kristen Brengel, vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "We will also better tell America’s story with six new National Heritage Areas and two new national monuments managed by NPS."
The Land and Water Conservation Fund, created in 1964, "allows the National Park Service and other federal land agencies to purchase lands within the borders of federally protected areas from landowners when they are offered for sale," Deny Galvin, a former deputy director of the National Park Service, wrote back in 2015. "Without these funds, the land is more likely to be sold to the highest bidder, risking damaging construction projects ranging from sub-developments to strip malls to resorts."
The legislation contains quite a few items for the National Park System. If approved by the House and signed by President Trump, it would, among other things:
* Provide permanent protection against new mining claims on lands including the doorstep of Yellowstone and North Cascades national parks;
* Expand both Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks in California;
* Create a national monument honoring civil rights icon Medgar Evers in Mississippi;
* Create a Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument in Kentucky;
* Redesignate Ocmulgee Mounds National Monument in Georgia as a national historical park;
* Redesignate Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in New Hampshire as national historical park;
* Redesignate Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah as a national historical park, and;
* Expand Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee by adding battlefields at Davis Bridge and Fallen Timbers in Tennessee, and Russell House in Tennessee and Mississippi to Shiloh.
"The Senate’s action today, including protecting two million acres of national park and other public lands, is further proof that these issues can, and should, be bipartisan,” said Theresa Pierno, NPCA's president and CEO.
Wilderness designations called for in the measure include:
* Emery County wilderness, UT 661,200 acres
* California Desert wilderness, CA 375,500 acres
* Organ Mountain Desert Peaks wilderness, NM 241,500 acres
* Cerros del Norte wilderness, NM 22,000 acres
* San Juan County wilderness, NM 9,400 acres
* Devil’s Staircase wilderness, OR 30,600 acres
More than 620 miles of additions to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System include:
* Green River, UT 63 miles
* Lower Farmington additions, CT 62 miles
* Wood-Pawcatuck, RI 110 miles
* Nashua, MA and NH 53 miles
* Franklin Creek, Wasson Creek, Molalla, Elk Creek, OR 256 miles
* California Desert 77 miles
Additions to the National Trails System include:
* North Country National Scenic Trail extension 1,400 miles
* Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail extension 1,200 miles
National park additions include:
* California (Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Mojave) 39,835 acres
* Georgia (Ocmulgee Mounds, Kennesaw, Fort Frederica) 2,163 acres
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Comments
Thank you! Please keep up the good work. These areas are very important!
What areas are being added to DVNP? Could you please add the mining areas around Ryan.
What's the catch? If the GOP is involved, there must be some hidden agenda.
I'm Flabbergasted!
This is the biggest conservation of lands by Congress since 2009. The San rafeal Swell in Utah gets recreational area status for some of its southern part, and a big chunk of area surrounding it is wiilderness.I expect the Swell to become a huge national monument sometime in 2021 when the next Dem president is running things. The Formation itself covers nearly 2 million acres, and thats not including wildernes study areas around it. All told ti protect the Swell and its surroundings will require around 3.5 million acres, or 10 times the size of Utah''s largest currreent national park.
The Reconstruction Era National mnument becomes an historic park. Honululi national monument gets changed to an historic site, and the world War II Valor in the Pacific NM basically gets whittled down to a small remant. the Alaska and California areas become distinct monuments and pearl Harbor becomes a distinct memorial.
Al in all a big win for conservation including permanently okaying the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
I went through and read the specifics of the bill last night. Desolation Canyon in UT is designated as a 140k wilderness area and Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry becomes a new UT NM. Jurassic NM. I counted over eleven new wilderness areas in UT alone. I am curious about this new John Wesley Powell NCA too. Sounds like it is in Duchense Co. Anyone know where this is?
There has been very little mention of all this in Utah. There has been much more information here than in any news locally in Utah.