In an April 12 editorial, the Missoulian blasted Montana’s congressional delegation for not introducing a controversial draft bill based on a multi-year collaborative effort called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership (BDP) because it has been 26 years since Montana’s last wilderness designation and because of the recent embarrassment of having nothing in the Omnibus Public Lands Bill, even though Montana is obviously one of the major public lands states.
I doubt any editorial writer in the New West is more pro-wilderness than I am. Nonetheless, I believe the delegation is wise to stay clear of the BDP legislation as currently written. The draft bill must be either modified prior to introduction or allowed to die a quiet death so our elected officials and green groups can collaborate on a real wilderness bill.
My specific objections of the current draft bill are:
1. It protects only portions of two congressionally mandated Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs), the Sapphires and West Pioneers. The bill should permanently protect the entire WSAs, which has no impact on the wood products industry because these areas won’t be available for timber management.
2. It gives up more than 200,000 acres of roadless lands to timber management. This roadless acreage should be removed from the bill and replaced with an equal or greater acreage of already-roaded lands devoted to timber management under the same well-thought-out restrictions written into the draft bill.
3. It should have the word “Wilderness” in the title and not be called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Conservation, Restoration and Stewardship Act.
I suppose I could live with the title, but the other two issues are deal-breakers. I’d also prefer wood products industry relief go into a separate companion bill, but I can live with the combination. Actually, I have no problem making the bill even more friendly to the wood products industry by increasing the acreage devoted to stewardship logging.
I’ve been told that “it’s the BDP or nothing” for the entire 111th Congress. I hope that isn’t true, but if it is, well, I’d rather have nothing than the current BDP bill.
Without this bill, we’ll have the status quo for almost all, if not all, of the 575,000 acres of wilderness the bill would designate. This acreage won’t be “Big W,” but it would remain wild and roadless because right now the Roadless Rule (still in effect in Montana) gives it significant, albeit temporary, protection and the Sapphires and West Pioneers would remain essentially wilderness because Congress mandated it back in 1977 by including both areas (and seven others) in S. 393, the Montana Wilderness Study Act.
So, wildernuts, do the numbers. With the BDP bill, we lose more than 200,000 acres of roadless lands and the best opportunity we’ll ever have to permanently protect two major WSAs. (The draft bill designates 43,000 out of 94,000 acres in the Sapphires and 34,000 out of 151,000 acres in the West Pioneers as wilderness.) Without the BDP bill, we have the status quo, some degree of protection for all 575,000 acres (14 separate areas).
Likewise, wood products industry reps, do your numbers. The BDP bill opens a whopping 2.3 million acres of national forest to stewardship logging with 700,000 acres mandated to become available for timber management within one year of the day
President Obama signs it. With modifications, you might get even more. If the bill goes down in flames, you get what you have now, which most everybody agrees is not a pretty picture.
The last thing we want is our delegation to introduce something that turns into a lose-lose situation and then turns them away from the wilderness issue for another 26 years, which is what I fear might happen if they drop BDP in as currently written.
So, politicos, do your numbers. You’re good at this. Obviously, motorheads will oppose the bill. They already have with full-page ads in Montana dailies. But the wreckreation constituency is smaller and “redder,” but perhaps more vociferous, than the wilderness constituency. You can bank on that opposition going in, as you can criticism from single-use advocates like the mining industry that always oppose wilderness.
Even with some segments of the wood products industry on board, the BDP bill still faces significant opposition, which makes support from the entire pro-wilderness constituency critical. Yet, as currently written, the BDP alienates many normally pro-wilderness people, like myself, including the entire memberships of several small, but vocal, Montana-based green groups.
The three major green groups behind the BDP – Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation, and Trout Unlimited – basically consider these small groups bugs for the windshield as they speed forward to convince the delegation to introduce the BDP bill.
Instead, we should modify the bill to get all the pro-wilderness folks on board or at least pacified enough to check their guns at the door. That sure would make the entire experience more pleasant for politicians. Right now, they face a harsh reality of seeing hard-hitting headlines about wilderness groups opposing their wilderness legislation.
A much better alternative for our delegation would be real wilderness legislation, preferably a statewide bill. Simultaneously, introduce a pro-logging bill even more sweeping than the timber-related segments of the BDP and tell stakeholders “it’s both or nothing.” I, for one, support both, and I suspect most pro-wilderness Montanans would join me.