Wilderness bill has a chance

Devil’s Staircase deserves protection

Even in these slow economic times, the United States is losing 6,000 acres of open space each day, a pace of four acres a minute. This means the window is closing on our nation’s ability to preserve wild lands for future generations.

Protecting wilderness has the potential of being a classic nonpartisan issue, supportable by Republicans and Democrats alike in the current 112th Congress. An impressive block of lawmakers share this view, with legislation now pending that could enshrine 1.5 million acres in seven states. Key areas in Oregon and Washington are included.

The plan of greatest interest in Western Oregon is the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness Act, reintroduced this month by Rep. Peter DeFazio and Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. Formally designated House Resolution 1413 and Senate Resolution 766, it would set aside about 30,000 acres of wilderness on Wassen Creek between the Smith and Umpqua Rivers in the southern Coast Range.

A description of the Devil’s Staircase area helps explain the passion many feel for these surviving remnants of North America’s primeval past. Considered to be one of the most remote and inaccessible forests in the state, it sounds like the sort of Eden humans first encountered here after the last ice age. The very existence of the Devil’s Staircase was in doubt until recent years.

“Nearly three decades later there is still no route  – not a single trail – into the area,” according to the Pew Environment Group. “To get there one must try to follow elk and deer trails, hike the creek bed or go overland through nearly impossibly rugged and brushy terrain. Typically, the trek requires a combination of all three and more.

“Wassen Creek flows over four or five sandstone steps as it tumbles down about 50 feet. Into each step, the creek had drilled round plunge pools, perhaps using hard, igneous pebbles to scrape away the softer sandstone. The pools range in size from those large enough for several people to bathe in to thimbles that have just begun their erosion journey.”

Preserving such a marvel and the rich habitat that frames it would seem an indisputable good. But there is, of course, no subject that can’t be twisted into a political pretzel in today’s fractious times.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is chairman of the House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee, which reviews wilderness proposals. He isn’t outright saying no to the new wilderness proposals, which is at least somewhat praiseworthy. But he is holding some of them hostage to the idea that much other land be permanently barred from wilderness designation and opened up for the full slate of exploitative uses, including oil and gas development.

Bishop and the corporations he represents are trying to foist an old fallacy on the American people – that giving the nation’s public assets to a few somehow benefits us all. The West was largely stolen by big business starting with the railroad land giveaways of the 19th century. The fight now is over protecting the few scraps that these burglars inadvertently left behind.

We should fight hard and loudly to preserve Wassen Creek and the other gems up for consideration in Congress this year.