theSheetNews.com

Advanced reservations for Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permits for the John Muir, Ansel Adams, and Golden Trout Wildernesses, and for the Mt. Whitney Zone, are now available through the National Recreation Reservation Service, or NRRS. As of Dec. 9, reservations can now be made online at www.recreation.gov  or by phone at 1.877.444.6777. Reservations are no longer being made through the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permit Office.

Up to now, customers wanting to make reservations had to call, mail, or fax a request to the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permit Office. With the move to the NRRS, customers can now make advanced reservations online anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For those visitors who do not have computer access or prefer not to use the internet, reservations can be made through a call center. The new system allows for changes to reservations on the website and through the call center up to two days ahead of an entry date. Customers will still convert their reservations to a wilderness permit as they have in the past by stopping at an Inyo National Forest visitor center. Customers who need extra assistance for trip planning will still be able to call the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permit Office for more information.

The John Muir and Ansel Adams Wilderness Areas are some of the most heavily visited wilderness areas in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Overnight permits are required and quotas are implemented May 1 through Nov. 1 in the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses, and from the last Friday in June through Sept. 15 in the Golden Trout Wilderness. A lottery is in place to reserve main Mt. Whitney Trail overnight and day use permits. Mt. Whitney permits are 100% reservable, while all other quota trailheads are 60% reservable, 40% first-come, first-served available at Inyo National Forest visitor centers one day before the trip.

Reservation fees are remaining the same at $5/person for quota trailheads and $15/person for the Mt. Whitney Zone. A transaction fee of $6 is tacked on to each reserved permit to cover the cost of the online service. The reservation fees are collected under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) with 95% of reservation fees collected being retained by the Inyo National Forest. These funds can be used for wilderness ranger patrols, visitor information services, educational programs, trail maintenance, restoration work, and staffing the Wilderness Permit Office. The recreation fee program provides the additional funding needed to offer quality services to the public and protection and restoration of the wilderness resource. The $6 transaction fee will be retained by the NRRS to cover the cost of providing the online reservations.

Along with the new online service there are some changes to the process for modifying your reservation, as well as the refund policy. Changes to a reservation can now be done online or through the call center up to two days before an entry date. Last minute changes can be made when permits are picked up if space is available.

Refunds will not be made for changes to reservations for the main Mt. Whitney Trail or Mt. Whitney Day Use, however refunds will be allowed for other entry trails if reservations are cancelled or party sizes reduced at least 22 days prior to an entry date. The $6 transaction fee is non-refundable.

For more information please visit www.recreation.gov, the Inyo National Forest website at www.fs.usda.gov/inyo,  or call the NRRS Call Center at 1.877.444.6777 or the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permit Office at 760.873.2483. -USFS

Mono Supes blast BLM, proposed WSA legislation

Salt in an open wound. A paper cut with lemon juice on it. Call it what you will, but after all the hoopla and gnashing of teeth that came as part of an earlier push for release of the Bodie Hills Wilderness Study Area, the last thing Mono County’s Board of Supervisors wants to take up at the moment is anything having to do with wilderness.

Nonetheless, the Board did just that earlier this month, in the form of a pair items pertaining to public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The first was a letter from James Wesley Abbott, Acting State Director for the BLM California, regarding a proposal by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar for a bipartisan wilderness agenda to designate areas of public lands that have strong local support for permanent protection as wilderness under the Wilderness Act.

The second was what, if anything, to say in response to H.R. 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011, currently circulating through the U.S. Congress, which if passed would release millions of acres of wilderness study areas nationwide, including the Bodie Hills in Mono County.

Abbott’s letter relayed an idea from U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking states, tribes and local communities to identify so-called “crown jewel” public lands, specifically administered by the BLM. The lands would then be forwarded to Congress for consideration as new “wilderness” areas. Several Democratic and Republican congressmen have already lobbed in ideas for lands in various states, including some in California by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-49th District.).

Salazar said in a separate letter that he planned to take any lands submitted for the overall list to Congress on Oct. 15, leaving the Board only a handful of weeks to mull submittal of any lands and vet those through public process … hardly enough time, the Board generally concluded.

The Board, however, slammed the brakes on joining that process, particularly regarding the Bodie Hills WSA.

“Bodie Hills isn’t a crown jewel wilderness. Congress has been reluctant to do its job and has been complacent these many years,” District 4 Supervisor Tim Hansen posited. “People use them for enjoyment but one day it’ll be locked up and people will say, ‘Wow, we should have done something about that.’”

As to H.R. 1581, only Hansen was vocal in his support for the sweeping measure. “I’m for 1581, because I think most of my constituents support it, and it’s widely supported across the U.S. WSAs are being misused to lock up these areas,” Hansen said, reiterating his previously stated positions on the matter.

Supervisor Byng Hunt also reaffirmed his stand, but in the negative. “I stated my case four weeks ago. I’m totally opposed to 1581; it’s too blanket, universal and one-sided,” Hunt said. As to Secretary Salazar’s issue of ‘jewels,’ Hunt indicated he thought Salazar’s intent was essentially good. “I think he wanted to get a handle on some areas that are relatively non-controversial trying to get more information out of local communities. Either the communities are behind it or they’re not,” he posited. “That said, it’s not appropriate for us to take any action.”

Board Chair Hap Hazard was against generating any response to either item. “Both are out of town, out of this area,” he reminded his fellow supervisors. “If [Secretary Salazar’s plan] is a chance for us to say we want to be given an assurance that if we work together and have a stakeholder interest, then he should give us a period of time, and a commitment that [Congress] is going to follow through and resolve it. Otherwise, I’m not interested in going backwards.”

“My preference is to oppose 1581,” Supervisor Larry Johnston remarked. “I do appreciate Secretary Salazar’s letter … sometimes these decrees are just handed down from the government. At least this is an ‘asking’ thing. That said, I don’t’ think I’d like to nominate something that hasn’t been vetted through public process. And I don’t think we should have to ask permission from the federal government to preserve things we think are worthy.”

“I don’t think federal officials can give anyone assurance they’re going to act on anything, especially at the county level,” Sally Miller said during public comment on the items. “I don’t see that the public is banging on the doors to negotiate another Hoover-style blanket piece of legislation.” Miller added that, given what she thinks is a historically controversial topic of wilderness vis a vis the Board and the community, there should be more “responsible constituent-level conversation between parties who don’t necessarily agree with each other.”

“There’s work to be done, and it truly has to happen from the ground up before it comes before the board again,” she concluded.

The Board came to consensus on no reply to either item, except, as Hunt suggested, on an individual basis between elected representatives, without speaking on behalf of the Board or the County.

Opponents of releasing the Bodie Hills from Wilderness Study Area status got their way on Tuesday, but so did supporters in a way, when the Mono County Board of Supervisors took no action on a resolution drafted by the Bridgeport Valley Regional Advisory Planning Committee that expressed support for a sweeping piece of legislation making its way through nation’s capitol.

Sponsored by District 4 Supervisor Tim Hansen, who took over the gavel as acting Chair for the agenda item, the RPAC’s resolution supported the release of the Bodie Hills Wilderness Study Area as well as HR 1581, a bill that would release all Wilderness Study Areas and Inventoried Roadless Areas across the country that have been recommended or evaluated as not suitable for wilderness by the Bureau of Land Management.

Introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), HR 1581 would only release land deemed not suitable for maintaining WSA status, but that translates to the release of more than 6 million acres of wilderness study areas (WSA) that the BLM claimed in the 1980s, had wilderness characteristics but were not recommended as suitable for wilderness designations. The determination was made after considering local input, mineral potential and mining claims, among other issues.

The legislation would also require the Forest Service to lift protections on some 36 million acres of inventoried roadless lands that it has not recommended Congress designate as wilderness, according to the Bill’s sponsors.

Opposition was plentiful at Tuesday’s meeting in the Bridgeport Courthouse, though several interesting supportive comments did catch some supervisors’ attention. In the end, however, the Board did not back the RPAC’s resolution, largely on grounds that it was a national piece of legislation into which Mono County had no business sticking its nose. The RPAC, however, was left to forward a letter of support on its own initiative, should it so choose.

For more on this story, pick up a copy of the print version of The Sheet, on newsstands Friday.

Much has been made of the Bodie Wilderness Study Area (WSA) involving a piece of federal legislation put forth by our U.S. Congressman, Buck McKeon (R-25th District), that would, if passed, release the Hills from WSA status.

The bill, H.R. 6129, which has no sense of urgency or timeline attached to it, was rather unceremoniously dropped out of the sky and onto a recent Mono County Board of Supervisors’ agenda, where a resolution of support was considered, drawing the ire of not only opponents of the legislation, but also some of the Board members. They were incensed that the bill was written and submitted to Congress without any public process or indeed any formal contact with the Board itself.

The heated discourse in the Board chambers clearly showcased the considerable differences on both sides of the contentious agenda item.

According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website: “Wilderness areas are special places where the earth and its community of life are essentially undisturbed. They retain a primeval character, without permanent improvements and generally appear to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature.” The areas are supposed to be roadless, without permanent improvements or human habitation.

Whether or not you agree with mining, the WSA issue really isn’t about gold. Cougar Gold, or any other mining company can disappear tomorrow. And even assuming they don’t, any future plans they may have face a public process period before any new permits are granted.

The WSA issue is about wilderness and how long study areas are to be held before being either confirmed or released.

At present, the BLM says, “WSAs will remain under the Interim Management Plan until Congress designates them wilderness or releases them for other non-wilderness uses. There are no time limits on Congress so it is uncertain when final decisions will be made. Wilderness values within all WSAs are protected by the BLM until Congress acts.”

The concept of a Wilderness Study Area wasn’t meant to last in perpetuity, although some would correctly argue that in this day and age it’s more fun not to act and have these things linger as conversation pieces and talking points.

The keyword here is “study.” That, by its very definition, indicates one conducts a study and reaches findings, upon which the study is concluded. Such studies have been done in the Bodie Hills and the BLM has determined that the Bodie Hills area doesn’t meet wilderness criteria. It has a roads system (albeit not permanent), existing structures and holes from decades of exploratory drilling.

Even if any of the 700 plus WSAs are released, no development will just happen overnight, and certainly not in a vacuum. Any development must (and will) be done in an open, public forum, with checks and balances along the way.

Congressman McKeon’s bill, well-intentioned or not, was certainly a huge miscalculation and hardly the solution to the WSA issue. Come on, Congressman, you’re supposed to be an experienced hand at this kind of thing. H.R. 6129 addresses but a single WSA and is clearly only of benefit to you and (you suppose) your Congressional district. It’s not something one would expect from a seasoned legislator, who should instead be pushing harder for broader general action on WSAs.

What McKeon’s bill does accomplish is reminding us that this and many of the more than 700 other WSAs, constituting 26.5 million acres nationwide, are being held in a sort of stasis.

Ironically, McKeon illustrated perfectly in his imperfect bill that the issue needs to move forward. Mono County deserves to have its own WSAs (more than a dozen of them) put to an up-or-down vote.