Help Stop Bogus Wilderness in Washington State

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~SPONSOR~
Aug 13, 1999
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From a fellow dirtbiker:

I would encourage everyone to send a letter to George Nethercutt to discourage him from supporting the Wild Sky Wilderness. Also a letter to Richard Pombo, chairman of the house Committee on Resources, would be beneficial to request that he not allow the Wild Sky Bill (HR822) out of his committee for a full house vote.

Some of you received my personal letter that I recently sent to Richard Pombo on the subject of Wild Sky. Feel free to use any information from that letter in your own letter to Mr. Pombo and Mr. Nethercutt. Also the WSSA president, Mark Gallatin, is suppose to be sending a letter soon to Mr. Pombo that states that WSSA does not support wilderness in general, and does not support the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal because it includes 36,000 acres of land that does not meet the definition of wilderness. If you need more information regarding Wild Sky for your letter, please let me know.

Here is the contact information for Mr. Pombo and Mr. Nethercutt.

Honorable George Nethercutt
920 West Riverside, Suite 594
Spokane, WA 99201

George@NethercuttForSenate.com

Honorable Richard Pombo
Committee on Resources
1337 Longworth Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

rpombo@mail.house.gov

Here is a letter you can use as a guide -

Honorable Richard Pombo
Committee on Resources
1337 Longworth Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Honorable Richard Pombo and members of the House Committee on Resources,
I last wrote to you and the House Committee on Resources in January 2003 regarding my concerns with the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal that is currently before your committee as HR822. I am writing to you again now to let you know of a recent vote by the members of the Washington State Snowmobile Association regarding wilderness designations in general, and in particular the Wild Sky Wilderness. Please ensure that the Wild Sky Wilderness bill never leaves your committee for a full house vote.

At the recent March 6th general membership meeting of WSSA, a motion was made by a general member, who happened to be me, Dave Hurwitz. The motion was “A letter should be sent to Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Resource Committee, advising that WSSA does not support any new wilderness designations in our state in general, and also that WSSA is particularly concerned about the 36,000 acres within the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal that do not meet the definition of wilderness”. The information regarding the non-wilderness qualifying acres is per the testimony of Abigail Kimbell, Associate Deputy Chief, National Forest System Forest Service. Her testimony was made to the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests on June 30, 2002. My motion regarding Wild Sky passed a vote by the general membership in attendance at this meeting with unanimous approval. The membership felt that allowing any land, which does not qualify as “wilderness”, to be designated as wilderness land, would set a precedent extremely detrimental to snowmobiling. I would like to provide you with some history of WSSA and Wild Sky, to help you understand why you have not heard from WSSA earlier on this issue.

During the 107th Congress in 2002, some very good people within WSSA, with the past WSSA president’s concurrence, attempted to work with Senator Patty Murray, Rep. Jennifer Dunn, and Rep. Rick Larsen, to try and preserve all snowmobile opportunities within the area that will soon be off limits to all forms of mechanical transportation. Whether it is a snowmobile, a motorcycle, a family with young kids wanting to go camping with their mini-van full of supplies, an elderly couple out for a drive, or your neighbors with a couple of mountains bikes, as I know you all are aware, all of these forms of recreation will soon become extinct in the Wild Sky Wilderness near Index, Washington, if the afore-mentioned proposal passes in the House of Representatives. Wild Sky is only the first intersection on a road traveled by the Washington Wilderness Coalition, which is attempting to bring the Wildlands Project to Washington State to lockup close to 3 million more acres as wilderness.

These WSSA members at the meetings mentioned above were successful in getting some snowmobile areas removed from the wilderness proposal, and they should be commended for their efforts, unfortunately, they were not able to get all snowmobile areas removed. In the end, they were told to take the proposal as is, or leave it with all the snowmobile areas remaining within the wilderness boundary. Reluctantly a letter was drafted by an individual within WSSA that stated “ In the matter of the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness area near Skykomish and Index, our members of WSSA … have mutually agreed to remove from your proposal some areas in which our members enjoy snowmobiling … Since Wilderness does not benefit snowmobiling we cannot support your proposal, but would like to offer neutrality”.

What was wrong with this agreement? Several things come to mind. First, this “neutral position” was not in the best interest of Washington snowmobilers and other forms of recreation in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, because of the precedence it would create for other new wilderness proposals within our state. At the time of this agreement, these WSSA members were not aware of the thousands of acres of land that did not meet the definition of wilderness. Second, this agreement occurred during the 107th Congress for Wild Sky bills S2565 and HR4844. Both of these bills died when the 107th Congress ended, therefore this agreement also died. Third, this position was not voted on by the WSSA board, or by the general membership. Although I understand that the past WSSA president concurred with this agreement, the current president does not. Also most of the WSSA members knew nothing about this agreement and were not very happy with it.

Our WSSA web site states, “our opportunities for access to public lands are being unnecessarily and unfairly limited or otherwise curtailed because of bogus studies and implementation of restrictions without due process” and “That the land management policies of several federal land management agencies are becoming exclusionary to many facets of motorized forms of recreation. We feel that over 100 million acres of Wilderness (of which the majority is in the Western United States) is ENOUGH”! I couldn’t agree more with these statements from our web site. I hope you also agree with these statements too.

You should be receiving a letter very soon from Mark Gallatin, our current WSSA president regarding this issue. I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to read my letter with my concerns over Wild Sky. And I would also like to thank you for the excellent job you are doing as the chair of the House Committee on Resources. I wish that Washington State had the pleasure of someone such as you representing our interests.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Address
Your email/phone
Your affiliation


Here is a clip from News as to what is happening!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001885125_wildsky22m0.html
 

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~SPONSOR~
Aug 13, 1999
2,094
0
From Rep. Pombo who is against all this Wilderness crapola!



It would be good if your letter writers could send me, (fax or e-mail is fine) a copy of their letters. I would then get them to the appropriate people in Congress. Attached is the letter instructions that I use. I also keep a copy, so that if there is a hearing I will again wave them in front of the committee.

The time is critical now, so mailing the letter should be done after it is e-mailed or faxed to the House Resource Committee. The Honorable Richard Pombo, fax 202 226 0861 e-mail rpombo@mail.house.gov

Mail to The Honorable Richard Pombo
House of Representatives 2411 RHOB
Washington, DC 20515

Of course your Rep should get the letter also
 
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