Clarification on California Wild Heritage Act

Tom Stienstra
Thursday, October 3, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/03/SPSTIENSTRA.DTL



The largest mountain biking groups in Southern California have accused Sen. Barbara Boxer of "fraud" for claiming on her web site that mountain bike groups support the California Wild Heritage Act.

Others, including officials in Boxer's office, say this is a major over-reaction because of differing points of view.

"It's the implied contention on her web site that all mountain bikers support her bill," said Chris Vargas of The Warriors Society, a multi-chapter biking organization based in Orange County. "That's the fraud. It simply serves her agenda to manipulate public opinion."

Boxer and her staff adamantly denied the allegation, and said the reality is that several mountain bike organizations disagree with each other over future wilderness designations. They also said they have worked with mountain bike groups over the course of the evolution of S. 2535, The Wild Heritage Act, that proposes to add wilderness in large areas of national forest in California (see story in today's Chronicle Sporting Green by Paul McHugh). No form of mechanization, including mountain bikes, is allowed in federal-designated wilderness areas.

On a leg of the senator's web site is the heading, "Mountain Bikers Announce Support For California Wild Heritage Act," with the adjoining logo for Mountain Bikers 4 Wilderness (MB4W).

The Warriors and several other biking groups contend a deal was made between Sen. Boxer and Don Massie, leader of the Chico Paddleheads, a whitewater group, to work a political scheme. In this alleged deal, Vargas claims that Massie created MB4W as a front for Boxer. The intent, Vargas believes, was to make it appear as if Boxer had won support from a group previously reported to be against her, mountain bikers. In return, whitewater paddlers would get consideration in the future for more rivers to be designated as Wild & Scenic.

That is why the Warriors have posted a response on their website titled, "Senator Boxer resorts to fraud!"

This theory is endorsed by several large mountain bike organizations in Southern California.

"They (MB4W) were drummed up by Boxer," said Dave Moore of the Southern Sierra Fat Tire Association.

Boxer staffers reacted with disbelief and amazement over the charges.

"We don't do conspiracies," responded Tom Bohigian, deputy state director for Sen. Boxer.

"We did not engineer the creation of this group or any other group," Bohigian said. "This thing (the bill) has taken a long time to get to legislative form. We've spent countless hours talking to stakeholders. We've had a lot of meetings where we sit down with mountain bikers, environmental interests and the Forest Service, and work things out over specific areas. We're trying to strike a balance, and we've been able to resolve conflicts for mountain bikers in a lot of cases.

"Mountain bikers, like any other group, have a wide range of opinions," he said. "These people get spooled up. They think we're trying to erase them."

This past summer, it was reported in an SF Gate outdoors notes column by this writer that MB4W supported the Wild Heritage Act after Boxer removed 300,000 acres in her proposal where mountain bikes would have been ruled off limits.

At the same time, John Sterling of Patagonia, one of the world's largest manufacturers of outdoor clothing, including products for mountain biking, also announced support for the bill. He originally said: "As a company that both makes mountain biking products and employs avid mountain bikers, we fully support S 2535 (Boxer's proposal) -- it's a balanced and fair proposal."

A week after the initial story appeared on the internet in mid-August, Sterling left Patagonia, confirmed Lou Setnicha of Patagonia. This led Vargas of The Warriors to claim that Sterling was involved in what he considers to be a scheme.

Massie of MB4W denied any scheme. He said he simply disagrees with Vargas over the level of wilderness protection in Northern California.

"What we do is totally about mountain biking," Massie said. "We're a riding group in Chico, and we ride weekly. We were seeing (stories) that all mountain bikers oppose wilderness. That's not true.

"We believe it's worth protecting a few areas (as wilderness) even if we can't ride there," Massie said. "So we decided to get a letter together to see if more mountain bikers would join us."

Massie said it is true that he is also an avid whitewater paddler, a leader of the Chico Paddleheads, and that he had proposed a whitewater park on the Feather River when the Oroville Dam was subject to relicensing. He says that is why the Southern California groups have accused him of making a deal with Boxer.

"They are not accurate," Massie said. "We're just a group of mountain bikers in Chico. We did what we thought was the right thing to do."

The chief players in this story, Massie of MB4W and Vargas of The Warriors Society, have never talked to each other.

E-mail Tom Stienstra at tstienstra@sfchronicle.com.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page C - 99
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Wilderness additions up for grabs

Paul McHugh, Chronicle Outdoors Writer
Thursday, October 3, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/03/SP208117.DTL


Some real estate cliches apply amazingly well to wilderness.

The first: "It's valuable because they're not making it anymore."

More wilderness can't be made -- not unless you can afford to wait a few millennia while Nature does her thing. Currently, the progression seems headed the other way. The global roster of pristine acreage plummets daily.

The second cliche: "Three important factors to consider are location, location and location."

Many large wildernesses have already been designated in the United States. Now, advocates are pushing to add key, adjacent parcels, to promote integrity of watersheds, biomes and wildlife corridors. However, such sites often have competing visions for their use. Hence, to achieve an effective consensus, any selection and negotiation process must take considerable pains.

Sen. Barbara Boxer's current California wilderness bill may not be a last chance to pick more wild preserves. However, it could well be a last big chance.

Whether you're pro-wilderness, anti-, or undecided, the next six months offer a window of opportunity for you to visit some of these sites, assess their value as a wildlife zone, and evaluate their suitability for various human uses.

The California Wild Heritage Act of 2002, introduced in May, has not even won its first committee hearing, much less reached a vote. Most recently, Congress' attention has been engaged with more pressing matters, such as whether to rain havoc upon Iraq.

Even should ecology migrate onto the agenda before the end of this Congressional session, priority topics such as the Bush administration's proposal to reduce fire hazard in national forests by halting environmental review and legal appeals for "thinning" timber harvests, will likely win discussion first.

Still, behind the scenes, quiet negotiations are under way between Boxer's office and staffers for California's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein.

"This bill's chances are way better if both our state senators team up on it," says Tina Andolina, a conservation associate for the nonprofit, California Wilderness Coalition (CWC) in Davis. "Feinstein's indicated she's inclined to support something, maybe not everything. She sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the first place this bill would be heard."

A sketch of the proposal's history begins with launch of the CWC's Wild Heritage Campaign, two years ago. While evaluating 7.4 million California roadless areas for new wilderness, CWC claims it consulted local stakeholders, even potential opponents to designation. Then, CWC whittled down its wish list to 4.5 million acres and took it to Boxer.

According to Boxer's deputy state director, Tom Bohigian, that consultation and whittling process has continued -- and shall continue until the bill is likely reintroduced in 2003. Its current total of new proposed wilderness on federal lands in California stands at 2.5 million acres.

"This (proposed bill) was never looked upon as a 50-yard dash," Bohigian said. "We hope it won't be a marathon, either. Given the calendar, and the way things are, it's probably going to be more like a 400-meter event."

Proposed wilderness additions roam the state.

The greatest collection of sites, nearly two dozen, which total more than 500,000 acres, are scattered through National Forests in Southern California, as well as Bureau of Land Management desert lands.

The Sierra would get 330,000 new wilderness acres in about a dozen sites. These primarily add to popular, already-designated areas like Carson-Iceberg, Emigrant, Golden Trout, Domeland and Granite Chief.

In the Coast Range, the Marble Mountains, Trinity Alps, Snow Mountain, the Yolla Bollies and Ventana wildernesses would all score a boost in turf.

The single most eye-popping proposal targets the high desert mountains east of Bishop. Here, land from the Inyo National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management would be combined in a big, brand-new White Mountains Wilderness that would encompass 297,000 acres (major road corridors would be left open).

Under current law, the 1964 Wilderness Act, the protected land is defined as, "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor . . . retaining its primeval character and influence."

The law prohibits mechanical transportation, permanent roads and habitation,

but allows necessary measures to fight fire and disease, as well as some commercial activities such as mining, guiding, horse-packing and livestock grazing.

Because feedback on this bill still is being welcomed by both Boxer's and Feinstein's offices, the stage is set for examination and evaluation of parcels by everyone from miners to mountain bikers, backpackers to bear hunters. It's an opportunity to do your bit to help shape California's future. Not only that - it provides a grand excuse for concocting an outing.

A list of parcels can be found at www.calwild.org/places/index.php. When you click on the state maps this Web site provides, you're given a list of potential wilderness names; click on those, and you're given local contacts that can assist you in planning a hike or tour.

California's inventory of currently designated wilderness includes: 4.3 million acres on National Forest Land (plus another 114,700 acres of wild lands in Wild and Scenic River corridors, managed similarly); 3.6 million acres in federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings; 5.9 million acres in National Parks; and 9,172 acres on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges. Also, there's 435,000 acres of wilderness in California State Parks -- a chunk often ignored in tallies.

E-mail Paul McHugh at pmchugh@sfchronicle.com.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page C - 10

Looks to me from the McHugh article that the eco-nazis are starting to get desperate.:D