Designating Certain Land As Components Of The National Wilderness Preservation System
Designating Certain Land As Components Of The National Wilderness Preservation System
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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, today, the Senate can be very proud of a very significant accomplishment for the enjoyment and protection of wilderness areas, historical sites, national parks, forests, trails and scenic rivers. Collectively, this is one of the most sweeping conservation bills the Senate has passed in many years.
This bill has been through many twists and turns over the last year. But today's successful vote could not have been possible without the tenacity and dedication of the Majority Leader.
I thank the majority leader for his steadfast support and dedication to seeing that these important public land priorities become law.
There are a number my bills in this omnibus lands package that I would like to speak to.
First, the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail Designation Act. This bill will create a National Park Service trail to celebrate the remarkable geologic history of the Pacific Northwest region. This bill has enjoyed regional, bipartisan support. I would like to thank Senators Murray, Wyden, Crapo, and my former colleagues Senators Smith and Craig for working with me on this legislation.
There are too many people to thank by name but I want to acknowledge the dedication of the Ice Age Floods Institute, particularly its President, Gary Kleinknecht, who has worked tirelessly to educate our country on the significance of the Ice Age Floods Geologic Trail.
In many ways, the members of the Institute serve as the protégés of people like University of Washington professor J. Harlan Bretz and USGS geologist Joseph Pardee, who fought to make credible their hypothesis about the historic existence of the Ice Age Floods.
This is a wonderful day for many communities, scientists, and Ice Age Floods enthusiasts throughout the Pacific Northwest, and for tourism and geologic education.
The Ice Age Floods Institute has promoted the development of an Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail for over 12 years. With the growing interest and enthusiasm for this concept, this Geologic Trail is a long time coming. The story of the Ice Age Floods is a truly amazing story of the forces of nature and their impact on our lives.
When geologists first saw the vast Columbia Basin in eastern Washington, they recognized that glaciers and flowing water had played a large part in shaping the extraordinary landscape, with its canyons, buttes, dry cataracts, boulder fields, and gravel bars.
During the last Ice Age, some 13,000 to 18,000 years ago, an ice cap covered almost all of Canada and extended down across much of the Pacific Northwest. In Idaho, a 2,000-foot-high glacier backed water up in western Montana until it formed Glacial Lake Missoula, totaling 530 cubic miles or more than Lakes Erie and Ontario combined.
When Glacial Lake Missoula deepened enough, the sheer force of the backed up water undermined the glacial ice dam, and the ice give way in a cracking explosion. The huge lake was released all at once.
When the dam broke, a towering mass of water and ice was released and swept across parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on its way to the ocean.
The peak rate of flow was ten times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. The huge lake may have emptied in as little as 2 or 3 days.
Geologists at the University of Washington counted 89 floods without reaching bottom, leading to present-day estimates of up to 100 catastrophic water releases.
The glacial ice dam would break, sparking cataclysmic floods, fresh ice would eventually flow from Canada to once more create an ice dam and Lake Missoula, and the cycle would be repeated every 50 years or so. It ended only with the melting of the continental ice cap.
These epic floods fundamentally changed the geography and way of life in the Pacific Northwest. The coulees, buttes, boulder fields, lakes, ridges and gravel bars they left behind still define the unique landscape of our State and our region today.
These floods are a remarkable part of our natural heritage. They have profoundly affected the geography and ways of life in the region but have remained largely unknown to the general public.
The legacy of the floods includes not only stark scabland and dramatic dry coulees and cataracts, but also exceptionally fertile, productive farmland, and significant wetlands and aquifers.
Creating a National Park Service trail to recognize and celebrate how these floods literally shaped the face of our state will provide an unparalleled educational resource for Washingtonians and visitors from across the country.
It will also spur economic development and create jobs in local communities across eastern and central Washington.
I appreciate the Senate's attention to this bill that will help educate and interpret one of the largest flooding events known to science.
To date, more than 30 entities spanning State and local governments, chambers of commerce, and other civic and community organization support creation of the trail concept.
This Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 also includes my Snoqualmie Pass Land Conveyance Act. This hill would transfer an acre and a half of Forest Service land to the Snoqualmie Pass fire district to help them build a new fire station.
I specifically thank the fire district commissioner Chris Caviezel for working so hard on behalf of the people at Snoqualmie Pass and providing top rate emergency services at one of the most traveled mountain passes in the country.
During our recent winter storms, which brought several feet of snow, following by pounding rain and massive land slides at the Pass, Chris has been on the front lines providing tireless and dedicated round the clock public service to keep Snoqualmie Pass safe.
The Snoqualmie Pass Fire Department serves a portion of two counties on both sides of the Cascade Mountains along Interstate 90, a community of 350 full-time residents that peaks to 1,500 during the ski season.
Additionally, the ski area estimates 20,000 patrons on a busy weekend, and the Department of Transportation estimates that up to 60,000 vehicles travel through the fire district on a busy day, making it the busiest mountain highway in the country.
This area is also the major transportation corridor for goods and services between eastern and western Washington. The all-volunteer fire department averages over 300 calls a year with about a 10 percent annual increase in call volumes, which is more than triple the amount of calls a typical all-volunteer fire department would respond to in a year.
Eighty-four percent of those incidents are for nontax paying residents. Consequently, the fire department has the characteristics of a large city with the limited resources of a small community.
In recent years, this area has been the scene of major winter snowstorms, multi-vehicle accidents, and even avalanches.
The fire district is often the first responder to incidents in the area, which is prone to rock slides and avalanches and it is not uncommon for this community to be isolated for hours or even days at a time.
Several thousand people can be stranded at the pass during those periods when the Pass is closed and while the Department of Transportation works quickly to get the roads back open, it can be very taxing on local resources.
For decades, the fire district has been leasing its current site from the Forest Service. They operate out of an aging building that was not designed to be a fire station.
Through their hard work and dedication, they have served their community ably despite this building's many shortcomings. However, with traffic on the rise and the need for emergency services in the area growing, the fire district needs to move to a true fire station.
The fire district has identified a nearby site that would better serve the public safety needs at the pass. This location would provide easy access to the interstate in either direction, reducing emergency response times.
The parcel is on Forest Service property, immediately adjacent to a freeway interchange, between a frontage road and the interstate itself. The parcel was formerly a disposal site during construction of the freeway and is now a gravel lot.
It is my understanding that there are offers of support to construct a new fire station from State and local officials, and to mitigate any effects of construction, and I support those efforts.
I appreciate the efforts of Senator Murray and my colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to review this issue and bring this bill forward. I look forward to continuing to work with the community at the pass and my colleagues to improve public safety in the area.
This Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 also includes my Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail Act. This bill would designate the Pacific Northwest trail a national scenic trail.
The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the most pristine and breathtaking scenery this country has to offer--from vast patches of forest and steep, snow capped mountain ranges to sandy beaches, rocky ocean coast, and green pastures.
The Pacific Northwest Trail, zigzagging from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Coast, offers all of these spectacular views. The Pacific Northwest Trail, running from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Coast, is 1,200 miles long and ranks among the most scenic trails in the world.
This carefully chosen path runs through the Rocky Mountains, Selkirk Mountains, Pasayten Wilderness, North Cascades, Olympic Mountains, and Wilderness Coast. From beginning to end it passes through three States, crosses three national parks, and winds through seven national forests.
And designating the Pacific Northwest trail a national scenic trail will give it the proper recognition, bring benefits to neighboring rural communities, and promote its protection, development, and maintenance.
In 1980, the National Park Service and the Forest Service completed a feasibility study of the proposed Pacific Northwest trail. And the study concluded that the Pacific Northwest trail has the scenic and recreational qualities needed for designation as a national scenic trail.
Today, approximately 950 miles of the Pacific Northwest trail are completed and provide significant outdoor recreational experiences to citizens and visitors of the United States.
With more recognition and more people from all over the country ``putting on their hiking boots,'' the trail will receive more eligibility for grants funding and increased attention, which in turn will result in increased use and more economic activity in rural areas.
National scenic trails provide recreation, conservation, and enjoyment of significant scenic, historic, natural, and cultural qualities. The Pacific Northwest trail is a national prize and should be recognized as such.
This Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 also includes my wildland firefighter safety legislation. This legislation will improve accountability and transparency in wildland firefighter safety training programs. Wildland firefighting and the safety of wildland firefighters is vitally important to our brave men and women who battle these blazes, and for the communities that depend on them.
When wildfires do occur we rely on courageous men and women to protect our communities and natural resources. Every summer, we send thousands of brave firefighters into harm's way to protect our Nation's rural communities and public lands.
Of course, fighting fires is inherently dangerous. But we must not abide preventable deaths: We must not lose firefighters simply because rules are broken, policies are ignored, and no one is held accountable.
Six years ago, Washington State suffered a horrible tragedy. On July 10, 2001, near Winthrop in Okanogan County, during the second worst drought in Washington history, the Thirtymile fire burned out of control and four courageous firefighters died. Sadly, subsequent investigations revealed that they didn't have to die. The Forest Service has said the tragedy ``could have been prevented.''
Since then, the courage of the Thirtymile families, standing up and demanding change, has had a positive impact on the safety of our wildland firefighters. But we must do much more.
Through training and certification we can lower the risk to the brave men and women who protect our forests and communities. It's critical that Congress is actively engaged to ensure this happens.
An inspector general's report released in March 2006 found problems in the Forest Service's oversight of contracting firefighting crews. Hundreds are contracted by the Forest Service and State agencies every year to fight fires. Roughly one-third of the records it sampled showed that fire fighters' qualification standards had not been met. Too many have been dispatched to fight fires without the necessary preparation.
This is not new. A 2003 Seattle Times report cited an internal Forest Service memo identifying the lack of accountability in the contract firefighting program. A 2004 GAO report found that insufficiently trained contract crews hampered firefighting efforts. And a 2004 IG audit found that at the time the Forest Service could not monitor the certification of more than 80 percent of its own firefighters. That is unacceptable.
This legislation is a very modest yet important proposal. The Senate has already passed it once as an amendment to the 2003 healthy forests legislation, but sadly, it was not included in the conference version of the bill.
It is clear: this bill's provisions are still a necessary tool to ensure that Congress and Federal wildland firefighting agencies are as proactive as possible in protecting the lives of wildland firefighters.
First, the Wildland Firefighter Safety and Transparency Act requires the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to track the funds they spend on firefighter safety and training. Congress and taxpayers deserve to know whether and how Federal funds are being spent to ensure the safety of firefighters.
Improved accountability means improved safety: I hope the Forest Service will agree to track its funds as part of the administration's annual budget request.
Second, my legislation requires the Secretaries to report to Congress annually on their departments' safety and training programs. We need to monitor Federal firefighting agencies and ensure commitments to reform are being acted upon. An annual check-in on safety programs from Congress is essential to making that happen.
Finally, my bill would require the Forest Service to ensure that private firefighting crews working under federal contracts receive training consistent with their Federal counterparts. This is critical not only to protect those private crews but also to safeguard the Federal, State and tribal employees who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the contractors on the fire line.
And so we have an obligation to protect and prepare the brave firefighters we send into harm's way. I look forward to working with my House colleagues on approving this legislation.
All of this could not have been accomplished without the strong support and hard work and dedication of the majority leader and I thank the leader for successfully moving these priorities.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S. 22) combines more than 160 individual bills to protect America's wilderness and responsibly manage our natural resources. The individual measures in this bill were originally introduced by nearly equal numbers of Democratic and Republican Senators and the vast majority have broad bipartisan support.
S. 22 would protect over 2 million acres of land by designating it as wilderness, making it the largest expansion of the National Wilderness Preservation System in almost 15 years.
The new and expanded wilderness areas established by this bill would span nine States and include such treasures as: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan; Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia; Oregon's Mount Hood; Idaho's Owyhee canyons; the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California; the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado; Zion National Park in Utah; as well as wilderness-quality lands in Virginia and New Mexico.
S. 22 would also protect more than 1,000 miles of free-flowing rivers by adding them to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. It would add thousands of new miles of trails to the National Trails System, expand the National Park System, and establish new National Conservation Areas.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act would create new National Heritage Areas and authorize additions to the National Park System to preserve historical sites, including the creation of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in Kentucky.
The package also contains critical measures to responsibly manage our Nation's water resources, including a provision to assess the impact of climate change on our national water supply, authorizations to repair water infrastructure, and the resolution of important water settlements in the West.
Other key provisions include the establishment of a 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System and protecting more than 1 million acres of Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest from oil and gas development.
In its waning days, the current administration went forward with a controversial oil and gas lease sale in Utah that included wilderness quality lands near several national parks. This sale highlights the need for Congress to come together and protect our public lands and precious natural resources for future generations.
I support this package to protect our wilderness areas and preserve the country's natural resources.
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