- What is a Wilderness Designation?
- What is a Wild and Scenic River Designation?
- What are willing seller National Park/Preserve additions?
- How would the draft proposal affect hunting and fishing access?
- How would the draft proposal affect general recreational access?
- How would the draft proposal affect the timber base on the Peninsula?
- Has the Campaign drafted bill language or have a timeline for introducing legislation?
- Are the maps on the Wild Olympics web site final?
- Has the Campaign made any additional adjustments to the maps currently on the web site since July 2010?
- What is a Wilderness Designation?
- Wilderness is the strongest level of protection on federal lands and a designation requires an Act of Congress (legislation) and the president’s signature. Only federal lands can be designated as wilderness (not private or state lands) and the designation generally prohibits motorized and mechanized use, logging, mining and other development. Many activities are consistent and allowed within designated National Forest wilderness areas, including hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, dog walking, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, picnicking, backpacking, bird watching, taking wildflower walks, riding horses, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, spelunking or rock-climbing, conducting ecological or scientific research, and leading educational trips. Today, designated wilderness areas exist in 44 of the 50 states, preserving important habitat for wildlife, providing clean air and water for local communities and a natural legacy for future generations.
- What is a Wild and Scenic River Designation?
- A Wild and Scenic River designation protects a river’s “outstandingly remarkable” values (i.e., wildlife, recreation, fisheries, cultural) and free-flowing character. The designation prohibits federally licensed dams and other harmful water projects. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was passed in 1968 to protect our nation’s last, best free-flowing rivers. Rivers are generally added to the Act of Congress (i.e., legislation) that is then signed into law by the president (similar to Wilderness). The Wild Olympics Campaign is only proposing Wild and Scenic River designation for contiguous stretches of rivers on federal and state lands. No private lands would be included unless the landowner wanted the designation.
- What are willing seller National Park/Preserve additions?
- In response to compromises put forward in Olympic National Park’s 2008 Final General Management Plan, the proposal adopts the "willing seller" park expansion mechanism recommended in the final plan. Unlike past Olympic National Park additions, the willing-seller proposal is not a mandate. Under "willing seller," the park boundary would not change unless local landowners wanted the expansion. "Willing seller” allows the Park Service a chance to purchase lands should they ever be offered for sale in the future. However, under willing seller there is no requirement for landowners to sell, nor any requirement for them to sell to the Park Service, nor is there any interim regulatory impact. This mechanism for park expansion is unprecedented in Washington state and is consistent with the Campaign’s goal of respecting private property rights. Based on feedback from Tribal and non-Tribal hunters, the Campaign is open to a National “Preserve” to reate new, permanent public hunting destinations.
- How would the draft proposal affect hunting and fishing access?
- Hunting and fishing are allowed in National Forest wilderness areas and on Wild and Scenic rivers on National Forest and state lands. In fact, many hunters and anglers prize wilderness for its backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities, and for the ability to hunt without having game harassed or habitat degraded by motorized vehicle use. The only exception is wilderness in National Parks, where hunting is prohibited because of the underlying National Park designation which prohibits hunting. However, based on feedback from Tribal and non-Tribal hunters, the Campaign is open to a National “Preserve” to reate new, permanent public hunting destinations.. Fishing is allowed inside Olympic National Park.
- How would the draft proposal affect general recreational access?
- The Campaign has taken great care to minimize any impacts to current road access to the proposed wilderness areas on Olympic National Forest. Current road access to Forest Service trailheads remains unaffected by the wilderness proposal. The wilderness proposal does include about 65 miles of the ends of certain segments of old logging roads in upper watersheds. Every one of these road segments are already slated for decommissioning (permanent closure and obliteration) or trail conversion by the Forest Service under their 2003 Access and Travel Management Plan. There are currently over 2,000 miles of roads on Olympic National Forest that are mostly open for public use that would be unaffected by the proposal.
Under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, river recreation (like fishing and boating) is often one of the major uses and Outstanding Remarkable Values the designation seeks to protect. Public access to the river and recreational use of the public lands adjacent to a Wild and Scenic river will typically continue as before unless the use clearly threatens the river’s outstanding values for which it has been designated – in which case it will be addressed in a public management planning process.
- How would the draft proposal affect the timber base on the Peninsula?
- The Wild Olympics Campaign estimates the proposal would have a minimal impact to the existing available timber base on the Olympic Peninsula.
Olympic National Forest Timber Base: The proposal was drafted to specifically exclude any pending timber sales on Olympic National Forest. The vast majority of the areas proposed for wilderness on Olympic National Forest are already out of the timber base under several forms of administrative protections such as the Northwest Forest Plan and the Roadless Rule. The wilderness designation would provide permanent protection. The fractions of the draft proposal still inside the timber base were included to create manageable boundaries that maximized benefits to the watersheds. As such, we estimate the proposal would impact between 2.3% to 6.7% of the potential available timber base on Olympic National Forest.
Willing Seller Park/Preserve Additions and the Peninsula timber base: Unlike past expansions of Olympic National Park, the willing seller park proposal mechanism is not a mandate. It would not immediately change the park boundary nor would it directly transfer any lands into park ownership. It would simply authorize the Park Service to be able to bid on and acquire certain lands identified in the proposal only if those lands were offered for sale by willing sellers in the future. This means the park/preserve boundary would not change unless local landowners wanted it to and not until the lands in question were actually acquired by the Park Service in a future transaction. If the landowner wanted to keep the lands in the timber rotation forever or sell to other timber companies, nothing in the proposal would prohibit them from doing so or restrict their activities in the interim. Because of this, the Campaign estimates that there would be no immediate impact from the park/preserve additions to the timber base. Any acquisitions by the Park Service would require willingness on the part of landowners or DNR to sell or transfer land to the Park Service, and the transaction to have been completed before the lands could be put in to park/preserve ownership. Therefore we envision that any additions to the park would be incremental and over a long period of time. To estimate the total impact such acquisitions might have to the total available peninsula timber base, we have taken in to account a range of possibilities using current land use allocations and state forest practices regarding acquisitions.
Conclusion: When combined with the total impact to the timber base on Olympic National Forest, we estimate the draft park additions, wilderness and Wild and Scenic rivers proposal as it is currently drawn would only impact between 1.7 to 2.2% of the total available Peninsula timber land base.
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- Has the Campaign drafted bill language or have a timeline for introducing legislation?
- No. The Wild Olympics Campaign has not drafted bill language nor does it have a final proposal or map. The Campaign is still soliciting feedback from local stakeholders on the Olympic Peninsula to refine and improve its draft proposal (of July 2010) and address additional issues. Once specific stakeholder issues have been addressed, it is the Campaign’s hope that members of the Washington Congressional delegation will build on the Campaign’s efforts and draft legislation to introduce a bill into Congress.
- Are the maps on the Wild Olympics web site final?
- No, the current proposal maps (dated July 2010 and on the Wild Olympics web site) are not final maps. They are discussion drafts. As the Campaign meets with local stakeholders and addresses issues adjustments will be made to these draft maps. Many modifications are pending due to public input gathered since July of 2010. Our goal is a conservation plan tailor-made for diverse local recreation, access and economic needs designed by extensive public input. A date for a final map has not been set.
- Has the Campaign made any additional adjustments to the maps currently on the web site since July 2010?
- Yes, the Campaign has approved a number of adjustments to the draft discussion maps based on feedback from local stakeholders. For example a series of adjustments have been made to the wilderness and wild and scenic river proposal to address issues raised by the City of Port Townsend relating to future access to their municipal; watershed. Additional adjustments have also been approved in excluding a new road to trail conversion for mountain bike use in Grays Harbor County. The Campaign will make these and other changes to the final version of the proposal.
