Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: What I am proposing is a complete reshuffling of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, which is now a patchwork, patch quilt, semi-wilderness, semi-recreational use with escape clauses that have confused and muddled the management of that area. I am instead proposing a new and enlarged area which would comprise a Boundary Waters Wilderness and a Boundary Waters National Recreation Area, each with its own separate organic act, with its uses and its boundaries established by act of Congress.

SPEAKER 2: Very clearly set down, one would hope.

SPEAKER 1: And very clearly delineated. The use of the wilderness area will be in accordance with the National Wilderness System. It will be a 626,700-acre wilderness area, 8,700 acres larger than the present interior zone of the BWCA, but more compact, more contiguous unit than what we now have. The national recreation area will be comprised of 526,000 acres of land and water, 114,000 acres larger than the present portal zone, with its uses carefully spelled out and delineated in law.

SPEAKER 2: Would the basic difference in uses be no recreational vehicles in one, and they would be allowed in the other? No logging in one, and perhaps you could cut trees in the other? Is that the kind of differentiation you're thinking of, Congress?

SPEAKER 1: By definition, wilderness areas of the National Wilderness System preclude logging, mining, recreational vehicles, mechanized travel of any kind, including maintenance of the special air space reservation over the wilderness area. The national recreation area will allow for motorized travel, mechanized overland travel of snowmobiles, in the summer, motorboats, and in designated areas under a management plan to be developed by the Forest Service, logging in those areas that are suitable for logging that are the traditional cut-over or multiple-use areas of the present BWCA.

The wilderness, under the plan I have developed, will include within its boundaries virtually all of the virgin timber that now exists in the BWCA and which is under litigation between timber interests and the Forest Service. The NRA will, however, make available for logging annually about 100,000 cords of wood in the species mix and in the quantity that the industry needs for its future expansion requirements. It will thereby contribute to our national economic posture and to the maintenance of the local economy and its requirement for wood, for jobs in the wood fiber industry, which is Minnesota's third largest.

SPEAKER 2: Do you feel that this kind of legislation, if adopted, would end once and for all these enormous conflicts and rifts that have developed between environmental interests on the one hand, and many of the residents of the general Boundary Waters Area on the other?

SPEAKER 1: This is my hope. This is the reason I've spent the past eight months developing this plan. I have studied very carefully the various management plans, the environmental impact statements, the positions of wilderness and multiple-use advocates. I have traveled to other areas of the National Forest System on my own time and my own expense. I have met with the timber industry, with the Wood Fiber Employees Council, with the snowmobile associations in Ely, and with the various environmental groups, including Sierra Club and the Izaak Walton League and the Northern Environmental Council and the Minnesota Conservation Federation local representatives.

The response has been generally positive. They all recognize this as a compromise proposal. What encourages me is that they see the logic of it, the basic reasonableness and the basic fairness of the proposal. From the standpoint of the people in Ely and Babbitt, right now, under the Forest Service regulations, no snowmobiling will be allowed in the coming year. This will restore most of the snowmobile routes they seek without intruding on wilderness.

I think it's an eminently fair plan. I've introduced it at this time or proposed it at this time because there is no possibility it can be enacted during this session of Congress. The House Rules Committee has announced that no bills will be considered for a rule after November 3, and there isn't any possibility we could hold hearings and report a bill out by November 3. That means we'll have all the rest of this year and the beginning of next year for the public to scrutinize the plan.