With President Clinton's signature now affixed to the massive transportation bill, two Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness portages become mechanized. Motor vehicles such as trucks will be allowed to pull boats across the narrow forest paths between fishing lakes. Now the US Forest Service will have to determine just how to allow trucks back on the portages and who will get to operate them.
Northeastern Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has always been unique among regions under protection of the Federal Wilderness Act. A 1978 compromise preserved some use of motorboats within the wilderness area.