North Fork protection

Plans are in play to pass the North Fork Watershed Protection Act in the lame-duck Congress. The proposed act may receive full deliberation in the Senate, not just unanimous consent to pass without floor consideration, as was attempted and which failed earlier this year.

Amendments can then be offered and debated. Creative law-making can come into play. Any number of amendments ought to be considered. This is because the proposed act can be looked at as a substantial de facto national park boundary expansion or creation of a sizable de fact new wilderness area, about 430,000 acres.

The 1964 Wilderness Act had an interesting “special provision” that applied to all 9.1 million acres of wildernesses then designated. Mineral exploration could take place for 19 years, until the end of 1983. Valid discoveries could in the interim and also thereafter be developed into mines. The U.S. Geological Service and the U.S. Bureau of Mines were to assist in illuminating mineral potential, which they did. This then suggests an amendment (1) of a like special provision.

Another amendment (2) is a sunset provision for the act, say 20 years, to allow for changes in the state of the art for mineral and energy development and environmental protection.

An offset for the loss of mineral, coal (energy or metallurgical) and/or oil and gas development potential is also an amendment subject (3). For example, restricted acreage with high mineral potential elsewhere, such as Kootenai National Forest lands around the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, could be released from roadless designation.

One obvious amendment (4) is to exempt leasable minerals. These are mostly non-metallics, such as quarry stone, aggregate gypsum, cement rock, clay deposits, gem stones, etc.

Besides these four, other types of amendments may come to light.

Edwin Speelman

Kalispell