Wild Sky is a go at last: Murray's long crusade crowned by success

Seattle PI column on Washington's newest wilderness area.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY has actually done a count of the days since maps were
first unfurled and activists first met in her Senate office to talk about a
different kind of wilderness in the Cascades.

After a gestation period of 3,405 days, Washington's newest wilderness area
has won overwhelming approval from the House and heads to President Bush's
desk for his signature.

"I have learned so many of life's lessons with this bill," exclaimed Murray,
D-Wash., who has championed the Wild Sky Wilderness Area.

The new 106,000-acre wilderness is in the front range of the Cascades, north
of the U.S. 2 Stevens Pass highway. It reaches from the north fork of the
Skykomish River, a few hundred feet above sea level, to the 6,200-foot
summits of Mounts Merchant and Gunn above Index.

Wild Sky sets precedents for protection. The 1984 Washington Wilderness bill
deliberately omitted lowland virgin forests in such places as the west fork
of Cady Creek from protection.

Hence, the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness Area protected peaks above Monte
Cristo, the Columbia Glacier and alpine meadows and tarns along the Cascade
Crest. But its boundaries featured big dents wherever big trees were
located.

Wild Sky fills in those dents. As Murray put it on a 2001 visit, the goal
was to achieve a wilderness where salmon spawn and families can wander
through the ancient forest.

Murray and Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., put together a bill that was largely
free of local opposition. The debate over Wild Sky featured none of the
histrionics of past wilderness battles during which, for instance, lines of
logging trucks showed up in Wenatchee to oppose the then-proposed Alpine
Lakes Wilderness Area.

"We not only passed a wilderness bill, we created a new model of how to
create a wilderness bill," Larsen said Tuesday.

An original proposal for 132,000 acres of wilderness was pared back to
106,000 acres. Land used by snowmobiles was deleted from the bill.

Yet, a powerful opponent did appear -- in Congress. Twice, the Senate gave
unanimous approval to Wild Sky, only to see the legislation blocked by House
Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo.

Pombo argued that already-logged land was included in the wilderness. He
proposed a "compromise" that would have excised low valleys and big trees.
Murray and Larsen refused to go for it.

Pombo, a California Republican, was defeated for re-election in 2006, and
Democrats took control of Congress. The House promptly passed Wild Sky, only
for the legislation to run into another foe. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., put a
"hold" on the bill. After months of delay, Murray succeeded in dislodging
it.

The politics of Washington's congressional delegation are tense at the
moment.

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., has supported Wild Sky, just as moderate
Republican predecessors helped pass the North Cascades Act and the Alpine
Lakes legislation. Yet, Reichert is targeted for defeat this year, and was
notably omitted from Democratic colleagues' kudos.

After Senate passage last month, Reichert's office raised the possibility of
a signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Murray and Larsen threw
cold water on the idea.

"I don't want a big celebration: I just want it signed," Larsen said after
House approval.

"We'll celebrate at Wild Sky," Murray added.

Murray and Larsen also must secure federal dollars to get people into the
new wilderness. The 2003 and 2006 floods did enormous damage to recreation
in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

The Mountain Loop Highway, north of the new wilderness, is about to reopen.
But major work remains on the North Fork Skykomish River road out of Index,
which provides the main hiking and fishing access to lands of the Wild Sky.

Peter Jackson, a Seattle writer, mused over the fact that 117 Republicans in
the House voted against the Wild Sky legislation. He is the son of Sen.
Henry Jackson, a Democrat who crafted landmark environmental legislation in
negotiation with a Republican-run White House.

"We have to convince members of the party of George Bush that they're also
members of the party of Theodore Roosevelt," Jackson said. "To borrow from a
relative of mine, in matters of wilderness, the best politics is no
politics."