Matheson wants to expand wilderness
Rep. Jim Matheson plans to introduce a bill when Congress reconvenes next week that would expand wilderness and ensure watershed protection over an additional 26,000 acres in Wasatch Front canyons.
At the center of the measure: compromises by Alta and Snowbird and between backcountry skiers and heli-skiers.
Thursday's announcement comes at a time when the 2nd District Democrat is taking heat from many in his party over his vote against President Barack Obama's health care reform effort.
But Matheson said the timing is coincidental.
"We've been working on this for two years," he said. "It took longer than we thought."
Political scientists doubt Matheson's move is about patching up wounds with the left.
"I don't know that I would get too cynical," said Quin Monson, assistant director of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. "It sounds in this case that it really is a deal that's been worked on for months or years."
Monson's retort to the cynics: "How do you turn around a proposal as complicated as this so soon after the [health care] vote?"
Anyway, said fellow BYU political scientist Kelly Patterson, director of the center, any politician who doesn't time announcements for maximum benefit isn't up to the job.
"That's not a calculation unique to Rep. Matheson," Patterson said. "This is how they advertise to their constituency what they're accomplishing."
Matheson's proposal wouldn't just lock up land in wilderness, it would protect the long-term future of Utah's development and economy, Patterson said, because "you have to have a stable supply of water."
The Wasatch Wilderness and Watershed Protection Act, which Matheson said doesn't yet have a Senate counterpart, brought together Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, along with water officials, Salt Lake County, Snowbird, Alta, the heli-ski business Wasatch Powderbird, the conservation group Save Our Canyons and others.
The bill is the first major Wasatch Front water-protection effort since Wasatch mountain wilderness areas were established in 1984, Matheson said. Since that time, Salt Lake County's population has mushroomed from 678,000 to more than 1 million, pressuring urban Utah's drinking-water resources.
The bill would establish new wilderness and add to Mount Olympus, Twin Peaks and Lone Peak wilderness areas. It also would set aside more than 10,000 acres within special-management areas to protect water quality while still allowing helicopter access under permits issued by the U.S. Forest Service.
The latter provision would help reduce a decades-long conflict between those who climb the peaks to ski the backcountry and those who spend a lot of money for helicopter rides to ridge tops.
"It's a compromise," Matheson said. "Everyone gave up something to arrive at the bill we have today."
Two big compromises: Snowbird won't pursue expansion into White Pine Canyon, which would be added to the Lone Peak Wilderness. And nearby Alta Ski Area, also in Little Cottonwood Canyon, can't build a lift to Flagstaff Peak, said Mike Reberg, Matheson's district director.
A new designation, the Wayne Owens Grandeur Peak-Mount Aire Wilderness, would establish nearly 8,000 acres of new wilderness that would protect watershed along the drainage areas in Mill Creek and Parleys canyons while still allowing heli-ski operations.
The name would honor Rep. Wayne Owens, the late wilderness champion who introduced America's Red Rock Wilderness Act in Congress in 1989 and served Utah's 2nd District.
Owens' widow, Marlene Owens, attended Matheson's event, and said she was glad to see progress on wilderness after so many years.
"Wayne used to ski a lot at Alta," she said. "I'm sure he'd be delighted."
But some Big Cottonwood Canyon residents aren't.
Barbara Cameron, head of the Big Cottonwood Canyon Association, said she and other property owners learned Matheson and others were working on the wilderness bill only recently and didn't see the need for added protection.
"Our water already is the best," she said.
Canyon residents Dean Roberts and Kelly Lether said they and many other property owners felt left out of the negotiations.
"We certainly should be as [important]," Roberts said, "as Save Our Canyons."
