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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

San Juan Islanders: "Don't Take Antiquities Act for Granted"

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Monday, April 7, 2014   

SEATTLE - It has been one year since the San Juan Islands National Monument was created by President Obama, and island residents are concerned that other communities will not get the same chance, if a bill that just passed in the House makes its way through Congress. The legislation would make it much tougher for presidents to use the Antiquities Act. Obama used the law to protect parts of the San Juans, after years of inaction in Congress.

Tom Reeve, who lives on Lopez Island, thinks many places have similar local support for land protection and could put the Antiquities Act to good use.

"For us, the president was able to say, 'You know, politics shouldn't stand in the way of the community getting what it needs and what it wants.' And the president was able to act," Reeves said.

He says the goal in the San Juans wasn't to increase tourism but to permanently protect close to 1,000 acres: small sections of the islands that are home to historic lighthouses and wildlife. The bill would make any protections of less than 5,000 acres temporary, and require that they be revisited by Congress. It's now in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Reeve explains the original goal on the islands was for a National Conservation Area, but Congress kept putting it off. Ultimately, he says, the locals wanted to ensure that the community would have some say in what happens to the land.

"What we're seeing now is the Bureau of Land Management approaching us and involving us in the management-planning process," he said. "So, we absolutely feel like we achieved the two parts of our goal - the permanent protection, and the local voice in the management of the land."

He says in the last year, the BLM has hired a monument manager, has had several public meetings, and residents are nominating people to serve on a resource committee. He's convinced that none of this would be happening had the fate of the San Juan Islands National Monument been left for Congress to decide.





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