WV "Mon Plan" Lands on U.S. Senate Plate
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Charleston, WV – About 37,000 acres of the Monongahela National Forest could soon be designated as wilderness - and it would be the first new wilderness area in the state in 25 years. The "Wild Mon" plan is headed for the U.S. Senate floor as part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.
Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness, says the plan has been a bipartisan collaboration that has benefited from a West Virginia champion in Congress.
"People locally there have been very pleased with Chairman Rahall and the effort he's expended in making sure that got included in the package."
Critics of the "Mon" plan are concerned about such forest resources as timber and minerals becoming off-limits. The Act is made up of more than 160 individual bills, and would designate a total of about two million acres of new wilderness nationwide, according to Matz.
"From the East Coast, West Virginia, all the way to the West Coast, California. There's a little bit in here for everybody, and everybody in-between."
The bills were held up last session by opponents who cited concerns about taking public land out of potential production for timber, or oil and gas development. Some of the individual wilderness proposals contained in the Omnibus Act have been in the works for almost ten years.
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