Boulder-White Clouds: The Northwest’s next great protected wilderness

...A massive proposed molybdenum mine would have gouged the mountain and destroyed a lake at its base. Then-Gov. Don Samuelson was gung-ho for the mine. Challenger Cecil Andrus described the project as “a crime” and, in 1970, bounced Samuelson from the governor’s office. Forty-four years later, it appears that Castle Peak will be the centerpiece of the Pacific Northwest’s next great protected wilderness — the Boulder-White Cloud region north of Sun Valley. “By the end of next year, it will be a national monument or we will have passed a wilderness bill, one of the two,” Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said recently. Simpson has labored for a decade to work out a deal between conservationists and motorized recreationists. He came close in 2006, and saw Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, back off from a deal at the last minute in 2010. The Obama administration, urged on by Cecil Andrus — an early Obama endorser in 2008 — hints strongly that it will use the president’s authority and designate a Boulder-White Clouds National Monument before the 44th president leaves office. If Congress does not act to protect key wild places, “the president has his pen and intends to use it,” White House counselor John Podesta told a September dinner marking the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Simpson was in the audience. Thanks to the 1906 Antiquities Act, Obama has the authority to designate monuments on federal lands. The law was first used by President Theodore Roosevelt, more than a century ago, to protect the Grand Canyon as well as the Olympic Mountains. Both were to become crown jewels of America’s national park system. The endangered elk of the Olympics now thrive, and bear Roosevelt’s name. Obama has lately shown a desire to channel Theodore Roosevelt. He designated a 955-acre San Juan Islands National Monument after Congress failed to move protection legislation. He has protected a portion of California’s vastly scenic Mendocino Coast. The president recently created a monument in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles, an area contested since actors James Garner and Steve McQueen championed its protection nearly half-a-century ago. Simpson has asked the Obama administration to hold off on designating a monument for a few months. The incoming chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is a critic of the Antiquities Act. But he is viewed as more open to locally produced compromises than his predecessor, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash...more