Senate includes Eastern Washington ice age trail in wilderness bill

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday voted to set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness and establish the Ice Age Floods National Geological Trail in Eastern Washington and three other states.

The 73-21 vote moves Congress closer to one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in the past 25 years. The legislation heads to the House, where approval is expected.

The measure -- a collection of about 160 separate bills -- would confer the government's highest level of protection on land ranging from Oregon's Mount Hood to California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.

Land in Idaho's Owyhee canyons, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan and Zion National Park in Utah also would win designation as wilderness, and more than 1,000 miles of rivers in nearly a dozen states would gain protections.

The bill contains several projects for Washington state including:

* The Ice Age Floods National Geological Trail through parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The trail would tell the story of how a series of monumental floods created the area's unique geology.

Interpretive centers, signs and markers, exhibits and roadside pullouts would be used to tell the story of the floods along the 600-mile trail. The National Park Service would oversee the trail.

The flood left prominent features from Montana to the Pacific Ocean that are still easily seen today, scientists say.

The park service would work with state and local governments and interested land owners along the trail, officials have said.

It would be similar to national historic trails such as the Lewis & Clark Trial or the Oregon Trail.

* Designating the 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail as a National Scenic Trail, which could provide more money for maintenance.

The trail stretches from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean and includes the Rocky Mountains, Selkirk Mountain, North Cascades, Olympic Mountains and crosses three national parks and seven national forests.

* Providing several provisions for studying and protecting coastal areas. One program would examine how greenhouse gas emissions are affecting oceans, including fisheries and food chains, such as Pacific salmon.

The bill also would let Alaska construct the road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge as part of a land swap that would give the state a seven-mile easement through the refuge. In exchange, the state is expected to transfer more than 61,000 acres to the federal government, much of it designated as wilderness.

Critics call the project a "road to nowhere." Supporters say the road is needed for residents of a remote village on the Bering Sea who now use a hovercraft to reach an airport and hospital.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the bill's chief opponent, said it was a land grab that would lock up acreage that could be used for future development such as oil and gas drilling.

*Information from the Yakima Herald-Republic was included in this report.

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