Simpson: odds good for local wilderness

There's a solid chance that the Boulder Mountains will contain federally designated wilderness when the sun sets on the scenic peaks north of Ketchum for the last time in 2009.

Saying as much on Sunday was Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who gave an upbeat assessment about the chances his Boulder-White Clouds wilderness bill has in the current session of Congress.

"I firmly believe it will be in the next lands bill," he said.

Simpson, the original sponsor of the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA), made his comments during the Idaho Conservation League's annual Wild Idaho conference at Redfish Lake over the weekend. Simpson has attended the ICL conference each year for about a decade.

Simpson's bill would establish 318,765 acres of wilderness in local mountain ranges. Most of the lands targeted under CIEDRA are within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, with a small share in the northern Boulders dropping over into U.S Bureau of Land Management lands south of Challis. The bill would create a 110,438-acre Hemingway-Boulders Wilderness in the southern Boulders outside of Ketchum. Farther to the north and east, the bill establishes a 76,657-acre White Clouds Wilderness and a 131,670-acre Jerry Peak Wilderness.

This year, Simpson was joined at the Wild Idaho conference by his colleague in the U.S. House, first-term Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho.

Simpson and Minnick have reintroduced CIEDRA into Congress as co-sponsors. It seems likely that having a Democrat as a co-sponsor in the Democrat-controlled Congress may give the wilderness legislation better momentum, an observation the two legislators noted. So far, the new Congress has been more wilderness friendly than previous ones, having already approved a package of land bills that designated just over 2.1 million acres of new wilderness across the country, including 517,000 acres in Idaho's Owyhee County.