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Letter against wilderness by John Rember.
CIEDRA may bring unintended consequences
September 22, 2005
Challis Messenger
Guest Opinion
I'm a great believer in the Law of Unintended Consequences. Loosely
defined, that's when the results you don't think of when you do something
end up being a lot more important than the results you do think of.
For example, Bill Clinton didn't really think about all the consequences
of letting Monica Lewinsky into the Oval Office after hours for a tutorial
on foreign policy. If he had thought about it, he might have invited
George Bush in for the same tutorial, the conversation would have stayed
safely on the impracticality of Iraq having deliverable weapons of mass
destruction, and a couple of thousand more young Americans would be alive
today. Don't you think?
If Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hadn't been so contemptuous of
Colin Powell's wisdom about military unintended consequences, we wouldn't
be paying $3+ for gasoline. We'd still have Saddam Hussein and a corrupt
oil-for-food program and not quite so many grateful Iraqis and a lot more
stable Afghanistan. A bunch of folks who depend on tourists being able to
buy enough gas to drive cars, SUVs and motor-homes across the vast
distances of the American West could look forward to making a better
living for the next ten years or so.
Even closer to home, and just as subject to unintended consequences, is
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson's Central Idaho Economic Development and
Recreation Act [CIEDRA]. The act is an attempt to bring prosperity to
Custer and Blaine counties by giving federal land to the counties and some
of their municipalities, establishing a White Cloud/Boulder Mountains
Wilderness and setting up improved routes for ORVs and motorcycles and
mountain bikes. There are going to be some serious unintended consequences
of CIEDRA, which is being touted as a model of compromise for land use in
the West. Here are some things that Congressman Simpson – a man known for
his good intentions – and the rest of us might want to think about before
proceeding with CIEDRA:
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Wilderness designation for the White Clouds and the Boulder ranges would
seem to be a no-brainer, as the area is currently de facto wilderness due
to its rugged terrain, surrounding roadless buffer zones, and distance
from any large population center. But CIEDRA would attract heavy use by
designating areas for specific users. Backpackers would be directed into a
wilderness with improved trailheads and signage, mountain bikers would be
given specific trails, and the cyclists and ORVers would be directed onto
newly designed routes that would put many more of them close to wild areas
or in a corridor between wild areas.
Right now the backpackers avoid the motorcyclists, the motorcyclists never
get off their bikes, and the mountain bikers don't leave the trails
either. Get fifty yards off a trail in the White Clouds and you're alone.
Get fifty yards off a trail in the Sawtooths, which are a designated
wilderness, and you'll run into people. Wilderness designation attracts
lots of people, and the crowd degrades the wilderness. Compare visitor
impact at off-trail sites in the Sawtooths against impact in similar sites
in the White Clouds, and you'll see that wilderness designation can
actually harm what is wild.
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Wilderness designation also results in some of the most highly regulated
real estate in the country. If the resulting gridwork of enforcement
organizations, laws, rules, expectations and cultural connections to the
surrounding area were to be made visible, it would look like an
organization chart for a Fortune 500 company. Wilderness designation
bureaucratizes land and creates an entity that is wholly artificial and
heavily policed, even as it looks natural and free.
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A sacrificial doughnut surrounds wilderness areas, be-cause wilderness as
a concept has commercial value. Realtors, developers, trophy-home
builders, hobby ranchers, and idle young folks without visible means of
support hang out in the towns that have wilderness nearby. You can see a
strange natural progression around the American West as people come for
the solitude and the romance and wildness and then ruin what they came for
by re-creating the social and physical infrastructure they've just
escaped. The upper Wood River Valley is a good example of a place where no
one, except the extremely wealthy, can afford to feel comfortable anymore.
It's hard for me to believe that Custer County would want its cowboys on
their ranches to become houseboys in 10,000 square-foot mansions, even if
they did pay more taxes. Some of the fourth generation Custer County folks
should talk to some of the fourth generation Blaine County folks about
keeping the family homesteads intact, if they can find any of them still
around.
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The recreational gasoline industry is going to suffer if little old ladies
are freezing to death in their houses because they can't afford heating
oil this winter. It may be an appropriate time to look at our priorities
in this War on Terrorism we're in, and look to our self-disciplined
national behavior during WWII, when it seemed we really wanted to win. It
might not be the most tasteful time to be building ORV tracks and
motorcycle circuits. NASCAR isn't such a good idea in this context, come
to think of it. Neither are trophy houses.
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Giving federal land to Custer and Blaine counties was a way for Simpson to
get some of the anti-wilderness locals on board. The plan is for that
land-in Stanley, anyway-to be sold as luxury homesites. The resulting tax
base will bring solvency to Custer County and city governments and school
districts.
I have two words for Congressman Simpson: Teapot Dome. If the congressman
wants to forever tie his name to corruption associated with the disposal
of federal assets, he should keep this aspect of CIEDRA intact. The sudden
conversion of federal land into luxury real estate is going to be a lot
like a loss of virginity: it's hard to keep that door closed once it's
been opened.
Hundreds of little starve-acre counties and municipalities are scattered
across the American West, and most of them are loyally conservative and
Republican. Conservative or not, they're going to want their share when
CIEDRA's charity gets distributed. What they're not going to want is
chunks of Nevada salt flats. They're going to want their own private
Idaho, too.
Watching the scramble for land will not be for the squeamish. Deciding on
what places to give away, lot boundaries, auction participants, asking
prices, and whether or not anyone will get land in return for selfless
community service will be a nasty business. Neighbors who bought property
thinking that views and privacy were protected by bordering national
forest will want a say in who their new neighbors are. People with lots of
money will hire lawyers to make sure that the highest bidder gets the
land, and that subsidized housing not be built lest it depress their
property values. Once again, real estate history in Blaine County serves
as a guide for what to expect in Stanley and Challis.
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One group of people who will be watching the whole process of federal land
transfer is Idaho's Native Americans. Up to now, the land that the tribes
lost in a series of dubious legal transactions has not been given a dollar
value. But CIEDRA will give a high and very public value to federal land –
it will commodify the resource base, in the language of economics, and
then the tribes will have a dollar figure to give to their lawyers when
the courts begin to scrutinize some of the treaties of the nineteenth
century. Up to now, the ambiguous nature of federal land meant that it
could nebulously belong to all of us. Put a dollar amount on it and you'll
begin to see people come off the reservations who have legitimate claims
to owning it. That's when the true expense of CIEDRA will become apparent.
I'm sure there are other unintended consequences that I haven't thought
of, but these should be enough to question the wisdom of going ahead with
the act. Right now Challis and nearby towns are booming because of a spike
in molybdenum prices, so the necessity for an economic development act
isn't as dire as it was before China started producing so much steel. The
mines commodify the resource base, too, but they don't commodify so much
of it.
And if there's a worldwide depression and the Thompson Creek Mine closes
again, I have this advice for Congressman Simpson: forget CIEDRA and just
give every man, woman, and child in Custer County a check for a $100,000.
Financially, culturally, and spiritually, it will be cheaper.
John Rember, a writer and professor, lives near Stanley.
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