At the congressional subcommittee hearing Janice McDougal, Associate Chief of the USDA, National Forest System announced that the USDA will not support either the Oberstar bill HR 739 to reopen three truck portages and restore motor access to Seagull Lake or the Vento bill to further restrict motorized access. The Forest Service testified against closing the motorized portages during the law suit filed by wilderness supporters that led to the closure. She said "We recognize the continued controversy associated with the management of the BWCAW, however in our view neither provides solutions to that controversy, and may in fact increase the polarization." She went on to say " Our experience since the portages were closed has led us to conclude that access is not unduly restricted, public needs are being reasonably met, and the quality of wilderness setting is improved by the current status". She reported that the BWCAW provides nearly $30 million to the economy of NE Minnesota.

Staff of the congressional committee are saying they expect the Oberstar bill to be approved by the committee. A vote is expected later.

Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness held a rally in Duluth Sept. 9th. The pro-wilderness group has chapters in Grand Marais, Ely and Finland. A new chapter is forming in Duluth.

The Forest Service will begin a three year pilot project to begin charging fees for camping in the BWCAW. Under the proposal 80% of the funds will remain in the BWCAW for camp sight and portage maintenance. The Forest Service reports their present budget for camp sight and portage maintenance is $1 million less than what is needed. Proposals have included $5 per night or $40 for an annual pass. Some have proposed a charge of $75 per trip. Presently, there is no fee for a permit in the BWCAW. Quetico Park charges $10 per person per night. (Approximately $7.50 U.S.)

The National Forest Service has announced it will begin the process of revising the management plan for areas outside the BWCAW. The BWCAW has its own management plan. The new plan for Superior National Forest will be in effect for 15 years. Logging interests are expected to call for increased timber harvest, the harvest was reduced in the last plan. Public comment hearings are scheduled during September and October.

The House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health has scheduled a hearing on HR 1739 -- the Oberstar bill. The hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9th. Now is the time to write, email or call your representative. The full text of the bill is available from my web site http://www.cu-online.com/~barnard/bills.htm

Email addresses and House information is available at http://www.house.gov

The Grams bill S 783 was approved by committee earlier this week in an 11-9 vote, mostly along party lines. Grams is expected to attempt to attach the bill to an important piece of legislation in an effort to silence some of the opposition.

Senator Wellstone has introduced his legislation S 1085 So now we have two bills in the senate and two in the house to keep track of.

The Friends of the Boundary Waters has an email action list -- if you are interested send a message to sheila@friends-bwca.org

Rep. Bruce Vento (D. Mn.) introduced a bill Thursday, July 10th 1997 that would reduce motors in the BWCAW. The bill called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Legacy Act would close Loon, Seagull and portions of Lac La Croix to motors and ban tow boats in the Boundary Waters. In addition the bill would add 7400 acres to the wilderness area.

Rep Vento has been a leading advocate for protecting the wilderness and has support from environmentalists.

The full text of the bill is posted to the website, an AP article is available at http://www.bwca.net/Starticle7-12-97.html

Committee hearings on the Grams bill (S 783) were held on June 26th. The committee took no action. Senators Wellstone, (D, Mn.) and Feingold (D, Wi) testified in opposition to the bill. Greg Lais, Director of the Minneapolis based Wilderness Inquiry, an organization that promotes and supports wilderness use by persons with disabilities also testified in opposition to the bill. Guy Holmes of the Wilderness Disability Project, an organization formed to support the reopening of the truck portages, testified in support of the bill.

UPDATE #9
Posted, June 21 1997

The committee hearing on the Grams bill (S 783) will be Thursday, June 26th. The bill returns trucks to Four Mile, Trout and Prairie portages and retains motorized access to parts of Seagull Lake scheduled to expire in 1999.

Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin will testify in opposition to the bill. If any of you are from Wisconsin please contact Senator Feingold and express your appreciation. The number in Washington is (202) 224-5323.

The U.S. Senate committee on Energy and Natural Resources has scheduled a hearing on the Grams BWCAW bill (S 783). The hearing is scheduled for June 26, 1997 at 9:30 am. The text of the bill is available on the web site, it would return truck portages to three locations and restore motors to Seagull Lake permanently. It is time to start writing letters folks.

Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

(R) Frank H. Murkowski, Alaska Chair
(R) Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico
(R) Don Nickles, Oklahoma
(R) Larry E. Craig, Idaho
(R) Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Colorado
(R) Craig Thomas, Wyoming
(R) Jon Kyl, Arizona
(R) Rod Grams, Minnesota
(R) Gordon Smith, Oregon
(R) Slade Gorton, Washington
(R) Conrad Burns, Montana
(D) Dale Bumpers, Arkansas
(D) Wendell H. Ford, Kentucky
(D) Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico
(D) Danial K. Akaka, Hawaii
(D) Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota
(D) Bob Graham, Florida
(D) Ron Wyden, Oregon
(D) Tim Johnson, South Dakota
(D) Mary Landrieu, Louisiana

trong> UPDATE #7
Posted, May 27 1997

Here is the latest, as passed on to me by Sheila at the Friends. It looks like Grams and Oberstar didn't waste any time making good on their promise to sponsor more legislation. I will be updating you on the progress of these bills.

Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN) and Senator Rod Grams (R-MN) introduced legislation on Thursday, May 22, 1997 to allow more motors within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Specifically the bills, H.R. 1739 and S. 783, would allow trucks to haul boats across Prairie, Trout and 4-Mile portages (the so-called truck portages) and eliminate the scheduled ending of motorboat use on much of Seagull Lake--use which is scheduled to end in 1999 under the 1978 BWCA Act (Public Law 95-495). (The area where motorboats are scheduled to be phased out completely on Seagull is the area generally west and beyond Threemile Island. The easternmost portion of Seagull lies outside the wilderness border. The area inside the wilderness border in the corridor that runs south along Threemile Island will continue to be motorized under the 1978 Act.)

The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness strongly opposes any effort to reintroduce motor uses in America's most popular and most heavily visited wilderness area.

Motorboats are entering the wilderness and using Prairie and Trout portages in roughly equal numbers today as they did when the truck hauling operations were shut down in 1992. (Four Mile Portage is currently closed) Despite media coverage to the contrary, people are entering the BWCA today in roughly equal numbers as they did when the trucks were in use. The real choice is not about access-people are getting in. The real choice is about lifestyle--using trucks and motorboats in a designated wilderness.

There is also no compelling reason for continuing the motorboat uses on Seagull Lake. Minnesota has roughly 14,000 lakes OUTSIDE the Boundary Waters on which motor enthusiasts can use their boats. This provision was written in to satisfy outfitters and home owners on Seagull who have profited greatly from nearly exclusive motor access to one of the world's most beautiful wilderness areas.

Please write your representatives and Senators today and let them know that you want to protect the Boundary Waters for the long run, and oppose any efforts to add motors to the BWCA.

The Honorable __________
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable __________
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Once again, and as always, thanks to Sheila at the Friends for providing the update. Following Sheila's update is an article by John Myers of the News Tribune.

Mediation ended yesterday, April 28, 1997 without the panel reaching an agreement on the motor issues, though several of the previously agreed-upon items including returning the permit system to northeastern Minnesota will be sent as recommendations to the Minnesota delegation.

What we now expect is the Senator Rod Grams (R-MN) and Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) will introduce their bills in Congress sometime soon, maybe as early as next week. We also expect Sen. Wellstone (D-MN) to introduce a bill but it is unclear whether Wellstone will try and work together with Grams and Oberstar, or if he will introduce a separate bill. The contents of the Wellstone bill are also unknown but likely to offer to return trucks to Prairie and Trout Portages and designate 15,000 to 20,000 acres as wilderness. As mentioned in previous emails, the objections of the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness to the trucks for land idea was that the lands offered were not ecologically significant, and some had been logged recently. Some of the lands currently within the BWCA were logged up through the 1970's. Anti-wilderness groups claim that the BWCA is not a true wilderness because of the exceptions made in the 1978 BWCA act. It would be imprudent to lend even more credence to the argument that the BWCA is not wilderness by accepting low wilderness quality land. It seems like we would just have to battle the loggers and anti-wilderness forces in 50 years anyway to retain wilderness designation for regrown areas of birch and aspen and again make the arguments about the exceptions to the 1964 Wilderness Act and the 1978 BWCA Act.

Please write to your Senators and Representatives about keeping motors out of the Boundary Waters, period. AS soon as the bills are available, I will email a fact sheet with highlights of the legislation and our views. Until then, general letters opposing any additional motor uses in the BWCA are very helpful. See addresses below:

The Honorable _________________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

for Senators:
The Honorable _________________
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Questions can be forwarded to sheila@friends-bwca.org.
(612) 379-3835 phone
(612) 379-3842 fax
BWCAW talks dead; next stop is Congress

By John Myers
News-Tribune staff writer

They put away the shock paddles, turned off the lights and pulled the sheet over the Boundary Waters peace talks on Monday.

Negotiations that had languished for more than eight months died in Duluth despite last-minute, emergency room heroics to save some sort of compromise.

While the panel of 18 Minnesotans reached accord on a host of minor points, their 22 day-long meetings since August failed to produce an agreement on the most critical issues -- continuing motor use on parts of Seagull Lake and restoring trucks to two portages between lakes in the BWCAW.

In the end, motorboat enthusiasts and wilderness advocates couldn't agree on any trade, on what the trucks were worth.

``The price they (environmentalists) wanted was just too high. We just aren't willing to give that much up to get the portages back,'' said Mitch Brunfelt, pro-motor panel member, mayor of Mountain Iron and an Iron Range labor leader. ``It's disappointing. But it's not anybody's fault.'

Yet the group came very close, toying with variations of several different deals before calling it quits.

And U.S. Sen Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who first called for the federally mediated talks one year ago to forestall a fight in Congress on the issue, said he now will use the mediation as a stepping stone for action in Washington.

Wellstone Monday night pledged to introduce ``a common ground proposal'' in Congress that would build on the near agreement reached by the mediation panel in February. That deal would add forest land to the BWCAW and then reopen the truck portages.

Wellstone's plan will include restoring trucks to Trout Lake and Prairie portages to haul motorboats between lakes. Since a successful lawsuit by environmentalists banned the trucks in 1994, boats have been pushed across the portages between the lakes on small wheels.

Wellstone said he will begin work immediately to forge compromise legislation with the entire Minnesota congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, DFL-Chisholm, and Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., who both have vowed to pass bills restoring the trucks.

Wellstone's vow for legislation caught some by surprise. Bill Richard, Oberstar's chief of staff, declined to comment on Wellstone's offer, saying Oberstar was still ``weighing several options.''

John Ongaro, a pro-motor panel member and government affairs director for St. Louis County, said Wellstone's concept sounds good.

``It shows he was putting faith in the mediation process and that he knows that a super majority of the panel members supported this option,'' Ongaro said.

Wellstone was joined in his assessment that the mediation panel had come too far to let the issue dissolve into the decades-old fighting in Ely, across Minnesota and in Washington.

Scot Beckenbaugh, the lead mediator for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service that refereed the negotiations, said wilderness and motorboat groups are closer now than ever before, even if they didn't settle their most contentious issues.

But mediators appeared nearly as flustered that the panel couldn't solve those issues. For Beckenbaugh, it was the first time in his more than 15 years with the agency that a resolution didn't emerge from mediation.

``We could solve life and death issues,'' Beckenbaugh said. ``But not the BWCAW.''

Talks continued throughout the day Monday with environmental members of the panel offering a last-gasp deal that would have traded a truck at the Trout Lake portage in exchange for about 19,000 acres of forest land added to the BWCAW.

They also offered a deal to restore the Prairie portage truck this year if all towboats on Basswood Lake and the Moose Lake chain were banned by 2005. (Towboats are motorboats that carry canoes deeper into the wilderness.)

Motorboat enthusiasts from Ely turned those deals down, saying eliminating towboats on the Moose chain was unacceptable, disrupting too many businesses and threatening the operations of the Canadian customs office on Basswood.

Voices from the Boundary Waters talks

``This will go into the halls of Congress now and the whole country will have a shot at it. And that's too bad because the people of Northeastern Minnesota won't have the input that they had here. Now we'll see congressmen from New York putting their fingers on this.''

Mitch Brunfelt, pro-motor panel member, mayor of Mountain Iron and labor union leader

``I'm disappointed and a little angry that (pro- motor) people here wouldn't even look seriously at the deals we put on the table today. They would have worked ... We'll be back in the legislative wars now. I think that there's going to be more than one proposal introduced in Congress.''

Alden Lind, pro-wilderness panel member and longtime Duluth environmentalist

``I gained a lot of friends. We got some support for the (BWCAW permit) reservation center and the Boundary Waters Ecology Center in Ely, so it wasn't a total loss. And maybe the fight from now on won't be as rough because of the talking we did here.''

Paul Forsman, pro-motor panel member and a steelworker from Ely

``History got us here. And history stopped us from succeeding. This battle has been going on too long and with too much entrenched emotion to solve it at this time.''

Bill Hansen, pro-wilderness panel member and owner of Sawbill Canoe Outfitters near Tofte

``The land-for-portages deal was always more of a dream than a reality. We had always insisted that this be a towboats for portages or (motorboats off Basswood Lake's) Jackfish Bay for portages.... It became clear today that all the agony we (environmental groups) were going over was all for naught. They were never going to do any deal that eliminated towboats even over several years.''

Rick Duncan, pro-wilderness panel member and Twin Cities attorney representing environmental groups

`I'll continue to work for coexistence (between motorboaters and canoeists.) For me, we came very close to an agreement on the land- for-portages deal. And I would ask the congressional delegation to embrace (that option) as the best this group could do.''

Stu Osthoff, pro-motor panel member from Ely, editor of the Boundary Waters Journal

Update #5
Posted April 5, 1997

A session of the BWCAW mediation group met in Duluth April 2nd and 3rd. The pro-motor delegates submitted a proposal for consideration. Under the proposal:

* Trucks would return immediately to Prairie and Trout portages.

* The scheduled phaseout of most motor use on Seagull Lake would be extended to the year 2015. Most motor use is now scheduled to end in 1998.

* Motor permits would be frozen at 1995 levels.

* All tow boats would be phased out in 2015 except on Lac La Croix.

* Motor use permits on Moose and Saganaga would increase by 25% in 2015.

* All parties would agree not to seek legislative action until after 2025.

The idea of trading additional land to be designated as wilderness in exchange for increased motor use and returning truck portages was dropped from the proposal. Much of the land offered did not meet the standard for wildernessdesignation under the 1964 Wilderness Act because it had been logged recently or otherwise "trammeled by man". Wilderness proponents are concerned that designating these lands as wilderness now would set a nationwide precedent that the Forest Service could log an area and then declare it wilderness.

Obviously, wilderness proponents are not supporting the proposal. The proposal offers to phase out tow boats in 18 years in exchange for an immediate return of the trucks. The freezing of motor permits at 1995 levels is designed to prevent the lowering of permits in response to impact on the wilderness by motorboat users, canoeists and hikers.

Most of the land owners on Seagull Lake were aware that motor use would be phased out in 1998 when they purchased their property. The proposal would give the business owners obvious advantages and protect an exclusive market for them until 2015.

There is one more session scheduled in Duluth, April 28 1997. That session will be used to prepare a transmission document to send to the Minnesota delegation. The document will likely contain issues that were agreed on early in the process such as adequate funding by the Forest Service, returning the reservation system to Minnesota and fees for unused permits. It will not, however, contain any meaningful proposals about the contentious issues of truck portages and motor use within the wilderness.

Reports are that the mapping subcommittee of the BWCAW mediation group is deadlocked. Efforts to bring new lands of ecological and recreational value into the wilderness area in exchange for a return of truck portages will most likely die at the next meeting of the full mediation panel April 2-3. This is the last scheduled meeting of the panel.

Below is a summary of the provisions proposed in the last mediation session. (February 27, 1997)

*Trucks returned permanently to Prairie Portage and Trout Portage for commercial boat-hauling within the wilderness, with some restrictions on size and type of truck

*If not operated for three straight years, the portages close permanently to trucks.

*Trout Lake motor quotas to be set at 1995 use levels, the last year the commercial dog sled operation hauled motorboats across. (456 day-use motorboat parties, 556 overnight motorboat parties)

*Commercial towboats removed permanently from Basswood and South Farm Lakes (but no changes in towboats on the Moose Lake Chain to Prairie Portage or in all other areas of the wilderness). For Moose Lake towboaters, this represents about 5-10% of their towing business.

*Congress is directed to provide a stable funding source for BWCAW management (appropriations, user fees or combination thereof) to total 3.5 million annually.

*Land is added to the BWCA Wilderness, the amount, type and location to be determined later through consensus.

*Forest "productivity improvement" would be undertaken on lands outside the wilderness to offset loss of lands from the timber base.

Friday March 21, the mapping subcommittee will meet to try to determine which lands they propose be added to the BWCA Wilderness.

The mediation team dealing with Voyageurs National Park put together a deal that all parties tentatively agreed to at the Dec. 1996 meeting. Unfortunately, both the Citizens Council on Voyageurs and the United Snowmobile Association subsequently decided not to endorse the mediation proposal. The objections to the mediation settlement are mostly that jet skis would be banned from use inside Voyageurs National Park and there would be the a ban on the use of the Chain of Lakes Trail for several weeks during late winter when the area is used by wolves for hunting and eagles for nesting. The negotiations will continue.

Another mediation session on the BWCA begins Thursday, February 27.

Despite strong opposition Senator Grams and Rep. Oberstar continued to promote their bills weakening wilderness protection for the BWCAW and Voyageurs National Park. When their efforts to bring their bills out of committee were blocked they attempted to attach their bills to other legislation. Some provisions of the Grams bill were attached to the Omnibus Parks Bill. It was withdrawn when the White House issued a veto threat.

Both Grams and Oberstar have made it clear that despite the opposition they intend to pursue their agenda regarding the BWCAW and Voyageurs in the next congress. Your help is still needed.

For a more detailed report see the excerpt from the Autumn BWCA Wilderness News

For more information on the BWCAW, Voyageurs National Park and Quetico Park Canada visit the History area. The full text of all bills is also available.