Senate panel backs coastal wilderness

A Senate committee today endorsed a plan to create federal wilderness protection for nearly 14,000 acres of national forest land along Oregon’s southern coast.

The Copper Salmon Wilderness, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will be included a huge public lands bill to be debated by the Senate. The measure was among 42 separate bills approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Seventeen bills — including the Oregon measure and a land exchange bill in Idaho — will be combined in a measure that includes about 60 individual lands bills, Senate aides said. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring the bill to the Senate floor soon.

Wyden said he was pleased at the committee’s unanimous vote and noted that Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., is a co-sponsor. The bill would protect 13,700 acres of coastal forest and salmon streams at the headwaters of the Elk River near Port Orford.

The proposed wilderness is part of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and is considered one of the best habitats on the West Coast for chinook salmon, winter steelhead, coho salmon, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout. Copper Salmon also supports healthy populations of blacktail deer, elk, black bear and mountain lion, and it provides opportunities to hunt in freedom and solitude, Wyden said.

The bills are S. 2034 (Copper Salmon), S. 1802 (Idaho land exchange) and S. 2483, the combined land measure. The Mount Hood bill is S. 647.

On the Net: http://thomas.loc.gov

— The Associated Press