Background (via SportsmenAccess.org): 

America’s 640 million acres of national public lands – (including Olympic National Forest) – provide hunting and fishing opportunities to millions of Americans. They represent the uniquely American values of freedom and adventure that are the envy of the world.

This is particularly true in the West, where, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 72 percent of sportsmen depend on access to public lands for hunting. Without these vast expanses of prairie and sagebrush, foothills and towering peaks, the traditions of hunting and fishing as we have known them for more than a century would be lost due to the national public lands transfer.

Since 2014, efforts have been afoot locally & in congress to transfer federally-managed public lands to the states, which would result in one likely outcome: the fire-sale of these lands to the highest bidder and loss of access for sportsmen and American families. Hunters and anglers across the West have held rallies and responded in their local papers with a resounding ‘No way. Not my lands.’

Our Headwaters at Risk Right now, the roadless backcountry headwaters on Olympic National Forest are off limits to logging & roadbuilding under current Forest Service rules. However these protections are subject to change under each new President, and right now they are under attack. Every year large, corporate polluters and their friends in congress try to rollback these temporary safeguards and open sensitive headwaters on public land to industrial clearcutting and roadbuilding once more.

These articles highlight recent battles sportsmen have fought against some of these extreme measures in congress that would bulldoze our backcountry headwaters & salmon streams on public land. We fully support sustainable forestry & habitat restoration. But these extreme proposals would tie the hands of land managers & mandate logging in sensitive fish & wildlife habitat critical to local Sportsmen. Wilderness and Wild & Scenic River designations would permanently protect Olympic National Forest's headwaters & salmon streams against such ill-conceived measures in the future.

"Logging Without Laws" on Public Land One of the more extreme examples is the "Logging Without Laws" legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in September of 2013. This extreme measure would suspend nearly all environmental laws on Olympic National Forest.

It would force the Forest Service to log 50% of all timber volume on the Forest, ignoring safeguards for salmon streams and wildlife while preventing sportsmen from advocating for their favorite places to hunt and fish on public land. The only safeguards this extreme logging bill would exempt are congressionally designated Wilderness areas - the same safeguards Wild Olympics would provide.

The "Great Outdoors Giveaway" Act Another example is the Roadless Area Release legislation introduced last congress, otherwise known as the "Great Outdoors Giveaway" Act.

If enacted it would open our last remaining roadless headwaters on Olympic National Forest to industrial clearcutting and roadbuilding once more - destroying some of the last, best salmon and steelhead spawning habitat left on the Olympic Peninsula and polluting our rivers downstream. These remote, backcountry lands far away from roads and people are also important elk calving habitat and act as scecluded nursuries for other wildlife and game as well.

That's why the Sportsmen Community has rallied in defense of keeping our last wild public lands wild.

The Wilderness designations in the Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild & Scenic Rivers Act would permanently protect these critical headwaters on public land against extreme legislation like "Logging Without Laws" or the "Great Outdoors Giveaway Act," and prevent future Presidential Administrations from opening up our last remaining backcountry on Olympic National Forest to industrial development.



DOE Pushing Hydo-Development of 11 Peninsula Rivers 

At the end of April 2014 Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced that the U.S. has the potential to add more than 65.5 GW of new hydropower to the nation's energy portfolio by 2030.

Meeting this goal would require damming over 3 million river and stream reaches across the country, including 11 Olympic Peninsula rivers DOE targeted that are also in the Wild Olympics legislation. Moniz's comments came as the Energy Department released a report entitled New Stream-reach Development: A Comprehensive Assessment of Hydropower Energy Potential in the United States. 

The impact of hydropower dams on river ecosystems is significant and well documented. Dams disrupt flows, degrade water quality, block the movement of a river's vital nutrients and sediment, destroy fish and wildlife habitat, impede migration of fish and other aquatic species, and eliminate recreational opportunities for fishing.

Looming Hydro Developer Gold Rush 

Every legislative session in Olympia, Hydro developers try to change our state's renewable energy standards and win subsidies to build small-scale hydro projects on rivers on the Olympic Peninsula and the rest of the state. Such changes would create a "gold-rush" of hydro development throughout Washington. To date, they have not been successful but they continue to represent a threat to public power and our region's rivers as they seek ways to realize profit from our public waterways at public expense. The Wild & Scenic river designations in the Wild Olympics bill would protect our rivers from Hydro forever, even if developers are successful in changing state energy laws. 

Small-Hydro Advancing In WA However one need look no further than the small-hydro project proposals advancing in the Cascades to realize hydro can still move forward without waiting for changes in renewable energy standards.

The two separate small-hydro development projects being pushed by Snohomish County PUD and a private hydropower developer on the Skykomish and Snoqualmie, respectively, are on portions of the rivers that have the exact same level of protection as the Peninsula's rivers. 

They were proposed for Wild & Scenic designation by the Forest Service 20 years ago, they are "Protected Areas" from hydropower development under the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and they are within Tribal usual and accustomed use areas. But because Congress never passed legislation formally designating these rivers as Wild & Scenic Rivers, the current level of protections are not enough to prevent these projects from advancing. The Wild Olympics bill would prevent this from happening to Peninsula rivers.

National Wave of Mini-Hydro

The hydro projects in the Cascades are just one small part of a much larger, alarming national wave of small-hydro development on rivers on public land.

The Congressionally-designated Wild & Scenic River safeguards in the Wild Olympics legislation would permanently protect our rivers against small hydro development forever, even in the face of this alarming national trend.