FLORIDA’S BOULDER WHITE CLOUDS WILDERNESS BILL

For those of us who have been warning Congressman Mike Simpson about the pitfalls of designating the Boulder White Clouds as wilderness, we have another perfect example in Southern Florida of what happens with good intentions, but ultimately the local communities and recreation users end up the losers.

A letter we received from Jack Moller illustrates what we have been saying. His credentials are impressive including past Vice Chair of Florida’s Acquisition and Restoration Council, Board member of the Florida Wildlife Federation and many more too numerous to list here.

His story about saving 740,000 acres in Big Cypress between 1974 and 1986 sounds eerily like CIEDRA. An agreement was reached by all parties with language to protect recreation and other uses in the Big Cypress. But then here’s what happened according to Jack:

“All was going well for a good many years until five people formed a group called Florida Biodiversity and they decided to file litigation against the NPS, USFWS, ACOE to stop the use of ORVs. Their case was based on the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act. They did not win a thing but did force the NPS to create the ORV management plan, which the NPS had negligently refused to do for nearly 20 years. This plan was done under the direction of the now VP of the Wilderness Society and is a plan intended to convert the Big Cypress National Preserve to Wilderness.”

Jack went on to discuss when this new group started attacking the agreement. It was not good news for those who had so carefully crafted the legislation. Here was the outcome of the attacks on the agreement:

The results of the creation of the Big Cypress National Preserve has caused a number of small towns and communities to disappear. The folks who lived there could no longer make a living, property taxes and the need to travel many miles to work caused these places to disappear. This attack on the remaining local communities’ economic base continues by the Federal government spending tax money to develop competing facilities that will cause tourist to not need to nor want to visit the remaining small towns.

Even if CIEDRA was perfect legislation this example is clear proof that future leaders of current environmental groups or new environmental groups will like pick apart the agreement. We’ve seen it happen in Idaho plenty of times in wilderness and recreation areas. Now we know our friends in the Southeast have been devastated by agreements like these. Is this what we want for the communities in Custer County? Maybe that’s why polling shows 83% of the people there don’t want CIEDRA.